Amerikanski dead at the Moscow morgue / Kim Newman --
The ruins of contracoeur / Joyce Carol Oates --
The owl and the pussycat / Thomas M. Disch --
The road virus heads north / Stephen King --
Keepsakes and treasures: a love story / Neil Gaiman --
Growing things / T.E.D. Klein --
Good Friday / F. Paul Wilson --
Excerpts from the records of the New Zodiac and the diaries of Henry Watson Fairfax / Chet Williamson --
An exaltation of termagants / Eric Von Lustbader --
Itinerary / Tim Powers --
Catfish gal blues / Nancy A. Collins --
The entertainment / Ramsey Campbell --
ICU / Edward Lee --
The shadow, the darkness / Thomas Ligotti --
Rio Grande Gothic / David Morrell --
Des Saucisses, Sans doute / Peter Schneider --
Angie / Ed Gorman --
The ropy thing / Al Sarrantonio --
The tree is my hat / Gene Wolfe --
Styx and bones / Edward Bryant --
Hemophage / Steven Spurill --
The book of irrational numbers / Michael Marshall Smith --
Mad dog summer / Joe R. Lansdale --
The Theater / Bentley Little --
Rehearsals / Thomas F. Monteleone --
Darkness / Dennis L. McKiernan --
Elsewhere / William Peter Blatty
This one was a major influence on me when I first started reading 'grown-up' horror. I'll do a deeper dive later, but in terms of winners and losers:
Winners: Newman, Oates, Campbell (my favorite story of his), Lansdale (this one turned into a critically acclaimed novel), King (one of his best 'later period' stories although King is well on his third or fourth 'late period' by now), Lee, Little, McKiernan (one of the first stories I ever wrote was a conscious attempt to imitate this story but as an epistolary one. . .it didn't go so well)
Losers: Sarrantonio, Schneider, Monteleone (not bad but way too mawkish as he often is), Hautala (like everything the man ever wrote, starts off promisingly and goes to hell by the end)
