Night Shift

by Stephen King

The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn't real. I know that, and I also know that if I'm careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle.

And the great appeal of horror fiction through the ages is that it serves as a rehearsal for our own deaths.

I believe, with Moses, with Jereboam, with Increase Mather, and with our own Hanson [when he is in a philosophical temperament], that there are spiritually noxious places, buildings where the milk of the cosmos has become sour and rancid.

I'm not saying there's any truth in it, but I am saying that there's things in the corners of the world that would drive a man insane to look 'em right in the face.

The fog came again that night, not on little cat's feet but in an improper silent sprawl.

If there's anyone more purely foolish than a New Yorker it's a fellow from New Jersey.