Everything's Eventual: 5 Dark Tales.

Stephen King. 2002. Read by Boyd Gaines, Judith Ivey, Justin Long, Oliver Platt, Jay Sanders. 6 tapes. 7.5 hrs. Simon & Schuster Audio. 0-7435-2588-4. $35.00. Cardboard, plastic; content notes. SA *

This package contains five of the 14 "dark tales" from the book of the same name. Each story illustrates King's ability to draw out and play upon some of our deepest fears. Consider the following: In the story from which the book gets its title, you meet Dinky Earnshaw, a 19-year-old pizza delivery boy. Dinky makes a deal with a mysterious stranger. In exchange for a lifetime of modest security, he makes liberal use of a deadly talent ... until he wants out. But is there an escape clause? Long sounds perfectly 19ish and reads like the story was written for him. "Autopsy Room Four" finds Howard Cottrell lying on the autopsy table, waiting to be dissected. He can smell, he can hear, he can see and he can feel, but he can't speak or move. Platt reads this with the gut-panic feeling of somebody dying to communicate. Gaines, ever the consummate professional, reads "The Little Sisters of Eluria," from the Dark Tower series. Are the sisters life-saving nuns or quite the opposite? Ivy reads "Lucky Quarter," treating the listener to a story about fate and fantasy and a "lucky" quarter that's left as a tip for a chambermaid in a casino. Sanders reads "The Road Virus Heads North," about a frightening painting that keeps changing, eventually seeking out the man who bought it at a yard sale. Miles Klein, Frisco, TX