Great sampler of horror
subgenres (4/5)
Though a huge science fiction
fan, I do occasionally dabble in the genre of horror, but the relationship is
tetchy. It’s been my experience that most horror stories revolve around the
occult, possession, supernatural or any combination of the three; these stories
aren’t the least bit frightening. There is a certain flavor of horror fiction
which tickles my sense of horror and now I know this type of fiction is called
body horror, which is a more directly physical horror than the nebulous dark
demons haunting the souls of deserving victims. Two lesser known body horror
books I’ve read are Jeffrey Thomas’ Punktown (2000) and Jeremy Robert
Johnson’s Angel Dust Apocalypse (2005).
Thankfully, Skeleton Crew has
a few body horror stories which satisfied my need. Also, this collection separates
itself from Night
Shift (1978) as it doesn’t have as many stories featuring randomly
possessed objects which kill unwary victims. That got kind of boring in
retrospect. While King isn’t my favorite author, I don’t have much choice or
experience to say otherwise in the genre of horror… but Dan Simmons’ The Terror
(2007) and Hyperion (1989) still haunt me.
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The Mist (1980, novella) – 4/5 – David, his
wife Steff and their son Billy take shelter in their home when a freak storm
rolls across the lake leaving trees uprooted and a thick, opaque mist settled
over the water. David, Billy and their tetchy neighbor Norton go to Federal
Foods in town to buy supplies only to become overwhelmed by the mist and
in the middle of a murderous, tentacled fog from the nearby Arrowhead Project.
130 pages
Here There Be Tygers (1968,
shortstory) – 3/5 – Miss Bird, the third-grade teacher, has it out for Charles
and he’s always known it. Even something as simple as going to the bathroom can
stress poor Charles . his need to urinate, as Miss Bid calls it, impels him to
sheepishly pass the eyes of all the other students and walk to the boys’ room,
where a crouching tiger awaits him. Stepping out again and accessing the
situation, another boy comes to check his reason. 5 pages
The Monkey (1980, novelette) –
3/5 – One of Hal’s sons discovers a nappy-haired monkey doll with crashing
cymbals in the attic. This causes Hal great alarm as he remembers throwing it
down a well twenty years ago after a series of deaths related to the monkey’s
jang-jang-jang. It keeps coming up in his life after finding it in his own
father’s belongings. Now, the monkey makes its unexpected ominous appearance.
38 pages
Cain Rose Up (1968, shortstory)
– 4/5 – Garrish returns to his university boarding house after a difficult
exam, which he probably aced to maintain his 4.0 GPA but shares in his friend’s
opinion of its difficulty. His friends are leaving for the summer and his only
companion in the room is a .352 rifle loaned from the university. Cleaning and
assembling the rifle, Garrish recants the biblical tale of Cain and Abel, then
takes aim and fires at a girls’ dorm. 7 pages
Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut (1984,
novelette) – 4/5 – Homer recalls his strange experiences with the eccentric
out-of-towner Mrs. Todd. Though compassionate and social, she has one quirk
which both annoys and piques old Homer. Mrs. Todd pines for a shorter route
between Castle Lake and Bangor—normally 156.4 miles. Through her trials and
errors in her Mercedes, she hits 129.2 miles, then 116.4 miles, just short of
79 miles as the crow flies… until… 26 pages
The Jaunt (1981, novelette) –
5/5 – Prior to jaunting his wife and two children to Mars, Mark recants the
part-tale and –myth of the invention of the jaunt. In 1987, the Jaunt was
funded by the US government and the sole researcher was Victor Carune. In is
farm, his accidental experiment transports two of his fingers across the barn,
followed by mice which come out stunned, then die. The curious children urge on
the morbid conclusion of the story. 26 pages
The Wedding Gig (1980,
shortstory) – 4/5 – Mike Scollay, a true-born Irish-American and serious liquor
smuggler, hires a jazz band to play for his sister’s wedding. Their high rate
fo pay for 1027 is clue to the increased likelihood of gang violence as the
ceremony. Also dangerous is Scollay’s sensitivity about his sister’s massive
weight, ugly looks and engagement to the scrawny Italian groom. To fume the
Irish gangster, a Greek messenger arrives. 16 pages
Paranoid: A Chant (1985, poem)
– 4/5 – Perched in his apartment, a paranoid man silently peers outside his
window and in all facets of life at the creeping intrusion into his life:
agent’s outside, agents across the street, agents crawling all the way to his
toilet. The man envisions intrusions and remains delusions regardless of their
physical lack of physical infiltration to his abode. His thoughts reflect his
monotonous and delusion existence. 4 pages
The Raft (1982, novelette) –
4/5 – The dawn of adulthood at the dusk of summer is an intoxicating allure for
nostalgic dalliances. Deke’s brutish impulsiveness leads a group of four,
including his brainy roommate Randy, out to a lake where a pontoon sits at the
center. Their initial bravado for the swim turns into horror when a blob
dissolves one of the swimmers, leaving the rest facing death by blob or death
by cold. 29 pages
Word Processor of the Gods
(1983, shortstory) – 5/5 – His dead brother was an alcoholic, wife-beating
jerk, but he had a beautiful wife and a genius son. Just two weeks after his
brother’s death, his nephew gives him a birthday gift of his own creations: a
mongrel of a computer, part IBM, Erector set and Liol train transformers. At
first use, the word processor literally processes his typed word and the
deletion thereof. First a picture appears, then gold bullion. What else foes he
deserve? 19 pages
The Man Who Would Not Shake
Hands (1981, shortstory) – 4/5 – A rich elderly man tells a tale of a poker
game which happened in 1919. A man who had recently returned from India decides
to join the game but makes it absolutely clear that he cannot touch another
person. The pot of the last hand of the night soars hundreds of dollars and the
same solitary man wins big but the belligerence of another player perverts his
taboo. The money may be lost, but the story is not. 17 pages
Beachworld (1984, shortstory) –
3/5 – The entire ship and one crew member are totally pulverized; the remaining
two crew are left deserted on a planet covered with dunes, after dunes, after
dunes without water or greenery. Shapiro observes Rand slip into a hypnotic
fixation for the planet while he attempt to beacon for rescue. When it does
come, Shapiro is quick to push the lift off as he’s leery of the planet. 18
pages
The Reaper’s Image (1969,
shortstory) – 4/5 – In an ancient house full of worthless wonders rest a few
priceless artifacts, including a rare DeIver mirror which Mr. Carlin is
cautious to show and which Mr. Spangler is eager to inspect. The objective
history of the mirror interests him most as he examines the authenticity of the
piece but his unconcerned for the subjective myths of its reported viewers’
disappearances… until he looks just a little closer. 8 pages
Nona (1978, novelette) – 4/5 –
Childhood memory of rats in the cellar and lost opportunity for reciprocated
love cascades into a tumultuous, prolonged affair with deep love-stricken
longings for black-haired women with abrupt endings. One his sentences for
life, the young man recollects his criminal-themed affair with Nona, a girl who
stole his heart, started his murder spree and disappeared from his life. 39
pages
For Owen (1985, poem) – 3/5 – A
school on Fruit Street spawns the imagination of a child into a plethora of
categories for children in the same school based on characteristics of common
fruit characteristics: small blueberries, fat watermelons, and the grouping
nature of bananas. However, there are times when fruits act like other fruits,
yet the subterfuge is both a façade and a unnatural perversity. 2 pages
Survivor Type (1982,
shortstory) – 5/5 – Scorned during much of his childhood and university career,
a young doctor exploits his Irish heritage during his doctor residency and
later life as a surgeon. When his dollar doesn’t carry itself for enough into
investments, he turns to importing heroin. This is the very same drug he is
left with on a deserted island where his smuggling ship crashes and he’s left
with very little to eat. 20 pages
Uncle Otto’s Truck (1983,
shortstory) – 2/5 – A series of business ventures between Otto, born way back
in 1905, and his financial partner Mr. McCutcheon ends in a huge tract of land
around Castle Viewm a red Cresswell truck and a sour division between opinions
of a business idea. Seventy years later, Otto’s involvement with his partner’s
death under the same truck spurs controversy in the same town, which haunts
Quinten’s whole adulthood. 17 pages
Morning Deliveries (1985,
shortstory) – 4/5 – Spike’s morning delivery of dairy products starts with his
standard list: milk, cream, yogurt, cyanide gas, nightshade, and a tarantula.
Some deliveries are exact according to the household’s list, but other houses
are dealt deadly surprises. His route ends with a sense of expectation for
drinking with his friend Rocky and an expected conclusion to his services—a
home with a blood splotch. 5 pages
Big Wheels: A Tale of the
Laundry Game (1980, shortstory) – 4/5 – With only hours left of validation on
Rocky’s car, he and Leo get absolutely hammered on Iron City beer while
enjoying an evening cruise. Hopelessly decrepit, Rocky has no chance at passing
another inspection until he see an old high school friend with a car shop.
Soon, with stories swapped and backslaps given, the friend gets wasted on beer.
Meanwhile, Rocky simmers with hatred for the milkman who slept with his wife.
15 pages
Gramma (1984, novelette) – 4/5
– When George was five years old, he was scared of the white, fleshy sack he
called a grandmother; he cried when she wanted to hug him. Now twelve years of
age, George’s brother is in the hospital and his mother is by his side, leaving
George alone at home with the grandmother in progressively poorer health.
Steeling himself against fear, he checks on her room and finds her dead, but
her mysterious past haunts him still. 31 pages
The Ballad of the Flexible
Bullet (1984, novella) – 5/5 – A rising writer and his wife, his agent and his
wife, and a long recovering alcoholic editor dabble in the macabre topic of
writer suicides. The skittish author’s wife doesn’t withhold the editor’s
bizarre tale of Reg Thorpe. After Reg’s initial success, he and his own wife
withdrew to Kansas and, due to his growing strange behavior, cut off their
electricity. Even more bizarre, the editor adopted Reg’s fantasy of having
fairies in the typewriter. 51 pages
The Reach (1981, shortstory) –
4/5 – Off the New England coast sits an island—simple, unremarkable, yet home
to all things for Stella, an elderly lady who’s never left the island. Having
experienced dreadful winters, the funeral of her husband and the uproar caused
by a perverted outsider, Stella had had no wish to cross the Reach, the water
between her island and the mainland. With frail health and inviting mummers of
welcome for her dead husband, he considers crossing. 21 pages
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