Well, when it comes to the countdown this week I definitely did not deliver a short story every day. But I do have a few short stories by Stephen King that I can share with you this weekend.

The stories I am sharing today are from The Bazaar of Bad Dreams which is a great collection of stories ranging from heartfelt to creeptastic to downright scary. I would definitely recommend this book to anybody looking for a variety of short stories.

Without further ado, the short stories from this week:

That Bus is Another World

That Bus is Another World is a truly twisted and unexpected story.

Stephen King starts out each of his short stories in this collection with a short reflection. The snippet and inspiration behind this story is probably what sums up the story the most. He was sitting in an SUV on his way to an event and saw a woman in the bus next to him. For a moment, they caught eyes. King wanted to be on that bus on his way home and that inspired this.

As he writes this story, it isn’t just a mindless desire to be in the bus next to you, living a different life. It takes a sinister turn that is very alarming.

The first time I read this story, I was chilled. It literally scared me!! Go read this so it can scare you too. 👻

Cookie Jar

Cookie Jar wasn’t scary… it was more fantastical realism. But it was still a great story and one I would recommend to you!

It is about a young boy that went to interview his Grandfather for a school paper. The story he got is definitely not what he expected.

He learns about his Great Grandmother and her obsession with this other world — at the time it was thought to just be a coping mechanism and enjoyable talk for her children — and the cookies in the cookie jar.

Summer Thunder

Summer Thunder is a very quick to read short story. It is about a lonely man who is existing as radiation fuels the ending of the world. He has a dog, Gandalf, and a neighbor he visits occasionally, but he misses his wife and daughter who never made it back home. It was scary (probably because of the craziness of our world so far) and SO sad. There was lots of painful imagery in this short story.

Definitely read this with caution as there is a lot of death and despair in just a few short pages.

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Bonus Review!

I wanted to share another review for my blog readers that I didn’t share on Instagram this week. This is Obits from The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. This is a bit of a longer story ~ about 60 pages in my edition.

Obits is the story of a man, Michael Anderson, as he recounts his short career as an obituary writer. He goes to work for a cryptic magazine where he writes racy obits for dead celebrities (morbid, I know). In a bout of anger, he writes an obituary for his still living boss… from there, things start to get really weird.

I really enjoyed this story even though it was a bit cryptic! It was longer but still read quickly, just like short stories should.

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Coming up next week in the #SpookyShortStoryCountdown to Halloween, I will be reading short stories from a collection by Edgar Allen Poe.

I haven’t really read much of Poe (honestly can’t recall any that I have read) so I am curious to see what makes this author great!

Happy reading.