Past midnight, something happens to time, that fragile concept we employ
to order our sense of reality. It bends, stretches, turns back, or
snaps, and sometimes reality snaps with it. And what happens to the
wide-eyed observer when the window between reality and unreality
shatters, and the glass begins to fly? These four chilling novellas, a
feast fit for King fans old and new, provide some shocking answers.
After all, past midnight is Stephen King's favorite time of day....
One Past Midnight: "The Langoliers" takes a red-eye flight from L.A. to
Boston into a most unfriendly sky. Only eleven passengers survive, but
landing in an eerily empty world makes them wish they hadn't.
Something's waiting for them, you see...
Two Past Midnight: "Secret Window, Secret Garden" enters the suddenly
strange life of writer Mort Rainey, recently divorced, depressed, and
alone on the shore of Tashmore Lake. Alone, that is, until a figure
named John Shooter arrives, pointing an accusing finger.
Three Past Midnight: "The Library Policeman" is set injunction City,
Iowa, an unlikely place for evil to be hiding. But for small businessman
Sam Peebles, who thinks he may be losing his mind, another enemy is
hiding there as well-- the truth. If he can find it in time, he might
stand a chance.
Four Past Midnight: The flat surface of a Polaroid photograph becomes
for fifteen-year- old Kevin Delevan an invitation to the super- natural.
Old Pop Merrill, Castle Rock's sharpest trader, wants to crash the party
for profit, but "The Sun Dog," a creature that shouldn't exist at all,
is a very dangerous investment.
With an introduction and preparatory notes to each of the tales, Stephen
King discusses how these stories arose in what is the world's most
fearsome imagination. But it is the stories themselves that will keep
readers awake long after bedtime, into those dark, timeless hours past
midnight.