THE DEEP ONES: "The Late Shift" by Dennis Etchison

"The Late Shift" by Dennis Etchison

Discussion begins November 23, 2022.

First published in Dark Forces (1980).



BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?43741

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

The Mammoth Book of Terror
The Dark Country
American Supernatural Tales

ONLINE VERSIONS

No authorized online versions found to date.

ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS

No authorized online audio versions found to date.

MISCELLANY

https://dennisetchison.com/
https://www.tor.com/2014/06/06/the-short-horror-fiction-of-dennis-etchison/
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intetch.htm
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/grim-hints-and-nervous-portents-on-dennis-et...
https://tinyurl.com/d3jyhdyf

Quiet like the grave here, isn't it?

I have to assume this story originated from Etchison asking himself, what if the graveyard shift were literal?

Like in the other Etchison story I can recall reading, "It Only Comes Out at Night", explanations are in short supply here. I gather from the 4th Misc link that this typical of his work.

I haven't gotten in a re-read of this one, but I remember being very unsettled by this story the first time I read it.

I wouldn't say it exactly unsettled me, but Etchison certainly has an ability to conjure a creepy atmosphere.

Read it in 1980. Since then, I've never looked at convenience stores - or their cashiers - without thinking of "The Late Shift". I've always enjoyed the enigmatic nature of the horror in Etchison's short stories. It often ends up getting increasingly paranoid and claustrophobic, until it's too late. In a way, it's rather like a good film noir scenario. Just more brightly lit! The movie MESSIAH OF EVIL (1973) kind of anticipates the oppressive atmosphere and late-night neon-lit locations in this story. It's an often overlooked horror classic of that decade that has finally been getting it's due. Wonder if DE ever saw it and felt a kindred spirit at work.

I loved Messiah of Evil when I first saw it a couple of years back.

I think I first read this story in American Supernatural Tales around 2008, and again a couple of years ago when I got hold of a copy of Dark Forces (the British edition; printed on cheap paper, sad to say). The mood of the story felt familar but from '70s paranoia movies like The Parallax View or (less so in tone and sibject matter but still capturing the same ziegeist) Capricorn One. Messiah of Evil is a good reference point too. I managed to get a good print on a French DVD a few years ago.

I really dug the atmosphere of this story. Reminded me of my blue collar days, although I still spend more time in convenience stores than I probably should at this point in my life.
Jack Townshend’s Tales from the Gas Station is a good recent example of convenience store horror tropes.
If you agree with Sartre’s view that hell is other people, be kind to your local convenience store clerk. Who knows, they might have a few stories of their own to tell…

I really liked this one. I worked the graveyard shift at a convenience store a few years in the 1980s.

Etchison gets in right at the beginning of the Decade of Greed, with a memorable satire of vulture capitalism and ghoulish labor arbitrage.

Juano repeating his banal, inappropriate phrases was memorable, the ultimate retail zombie. Except, of course, in their off hours those graveyard workers spend a lot of time thinking about the peace of the grave and the afterlife to come. Even the corporate goons talk about religion.

>8 papijoe: I'll have to look up that volume. A whole volume of convenience store horror is something I'd like.