Willie the Weirdo

Willie Fiedler is a 10-year-old boy who is regarded as "weird" by his parents, his sister, and his fellow students due to his unusual habits such as collecting dead insects, staring at clouds, and trapping fireflies in a jar to watch them die.

Willie is fascinated by James' morbid and seemingly unlikely stories about his past experiences, including witnessing a young flag-bearer be shot in the throat on Cemetery Hill while fighting for the Army of Northern Virginia in the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War.

Adams suggested that "Willie the Weirdo" "harken[s] back to the unflinching horror of [King's] earlier career" and is "admittedly fascinating in [its] sheer nastiness and cruelty" but "lack[s] the emotional punch of the collection's longer tales".

[7] Writing for Paste, Matthew Jackson stated that "Willie the Weirdo" "focuses, through the eyes of one very strange child, on the darkness of mortality and a pure confrontation with impending death".

[10] A less positive review was received by Stefano Ferri (writing for Corriere della Sera), who described "Willie the Weirdo" as "the outline of an unfinished novel [which] resolves nothing and dissolves in an insipid ending".