“The Crate” Stephen King(1979)
If a story requires the protagonist to perform a de-
spicable act such as murder, but the author wants
the reader to remain sympathetic, the plot must be
constructed in such a way that the action is justi-
fied or at least understandable, which is no easy
task to accomplish. Stephen KINGmanages this in
one of his earliest and best short stories by saddling
a henpecked college professor, Henry Northrup,
with a wife whose unpleasantness is so great that
the reader can be convinced, at least for a moment,
that there is at least some justification for murder.
The story opens with the appearance of
Henry’s longtime friend, Dexter Stanley, a fellow
academic who is nearly hysterical with terror. He
was approached earlier that day by a janitor who
found a trunk tucked away under a staircase, a
trunk that belonged to an expedition that visited
Antarctica in 1834. Curious about its contents,
the two men remove the crate to another room
and pry it open, whereupon a powerful but never
completely described creature reaches out and
kills the janitor. Stanley runs off in horror and
eventually encounters a graduate student, the
only other person in the building at that time of
day. The student is understandably skeptical, par-
ticularly when they return to the basement to find
both the crate and body gone, but the trail of
blood leads them back to the staircase, where the
trunk is back in its original place. Despite Stan-
ley’s warnings, the other man investigates and is
promptly killed for his troubles.
Northrup listens sympathetically and offers
Stanley a drink, lacing it with a sleeping tablet.
While Stanley slumbers Northrup lures his wife to
the empty building, tricks her into approaching the
crate, and waits patiently until she is dead. Using
great care, he moves the crate again, this time con-
veying it to a quarry and throwing it in, disposing
of both the creature and the evidence of his wife’s
death. He then returns to a revived Stanley, and
the two vow to keep their secret. The characters
are such that we can never really admire any of
them, so King describes Wilma Northrup as such a
horrid, unbearable person that we can share in the
vicarious pleasure of her destruction. The story be-
came one episode of the movie Creepshow(1982),
based on King’s own screenplay.
“Creation”Jeffrey Ford(2002)
As children we are taught many complicated con-
cepts that we sometimes fail to grasp accurately until
we have become older and more experienced.
Adults, even teachers, often assume that they have
transferred this knowledge accurately, unaware of
the imperfections in the process and the occasionally
dramatic differences in interpretation. Jeffrey FORD
captures the essence of this discontinuity in “Cre-
ation,” whose protagonist is a young boy who be-
comes fascinated by what he is told in catechism
class, taught to him by the appropriately named Mrs.
Grimm, whose demeanor is entirely without humor
or warmth and whose story of how God created the
world has much of the flavor of a dark fairy tale.
The boy becomes fascinated with the possibili-
ties of creation, wondering why God conceived of
such an idea. His preoccupation leads to imitation
and experimentation. In a remote wooded area he
builds himself a man out of earth, branches, and
other objects, names him Cavanaugh, and waits for
him to waken, only to be disappointed when the
misshapen creature remains inert. That evening,
however, he dreams that his creation came to life,
and when he investigates the following morning he
finds no trace of Cavanaugh. Although he is un-
certain what happened, his catechism book, which
he left behind by accident, is also missing, and he
wonders if Cavanaugh is wandering through the
woods trying to read it.
In the days that follow he has a series of vi-
sions in which he sees Cavanaugh in one context
or another, but Ford never commits himself as to
whether these are imagination or reality. Troubled
and feeling the need to talk to Cavanaugh just
once, he turns to his father who, though an athe-
ist, is sympathetic to his son’s mental turmoil. To-
gether they search the woods for Cavanaugh, who
speaks to the boy from concealment, but only
when he and his father are temporarily separated.
Cavanaugh has a single question, wanting to know
why he was created, and the boy replies that he did
it because of love. Ford remains noncommittal
even at the end, when the boy has become a man,
and we never find out whether Cavanaugh was
real or whether his father played the part. Ford’s
subtle commentary on the relationship between
God and man won the World Fantasy Award.“Creation” 71