1922

1922 is a novella by American writer Stephen King, published in his collection Full Dark, No Stars (2010). Synopsis In 1922, Wilfred James, a farmer in Hemingford Home, Nebraska, owns 80 acres of farmland that have been in his family for generations. His wife, Arlette, owns an adjoining 100 acres willed to her by her father. Wilfred scorns the thought of living in a city, but Arlette is discontented with farm life and wants to move to Omaha. She seeks to sell her land to a livestock company for use as a pig farm and slaughterhouse. If she does so, Wilfred's property will no longer be farmable and he'll be forced to sell as well. Wilfred resorts to manipulating his teenage son, Henry, into helping him murder Arlette. As part of their plot, Wilfred and a reluctant Henry get Arlette drunk. Arlette proceeds to make crude remarks about Henry's girlfriend, Shannon Cotterie, which angers the boy enough to commit to Wilfred's plot. After taking Arlette to bed, Wilfred brutally slashes her throat with a butcher knife. Wilfred and Henry then dump the body in a dry well behind the barn. Later, as Wilfred dumps her suitcase into the well with Arlette, he notices that her body has become infested with rats. Wilfred decides to fill in the well to hide the body, but knows that doing so will arouse suspicion. He purposefully has one of his aged cows fall into the well to provide a cover story for filling it in. Right afterwards, the local sheriff, acting on behalf of the livestock company, searches the farmhouse to look for Arlette, but finds nothing. Wilfred and Henry fill the well, but a rat crawls out of the soil. Henry kills it, believing that Arlette is now haunting them. Wilfred later encounters a rat when it attacks one of his other milk cows, severing one of her teats.