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8-OCT-2025 | Excerpt from “Salem’s Lot” by Stephen King

Author

Dan Bogachek
October 08, 2025

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Excerpt from “Salem’s Lot” by Stephen King

Los Zapatos, which means “the shoes” (a name that secretly pleased the man to no end), was a small village not far from the ocean. It was fairly free of tourists. There was no good road, no ocean view (you had to go five miles further west to get that), and no historical points of interest. Also, the local cantina was infested with cockroaches and the only whore was a fifty-year-old grandmother.

With the States behind them, an almost unearthly quiet dropped over their lives. Few planes went overhead, there were no turnpikes, and no one owned a power lawn mower (or cared to have one) for a hundred miles. They had a radio, but even that was noise without meaning; the news broadcasts were all in Spanish, which the boy began to pick up but which remained — and always would — gibberish to the man. 🏁

  • Even Stephen King uses “you” in his narration — it pulls you into the scene and turns your imagination on.

  • The parentheses add voice to the text, they give it a feel like someone’s talking aloud.

  • These sentences land on the longer side, but they don’t drone on. How come? Zoom in and look at everything between the commas. Simple and tight, no unnecessary syllables.