Stephen King is the author of some 40 terrifying novels, plus more than 100 short stories, novellas, screenplays, poems, essays, columns and nonfiction books.

But in the epilogue to his latest book, King says he still doesn't really understand the act of writing. Sometimes, he sees the words in front of him before he writes them – every dot, every comma.

"I don’t even understand why people need stories or why I – among many others – feel the need to write them. All I know is that the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind and bonding with people who don’t exist seems to be a part of almost every life," he says.

He does it.

King, now 76, may be mystified, but he is not tired of writing.

"You Like It Darker," his newest work, came out in May. It's a diverse collection of 12 totally different stories and genres, united by his specialty: horror.

As King puts it in an epilogue, "You like it darker? Fine, so do I."

Take the story of school caretaker Danny Coughlin, an upright, working-class man who lives in a caravan park and leads a rather unspectacular life – until a flash of supernatural intuition one night.

A dream leads him to an abandoned petrol station, where Danny discovers a buried corpse. Even after he wakes up, the dream won't let him go. Danny discovers that the abandoned petrol station really exists – as does the woman's body.

When he tells the police, he becomes a suspect in the crime. Obsessive police inspector Jalbert is convinced, even obsessed, with the idea that he is the murderer. In the subsequent battle for the truth, Danny loses everything he holds dear in a tale about morality, faith and doing the right thing.

Then there's "Rattlesnakes." King says he came up with the idea on a morning walk when he spotted two green plastic figures with red caps at the side of the road, along with the warning: "Slow down! Children playing." In his story, widower Vic Trenton spends a summer on an island off Florida for a holiday and to house-sit in a luxury villa.

While walking, he meets his neighbor, who always pushes an empty twin buggy in front of her and talks to her long-dead sons.

Vic soon makes the acquaintance of the two boys, too. We also meet one of King's older characters in a small guest appearance in the story: Cujo, the bloodthirsty Beast-Bernard, briefly reappears.

King's stories are about modern America, dark forces and aging heroes. They are about good aliens who can be kneaded like dough when things go badly for them and about bad aliens who slip into the bodies of wives to pick on their husbands but who actually want to wipe out humanity.

We hear about experts in aerodynamics and turbulence who prevent airplane crashes with their own fear of death and about widowers who spend their twilight years caught between small dogs and large crocodiles.

King's productivity is remarkable, even at 76. He himself says he never planned to be so productive. In his epilogue, he also confesses that he was rarely truly satisfied with any of his works. He writes about "the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind."

King plays with expertise along the full range of our fears, from monsters to death, aliens, and the fear of flying.

His style is as ever unmistakable. For fans, King's works are like cheeseburgers from your favorite fast food chain. You may know what you are getting, but you are never disappointed.

Even if King himself doesn't know exactly why people enjoy reading his horror stories so much, one thing he knows is that our imaginations are hungry and need to be fed.