Battleground (short story)

"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.

Plot summary

Renshaw is a professional hit-man, who returns from his assassination of a toy-maker to find a package delivered to his penthouse apartment in the Bay Area. The package contains a G.I. Joe Vietnam footlocker, sent to him by the mother of the toy-maker he had recently killed. When he opens the package, he finds that the toy soldiers are alive with working copies (albeit miniature) of weapons, jeeps, and helicopters. To Renshaw's surprise, the tiny soldiers begin to attack him. 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. As the soldiers establish a base camp on his dining table, they unveil more and more military hardware, ranging from shoulder-launched rockets to military attack helicopters. 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.

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. Outside in a park below, a couple finds Renshaw's bloody shirt, and the other contents of the footlocker are revealed, including one made-to-scale thermonuclear weapon.