"I Know What You Need" is a short story written by Stephen King. The story was originally published in the September 1976 issue of Cosmopolitan, and was later included in King's own 1978 collection Night Shift.
Plot Summary[]
Told from the perspective of a popular, college-age girl named Elizabeth Rogan, the premise of this story concerns her sudden, unexpected attraction to a social outcast named Ed Hamner, Jr.. When Elizabeth is in danger of getting her scholarship revoked, Hamner provides her with the answers to the final exam of the class she was struggling in: sociology. He claims that he was enrolled in the class the prior semester and the professor has earned a reputation for reusing tests. Hamner's first ingratiation to Elizabeth was when she was cramming and he claims she is overworking herself, and should take a break where he offers to buy her a strawberry ice cream cone, which is what she had begun to think about. Elizabeth later takes the test and aces it, realizing Ed's answer key was spot on. However, Elizabeth breaks the news to Ed that she has a boyfriend. The summer afterwards proves to be tough for Elizabeth, as her summer job at a seaside resort proves unprofitable due to the 1973 oil crisis causing tourism to grind to a near halt. Even worse, her boyfriend Tony, a construction worker, wants to get married and pushes for Elizabeth to drop out of college. One night, Elizabeth has a nightmare about Tony demanding Elizabeth marry him or else, "else" being him about to crush her with an bulldozer. She is saved by a werewolf who kills Tony, which then turns into Ed Hamner. Elizabeth awakens from the dream feeling uneasy.
Elizabeth's roommate, suspicious of Ed from the start, does research on him and realizes through background checks that he attended the same elementary school as did Elizabeth, and that his low-paying job at a theatre cannot pay for a sports car he owns, and warns Elizabeth, thus breaking her fascination with Ed and prompting her to investigate herself. It is revealed through the course of the tale that he has been secretly craving Elizabeth's love since childhood, and has employed a variety of black magic rituals and charms to murder her aggressive boyfriend and manipulate her emotions.