Alex Weller’s Reviews > Night Shift > Status Update

Despite Jim's good news, he has a recurring nightmare that night that causes him to wake up sweating and terrified. Damn. What could this guy's backstory be? Did he screw up another teaching job like Jack Torrance?

Just started reading the tenth story, "Sometimes They Come Back". Jim Norman's wife waits for him to come home from something, possibly a job interview for a grammar teacher job at a school. She even bought a meal to celebrate. When he gets home, she asks him how it went, and he smiles at her. Looks like Jim got the job! Awesome!

Finished "Trucks"! As the girl sleeps and the counterman pumps gas, the narrator can't sleep, because he knows the trucks' plan: Destroy all of nature and man's creation to create a flat world dominated by trucks. And once they become old and rusty, human slaves will be forced to build new trucks. As two planes fly overhead, the narrator hopes there are people in them. Overall, great story!

The trucks are low on gas now, and demand the humans to fill them up. When they refuse, a bulldozer arrives to destroy the building. The narrator and Jerry succeed in destroying the bulldozer with oil bombs, but Jerry gets run over by it, then the trucker gets hit by a truck. In the end, the survivors are forced to comply, and the narrator pumps gas for the trucks until the counterman tells him to get some rest.

By surprise, Snodgrass turns out to be alive, screaming for help in the drainage ditch. Despite Jerry's girlfriend's concern, the narrator falsely tells her he hears nothing. He finally gets her to shut up by saying that if she wakes Jerry up, he could hear something and go outside to check, potentially getting killed. Everybody goes back to sleep as Snodgrass continues screaming in agony. Yeesh!

Just when the prisoners think they have enough food and water to last them a month, the power goes out. The narrator and a young man named Jerry go outside to the bathrooms to get water from the toilet tanks, but narrowly avoid getting killed by a truck, which breaks the side door off. The prisoners barricade the door with sheet siding before going to sleep. At least the two made it back.

Just started reading the ninth story, "Trucks". Tractor-trailer trucks have suddenly come to life and trapped a group of people inside a truck stop. A salesman named Snodgrass crazily tries to escape, but gets hit by a truck and flung into a ditch before he can make it. The remaining customers stay stuck inside as the sun begins to set. What the hell is going on?

Just read the eighth story, "Battleground". Hitman John Renshaw returns to his penthouse after assassinating a toy company CEO, only to receive a package in the mail from the company. It contains a set of toy soldiers that come to life and engage in a bloody war with Renshaw, which ends when they blow up the penthouse with a thermonuclear weapon. Holy shit! Overall, thrilling story but kinda goofy.

Just read the seventh story, "Gray Matter". During a snowstorm, a few old-timers at a convenience store learn from a local alcoholic's son that the man drank some poisoned beer that turned him into a gray bloodthirsty jelly monster. The store owner delivers some beer to the monstrosity with two others, but opens fire at the thing, which is already multiplying, while the other two run away. Overall, great story!

Just read the sixth story, "The Boogeyman". Lester Billings visits Dr. Harper and explains how the boogeyman killed each of his toddler children one by one in the night, after he and his wife stopped having them sleep with Mommy and Daddy. But at the end of the story, Dr. Harper turns out to be the boogeyman, come to kill Lester. Holy shit! Overall, great story!