by Rocky Wood
When Johnston awoke he asked where Indrasil and Legere were and, reluctantly, Chips Baily began to tell him the rest of the story – not exactly what “we told the cops … Anyhow, Indrasil’s gone. I didn’t even know that Legere guy was around.” When asked about Green Terror Baily replied:
“He and the other tiger fought to death.” “Other tiger? There’s no other …” “Yeah, but we found two of ‘em, lying in each other’s blood. Hell of a mess. Ripped each other’s throats out...”
And that’s the end of my story – except for two little items. The words Mr. Legere shouted just before the tornado hit: “When a man and an animal live in the same shell, Indrasil, the instincts determine the mould.” The other thing is what keeps me awake at nights. Chips told me later, offering it only for what it might be worth. What he told me was that the strange tiger had a long scar on the back of its neck.
The story has the immediate feeling of King’s response to Bradbury’s classic circus visits small town horror novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes. King wrote a screenplay of that tale, which is the subject of another chapter in this book. King academic Michael Collings finds The Night of the Tiger lacking78:
…Johnston does not even succeed as a narrator. The difficulty is that the story is too allusive (if not illusive) … too much is missing. Who is Legere and why does Indrasil hate and fear him? Legere says he is a kind of policeman; if so, where is his authority? Why does Green Terror destroy Indrasil? If one is willing to work hard, there may be answers – but the story does not seem sufficiently strong to warrant much work.
In a mark of how unique this story is there are no links from it to King’s other fiction. No timeline is given for the story, the only date provided being 1958, when Legere allegedly turned Green Terror against Jason Indrasil.
In the end this story is unsatisfying and inconclusive, yet it provides the casual reader and the student with another signpost in the development of Stephen King, the writer.
77 The Unseen King, Tyson Blue, p.49-50
78 The Shorter Works of Stephen King, Michael Collings and David Engebretson, p.35-36
Night Shift – Unproduced Screenplay (Late 1970s)
The material in this chapter was compiled with the assistance of the 88-page typewritten screenplay held in Box 1010 of the Special Collections Unit of the Raymond H. Fogler Library at the University of Maine, Orono. The script is marked “First Draft” in Stephen King’s handwriting. Written permission from King is required for access to this screenplay so most readers will never be able read it.
In Danse Macabre King says that NBC:
…optioned three stories from my 1978 collection, Night Shift, and invited me to do the screen-play. One of these stories was a piece called “Strawberry Spring,” about a psychopathic Jack-the-Ripper-type killer … About a month after turning the script in, I got a call from an NBC munchkin at Standards and Practices (read: The Department of Censorship). The knife my killer used … had to go … Knives were too phallic. I suggested we turn the killer into a strangler. The munchkin evinced great enthusiasm … The script was finally coughed out of the network’s large and voracious gullet by Standards and Practices, however, strangler and all. Too gruesome and intense was the final verdict.
It seems likely it was written in 1978, 1979 or 1980, considering that King’s Danse Macabre was published in 1981.
King’s screenplay has never been produced and includes adaptations of Strawberry Spring, I Know What You Need and Battleground, along with an original wrap-around tale set in the previously unknown town of Weathersfield, Maine. As a result this screenplay is part of the Maine Street Horror Reality.
Readers of the script are told that Weathersfield is but eight miles from Jerusalem’s Lot and forty miles from the sea. Indeed, the far end of Main Street leads to Jerusalem’s Lot. Richard Davis mentioned the “Boogies” in that town and Harold Davis thought it “a strange place.” Of course, Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine is a very important town in the Maine Street Horror Reality (see the feature panel). An invasion by vampires occurred in the town, which is better known as ‘Salem’s Lot, in 1975. In October 1976 Mark Petrie and Ben Mears set a fire intended to burn the town flat but, in 1977 (see One for the Road), vampires from the town were still preying on passers-by. So, in 1978, the year in which this screenplay is set, the Davis’ comments would make sense.
Weathersfield was the only town that far north in the Massachusetts Colony to put supposed witches to death and this fact plays an important role in the storyline. A feature is the Town Common. Not only were the supposed witches burned there but the apartment building in which two major characters, Ed Hamner, Jr. and John Renshaw lived, was opposite it.
In the script two men observe the town of Weathersfield, Maine and discuss its past. Richard Davis was the grandson of Harold Davis and the editor of the town newspaper. We are taken back to 1968, when there had been a series of murders on the campus of the Weathersfield Community College. “Springheel Jack,” who left no tracks, killed four female students. At the time Richard was a student and roomed with Lonnie Rennaker. A fellow student, Carl Amalera was arrested but released after the killings continued while he was in custody. We also learn Harold Davis’ grandfather had called a late winter thaw a “strawberry spring.”
John Renshaw, a hired killer was living in an apartment building overlooking the Weathersfield Town Common at the time he was killed by an explosion in his apartment. “Toy soldiers,” made by the company whose owner was one of his victims, were activated by the victim’s mother, a witch. She had achieved this feat after raising a Demon that told her the name of her son’s killer. After Renshaw died during an attack by the soldiers the witch walked into the Demon and disappeared.
Edward Hamner, Jr. had begun dating a Weathersfield student, Liz Neely, following her boyfriend’s tragic death in a road accident. Investigating Hamner’s past Neely discovered he was using voodoo to influence her and was probably responsible for the deaths of his parents and her boyfriend. When she confronted him with this information Hamner killed himself.
In 1978 the Springheel Jack murders began again. Cindy Rennaker found a girl’s body in her husband Lonnie’s car. Lonnie then strangled his wife.
Finally, Richard Davis saw Renshaw, Lonnie Rennaker and Hamner in a vision over the graves of three supposed witches who had been burned at the stake in Weathersfield in 1717. This would indicate that Lonnie, too, was dead.
Although this screenplay has not been produced Strawberry Spring itself was adapted as a “dollar baby” film in 2001 by Doveed Linder.
There are in fact two other versions of this tale. It was originally published in the University of Maine literary magazine, Ubris for Fall 1968. King substantially revised the story for its publication in Cavalier for November 1975 and Gent for February 1977. That version was collected in Night Shift in 1978. The two Strawberry Spring stories are versions of the same story but the setting is completely different, moving from Wiscasset College in Maine in the Ubris version to the New Sharon Teachers’ College in an unnamed but probably New England state in the Night Shift version. It probably does not matter if King was adapting the earlier or latter version for this unproduced screenplay as he again moved the location, this time to Weathersfield Community College, back in Maine.
In the original Ubris version readers never discover who the “Springheel Jack” killer really is but are left suspecting it may be the unnamed narrator, who does not appear to be married. In the Night Shift version the killer is clearly the narrator. During his second set of killings his wife suspected no more than that he was seeing another woman. In the screenplay the killer is clearly Lonnie Rennaker.
In another change in Ubris the murders occurred in 1968, with no subsequent killings. By Cavalier/Night Shift King had added the 1976 murder. In the screenplay King extended the rampage by having Rennaker kill another student and his own wife in 1978. Readers may be pleased to know that the original 1968 victims – Cerman, Br
ay, Parkins and Curran almost remain the victims in all three versions of this tale (Parkins becomes Perkins in the screenplay). The 1978 victim in the screenplay was Cynthia Baker, while the 1976 victim in Cavalier/Night Shift is never named. Finally, King loses the second student to be falsely accused of the 1968 murders, Hanson Gray, from the screenplay version.
All these changes effectively mean that there are three distinct versions of Strawberry Spring, with each extending the killing spree and providing more detail as to the killer’s and victims’ identities.
King sold the “dollar baby” rights to I Know What You Need and that film was first shown at the 2nd Annual Stephen King Dollar Baby Film Festival in Bangor on 1 October 2005. Frankly, it is a very poor adaptation. The short story was first published in Cosmopolitan magazine for September 1976 and was republished with minor changes and the correction of an error in Night Shift.
The original I Know What You Need was also set in Maine but neither the town nor the college Elizabeth Rogan attended are named. While in the screenplay Ed Hamner, Jr. killed himself after Elizabeth Neely (one wonders why King changed her surname?) confronted him, in the short story Elizabeth Rogan simply took his voodoo items and threw them away, breaking Ed’s power and influence over her. There is no indication that Ed reacted in any other way in the short story than simply leaving. King also changed the name of Liz’s unfortunate boyfriend Tony Lombard in the original story to Tony Lester in the screenplay. Unfortunately for the character, regardless of his surname, he dies in both versions. In the original story the timeline was 1971.
It is a little known fact that Battleground has been adapted as an animated feature. Titled Srajenie (this Russian title translates as “The Battle”) it was made in the Soviet Union in 1986 and is almost entirely without dialogue. The screenplay is by V. Goryachev and Mikhail Titov directed the ten-minute film. Denis Gatiatullin brought this adaptation, previously unknown in the King community, to our attention.
It was also adapted as the first episode of the Nightmares and Dreamscapes TV series (2006), with a teleplay by Richard Christian Matheson and tremendous acting by John Hurt playing Renshaw.
Battleground was originally published in Cavalier for September 1972. For its publication in Night Shift in 1978 there were very minor wording revisions. In the original story it was Hans Morris’ wife who set the soldiers upon Renshaw but in the screenplay King uses a powerful device in having Morris’ mother, a witch aged about 80, arrange Renshaw’s death. This fits nicely with the closing twist of the script, at the witches’ graves. No dates were given for the events in the original story.
The entirely original wrap-around story features Harold Davis, and his grandson, Richard, editor of the town newspaper. They discuss recent and past events in Weathersfield and these recollections form the three stories. This storyline is set in 1978, the same year as the second “Springheel Jack” murders. Harold had lived in Weathersfield all his life. He’d joined the Weathersfield Community College security department in 1930 and retired in 1973. About 70 in 1978, he had raised Richard. Harold suspected that Lonnie Rennaker was Springheel Jack. Richard Davis was about 28 in 1978 and had roomed with Rennaker at Weathersfield Community College. After graduating he single-handedly ran the town’s newspaper, the Independent.
At the end of the script Richard Davis saw three old crones who were almost certainly the three alleged witches (Abigail, Tamson and one unnamed) who had been burned at the stake in 1717 and buried on the Town Common. They appeared where their gravestones had been, had toothless mouths, heads giving off a green glow and white pupil-less eyes. They disappeared and were replaced by Lonnie Rennaker, Ed Hamner Jr and John Renshaw. A hand from the earth then grabbed Davis’ ankle. He ran, the three men faded and the gravestones reappeared. Of course, King used the device from Brian de Palma’s film of his own work Carrie with the hand suddenly shooting up from the ground.
This screenplay contains a significant link to King’s other fiction with the mention of the nearby town of Jerusalem’s Lot, the setting for King’s American vampire novel ‘Salem’s Lot, its sequel short story One for the Road and the Lovecraftian short story Jerusalem’s Lot. The town is also mentioned in The Body, The Dead Zone, Dreamcatcher, the Prime Evil version of The Night Flier (in that vampire story it is said to be “mostly deserted”) and Pet Sematary. Most importantly, King reintroduced the town in Pere Callahan’s back-story in The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla.
We also read in the screenplay that Mrs. Carmody was an old woman who ran an antique shop on Carbine Street, Weathersfield. Interestingly, and knowing King this can be no coincidence, in The Mist a Mrs. Carmody ran an antique shop in Bridgton. In that story she became the leader of a religious group inside the supermarket and tried to have her people kill Billy Drayton and Amanda Dumfries.
This anthology screenplay is in the style of Creepshow or Cat’s Eye. It would make a great addition to that style of filmmaking and King adaptations in general. However, there seems little hope it will be produced and it is most unlikely the screenplay will ever be published, consigning Harold and Richard Davis and the town of Weathersfield, Maine to a twilight zone existence.
Considering the variety and quality of the stories in the Night Shift collection it is not surprising that most have been adapted to film. Many were produced as “dollar babies,” including: The Boogeyman, The Last Rung on the Ladder, The Lawnmower Man, Night Surf, Strawberry Spring and Darabont’s The Woman in the Room. The wider release productions include Children of the Corn, Graveyard Shift, The Lawnmower Man (that production bears no resemblance to the story), The Ledge (as a segment of Cat’s Eye), The Mangler and Sometimes They Come Back. Trucks was made into a TV special for the USA Network.
This leaves one wondering how long Gray Matter, I Am the Doorway, I Know What You Need (apart from the execrable dollar baby), Jerusalem’s Lot, The Man Who Loved Flowers and One For the Road will escape adaptation.
Jerusalem’s Lot – A “Strange Place”
Jerusalem’s Lot (widely known as ‘Salem’s Lot), having been the earlier site of devil-worship and the disappearance of its entire populace in 1789, was taken over by a colony of vampires and effectively abandoned again by the living in 1975. Despite the town’s destruction by fire in 1976 vampires were known to be in the area as late as 1977. Jerusalem’s Lot’s history may be read and discovered in the following order: Jerusalem’s Lot, ‘Salem’s Lot, One for the Road and parts of The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla. It is also mentioned in The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower.
It was founded by a splinter group of the Puritan faith, headed by James Boon, in 1710. On 31 October 1789 the entire population of town disappeared.
Source: Jerusalem’s Lot (in the Night Shift collection)
A small town east of Cumberland and 20 miles north of Portland, it is in Cumberland County and can be accessed via Route 12 from Falmouth. It was incorporated in 1765 and named after one of Charles Belknap Tanner’s pigs, Jerusalem, which escaped into the woods and went wild. Tanner would warn small children away from Jerusalem’s wood lot. The township is nearly circular and two major roads, Brock Street and Jointner Avenue cross dead center at right angles. Central Maine Power pylons march across the town in a northwest to southeast diagonal, forming a 150ft wide gash in the timberland. The northwest quadrant is North Jerusalem and includes the high ground, including the Marsten House. The northeast is mostly open farmland and the Royal River flows through it to Drunk’s Leap. In the southeast section are farms and the homes of white-collar commuters. In the southwest area known as The Bend are many shacks and trailer homes. Town government in the Lot was by town meeting. In 1960 it had 1252 inhabitants and in 1970 1319. The majority of these were of Scotch-English and French ancestry. In 1975 the town was abandoned after an infestation of vampires. On 6 October 1976 it was apparently largely destroyed by fire.
Source: ‘Salem’s Lot
Also known as “The Lot
,” Richard Davis mentioned the “Boogies” there. It is eight miles from Weathersfield. Harold Davis thought it “a strange place.”
Source: Night Shift (Unproduced Screenplay)
Father Donald Callahan moved there in the Spring of 1969. He became convinced that vampires had infested the town in 1975. He confronted one in October that year but, after losing his faith and being forced to drink the vampire’s blood, fled the town in shame.
Source: The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla
The town was apparently taken over by vampires in 1975 and burned flat in 1976. In 1977 there were still vampires in the area.
Source: One for the Road (in the Night Shift collection)
Donald Callahan was once the Catholic Priest in this “little” town. By 1999 it no longer existed on any map.
Source: The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower
The Old Dude’s Ticker (2000)
The Old Dude’s Ticker was first published in the NECON XX Commemorative Volume for 2000. That volume was limited to 333 copies. It was reprinted in The Big Book of Necon (Cemetery Dance, 2009), which is likely the only way readers might secure a copy of the tale.