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Thread: Can you beat Stephen King?

  1. #1
    Random scribblings. moonbird's Avatar
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    Can you beat Stephen King?

    Recently I read a Stephen King short story called "Chattery Teeth." Basically, it was about a pair of chattery teeth (the kind with big feet on the bottom) that is bought by a guy from a curio shop, although they no longer work. When the guy picks up a hitchhiker who pulls a knife on him and demands he hand over his car, the teeth magically come to life and bite off the hitchhiker's voice. Then they clamp down hard on his groin. At this point the owner of the teeth passes out, and when he awakes he finds the hitchhiker dead. Later he finds the chattery teeth at his doorstep.

    I'm usually a fan of King's work, but this one was so awful I had to share it with you guys. I told one of my friends that no one, not even Stephen King, could make a pair of chattery teeth scary or horrifying. That got me thinking: maybe it is possible, if you have the right plot. So if you're bored, why don't you write a little story about chattery teeth and see if you can make it scary. Then post it on this thread for us all to enjoy! I'm working on one of my own, if only to be able to say I rewrote a King story better than his original. Good luck!
    If we find the answer, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason-- for we would know the mind of God.

    -Stephen Hawking

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    I haven't read anything from him in awhile. The story seems horrid. I don't know if you pick up Entertainment Weekly, but over the past few years he's been given the backpage along with his opinions and criticisms of pop culture -- I really found it lame. Not a fan, but I have to hand it to him, though, he and Shakespeare have their own sections at my Barnes & Noble. Could I beat him? I think so. I haven't written anything in awhile, but I've never attempted a horror tale. I'd like to one day.

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    anything for a laugh.....

    SWAPS

    I had set my heart on the Swiss Army knife but in the end had to make do with the novelty set of false teeth. The stall owner handed it over with a broad grin – having watched me throw the three metal hoops six times in a row without much luck until now.
    “Mind they don’t bite you, ducks.”
    As if.
    Lucy Farmer and Eloise Hudson who had admired my lack of expertise from the sidelines stifled a chuckle as I accepted them and stuffed them into my anorak pocket.
    “What you gonna do with them?”
    “Dunno yet. Go swaps prob’ly.”
    “Huh. I don’t think anybody’s gonna wanna give you much for some old pair of clockwork choppers. They’re probably made in Taiwan anyway – they’ll break soon as you use ‘em.”
    “S’pose so. Shall we go and get a hot dog or a can of something?”
    There was a queue but the girls got chatting to a couple of mates in the line and soon the teeth were forgotten.

    “Did you enjoy the fair then?”
    “Yeh, it was ok. We went on the Waltzers and the slide and then Michael Dawson fainted as soon as we came off the Ghost Train.”
    “Oh. Poor thing. He’s a really sickly lad, isn’t he?”
    We didn’t show much sympathy. We were in stitches actually. Michael and I were both sweet on Lucy but she could be a right little madam. As soon as she saw him turn white and crumple to the ground she yelled with laughter and left him to the mercies of some woman in a nylon leopard-skin raincoat. I ended up abandoning my pal as well and spent the rest of the afternoon with her and Ellie.

    By Monday lunchtime everyone at school had heard the story. Kids kept going up to him asking if he’d seen a ghost. His reply mostly consisted of two words ‘Do one.’ He never actually specified what the ‘one’ was, but by first bell everyone had taken the hint and left him on his own by the lockers.
    Everybody except yours truly.
    “Whatchu looking at?”
    “Nowt. I was just wondering if you were feeling better.”
    “Huh. Like you care all of a sudden. You soon scarpered.”
    “Aw, come on. It’s not my fault Lucy laughed at you. You know what she’s like when she’s with Ellie. They’re as bad as each other”
    “So.”
    “And well, it did look quite funny.”
    “Right.”
    “And I only went with them ‘cause that woman said she was taking you home.”
    “Right. So what did you do after then?”
    “Not much. Had a go on the water cannons and the darts. Then there was this hoopla and I tried to get a really neat pen-knife. But I finished up with some joke teeth instead.”
    “What? Like vampire ones you stick in your gob?”
    “No. These have got a key and when you wind them up they chatter like crazy. They’re quite a laugh. D’you wanna have a look?”
    I dug them out of my school bag and showed him. I wound the key and set them down on the tiled floor. Soon we were both laughing like idiots as the set of teeth clacked away like something out of ‘Loony Tunes’.
    “D’you want to swap them?”
    “Eh?”
    “Well, I can give you some more German stamps if you like. Or Terry Thorley gave me a catapult but I can’t get the hang of it properly.”
    “Nah. It’s ok.”
    Then I caught the gleam in his eye.
    “Or if you like I could tell Lucy I’m not going to be friends with her any more.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Swapping a set of wind-up false teeth for Lucy Farmer. That had to be a fantastic deal. Did it not?

    I’m not sure what made me recall that critical moment from my youth in such vivid detail. The leopard-print raincoat and her bottle blonde hair-do. And the size of her arse. Probably the fly poster for the Fair as I drove past the bus shelters at the end of Curzon Drive. It was Chester Race Week and they always have the fair on the coach park opposite the Roodee for the duration of the race meeting.
    The two youngest would no doubt be pestering to be taken along on Friday night. Squandering money on junk food, fizzy drinks loaded with e numbers and a cheap thrill. Though not particularly cheap.
    So it was a shock when I got home and Lucy told me about the phone call.
    “Somebody called Michael.”
    “Asking for me?”
    “That’s what he said. I told him you were still at work but he wouldn’t give me his number. It was number withheld as well.”
    “Probably somebody trying to flog us dodgy kitchen units or car insurance.”
    “Don’t think so. He reckoned you were mates.”
    “Mates? The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

    “It’s Michael. Michael Dawson.”
    Click.
    “What? From the Port? Bebby Road Primary? Never…..”
    “That’s me, cobber.”
    “But, hell…. didn’t you go abroad or something? Before we finished our last year?”
    “Australia. Then New Zealand. That’s where I’ve been until five months ago.”
    “So. You back in England for good?”
    “Unfortunately seems that way.”
    I didn’t twig what he was saying. Not then.
    “So how did you dig up my number?”
    “Oh, did a bit of research on the internet. Came across your profile on some business and consultancy site. Figured there can’t be that many Andy Kepplers working in this part of the world.”
    “True.”
    “So anyway. I was wondering whether we could meet for a drink somewhere one night. Catch up.”
    Michael Dawson. He’d dropped right off my radar. Sad, given how much time we had spent together between the ages of five and eleven. It seemed odd that he would phone out of the blue like that but life’s too short to turn old friends away. 40 is one of them ages where you start going through your life and wondering how it managed to slink past so suddenly.
    “Well, yes. That would be great. You could even come round for a meal. I’d need to check…..”
    “Oh, I couldn’t impose. Let’s just have a couple of beers. I take it you take a drink.”
    “Could say that. Socially, I mean.”
    “Right you are, then. When’s best?”
    “How about one night next week? Tuesday or Wednesday?”

    The ‘Watergate’. It’s generally quiet midweek – even in June. The American and Japanese tourists tend not to flock here until mid summer. There were only three others in the bar. A couple of office types discussing the latest range of four-by-fours and an old guy hunched in the corner nursing a Guinness and a bad complexion.
    I’d said seven thirty. I wasn’t wearing a red carnation or a straw hat. Just a scuffed leather jacket and denim trousers. Forty years old but trying to look nearer twenty.
    “Andy?”
    It was the old guy. He waved a hand and beckoned me over.
    Close up I realised he wasn’t old. Just worn down or worn out. By life perhaps. Or by something more sinister that I had yet to uncover.
    “Mike?”
    “Here.”
    He passed me a tenner.
    “Get me a refill and whatever you’re having.”
    As soon as I sat alongside him he told me the whole sorry tale. Him and Una. A marriage made in heaven. The three miscarriages. The depression that finally drove his wife to drown herself in the bath. The business he set up from scratch – import and export. And the illness that had plagued him for the last three and a half years.
    “Doctors reckoned it was some kind of skin cancer at first.”
    I nodded sympathetically.
    “Mhmm.”
    “Then after the biopsy they realised it was something worse. A mutation of a flesh eating disease. It’s got a right fancy name. Hillger-Krawzjok Syndrome. Apparently it’s normally associated with severe frostbite.”
    “So…. I mean, that’s not how you got it I assume.”
    “Frostbite? Huh, no. Too much antipodean sunshine for frostbite. No way.”
    “Erm, and they can’t do anything? I mean, how bad is it?”
    “Oh, it’s terminal. But then, all life is terminal is it not? That’s how I cope with it, you know.”
    “God. It must be awful for you.”
    “It’s a sh1tty way to die, if that’s what you mean. You’d swear I was being eaten alive – bite by bite.”
    I’d been looking at the ‘Specials’ board but thought better of it. ‘Tasty Chilli Bites’ suddenly seemed less appetising.
    “God. So you’re here for how long? I mean, are you on holiday or have you moved back here….?”
    “Business. I’m here on business….. but I doubt I’ll be flying back home. The doctors said two or three months at best.”
    “You poor sod.”
    I cursed myself for taking his call rather than for being so unwelcoming.
    “So anyway, Andy. You look as if you’re doing alright for yourself. Tell me, did you and Lucy Farmer stick together?”
    I told him everything. Childhood sweethearts. Studying at the same college – Economics and Psychology. Getting married as soon as we graduated. The crummy flat in Liverpool. Four years of graft and grief after Lucy fell pregnant. Kirsty eighteen now – Thomas twelve and Daisy almost six.
    He looked genuinely pleased for us. I felt guilty not extending him a proper invite to our home. Even if he hadn’t told me how sick he was he did little to disguise his condition. There were scabs covering his forehead and chin and his fingers were like crimson claws.
    “So what line of business are you in now, Mike?”
    “Oh, I’m still buying and selling. A little horse trading. You know how it goes. Making deals.”
    “You’re self-employed?”
    “Freelance. Yes. I’m rather choosy whom I do business with, you see.”

    By the third pint I was ready for home. Drinking mid-week is something I rarely do because I always suffer the following morning. The alarm clock – the indigestible drive to work – playing catch-up with my mail and telephone calls. It always seems infinitely more unbearable with a hangover.
    “It’s Mrs Keppler, on line 3.”
    Lucy? She never calls me at work.
    “Luce? What’s up.”
    “Andrew. It’s Michael here.”
    Michael? Had Gina put the wrong call through again? Dozy cow.
    “I’m sorry, Mike. Can I put you on hold? I’m actually trying to take a call from my wife…..”
    “Oh yes. She’s here. With me as we speak.”
    Lucy with Michael? Michael inside our house? How?
    “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
    I could hear some metallic sound in the background. Like a clanking chain or someone rattling a handful of change.
    “Is Lucy there? Can I speak to her?”
    “That won’t be possible, Andrew.”
    “What? What the hell’s going on.”
    Then he told me. Told me about his latest business deal. Those ruddy teeth. Those ruddy wind-up teeth that he’d kept all those years, and was now convinced were the cause of his medical condition.
    “I hear them, you see. As soon as I climb into bed and turn out the lights. Gnashing. Biting. Gnawing. Devouring me inch by painful inch.”
    “You’re off your head. Put my wife on the line…..”
    “As I have already told you. That won’t be possible.”
    “If you’ve laid one finger on her…..”
    “I would never do that. This is just a courtesy call you see. Strictly business etiquette, my old friend.”
    It didn’t make sense.
    “You remember that day? The day you swapped those teeth for Lucy?”
    What did that have to do with…..?
    “Well, I’ve come to reclaim her.”
    “What?”
    “The swap’s gone sour. You can have your stupid teeth back – and I’ll take what’s mine.”
    The line went silent. I expected him to hang up but instead I could still hear a frenzied clicking. By the time I met up with the police at the house the insane clatter had ceased. The plastic teeth grinned at us as if anxious to share the joke but all was eerily silent.

    H
    Last edited by hillwalker; 02-06-2011 at 04:54 PM.

  4. #4
    Registered User Jassy Melson's Avatar
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    Chattery Teeth was written by King in his early days of writing--in the 70s. It's not one of his better stories; in fact, it may be the worst story he's ever had published. King admits that he wrote a number of stories when he was stoned on coke. Chattery Teeth is probably one of them. King's work is very uneven. He has written some good stuff, but he's also written some trash.
    Last edited by Jassy Melson; 02-09-2011 at 08:24 PM.
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    Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein

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    Way to take a stab at it, hillwalker. Honestly I think I preferred your story to King's, probably because you didn't attempt to make the teeth scary. It works a lot better as a humor story than horror.

    As for the other two comments from Perandorrr and Jassy Melson, I agree with both. King's work seems to fluctuate wildly between pure genuis and pop culture trash. I've read some bad King stories, but this one was the worst by a long short, and I just had to share it with you guys. But in his defense, his recent "Under the Dome" is very good, in my opinion, as well as many others I haven't got around to reading yet. My conclusion: No one's perfect.
    If we find the answer, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason-- for we would know the mind of God.

    -Stephen Hawking

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    Lord of Literature LongBlade's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by moonbird View Post
    My conclusion: No one's perfect.
    Yeah, nobody is really perfect since we weren't born yet.

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    When you're as prolific as SK, there's gonna be a good amount of crap produced along with the good stuff. It happens with most prolific authors. Add to it that SK can get anything he wants published, and you get stories like this.

    It brings this to mind.

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    Wow.... Well I admire you for being able to read a story called "chattery teeth" in the first place.

    Hillwalker, I shall have to read your story later. A session of Les Miserbles has sapped my reading energy for the day but I'm looking forward to reading your attempt.

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    Registered User Jassy Melson's Avatar
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    If I had room on here I would post a short essay I wrote some time back about the uneven genius of King. A brief excerpt from my essay will have to do.

    The literati and the literary Brahmin class dismiss King by saying "Oh, he's just a horror writer; that doesn't count." But the thing is, King cannot be dismissed. He is the most popular and successful writer in history, and he has written some stories that are totally realistic with no touch of horror to them. Misery is an example of how good King can be when he wants to be. Chattery Teeth is an example of how bad he can be.

    In his time, Dickens was the most popular and successful writer, but he also wrote some very good novels. The difference between them is that a hundred years from now, King will be forgotten, but Dickens won't. In no way can King be considered a great writer. He approaches being a good writer in some of his stories. But King has chosen the path he has taken. And he has trod that path with success.

    I used to be a big fan of King, but I no longer read him. I have outgrown him. Now I read Dickens.
    Last edited by Jassy Melson; 02-11-2011 at 12:19 AM.
    Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist.

    Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein

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    Jassy Melson: Funny you'd say that (I'm referring to the last line of your post, I still haven't figure out how to quote things) because I've also taken a lot of interest in Dickens lately. He does seem to be a lot more stable in his writing than King.
    If we find the answer, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason-- for we would know the mind of God.

    -Stephen Hawking

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jassy Melson View Post
    The difference between them is that a hundred years from now, King will be forgotten.
    You have no way of knowing this. I find it doubtful.

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    Registered User Jassy Melson's Avatar
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    Are you impyng that Stephen King will be remembered a hundred years from now?
    Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist.

    Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein

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    Maybe, Lovecraft is. But anyways, he is no genius, neither the most popular (Shakespeare still) and doubtfully the most sucessful. His best books are good books, that is all. Dickens best novels are masterworks.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jassy Melson View Post
    Are you impyng that Stephen King will be remembered a hundred years from now?
    I'm saying there is no real way to know one way or another. Personally, due to his popularity alone, I tend to lean towards him being remembered a hundred years from now. Will he attain the immortality that greats like Dickens, Shakespeare, or Dante have attained? Extremely doubtful (again, no way to know), but I have little doubt that his works will still be read.

    Quote Originally Posted by JCamilo View Post
    Maybe, Lovecraft is.
    Are you implying that Lovecraft is not amazing?

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    Quote Originally Posted by JCamilo View Post
    His best books are good books, that is all. Dickens best novels are masterworks.
    Well said!
    If we find the answer, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason-- for we would know the mind of God.

    -Stephen Hawking

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