The Apt Pupil. This one was also made into a movie, but I think it did not get much attention because the subject matter was a bit disturbing. A suburban boy figures out that an old man in his neighborhood is a Nazi war criminal and becomes obsessed with the old man and reenacting his crimes. Yes, it is disturbing and yes, the Nazi gets the upper hand when it comes to the boy's psyche. As for how it ends, well you will just have to discover that on your own.
The Body which we all know as the movie "Stand By Me." According to SK, Rob Reiner, the director, loved the name Castle Rock so much that he used the name for his production company. I believe that this story is the non-horror version of IT. The Body is a coming of age story of 4 boys on a journey to see a dead body in the 50's. It is beautiful, it is poetic and it makes me wish that I was a young boy growing up in the 50's when life was a little more carefree.
Finally, The Breathing Method, a rambling story about men telling stories in which the butler holds the most fascination for me, rather than the story within the story. I like to fancy that the ageless butler is a demon that feeds on the interesting stories of the men that come to the Club to tell them. Or perhaps this demon resurrects characters from the story and they lurk in the large brownstone that houses the Club. In many ways, the butler also seems like he could be Walter from The Gunslinger.
But the main story of The Breathing Method, is about a doctor that works with a woman to teacher a breathing method for labor.
Here comes the SPOILER...
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The woman practices the method so much that when she is decapitated in an accident on her way to the hospital to deliver, her body keeps doing the breathing method. In all of its detail, the doctor tells how he delivered the baby on the steps of the hospital while the corpse continued the method through the wound in the neck. Blech, I LOVE it! What a great visual and what a crazy story.
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