nightmares and dreamscapes from the stories of stephen king

'Battleground' was converted to a teleplay by Richard Christian Matheson for the television series Nightmares & Dreamscapes. Outside in a park below, a couple finds Renshaw's bloody T-shirt, and the other contents of the footlocker are revealed, including one made-to-scale thermonuclear weapon. Renshaw eventually plots to destroy the soldiers with a Molotov cocktail constructed from a bottle of lighter fluid, but before the cocktail detonates, a massive blast destroys the entire apartment. The soldiers pass a piece of paper under the door, demanding his surrender, but Renshaw writes 'NUTS!' on the paper and sends it back, prompting a barrage of rocket fire which destroys most of the door. Despite his training and experience as a hitman, Renshaw finds himself outnumbered and outgunned, and he cedes control of the living room to the toy soldiers, taking cover in the bathroom.

To Renshaw's surprise, the tiny soldiers begin to attack him. When he opens the package, he finds that the toy soldiers are alive with working copies (albeit miniature) of weapons, jeeps, and helicopters. Joe Vietnam Footlocker, sent to him by the mother of the toy-maker he had recently killed. Renshaw is a professional hit-man, who returns from his assassination of a toy-maker to find a package delivered to his penthouse apartment.

'Battleground' is a fantasy short story by American writer Stephen King, first published in the September 1972 issue of Cavalier magazine, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift.

Nightmares and dreamscapes from the stories of stephen king