Summary

• You Like It Darker features compelling stories with one standout novella that leaves intriguing questions.
• "The Dreamers" novella from King's collection is disturbing, mysterious, and lacks answers.
• "The Dreamers" would benefit from a follow-up that can explore its potential as a unique and terrifying world.

Stephen King’s You Like It Darker offers some interesting short stories, but there’s one that needs a follow-up after all the questions it left. The King of Horror continues sharing his unique world of scares, monsters (human and supernatural), supernatural events, and more, and among his latest publications is You Like It Darker. The book is a collection of seven short stories and five novellas (among them an excerpt of Rattlesnakes, the sequel to Cujo), all of them with different settings, characters, and themes, and some scarier than others.

You Like It Darker was announced in late 2023 and published in May 2024, and, unsurprisingly, it has been a hit with readers and fans of Stephen King. From snakes to mad scientists, You Like It Darker has a good mix of horror in King’s unique style, and while these stories are meant to be short and not have continuations of any type, some left so many questions that they could benefit from a follow-up. Such is the case for "The Dreamers", one of the novellas in the collection, which could become a fascinating (and terrifying) world within King’s universe.

The Dreamers Is 1 Of The Scariest Stories From You Like It Darker (But It's Perplexing)

The Dreamers Is Disturbing But Confusing

Davis saw real-life horrors during his time in Vietnam that left him “empty”.

"The Dreamers" is one of King’s stories from You Like It Darker that wasn’t published before this collection. "The Dreamers" takes readers back to 1971 to meet William Davis, a Vietnam veteran who is discharged from the military. Davis saw real-life horrors during his time in Vietnam that left him “empty”, and after staying in Skowhegan, Maine, for a while, he relocates to Portland. There, he starts working as a stenographer for a company named Temp-O, and a year later, he responds to a job ad from a self-described “Gentleman Scientist” in Castle Rock, Maine.

The scientist, Elgin, hires Davis as his assistant for an experiment he’s about to begin with which he aims to go under the wall of sleep. For that, Elgin has a long list of subjects he convinced to take part in the experiment with money, as they all needed it for different reasons. Elgin isters to each subject a hypnotic drug and tells them to stare at a photo of a red house with a green door, and once they fall asleep, they have to enter the house and try to lift the living room floor to see what’s beneath.

The final subject is a truly terrifying experience as his eyeballs turn black, swell, split, and black filaments come out of them.

The first subject’s teeth grow larger while dreaming and go back to normal before she wakes up, and reports that there’s darkness and a stench underneath the living room floor. When the fifth subject writes a message in Vietnamese that seems to be for Davis, he tries to get Elgin to stop, but he then decides to stay. The final subject is a truly terrifying experience as his eyeballs turn black, swell, split, and black filaments come out of them, staying in the room even after his body recovers, though he’s left catatonic.

After abandoning the catatonic subject far from the mansion, Davis returns to find Elgin’s head covered in those black filaments. "The Dreamers" is one of the most disturbing stories in You Like It Darker, with its clear Lovecraft inspiration and the mystery around Elgin, the experiment, and what happened to the final subject, as well as it being told through Davis’ perspective, a man said to be “empty” but who felt both horror and terror during his time with Elgin.

Stephen King Raises More Questions Than He Answers In You Like It Darker's Novella

You Like It Darker Leaves Many Loose Ends

There are no answers to the mysteries of "The Dreamers", and as it progresses, it only leaves more and more questions.

Unsurprisingly, You Like It Darker leaves more questions than answers, but at this point, that’s expected from King’s short stories and novellas. In the case of "The Dreamers", there are no answers to its mysteries, and as it progresses, it only leaves more and more questions. "The Dreamers" never explains why Elgin wants to go under the wall of sleep, why the red house with a green door is so important, what he expects to find underneath the living room floor (and if he already knows what’s there), and what the black filaments are.

It also leaves the big question of why, whatever was beneath the floor, was targeting Davis. It’s possible Elgin was looking for a veteran or Davis, but again, the reasons behind that are unknown. Surely, a large part of what makes "The Dreamers" so scary is that everything is a mystery, but that should also be a strong reason to grant it a follow-up.

Stephen King Should Really Write A Follow-Up To The Dreamers

The Dreamers Could Be Its Own World

"The Dreamers" has the potential of becoming a world of its own in which dreams are a lot more dangerous than they seem.

While many of King’s short stories and novellas have left questions and mysteries, not all of them need a follow-up – but "The Dreamers" could benefit from one. "The Dreamers" has the potential of becoming a world of its own in which dreams are a lot more dangerous than they seem, serving as a barrier to another, terrifying world. "The Dreamers" could either become a novel, thus expanding Davis and Elgin’s story and solving the mysteries left by the novella, or get a follow-up that explains Elgin’s experiments, Davis’ role in it, the black filaments, and more.

Whether Stephen King would pick up one or more of the novellas and short stories in You Like It Darker for a follow-up or expansion or not is unclear, but at the time of writing, there’s no hope for "The Dreamers" to get a continuation or for its big questions to be answered.