My Night Shift re-read kicks off with vampires at "Jerusalem's Lot"

It's difficult to believe that Stephen King was so refined by the time his first short-story collection arrived. This was 1978 and Night Shift is still among my very favorite of any King releases. Of course, Carrie, Salem's Lot, The Shining, and Rage (with The Stand appearing later in the year) had already been unleashed, making it clear that "being too raw" was never part of the Stephen King legacy.

Most of the stories in the collection had, in fact, been published much earlier in magazines like Penthouse, Cosmopolitan, Cavalier, and Maine between 1968 and 1977 and may in fact be a bit more raw than his many other releases, but that also gives them a lot of their appeal. "Jerusalem's Lot" follows a foreword about what fear means to King, it's the longest story in Night Shift, it's one of four previously unpublished stories, and it beginning the collection. 

Tied to the story King laid out in Salem's Lot, "Jerusalem's Lot" has a ton going on, presented in letters back and forth that describe a descendant of the Boone family as he discovers his ancestors have left a sickening incestual trail of horror in "Chapelwaite," which is the name of a haunted house where much of the story is set as well as a 2021 one-season TV adaptation (which I haven't seen; it stars Adrien Brody). I probably most love the mystery King presents; nothing is laid out in black-and-white and while he sometimes adds uneccesary details and over-the-top old-timey language, all the pieces are in place to make this yet another one of his must-reads.

Pieces of that puzzle (without spoilers) include:

• The vampires that haunt Jerusalem's Lot, making it a deserted and entirely unsettling setting
• An eerie sense of foreboding throughout, as if King has mastered the stylings of the previously-untouchable Edgar Allen Poe
• The mystery and horror of the Marsten House/Chapelwaite that hangs over the tale
• The completely isolated feel any people have when surrounded by total evil, and
• The religious imagery in the church of the lead vampire makes everything even scarier.

"Jerusalem's Lot" isn't as perfect as the full novel of Salem's Lot (which I recently gave 5 out of 5 stars and proclaimed possibly the best vampire novel ever), but it is an essential addition to that story and is a promising kick off to the rest of Night Shift, which I'm excited to re-read for the first time in more that 30 years.

4.5 out of 5 stars