'Grey Matter' – Stephen King



It feels like I can't move an inch online without being bombarded by adverts for 'Creepshow' on Shudder. To be fair, that's not a bad thing; I was late to the movies but they're fun and I will probably check out the show at some point. Those clips of the disembodied head in the doll's house are really creepy...
A little look over the Wikipedia page told me that, in the spirit of the movies, the new 'Creepshow' has adapted at least one Stephen King short story and it's a favourite of mine, 'Grey Matter'. As much as I love meandering through one of King's rambling epics, I think he does some of his best work in his short stories and tonight seemed like as good a time as any to dig out my old copy of 'Night Shift' and read through it again.

'He was Richie Grenadine's kid and he looked like he'd just kissed the wrong end of the baby. His Adam's apple was going up and down and his face was the color of old oilcloth.

“Mr Parmalee,” he says to Henry, his eyeballs rolling around in his head like ball bearings, “you got to come. You got to take him his beer and come. I can't stand to go back there. I'm scared.”

And just like that, a group of elderly men shooting the breeze, in an all night convenience store, are about to faced with the kind of thing that only Stephen King can come up with. By the end of 'Gray Matter', you will never touch a beer if there's even the slightest hint that it's gone off and you will become very good at the kind of maths that our narrator finds himself running through his head. Or maybe that's just me. Either way, 'Grey Matter' is really easy to get into and hard to put down until it is done.

Part of this is down to the way that King mixes the ingredients of his plot together. Everything is normal to start off with but King gradually introduces some pretty icky body horror into the proceedings, gradually unfolding the story, just quickly enough to keep the plot flowing but slowly enough that your interest remains piqued throughout. This approach draws the tension out as well; as you find out more about what has happened to Richie. Everything comes together so smoothly; the journey to the flat sees Henry's story end and us get to see the true horror of what Richie has become. He's not just drinking beer anymore...

Like all the best horror stories, 'Grey Matter's ' conclusion is left deliberately open ended so that the reader can't help but think about it, even after the story ends. Some gunfire and then... what? I know how I'd want it to end but that would be too easy.... or would it? That's the beauty of this vague conclusion, it really keeps you second guessing yourself and this in itself is really unsettling.

I'm going to have to watch 'Grey Matter' now, just to see if they do the short story justice. They've got a lot to live up to, this story is gold.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘Day of Ascension’ – Adrian Tchaikovsky (Black Library)

Image
Page Count – 196 Pages There isn’t a lot that’s good about moving house (especially when it slowly dawns on you just how much the new place is going to cost to run, I need to get another job…) but there are some good bits if you look for them. For me, it was mostly around getting all my books unpacked and back on shelves around me again, not stuffed up in the loft where I couldn’t see them. Old favourites were back within easy reach, along with a whole load of new books that I really should have read ages ago. You can probably guess what my main New Year’s resolution will be… ;o) ‘Day of Ascension’ was one of those new books and I figured it was as good a place as any to start over in making a dent in the ol’ TBR Pile. And I’m really glad I did. On the forge world of Morod, the machines never stop and the work never ends. The population toils in the mines and factoria to protect humanity from the monsters in the void, while the Adeptus Mechanicus enjoy lives of palatial comfort. Gene
Read more

‘Worms of the Earth’ – Robert E. Howard.

Image
Page Count: 27 Pages I have a copy of this on my shelf and the plan was to pick it up for a read on the way into work this morning. Well, that was the plan but I was half asleep, leaving the house, and totally forgot… No matter though, that’s what the Kindle app is for (although if I’d been a little more awake, I’d have read it off Project Gutenberg instead, you can find ‘Worms of the Earth’ Here ). 99p later and my ‘commute reading’ was secured 😉 I always seem to fall into the trap of just reading ‘Conan’ stuff whenever I fancy reading a little Howard. Not that that’s a bad thing, it’s just that there’s a lot of his other stories out there that are more than worth your time when you come across them. ‘Worms of the Earth’ is very much one of those tales but you knew that already, didn’t you? You didn’t? You should do something about that, take it from me… After witnessing one of his subjects die at the hands of Roman governor Titus Sulla, Bran Mak Morn vows vengeance on Sulla but at w
Read more

‘Deathworlder’ – Victoria Hayward (Black Library)

Image
Before I get into the review proper, thank you Black Library for sending me a copy of ‘Deathworlder’ in return for a fair and honest review. Talking of ‘fair and honest’… There will be loads of the latter but I enjoyed the hell out of ‘Deathworlder’ so… We’ll see how being fair goes ;o) That’s your only warning, lets talk ‘Deathworlder’… Lazulai is a world beyond the brink, its battle against the tyranids all but lost. Once-magnificent cities lie in ruin. The seas boil. The skies crack. Horrific alien bioforms devour. In mere days the planet will be consumed. The 903rd Catachan ‘Night Shrikes’ defend one of the last fortresses still standing. Led by Major Wulf Khan, to die fighting is all that is expected of them… until she is given one last mission: to lead a squad through the apocalypse and recover a piece of archeotech that may doom or deliver the entire Lazulai System. Facing insurmountable odds and zero hope for aid, the major must hold her squad together as they pick their way
Read more