You won’t get far into reading Stephen King’s novels without realizing there’s a common thread. And that thread’s…between all the novels. No big deal, right?

“All of the books kind of relate to other ones,” said King from a 2013 interview. “I guess it’s sort of like Stephen King World, the malevolent version of Disney World, where everything fits together.”

Malevolent Disney? We’re interested. The novels are all set in the same universe, which gives them layers and layers to peel back. We’re not talking just one or two novels here, either. Stephen King has written over 90 novels. That’s a lot of connections. And that’s a lot of Easter eggs. The Shining. It. Dark Tower. The list goes on.

The Dark Tower series seems to be the universal connection that many of the stories weave back to. “I have written enough novels and short stories to fill a solar system of the imagination, but [Wizard and Glass protagonist] Roland’s story is my Jupiter — a planet that dwarfs all the others,” King says in the afterword to Wizard and Glass, the fourth instalment in the series. Bridgton, Maine, is the real-life setting for Dark Tower and many other stories and novels, another theme that plays throughout King’s work.

With many of King’s novels being made into films and on screen adaptations, the web is woven even deeper. There’s an endless amount of connections, just waiting to draw you into the complexities of the universe.

15. Harry Potter

If it wasn’t enough that the Stephen King universe links intrinsically back to itself on the regular, King also constantly references other literary worlds. Mash-ups, anyone?

In Wolves of the Calla, the main character, Roland, and his group battle against the Wolves. The Wolves aren’t actually wolves, but actually a group of mechanized, kidnapping super villains. Their weapon of choice? Sneetches. Sounds familiar yet? They’re tiny, golden devices that zoom around and explode on contact. So yes, it’s safe to assume that these are an homage to the golden snitch.

If that doesn’t convince you, then consider the fact that when one of the weapons is examined, the serial number reads: 465-11-AA HPJKR. Yeah, that’s probably not a coincidence. In case you need a little more deciphering – Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling. And when the numbers are summed together, including the “A’s” as the number one, they add up to nineteen, a number which appears frequently throughout King’s body of work.

14. The Clown

The recent 2017 adaptation of Dark Tower is scattered with references and Easter eggs galore – you just have to know where to look. Jake Chambers is depicted here wandering the ruins of a creepy place – unsurprising, as King seems to favor the creepy. The place is mid-world, one of the many levels of the Dark Tower, and the only area from which it’s possible to enter the Tower.

It’s not difficult to decipher what he’s stumbled upon. In the ruins, the word “Pennywise” appears as an old, dilapidated sign. Yeah, that’s who we think it is. The evil from the novel It, referencing Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Pennywise is the most common shape that the evil takes on, and he does indeed take it on in the form of a malevolent clown. Just to make things all the more unnerving, a clown hand is depicted holding three balloons. Cool. Moving on.

13. Turtles

Leave it to Stephen King to make turtles creepy. Or, into giant cosmic space turtles with powers to create universes. Yeah. In the books, Mataurin appears and gives the kids the answers on how to defeat the clown. He is referenced in the movie, but in sly, Easter egg-like ways. Only the most well-read fans would be able to catch the references.

“I was never too crazy about the mythology, but it is mentioned, and the turtle appears, as a Lego. It’s a Lego turtle. It’s a presence that’s there in the key moments of the story. Especially when—there’s a moment where they’re all together—well, you’ll see in the movie. I won’t spoil it for you,” say It director Andy Muschietti.

Mataurin also appears in the Dark Tower series as a guardian of the universe.

12. The Shining

It wouldn’t be a classic Stephen King novel or movie without references to other of his works galore. And The Shining doesn’t disappoint. Danny Torrance is a fictional character in The Shining. Jake Chambers, as mentioned, is a fictional character in the Dark Tower series. So these two characters come from completely different books. Except when a Stephen King book is involved.

These characters are actually “twinners” and are essentially two different versions of the same character, living out their storylines in different novels. In the novel Doctor Sleep, Danny says “there are other worlds than these.” This is a fitting line, considering the trend of Easter eggs throughout the books. Adding to the convolution, this is Jake’s famous tagline from Dark Tower. Even the characters within the books are aware that their worlds are crossed with others. Talk about meta.

11. The Car

The highly successful It remake has chock-full of Easter eggs, referencing both its book counterpart and other Stephen King novels. Would it be a tribute to King if it wasn’t?

In the scene before the gang heads to look at the Derry sewer map, Eddie Kasprak is seen wearing a shirt that depicts a car with pointy teeth. Maybe not something to think twice about, considering the array of graphic design out there. But everything’s something to think twice about when it comes to the King universe.

If you’ve read the novel Christine, this might seem a little more familiar to you. Christine – the name of the car – doesn’t necessarily have pointy teeth, but she does in fact become possessed and murderous. That might derail the Kelly Blue Book value. Not even the cars in King’s world can be trusted.

10. Paul Bunyan

Everyone knows the story of Paul Bunyan. But everyone might not know how that story plays into the It novel and the It movie. The statue of Paul Bunyan is actually a very real one in Bangor, Maine. In the book, this statue comes to life and chases Richie, one of the members of the Loser’s Club, down the street.

This scene doesn’t take place in the remake of the movie, but the statue is in fact featured if you look very closely. At one point, the Club convenes together – and it happens to be under the statue of Paul Bunyan. Readers were waiting for a scare that never came, but will forever live on as an Easter egg in the movie. The statue was erected just for filming in Port Hope in Southern Ontario, which was made to look like the true setting of Maine.

9. Come Play With Us

Director Nikolaj Arcel strikes again in Dark Tower. One of the very first shots of the film points out an obvious reference to The Shining. The two girls featured in the shot look eerily familiar, and for good reason. They’re supposed to allude to the Grady Twins, shown in similar dress to their Shining counterparts. If the Easter egg wasn’t obvious enough, Arcel decided to seal the deal when they ask “Come play with us.” The iconic line has played throughout movies, televisions shows, and pop culture references ever since, showing how King’s world has engrained its way deeply into our own. Maybe when we think about it, everything has a way of intertwining together.

“[It’s] an extremely complex mythology – extremely complex sort of way of telling the story of almost changing the genre for every book. And so it’s not one thing, it’s 50 things. So many characters, so many ideas, so many plots, so many things you’ve got to remember from book one to be able to follow book five,” says Arcel of the adaptation.

8. Misery

The trend of abundant Easter eggs continues for Dark Tower, which makes sense since King describes it as his central novel. In the movie, sly references are made to other Stephen King movies and novels. This includes the reference to Misery, which appears briefly in a scene with The Man In Black.

Misery’s Child is a copy of the book that James Caan wrote in the 1990 film and novel Misery. A woman, Kathy Bates, kidnaps the author so that he can write novels for her. Her obsession with him heightens as the story progresses. Not a surprising twist, things don’t turn out too well for either of these two characters. The brief mention in Dark Tower is just another Easter egg in the overwhelming amount present in the King universe.

7. Overlook Hotel

Dark Tower didn’t stop with just a few references to The Shining. No, it’s full of plenty. One of those that’s easier to miss than the others is the homage to the Overlook Hotel. The photo, pictured here, sits on a shelf in the office of Jake’s therapist. Why does Jake’s therapist have a picture of the hotel? No one knows.

The hotel is the location in the movie where Jack Torrance stays, and eventually begins to lose his mind. Just the kind of place a therapist should love to take his vacations, right? In The Shining, the hotel was destroyed. The Overlook Hotel was actually a real location, sitting in the Rocky Mountains. It had a long history of suicides and gang activity. Which, perhaps, made it the perfect inspiration for the setting of a horror movie.

6. Shawshank Redemption

Again, the Easter eggs inside the King universe don’t simply stay self contained, because that would make things too simple. No, they also allude to other works of fiction – Shawshank Redemption being one. You have to keep your eyes totally peeled for this one. In the film Dark Tower, the main character Rolan Deschain stumbles across a door with a poster on it. It pictures actress Rita Hayworth.

This is the same poster, in fact, that hung in the cell of Andy Dufresne’s cell in the 1994 movie Shawshank Redemption. King wrote the novel in 1982, and like with a vast number of his other novels, it was made into a successful movie. The poster in question wasn’t just hung up for aesthetic purposes, although Dufresne was definitely a fan of it. Dufresne was using it to cover up the escape tunnel he had spent years digging to get out of prison.

5. Hello There

Mr. Mercedes is a more recent novel by Stephen King, written in 2014. If Christine taught us anything, it’s that anything to do with cars in the King universe shouldn’t be trusted. Or, actually, that nothing can be trusted at all. And just like many other before it, it’s being given its own on screen adaptation.

The book was inspired by the true event of a woman driving her car into a McDonald’s. In the book, a Mercedes runs into a crowd of people at a job fair. It then follows the plot of a retired detective as a serial killer antagonizes him. So how does this play into the Easter egg realm? The killer’s calling card is the words “hello there” followed by a smiley face. In Dark Tower, the Man in Black uses it after killing Jake’s mother.

4. 1408

1408 is a short story by Stephen King. In the short story, 1408 is the hotel room the the protagonist, writer Mike Enslin, stays to do research for his book Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Hotel Rooms. And, yep you guessed it, the hotel room is haunted. Without adding any spoilers, let’s just say Enslin has to sleep with the lights on after his experience there. The shorts story was adapted into a film in 2007 starring Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack.

In the movie Dark Tower, 1408 pops up unexpectedly – or, expectedly, considering you should be waiting for Easter eggs at this point. Roland and Jake, the two main characters, need to get back to Earth. They take a portal, marked by a number. Have you guessed the number by now? You’re one smart cookie – 1408.

3. Cujo

In one of the scenes in Dark Tower, there’s a simple shot of New York City. What could be menacing about that? As we have well learned, there’s potential in everything. It passes by quickly, but it’s unmistakable. A St. Bernard passes by as clear as day.

It’s possible that this is just any ordinary St. Bernard – it’s not inconceivable that that breed of dog could appear in the trailer. Yet it’s still not likely a coincidence. The 1981 novel Cujo follows the story of a St. Bernard who goes rabid, and ends up trapping a son and a mother in their car. Spoiler alert: Cujo dies in the novel, and the family gets a new puppy that hopefully won’t transform into a crazy killer dog. But Cujo lives on in Easter egg nods in other films.

2. Children Of The Corn

In the Dark Tower, Jake runs into a corn field to seek shelter after an attack on a nearby village by the Man in Black. This seems inconsequential enough – children running from menacing figures and hiding in corn fields. Nothing out of the ordinary. For a Stephen King adaptation.

Except for the fact that in 1977, King wrote a short story called Children of the Corn, which was also made into a movie in 1984. The imagery of the corn in Dark Tower is undoubtedly a nod to the film and the story. In the story, the children in the town are involved in a cult in an isolated town which has, surprise surprise, corn fields. Talk about the world’s worst corn maze. At least we already knew that corn mazes weren’t safe.

1. The Number 19

We mentioned the number nineteen appearing in Stephen King works before, but the number of times that King weaves the number through his universe is impressive. An overwhelming amount of names contain nineteen letters: Claudia y Inez Bachman, Dennis Edward Hazlett, Ted Stevens Brautigan. Jim Rennie from Under the Dome is assigned to room number nineteen at Catherine Russell’s Hospital. “A rose is a rose is a rose,” also contains nineteen letters – the Rose in the Dark Tower is another version of reality. Aidan Appleton has a Shawshank Prison work shirt with his prisoner numbers on them, which are 9091. And the sum of 9 + 0 + 9 + 1 is 19. While some of these things may be pure coincidence, considering the level of thought that goes into each of King’s novels, it’s also safe to assume that they may indeed be very deliberate inclusions.