10 Lesser Known Stephen King Villains

Stephen King has been haunting pop culture for almost 50 years, and in that time, he's written and released dozens of novels and hundreds of short stories that have seeped into the public consciousness, and his work has been adapted to the small and silver screen to varying degrees of commercial and critical success.

He's also created some of the most iconic villains in horror culture. You've no doubt heard of the likes of Pennywise, Jack Torrance, Annie Wilkes, and the vampires of 'Salem's Lot.

Unsurprisingly, given his large body of work, many of his horrific creations have slipped through the cracks and haven't received the recognition they deserve and are still waiting for the opportunity to make your nightmares their home.

So if you're running out of reasons to keep the light on at night, you've only to dig a little deeper to get your horror fix.

Blaine is a sentient, evil, insane, suicidal, riddle-obsessed monorail. You might want to take a moment to digest that.

Obviously, Blaine isn't a typical King villain, nor horror villain, for that matter. Not surprising, since the series he appears in, The Dark Tower, leans more towards fantasy than any other genre. Even so, Blaine is rather unusual. King's magnum opus, the backbone of his fictional universe, is incredibly imaginative, featuring everything from demons, cowboys, and robots, to were-spiders, fracturing reality, and the malleable flow of time.

As repeatedly stated in the books, Blaine is a pain. He initially tries to murder the heroes of The Dark Tower books, gunslingers Roland, Jake, Eddie, Susannah and billy-bumbler (a type of animal) Oy. He agrees to transport the ka-tet (a group brought together by destiny) to Topeka where he intends to kill them and himself in a high-speed crash but also agrees to a riddling contest. Should they best him with a riddle, he'll let the ka-tet live.

Despite their best efforts, Blaine easily answers the conundrums he's posed, and is only defeated when faced with jokes presented as riddles, resulting in him refusing to answer and losing the contest, which sends him even crazier, causing him to burst into flames and crash. The ka-tet survive.

You may have to deal with a late train now and then, but at least it doesn't actively try to murder you.