The 25 Best Stephen King Stories

Image via Complex Original

You’d think that the release of yet another new Stephen King novel would, by this point, elicit only minimal enthusiasm—it’s not like there’s a shortage of material available from the horror genre’s most prolific writer of all time. But when you’re as entertainingly sharp as King remains today, anything fresh hitting bookstore shelves is a big event. Such is the case with 11/22/63, the proud Maine native’s 50th (!) novel.

Released today, the time-traveling book follows a high school English teacher, Jake Epping, who’s sent back to 1958 after stepping into a diner’s pantry. Mostly set in the 1950s and '60s, 11/22/63 finds Epping hell-bent on preventing the assassination of then-President John F. Kennedy. His plan is to kill Lee Harvey Oswald before JFK ever rides through Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. But, considering that 11/22/63 is over 800 pages long, there are many complications along the way.

We know what you’re thinking: OK, so where’s the horror twist? After all, Stephen King is the terror game’s reigning champion, right? Indeed, yet 11/22/63 is one of the many King novels that flaunts the author’s genre-hopping chops—don’t forget, the scribe behind terror staples like It and Cujo is also the man responsible for quite a few sentimental tearjerkers, such as The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption.

Being that King has nearly 40 years of professional writing experience and 200 short stories to his credit, on top of those 50 longer-form novels, the task of narrowing his massive bibliography down to any number less than 100 seems like a fool’s errand. Well, it’s a good thing that we’re foolish; here, we count down The 25 Best Stephen King Stories.

Written by Matt Barone (@MBarone)

25. The Green Mile (Novel)

Original publication date: 1996

Initially published as a series of six inexpensive paperbacks, The Green Mile is a sprawling example of everything that makes Stephen King so great outside of full-blown horror. In terms of his character-driven dramatic chops, King layers the plot with a gang of fascinating people, mostly inmates and employees coexisting inside a 1930s’ penitentiary. The richest of all The Green Mile’s characters is its narrator, Paul Edgecomb (played by Tom Hanks in the 1999 movie version), who handles the jail’s death row duties and befriends John Coffey, a large and childlike inmate who’s a similarly intriguing presence.

It’s in Coffey that King’s other non-horror knack shines through, and that’s his predilection of combining realism with the supernatural. The bulky black man has special mind powers that heal Edgecomb’s wife of her brain tumor and cause the book’s primary villain, a sadistic prison guard, to lose his mind.

The Green Mile touches upon redemption, compassion, and friendship—themes that anti-horror blowhards might not expect from Stephen “Horror Poster-Boy” King. But then again, anti-horror blowhards should just blow it out of their asses, anyway.

24. Under The Dome (Novel)

Original publication date: 2009

If the plot of Under The Dome sounds a lot like that of The Simpsons Movie, that’s because, well, the plots are indeed identical. But, in King’s defense, he first started conceptualizing this 1,000-plus-page tome in the late 1970s, meaning that Matt Groening isn’t as ingenious as we all think. At least not in this case.

A claustrophobic masterwork, Under The Dome presents the futuristic Maine town of Chester’s Mill as the epicenter for a possibly supernatural experiment, one in which the entire community is separated from the rest of the world by an impenetrable and invisible blockade. Trapped inside with depleting rations of food and water, the townsfolk slowly come apart, eventually killing one another while the Army attempts to break through.

Once again showing off his ability to juggle dozens of tangible characters in one narrative, King flips the old adage “Don’t trust thy neighbor” into “Don’t let thy neighbor disembowel you,” and the final product is a knockout.

23. "The Reaper’s Image" (Short Story)

Original publication date: 1969
Included in: Skeleton Crew (1985)

There’s something wonderfully simple about “The Reaper’s Image,” one of King’s always welcome straight-to-the-point horror stories. Clearly influenced by the classic works of macabre writers like M.R. James and Edgar Allan Poe, King’s yarn about a creepy antique mirror is a subversion of the old “Bloody Mary” game we all played as kids. According to a museum curator, the mirror in question houses the Grim Reaper, and whomever has the misfortune of seeing Death’s reflection immediately croaks. And, foregoing ambiguities, King delivers upon that promise. Simple, yet as effective as any spine-tingling campfire tale.

22. "Strawberry Spring" (Short Story)

Original publication date: 1968
Included in: Night Shift (1978)

It’s crazy to think that “Strawberry Spring” has yet to be adapted into a movie, especially when you consider that Hollywood has wasted its time on lesser King tales like “The Lawnmower Man” and Thinner. There’s a crackerjack psychological thriller to be had with this old-school King favorite, about a college student who has a pointed interest in a serial killer known as “Springheel Jack.” It’s light on mind-blowing surprises yet still manages to work effectively because King lulls the reader into a false sense of security through his unreliable narrator; even if you guess the ending long before it arrives, the author’s nimble storytelling keeps the suspense in bloom.

21. "I Know What You Need" (Short Story)

Original publication date: 1976
Included in: Night Shift (1978)

Viewed in a demented light, “I Know What You Need” plays out like the creepiest fantasy of shy men unable to kick game to women. Interestingly, King tells this story of forced attraction from the perspective of the pretty-young-thing, Elizabeth, who is manipulated into finding her college’s resident unapproachable nerd sexy through the geek’s paranormal mind control abilities. “I Know What You Need” takes its schoolboy crush premise miles beyond normalcy, revealing that the freaky villain, Ed, has been obsessed with Elizabeth since childhood, and he’s gone so far as to murder one of her past lovers using black magic.

The most interesting thing about “I Know What You Need” is how well King makes the reader sympathize with Ed, who, for all intents and purposes, is a pathetic monster. For a second, you’re actually rooting for the sick fuck, hoping that his voodoo will lead to calling Elizabeth his “wife.” But, ultimately, he’s the consummate bad guy, and King’s even better at scripting those.

20. "You Know They Got A Hell Of A Band" (Short Story)

Original publication date: 1992
Included in: Nightmares And Dreamscapes (1993)

This one’s for all of the music lovers out there. An outspoken rock ‘n’ roll fanatic, King whipped together this vibrant and imaginative yarn as an all-star exhibition of rock’s greatest performers collaborating with the macabre. In it, a married couple gets lost and ends up in a town called, not too subtly, Rock ‘N’ Roll Heaven, where Elvis Presley’s the mayor, Ricky Nelson cooks grub at the local diner, and Janis Joplin vomits maggots. Even Otis Redding makes an appearance in King’s lightweight yet wonderfully demented tale that’s little more than a love letter to some of his favorite recording artists of old.

19. "The Gingerbread Girl" (Novella)

Original publication date: 2007
Included in: Just After Sunset (2008)

“The Gingerbread Girl” begins as a somber look at a mother’s post-tragedy grieving process; when we meet the protagonist, Emily, she’s a tormented soul partial to running as a means of coping with the crib death of her only daughter. Hoping to get away from the painful memories and start anew, she visits a family home on the Florida Keys, where she runs even more than before, loses tons of weight, and makes good with the locals.

But then King takes a hard left turn, introducing Jim Pickering, one of Emily’s new neighbors who also happens to be a perverted sociopath. Pickering abducts Emily and duct-tapes her to a chair, and when she’s escapes Pickering chases her with a pair of scissors—that’s where “The Gingerbread Girl” shifts from the best kind of Lifetime drama to a gory, fast-paced slasher movie on page. And it’s entertaining as hell.

18. From A Buick 8 (Novel)

Original publication date: 2002

One of King’s least talked-about novels, the spellbinding From A Buick 8 is precisely the kind of story that Lost’s most passionately answer-seeking fans would hate with a burning passion. Because, when all’s said and done, there’s no explanation for what’s gone down, a sad fact that especially bewilders the characters themselves, who suspiciously crowd around the mysterious Buick that’s been left at a gas station by a man dressed in all black. Occasionally, flashes of purple light emanate from the vehicle, and there’s vegetation growing on it. And then people start disappearing.

From A Buick 8 is all about mankind’s obsession with having everything laid out in easily digestible servings, rather than leaving certain things alone and accepting that not all of life’s questions have answers. King never gives the Buick’s definite origins, or even a clear-cut reason for being; frankly, we’re thankful that he trusts his audience enough to let us draw our own conclusions.

17. "Quitters, Inc." (Short Story)

Original publication date: 1978
Included in: Night Shift (1978)

The best horror fiction comes from the most relatable of set-ups, and "Quitters, Inc." is no exception. Dick Morrison, the story’s main character, can’t stop smoking, so, on the advice of an old friend, he visits a mysterious organization promisingly called Quitters, Inc.; among the company’s unconventional practices are 24/7 surveillance monitoring and the handing over of a pistol (along with the cryptic guarantee that you’ll “never smoke again”) if their client fails to resist his or her cigarettes.

Looking to keep his life-changing ways going, Dick follows up his successful tobacco detox with the Quitters’ weight loss regime, which boils down to “lose the pounds or we’ll cut off your wife’s fingers one by one.” Ten chances are definitely better than one.

16. "The Road Virus Heads North" (Short Story)

Original publication date: 1999
Included in: Everything’s Eventual (2002)

Like any mature, well-versed author, Stephen King is great at injecting morality and unexpected tenderness into his tales of horror and dread, which gives his work that much more accessibility for readers who aren’t quick to embrace the genre’s unsympathetic fare. Sometimes, though, King takes the gloves off and strives to do nothing other than scare your drawers off, and “The Road Virus Heads North” is a top-notch example of King at his most sinister.

The plot revolves around a horror writer (a common protagonist in King’s universe, understandably) who buys a creepy painting at a random yard sale; the painting is of a freaky-looking dude with fangs who’s behind the wheel of a car. Harmless enough, right? Sure, but then little details on the painting alter, and somehow the picture finds its way back to the main character’s home after he discards it. And it shows a bloody aftermath for the yard sale that’s confirmed on the local news. And then the man in the painting pops up in real life, ready to do homicidal work.

Lean and incredibly mean, “The Road Virus Heads North” brings cold-blooded horror with no emotional strings attached.

15. Pet Sematary (Novel)

Original publication date: 1983

Pet Sematary hinges on a question that we’ve all asked ourselves at one point or another: What happens to us after we die? Of course, the issue of mortality isn’t as simple as pearly gates in Stephen King’s mind; as he sees it, we’re not guaranteed a peaceful rest after our clock’s punched out. Assuming that your loved ones have access to an ancient Indian burial ground where they can bury your dead body in order for you to return as a soulless, bloodthirsty zombie. Can’t we all relate to that?

King’s profoundly scary novel asks another question: If you could, would you bring a loved one back from the dead? By Pet Sematary’s end, the answer should be “Fuck no,” a conclusion that’s less coarsely relayed in the book’s famous line “Sometimes dead is better.” But what if you had a son who’s just learning to walk and gets flattened by a truck—would you risk him becoming a killer zombie if there was even the slightest chance of giving him another chance at “life”? Ask any parent: The response to such an inquiry isn’t easy.

14. The Body (Novella)

Original publication date: 1982
Included in: Different Seasons (1982)

Most coming-of-age stories are centered around first-time romances, or domestic battles with parental units; in the novella The Body, however, Stephen King frames his teenage awakening around a missing corpse. Which is one of the many reasons why the love the man so much.

Filmed as Stand By Me in 1986, The Body covers the gamut of young male adult troubles, from losing friends to evading bullies and dealing with pain-in-the-ass older siblings. The lost cadaver is merely a lynchpin for the travels of young Gordy Lachance and his three best friends, though their adventure never veers into scares.

The Body is King at his most personal and heartfelt—it’s the kind of story his fans brag about whenever haters question his talents simply because he’s known as a horror master, and for very good reason.

13. "The Crate" (Short Story)

Original publication date: 1979

Leave it to Stephen King to make an ancient arctic monster every unhappy married man’s hero. In “The Crate,” famously filmed as the best segment in George A. Romero’s classic horror anthology flick Creepshow (for which King wrote the screenplay), Dexter Stanley, a college professor has the misfortune of being married to the world’s biggest B-I-T-C-H, a loud, obnoxious, forever drunk terror in women’s clothing. Every chance she gets, Stanley’s insufferable ball-and-chain humiliates him in public and slaps around his ego.

When a large crate is discovered beneath a staircase inside his school building, and kills the friendly old janitor, Stanley and his colleague hatch a scheme to lure his wife into the monster’s vicinity to do what no marriage counselor could ever legally do. Unless the counselor had a stomach big enough to digest a human and didn’t like his or her job all that much.

12. Everything’s Eventual (Novella)

Original publication date: 1997
Included in: Everything’s Eventual (2002)

Similar to his beloved novel The Dead Zone, King’s novella Everything’s Eventual welcomes the shady world of politics into the author’s horror comfort zone. Told in first-person, the story is expressed through the words of a 19-year-old who possesses a unique gift: He’s able to draw weird illustrations that, once sent to a person, make the recipient commit suicide. And, in great “big brother’s watching” fashion, he’s recruited by a secretive group to kill off random targets on the victims’ own suicidal terms.

As Dinky Earshaw, the narrator, learns, though, he’s actually a pawn in a larger plot to eradicate political nuisances, an ulterior motive that he’s not happy about. The script practically writes itself, Hollywood.

11. "Cain Rose Up" (Short Story)

Original publication date: 1968
Included in: Skeleton Crew (1985)

For 90% of its word count, “Cain Rose Up” reads like a slice-of-life look at college student Curt Garrish’s last day on campus before summer break starts. His fellow students are going about their end-of-school business, and Curt’s brief run-ins with a few peers are as mundane as any random hallway encounter. Except that Curt isn’t particularly warm to the people who try to talk to him, and his internal monologue wishes death upon those around him for no known reason. Nor is there a feasible explanation as to why Curt locks himself in his dorm room at the very brief story’s end, grabs a shotgun, and starts blowing students away from the sniper-ready comfort of the room’s window.

Cleverly, King heightens the quiet horrors of “Cain Rose Up” by clouding Curt’s motives; all we’re able to gather is that he’s depressed about something. Yet it can’t be his loving father, right? Or school itself, since we learn that his grades are exemplary, correct? King never tells us—he just simply presents a flesh-and-blood monster with the casualness that the victims of Columbine must’ve felt before their lives ended. And for that, “Cain Rose Up” scars one’s thoughts.

10. "The Boogeyman" (Short Story)

Original publication date: 1973
Included in: Night Shift (1978)

“The Boogeyman” is one of King’s coldest and most haunting tales, anchored by the deaths of three little kids. According to their father, the young victims were murdered by an unseen monster, which they all called “the Boogeyman,” while sleeping in their bedrooms. Pops is sharing his accounts with a psychiatrist, coming off as a paranoid schizophrenic more so than a grieving dad. But, as it turns out, the patient isn’t the one with the split identity.

In a master stroke, King supplants the usually kid-centric fears of the “Boogeyman” onto a grown man, turning every child’s least favorite monster into a predatory demon who follows its prey from home to home, a la the Paranormal Activity entity. Written with permeating dread, “The Boogeyman” creeps through a narrative complete with broken-necked infant corpses that culminates in a bleak and ghoulish kicker that’s not recommended to experience before heading to bed.

9. "The End Of The Whole Mess" (Short Story)

Original publication date: 1986
Included in: Nightmares And Dreamscapes (1993)

Universally recognized for his horror works, Stephen King is known to dabble in science fiction from time to time; “The End Of The Whole Mess,” his nifty vision of a pre-apocalypse, is one of his better sci-fi entries. The narrator is Howard Fornoy, who, via his journal, writes about the life of his genius younger brother, Bobby. Bobby messed around with a chemical that somehow calmed human aggression, a breakthrough that Bobby saw as a potential end of violence, and, subsequently, a catalyst for world peace.

But the chemical’s unforeseen side effects include memory loss and the depletion of motor skills, ironically bringing about the end of days rather than “kumbaya” salvation. How King suggests Howard’s final moments in the story’s latter section is worth the reading experience alone.

8. The Shining (Novel)

Original publication date: 1977

OK, sorry, King die-hards, but we’ve got to come clean here: In our eyes, director Stanley Kubrick’s bleaker, meaner, and colder 1980 film version of The Shining is the superior incarnation. Yes, we’re aware that King hates Kubrick’s flick, specifically because the legendary filmmaker’s erased all of the book’s optimism and turned the motion picture into a straightforwardly gloomy and emotionally brutal creepshow. By doing so, Kubrick crafted one of cinema’s all-time scariest movies, but, to this day, King isn’t pleased.

And, if you’ve ever read The Shining, it’s easy to see why he’d be so against the movie. The haunted house jolts and frights are plentiful in King’s novel; about a recovering alcoholic writer who goes insane while living inside a massive hotel with his wife and young son. But the book’s strongest component is actually its hopefulness, which King conveys in the final chapters, where the family’s bond materializes from beyond the grave.

7. ’Salem’s Lot (Novel)

Original publication date: 1975

By default, Bram Stoker’s Dracula wins the “Best Vampire Novel” honors every time, but, truth be told, Stoker’s prose and actual writing capabilities leave much to be desired. Thus, the far superior Stephen King’s vamp-centric page-turner ’Salem’s Lot takes home the Complex prize, not Dracula.

And fuck, is this one scary as hell. Even on one’s second, third, or fourth reading, ’Salem’s Lot is a Gothic white-knuckler able to send chills racing down the reader’s spine with the unstoppable flow of a snowy avalanche. Switching back and forth from various character perspectives, King expertly shows the effects of a vampire outbreak in a small town through several different eyes—a ballsy approach that’s all the more impressive when you take into account the fact that ’Salem’s Lot was only King’s second published novel.

6. Misery (Novel)

Original publication date: 1987

The common perception of King’s ferocious character study Misery is that it’s about the dangers of obsessive fans, and that’s definitely an apt description. Paul Sheldon, a chart-topping romance novelist, gets in a car accident in the middle of nowhere, and he’s rescued by a seemingly normal and helpful woman, Annie Wilkes. Bringing Paul back to her isolated cabin, Annie tends to his injuries and provides warm hospitality—that is, until she reveals herself to be Sheldon’s biggest and craziest reader, and she physically abuses Sheldon into resurrecting a character he’d previously killed off.

But imagine being a professional writer and reading Misery—it’s devastatingly hardcore enough to make a paid scribe swear off autograph signings forever. Director Rob Reiner’s 1997 film adaptation is an excellent translation, but it’s nevertheless inferior to King’s original source material.

As a novel, Misery spends all of its time developing a pair of polar opposite characters, and, in the end, we readers are torn about Annie Wilkes; she’s a raving lunatic who deserves to die, sure, but she’s also a spokesperson for anyone who holds his or her idols up on a pedestal (i.e., each and every one of us).

5. "The Ballad Of The Flexible Bullet" (Short Story)

Original publication date: 1984
Included in: Skeleton Crew (1985)

Only a twisted writer like Stephen King could manifest insanity through evil elves that live inside an author’s possessed typewriter, or so the main character thinks. Powered by a particularly strange concept, “The Ballad Of The Flexible Bullet” takes a look at how one man’s fractured mind can become contagious, infecting his friend, and fellow wordsmith, with fears of the elfin Fornits while telling him paranoid memories during an otherwise normal cookout.

As King sees it, the “flexible bullet” is one’s lunacy, bouncing around inside the poor bastard’s mental like a ricocheting slug. Reading this odd mind-bender of a story, you’re liable to feel your own bullet in the head.

4. The Mist (Novella)

Original publication date: 1980
Included in: Skeleton Crew (1985)

First off, let’s show love where it’s certainly due: Frank Darabont’s movie version of The Mist is one of the most underrated films of the last 10 years, genre-specific or all-encompassing. And it has one of the bravest endings you’re likely to ever see. But, as Darabont himself would surely tell you, his movie only exists because Stephen King is such a master storyteller.

Tapping into themes explored in Rod Serling’s dynamite Twilight Zone episode “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street,” The Mist shows how us human beings can do worse things to each other than any gigantic creatures from parallel dimensions are capable of, though the tale is full of flying beasts and inhuman murderers armed with scaly tentacles.

As a large blanket of mist engulfs a quiet suburban town, a ragtag group of neighbors and strangers barricade themselves inside a supermarket, where they proceed to terrorize each other physically and emotionally before the mist’s monstrous dwellers do their parts to draw gallons of blood. In signature King fashion, the horror comes from mankind and the supernatural in equal measure—don’t expect to feel good about humanity after reading The Mist’s final ambiguous words.

3. The Stand (Novel)

Original publication date: 1978

At 823 pages, The Stand is a massive tome that’s as dense as it is insightful. But, really, its plot is easily dictated: It’s the ultimate battle of good versus evil, or, if you’re the religious type, God versus Satan. A pandemic wipes out 99.4% of the world’s population, leaving a small collective of survivors who all seek out answers and guidance. Some follow Mother Abigail, a prophet of God in a kind old woman’s body, while the rest of the living pledge allegiance to the Lucifer-like Randall Flagg.

Seamlessly handling upwards of 20 characters throughout the novel, King fleshes each of his many protagonists and antagonists out with divvied out care, so that the final showdown between Abigail’s positive supporters and Flagg’s negative minions is the rare battle in which all casualties leave an emotional mark on the reader. Unlike the 1994 made-for-TV adaptation that did absolutely nothing right except for stay in focus.

2. Carrie (Novel)

Original publication date: 1974

The greatness of Stephen King was apparent from day one, thanks to his brilliant first published novel, Carrie. Catching bookworms and literary critics with an unexpected gut punch in April 1974, King’s debut presents the ultimate “high school is hell” set-up, following bullied teenager Carrie White’s nightmarish experiences on campus and her equally traumatic domestic woes, the latter caused by her psychotically god-fearing mother. With poignantly impactful scenes (Carrie’s first-ever period happens in the girls’ locker room’s shower, for all to see) and genuinely relatable characters, Carrie painfully captures what it’s like for young outcasts with humiliation targets plastered on their foreheads by the cool kids.

Except that, in King’s world, the girl who gets belittled murders the majority of her fellow classmates and professors using telekinesis. Yet, by the time Carrie’s gruesome prom night massacre kicks in, King’s novel has already depicted everyday teenage horrors that chill more than any amount of electrocuted corpses and burnt-alive jocks ever could.

1. The Dark Tower (Series Of Seven Novels)

Original publication date: 1982 - 2004

Stephen King himself calls The Dark Tower his “magnum opus,” and Uncle Stevie isn’t kidding. A compendium of many unique influences, the seven-novel epic takes cues from the works of both J.R.R. Tolkien and Sergio Leone, inspirations that combine to deliver one of literature’s most ambitious and grandiose odysseys ever conceived—screw your boy Homer.

Throughout the series, King’s silently imposing hero, “gunslinger” Roland Deschain (whom he modeled after Clint Eastwood’s iconic “Man with No Name”), encounters a colorful array of characters, both good and fiendishly evil, all on his way to an enigmatic tower that’s home to…yeah, like we’d spoil the entirety of seven books here.

Put it this way: The Dark Tower’s payoff is so insane that King actually warns the reader to stop reading at near the end of the seventh book to ensure a “happy” conclusion. Because the real end-game is one hell of a mind-fuck. And also the capper for King’s greatest fictional creation to date, one that will progress with an eighth installment, scheduled for release in early 2012. If you start reading the series now, you should be able to get to it by next summer.