Graveyard Shift (short story)

Short story by Stephen King

"Graveyard Shift"

Short story by Stephen King

Cavalier, October 1970

Country| United States
Language| English
Genre(s)| Horror, short story
Publication
Published in| Night Shift
Publisher| Doubleday
Media type| Print (Hardcover)
Publication date| 1970

"Graveyard Shift" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the October 1970 issue of Cavalier magazine and collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift. It was adapted into a 1990 film of the same name.[1]

## Setting

[edit]

Graveyard Shift is set in Gates Falls, a small town in Maine, and the action largely takes place in a textile mill.

## Plot summary

[edit]

A young drifter named Hall has been working at a decrepit textile mill in a small town in Maine when the cruel foreman, Warwick, recruits him and others to assist with a massive cleaning effort. The basement of the old mill has been abandoned for decades, and over the years, a monumental infestation of rats has taken hold.

This rat empire, cut off from the rest of nature, has allowed the animals to evolve into a strange and varied combination of creatures, complete with its own bizarre, self-sustaining ecosystem. There are large, armored rats; albino, weasel-like rats that can climb up walls or burrow through the ground; and bat-like rats. The men eventually come across a sub-basement, locked from the inside. Warwick then enlists Hall to go down and investigate the sub-basement and that he may take whomever he likes. Hall chooses Warwick who, despite trying to prevent them from entering, is forced to press on.

As they make their way through the sub-basement, Hall and Warwick discover that it harbors something more terrifying and hideous than any of them could have dreamed—a cow-sized queen rat with no eyes or legs, whose only purpose is to endlessly breed more rats. Hall sprays Warwick towards the queen with a hose they were using to attack the rats. As the queen devours Warwick, Hall makes his way towards the exit while spraying the rats. However, he is overwhelmed and eaten alive by the hordes of mutated rats. Meanwhile, the other team of workers on the surface wonders what has happened to them and, with no idea what kind of horror awaits them, prepares to descend into the basement.

## See also

[edit]

* Stephen King short fiction bibliography

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Cavett Binion (2015). "Graveyard Shift". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 22, 2015.

## External links

[edit]

* "Graveyard Shift" at StephenKing.com
* "Graveyard Shift" title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
* Graveyard Shift at IMDb

* v
* t
* e

Night Shift by Stephen King

* "Jerusalem's Lot"
* "Graveyard Shift"
* "Night Surf"
* "I Am the Doorway"
* "The Mangler"
* "The Boogeyman"
* "Gray Matter"
* "Battleground"
* "Trucks"
* "Sometimes They Come Back"
* "Strawberry Spring"
* "The Ledge"
* "The Lawnmower Man"
* "Quitters, Inc."
* "I Know What You Need"
* "Children of the Corn"
* "The Last Rung on the Ladder"
* "The Man Who Loved Flowers"
* "One for the Road"
* "The Woman in the Room"
* "The Glass Floor" (2020 deluxe ed.)
* "Weeds" (2020 deluxe ed.)

* v
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* e

Stephen King

* Bibliography
* Short fiction
* Unpublished and uncollected
* Awards and nominations

Novels|

* Carrie (1974)
* 'Salem's Lot (1975)
* The Shining (1977)
* The Stand (1978)
* The Dead Zone (1979)
* Firestarter (1980)
* Cujo (1981)
* Christine (1983)
* Pet Sematary (1983)
* Cycle of the Werewolf (1983)
* The Talisman (1984)
* It (1986)
* The Eyes of the Dragon (1987)
* Misery (1987)
* The Tommyknockers (1987)
* The Dark Half (1989)
* Needful Things (1991)
* Gerald's Game (1992)
* Dolores Claiborne (1992)
* Insomnia (1994)
* Rose Madder (1995)
* The Green Mile (1996)
* Desperation (1996)
* Bag of Bones (1998)
* The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999)
* The Plant (2000; unfinished)
* Dreamcatcher (2001)
* Black House (2001)
* From a Buick 8 (2002)
* The Colorado Kid (2005)
* Cell (2006)
* Lisey's Story (2006)
* Duma Key (2008)
* Under the Dome (2009)
* 11/22/63 (2011)
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* Doctor Sleep (2013)
* Mr. Mercedes (2014)
* Revival (2014)
* Finders Keepers (2015)
* End of Watch (2016)
* Gwendy's Button Box (2017)
* Sleeping Beauties (2017)
* The Outsider (2018)
* Elevation (2018)
* The Institute (2019)
* Later (2021)
* Billy Summers (2021)
* Gwendy's Final Task (2022)
* Fairy Tale (2022)
* Holly (2023)
* Never Flinch (2025)
* Talisman 3 (TBA)

| The Dark Tower series|

* The Gunslinger (1982)
* The Drawing of the Three (1987)
* The Waste Lands (1991)
* Wizard and Glass (1997)
* Wolves of the Calla (2003)
* Song of Susannah (2004)
* The Dark Tower (2004)
* The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012)

|

Richard Bachman novels|

* Rage (1977)
* The Long Walk (1979)
* Roadwork (1981)
* The Running Man (1982)
* Thinner (1984)
* The Bachman Books (1985)
* The Regulators (1996)
* Blaze (2007)

Short fiction
collections|

* Night Shift (1978)
* Different Seasons (1982)
* Skeleton Crew (1985)
* Four Past Midnight (1990)
* Nightmares & Dreamscapes (1993)
* Hearts in Atlantis (1999)
* Everything's Eventual (2002)
* Just After Sunset (2008)
* Full Dark, No Stars (2010)
* The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (2015)
* If It Bleeds (2020)
* You Like It Darker (2024)

Nonfiction|

* Danse Macabre (1981)
* Nightmares in the Sky (1988)
* On Writing (2000)
* Secret Windows (2000)
* Faithful (2004)
* "Guns" (2013)

Screenplays|

* Creepshow (1982)
* Cat's Eye (1985)
* Silver Bullet (1985)
* Maximum Overdrive (1986; also director)
* Pet Sematary (1989)
* Sleepwalkers (1992)
* A Good Marriage (2014)
* Cell (2016)

Teleplays|

* "Sorry, Right Number" (1987)
* Golden Years (1991)
* The Stand (1994)
* The Shining (1997)
* "Chinga" (1998)
* Storm of the Century (1999)
* Rose Red (2002)
* Kingdom Hospital (2004)
* Desperation (2006)
* "Heads Will Roll" (2014)
* The Stand (2020–21)
* Lisey's Story (2021)

Comics|

* Heroes for Hope (1985)
* American Vampire (2010)

Musical
collaborations|

* Michael Jackson's Ghosts (1997)
* Black Ribbons (2010)
* Ghost Brothers of Darkland County (2012)

Anthologies
edited|

* The Best American Short Stories 2007 (2007)
* Six Scary Stories (2016)
* Flight or Fright (2018)

In-universe
concepts|

| Characters|

* Carrie White
* Margaret White
* Sue Snell
* Rita Desjardin
* Kurt Barlow
* Richard Straker
* Father Callahan
* Jack Torrance
* Danny Torrance
* Wendy Torrance
* Dick Hallorann
* Rose the Hat
* Roland Deschain
* Randall Flagg
* Crimson King
* It
* Bill Denbrough
* Beverly Marsh
* Richie Tozier
* Georgie Denbrough
* Gage Creed
* Johnny Smith
* Annie Wilkes
* Tanya Robertson
* Holly Gibney

|

Locations|

* Castle Rock
* Derry
* Jerusalem's Lot
* Shawshank State Prison
* All-World

Family|

* Tabitha King (wife)
* Joe Hill (son)
* Owen King (son)

Related|

* List of adaptations
* Dollar Baby
* Bibliography of works on Stephen King
* Raymond H. Fogler Library archives
* Rock Bottom Remainders
* People, Places and Things
* Philtrum Press
* Six Stories
* Stephen King Goes to the Movies
* Charlie the Choo-Choo
* Hearts in Suspension
* The Secretary of Dreams
* King on Screen

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