In the Tall Grass

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He had crossed a few dozen feet of the dirt parking lot and then hesitated by what looked like a first-generation Prius. It was filmed with a pale coat of road dust, almost completely obscuring the windshield. Cal hunched slightly, shielded his eyes with one hand, and squinted through the side window at something in the passenger seat. Frowning to himself for a moment, and then flinching, as if from a horsefly. Now the kid was on Cal’s right, and he sounded quite a lot deeper in the grass than before. How could that be? He sounded close enough to grab. Cal had a brief period, about five minutes later, when he lost it a little. It happened after he tried an experiment. He jumped and looked at the road and landed and waited and then after he had counted to thirty, he jumped and looked again. In the few that I've read of Stephen King, I have become his fan, though each of his stories have a few elements(at least)that I could have done without. Take for instance The Ritual of Chüd in It. Still, disturbing as it is, it can be neglected in terms of the brilliance (and also the length) of the rest of the tale. But I finished this one last night. And I'm still nauseated. Seriously. The stone wasn’t hot at all. It was cool. It was blessedly cool and he laid his face upon it, a weary pilgrim who has finally arrived at his destination, and can rest at last.

This short story can easily be read in one sitting and evokes a feeling of dread. Will they find the boy? Will they find each other as they were instantly separated? More and more I am enjoying books that evoke that feeling of dread; ones that get your heart beating because you don't know what is going to happen next. You know something is going to happen....but what? Ahhhh, that anticipatory anxiety. I think Hill and King were successful in this. But then once the "reveal" if you can call it that occurred, I felt a little let down. This is where the short story lost a little of it's magic for me. Sometimes I think it is better to never see the source of terror is. That is what makes it terrorizing. We use our own minds to create the "evil" that would scare us the most. Yes, that is my fan fiction take on this. There was plenty to like in this story and I do enjoy the writing of Stephen King but I struggle to give it any more than a 3.5 rating. The kid was close, but maybe not quite as close as Cal had thought. And a little farther to the left. He left her on the margin of the highway and turned into the dirt lot of the Redeemer. A scattering of dust-filmed cars was parked here, windshields beetle bright in the glare of the sun. That all but one of these cars appeared to have been there for days—even weeks—was another anomaly that would not strike them until later. I had already watched the film based based on the book so I already knew what to expect with this novella although I was hoping I would enjoy it a little more. TBH I did enjoy it more than the film but still didn’t think it was great.Thanks, doc, I’ll—” Nothing. Then she began screaming. “Get away from me! Get away! DON’T TOUCH ME!” Her second thought was of a weak swimmer, caught in a retreating tide, pulled farther and farther from shore, not understanding how much trouble she was in until she began to scream, and discovered no one on the beach could hear her. Aquí dentro es más fácil encontrar las cosas cuando están muertas. El prado no mueve por ahí las cosas muertas. —Sus ojos brillaron en la oscuridad y miró el cuervo destrozado que sostenía Cal—. Creo que la mayoría de los pájaros se mantienen alejados de la hierba. Creo que lo saben y se lo cuentan entre ellos. Pero algunos no hacen caso. Los cuervos son los que menos caso hacen, supongo, porque aquí dentro hay bastantes de ellos muertos" Her brother was holding a doll’s leg in one hand, filthy from the mud. He stared at her with a bright, stupid fascination, while he chewed on it. It was a lifelike thing, chubby and plump looking, but a little small, and also a funny pale-blue color, like almost frozen milk. Cal, you can’t eat plastic, she thought of saying, but it was just too much work.

And Cal was there, in the ashy light of dawn, looking down at her. His own eyes were sharp and avid.You need to eat,” he said, and put a string of something cold and salty in her mouth. His fingers had blood on them. Another. Another. Each match made a fat little puff of smoke as soon as it touched the wet green. One didn’t even make it into the grass, but was huffed out by the gentle breeze as soon as it was lit. A part of him—a part he had been trying with all his will to ignore—already knew what he was going to see. This part had been providing an almost jovial running commentary: Everything will have moved, Cal, good buddy. The grass flows and you flow too. Think of it as becoming one with nature, bro. Cal said, “Tobin, did you lure us in here? Tell me. I won’t be mad. Your father made you do it, I bet.”

I’m over here, buddy,” she called to him. “Keep walking toward me. You’re almost to the road. You’re almost out.” The match went out the moment he touched it to the wet grass, the stems heavy with a dew that never dried, and dense with juice. No,” Cal said. “I don’t think it is. I’d rather stay lost.” Maybe it was just his imagination, but the buzzing seemed to be getting louder. What caused him to rise at last was the faraway sound of a car alarm going off. But not just any car alarm, no. This one didn’t go wah-wah-wah, like most of them; this one went WHEEK-honk, WHEEK-honk, WHEEK-honk. So far as he knew, only old Mazdas wheek-honked like that when they were violated, flashing their headlights in time.

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He reached to the side and lifted up a bundle wrapped in someone else’s T-shirt. She saw a little snub of bluish nose protruding from the shroud. No; not a shroud. Shrouds were for dead bodies. It was swaddling. She had delivered a child here, out in the high grass, and hadn’t even needed the shelter of a manger.

Tobin!” the woman started to call, but then her voice choked. As if she didn’t have the spit for talk. Meanwhile, the situation with In the Tall Grass' Humboldts family is different. It appears that the Humboldts arrived at the church in the silver car that Cal parks behind. It's the only car not covered in dust when audiences see the Humboldts enter the tall grass later. This would mean that the Humboltds were chronologically the first group to enter the tall grass — even though they were lured in by Travis. Since there was no one to prevent them from going in, and they never managed to escape, it's heavily implied that Ross and Natalie remain trapped for In the Tall Grass'ending, and Tobin has effectively been orphaned. Are you thirsty? Bet you are. Here. Take this. Put it in your mouth.” He pushed a soaked, cold twist of his T-shirt into her mouth. He had saturated it with water and rolled it up into a rope. His foot caught on something, and he went down knee-first into an inch of swampy water. Hot water—not lukewarm, hot, as hot as bathwater—splashed up onto the crotch of his shorts, providing him with the sensation of having just pissed himself.It is a good idea,” she said. “It’s going on for five thirty, and I bet they’re really hungry. Who’s going to stay and set up the barbecue?” Obviously I can’t tell you what lies beyond the “tall grass,” but I can tell you that it’s easily the most disturbing short I’ve ever (or probably will ever read) and it’s not for the timid . . . or the weak-stomached. It made Michael’s little “experience” with the worms and maggots in one of my faves look like child’s play . . . Finally, when there were six matches left, he lit one, and then, in desperation, touched it to the book itself. The paper matchbook ignited in a hot white flash and he dropped it into the nest of singed but still damp grass. For a moment it settled in the top of this mass of yellow-green weeds, a long, bright tongue of flame rising up from it.