Books: If It Bleeds: New Fiction By Stephen King (2020)

 If It Bleeds is a collection of four stories by Stephen King

Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is a tale of mortality and friendship starting out in 2004 (and plays out like an old episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents). We meet nine-year-old Craig, who runs errands for Mr Harrigan, a retired tycoon. In return for this, Harrigan gives Craig money and occasional scratch off lottery card. As everything’s eventual in the world of Stephen King, a few years later, one of those lottery ticket pays off to the tune of $3,000. While socking the money away, Craig wants to thank old Harrigan and uses some of the money to buy the tycoon an iPhone.  While not trusting them at first, eventually Mr. Harrigan finds uses for the device. But when the man dies, and Craig is heartbroken, he slips the phone into the pocket of the dead man at his open coffin funeral. Months later, Criag decides to call Harrigan’s number.

The Life of Chuck is another grim reaper tale and King admits in his afterword he has no idea where the story came from, though its genesis what in billboard sign congratulating someone named Chuck who gave 39 years to something. King wrote two stories featuring this Chuck and then wrote a third, all them with the theme of how terrifying life would be if you knew how and when you, or the person closest to you, were going to die. The fact that it’s told backwards –like some variation on Christopher Nolan’s Memento, adds to the fun.

The third, and longest story is, If It Bleeds. It features the return of Holly Gibney – who King admits has become one of his most favorite characters, a “quirky walk-on” who quickly found herself at the center of some very unpleasant goings-on in Finder Keepers, End of Watch, Mr. Mercedes, and The Outsider. Speaking of The Outsider, in my review of that book, I noted that King did not go into any detail about what this monster was, where it comes from, why it exists, but either he didn't feel the need to or we're bound to run into this monster in a novel yet to be written. Here it’s been a few years since the events of that book, and Finder Keepers have been running smoothly with Holly at the helm. When a bomb goes off in a school, killing scores of kids and teachers, while watching the coverage, private detective Holly Gibney can’t help thinking that the journalist appears to be feeding rather too eagerly for her liking on the unfolding horror around him. She decides to investigate. Her instincts pay off and she eventually comes to the conclusion that this on scene reporter is just like the creature she encountered before. It's not be the same one –but it clearly seems to be variation on the one readers saw in The Outsider, with its shape-shifting abilities being different, but they both seem to enjoy killing people and feeding off the sorrow. I was also struck by the idea that the creatures in The Outsider, the one here in If It Bleeds and the one in The Storm of the Century could be all somehow related. Wishful thinking, I guess.  It’s a terrific sequel/continuation of The Outsider’s themes and I do enjoy Holly a lot (and its here we get more background on how and why Holly is the way she is).

Rat comes from the department of Careful-What-You-Wish-For and is filled with some a bunch of meta-referential things King likes to pepper through his novels and short stories. It’s a bit of hallucinate tale at that, as we meet troubled writer Drew Larson who is struggling to write a novel. Something happened three years ago when he last tried to write a novel, and his wife Lucy is sacred that it could happen again, especially when Drew wants to isolate himself in the family cabin. There is a destiny-altering encounter with rodent, and of course a writer protagonist who makes a deal with the devil for success that he thinks will outsmart the fates. No such luck, of course. 

While I continue to enjoy King's novels more than his short-fiction and novellas, I'm never generally disappointed in these collections.The same goes for Joe Hill, as I see his last collection of stories, Full Throttle, still sitting on my shelf.