I first encountered Stephen King at the public library in Castine, Maine, in 1979. I was 12 and had never read any horror fiction before, but I was drawn to the cover of Night Shift, his first collection of short stories. It featured a hand half-wrapped in gauze with eyes on its fingers and palm, staring out at me. That was scary, but it was the sixth tale, “The Boogeyman”, that stoked my deepest fears: Lester Billings is telling his psychiatrist about his three small children who, one by one, had been killed in their cribs by a monster living in their bedroom closet. By the end of the story, it’s clear that Lester’s negligence and cowardice put them all in harm’s way, and that his wife was helpless (or absent) when the monster came for them.
我第一次邂逅斯蒂芬•金，是在1979年缅因州卡斯廷的公共图书馆。当时我12岁，从没读过任何恐怖小说，却被他第一部短篇小说集《夜班》的封面牢牢吸引住了：一只半缠着纱布的手，手指和掌心长着眼睛，正盯着我。那画面已经够吓人了，但真正触及我内心最深恐惧的，是第六个故事《夜魔》。莱斯特•比林斯向他的精神科医生讲述，他那三个年幼的孩子如何一个接一个在婴儿床里，被住在卧室衣橱里的怪物杀死。到了故事结尾，读者会发现，正是莱斯特的疏忽和懦弱把他们全都置于险境，而当怪物来找他们时，他的妻子不是无力施救，就是压根儿不在场。