Help me name that anthology of horror stories!

December 1, 2007 3:08 PM

It's time for another round of "Name That Book!" Looking for the title of a compilation of horror stories from the 1980s or 1990s.

This is what I remember:

I read it when I was somewhere between the ages of 11 and 13 (I think; I was a precocious reader, so it could have been earlier), which means it was published by 1998 at the absolute latest. Since the copy I read was fairly old when I read it, I'd guess that more realistically it came out between 1980 and 1995.

I remember several stories: one was about a neverending traffic jam as a metaphor for hell; another was about a man who lived alone and whose apartment was infested by cockroaches; and another was about a man who used a hammer to smash the hands of the old teacher who had hit him with a ruler when he was a child. I think Stephen King wrote at least one of these three stories, or another one of the ones that appeared in the book, but I could be wrong about that.

posted by bijou to writing & language (7 comments total)

It's the Arbor House Treasury of Horror and the Supernatural (pub 1981). I have the tattered copy on my shelves. The stories you describe are:

"The Jam" by Henry Slesar
"The Roaches" by Thomas M. Disch
"A Teacher's Rewards" by Robert Phillips
"The Crate" by Stephen King (plus into by him)
posted by Addlepated at 3:59 PM on December 1, 2007 [2 favorites]

Er, that's "intro," not "into."
posted by Addlepated at 4:00 PM on December 1, 2007

Thanks, and unbelievably quick, too!

Now off to see if the library has it.
posted by bijou at 4:04 PM on December 1, 2007

Or you could run to the videostore. "The Roaches" and "The Crate" appeared in Creepshow.
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:02 PM on December 1, 2007

The roach story from Creepshow was written by Stephen King and titled "They're Creeping Up On You." It has a different premise from "The Roaches," which is actually about a lonely young woman in NYC. Both are pretty oogy, tnough.
posted by Addlepated at 5:09 PM on December 1, 2007

I had this too. It was purple. Did it have "The Mist" in it?
posted by librarina at 12:27 AM on December 2, 2007

The only SK story mine has is "The Crate." There are also stories from the grandmasters, like Poe, Bierce, and Faulkner. It's really an excellent anthology. I need to read it again.
posted by Addlepated at 2:08 PM on December 2, 2007