Graveyard Shift

"Graveyard Shift" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the October 1970 issue of Cavalier magazine and collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift. It was adapted into a 1990 film of the same name. Setting Graveyard Shift is set in a small town in Maine, and the action largely takes place in a textile mill. Plot summary A young drifter named Hall has been working at a decrepit textile mill in a small town in Maine when the cruel foreman, Warwick, recruits him and others to assist with a massive cleaning effort. The basement of the old mill has been abandoned for decades, and over the years, a monumental infestation of rats has taken hold. This rat empire, cut off from the rest of nature, has allowed the animals to evolve into a strange and varied combination of creatures, complete with its own bizarre, self-sustaining ecosystem. There are large, armored rats; albino, weasel-like rats that can climb up walls or burrow through the ground; and bat-like rats that have evolved to pterosaurian sizes. The men eventually come across a sub-basement, locked from the inside. Warwick then enlists Hall to go down and investigate the sub-basement and that he may take whomever he likes. Hall chooses Warwick who, despite trying to prevent them from entering, is forced to press on.