title: The Stephen King Collection: Stories from Night Shift
author:  Stephen King 
description: Read by John Glover<br>Ten CDs, 9 hours <br>Tales from "Gray Matter include: <br>The BoogeymanStrawberry Spring<br>Gray Matter<br>The Woman in the Room<br>Battleground <br>Tales from "Graveyard Shift include: <br>Graveyard Shift<br>The Man Who Loved Flowers<br>The Last Rung on The Ladder<br>Night Surf<br>Jerusalem's Lot <br>Tales from "Lawnmower Man include: <br>Lawnmower Man<br>The Mangler<br>Quitters, Inc.<br>The Ledge<br>Sometimes They Come Back
zlib_text:   
  
  Night Shift
  
  Stephen King
  
  * * *
  
  **FOREWORD**
  
  Let's talk, you and I. Let's talk about fear.
  
  The house is empty as I write this; a cold February rain is falling outside.
  It's night. Sometimes when the wind blows the way it's blowing now, we lose
  the power. But for now it's on, and so let's talk very honestly about fear.
  Let's talk very rationally about moving to the rim of madness and perhaps over
  the edge.
  
  My name is Stephen King. I am a grown man with a wife and three children. I
  love them, and I believe that the feeling is reciprocated. My job is writing,
  and it's a job I like very much. The stories - _Carrie, 'Salem's Lot,_ and
  _The Shining_ \- have been successful enough to allow me to write full-time,
  which is an agreeable thing to be able to do. At this point in my life I seem
  to be reasonably healthy. In the last year I have been able to reduce my
  cigarette habit from the unfiltered brand I had smoked since I was eighteen to
  a low nicotine and tar brand, and I still hope