Four Past Midnight

Plot

Past midnight, something happens to time, that fragile concept we employ to order our sense of reality. It bends, stretches, turns back, or snaps, and sometimes reality snaps with it. And what happens to the wide-eyed observer when the window between reality and unreality shatters, and the glass begins to fly? These four chilling novellas, a feast fit for King fans old and new, provide some shocking answers. After all, past midnight is Stephen King’s favourite time of day . . . One Past Midnight: “THE LANGOLIERS” takes a red-eye flight from L.A. To Boston into a most unfriendly sky. Only eleven passengers survive, but landing in an eerily empty world makes them wish they hadn’t. Something’s waiting for them, you see . . . Two Past Midnight: “SECRET WINDOW, SECRET GARDEN” enters the suddenly strange life of writer Mort Rainey, recently divorced, depressed, and alone on the shore of Tashmore Lake. Alone, that is until a figure named John Shooter arrives, pointing an accusing finger. Three Past Midnight: “THE LIBRARY POLICEMAN” is set in Junction City, Iowa, an unlikely place for evil to be hiding. But for small businessman Sam Peebles, who thinks he may be losing his mind, another enemy is hiding there as well – the truth. If he can find it in time, he might stand a chance. Four Past Midnight: The flat surface of a Polaroid photograph becomes for fifteen-year-old Kevin Delevan an invitation to the supernatural. Old Pop Merrill, Castle Rock’s sharpest trader, wants to crash the party for profit, but “THE SUN DOG,” a creature that shouldn’t exist at all, is a very dangerous investment. With an introduction and prefatory notes to each of the tales, Stephen King discusses how these stories arose in what is the world’s most fearsome imagination. But it is the stories themselves that will keep readers awake long afer bedtime, into those dark, timeless hours past midnight. (-book jacket)