15 Greatest Stephen King Short Stories Of All Time
5. Children Of The Corn
Though it has been overshadowed since its release by the never-ending movie franchise it spawned, Children of the Corn remains one of the horror maestro's most accomplished works.
The story follows a bickering couple - Burt and Vicky - as they travel to California for a vacation in hopes of saving their crumbling marriage. Along the way, they drive through rural Nebraska and come across a town that appears to be deserted. Deserted, that is, save for a group of children, who attempt to kill the couple as sacrifices for a monster who lives in the town's cornfields.
As far as horror goes, murderous, ghostly children make for great villains, and rarely has that been better explored than in this 1977 short story. The violence is quick and shocking; the prose vibrant and unrestrained, and the tone is dark front to back, promising terror and death from the very first page and delivering on the scares without fault.