Death
ed Stuart David Schiff
1982, Playboy Paperbacks
Two Bottles of Relish by Lord Dunsany (orig Time & Tide, Nov 12, 1932)
A variation on a locked door mystery - a body disposal without leaving the house mystery. This one stayed with me since childhood, though the premise wasn't as locked in as it could be.
Deathtracks by Dennis Etchison
A Nielson family survey taker visits a couple who look for hidden messages in TV laugh tracks to explain why their son died in Vietnam.
Always Together by Hugh B. Cave
One elderly twin murders the other and keeps up a ruse that she's still alive. A good setup for a twist in the tale which never happens.
Toilet Paper Run by Juleen Brantingham
Engaging story set in a girls' reform school, but the ending felt tacked on to fit the genre.
The Green Parrot by Joseph Payne Brennan (orig Weird Tales, July 1952)
Another boring entry in the "that person you thought was alive turns out was already dead" style of ghost story.
Fragment from a Charred Diary by Davis Grubb
Comedy piece about a man using a voodoo doll to commit the political assassinations of the 1960s, escalating from there.
The Scarf by Bernice Balfour
A disfigured woman concealing her face with a scarf and a curious newspaper delivery boy.
Sentences by Richard Christian Matheson
Comedy twist in the tale about a man getting his life rewritten.
Prickly by David A. Riley
A child corrupting Satanist with a monkey familiar kills himself in a British tenement building. Years later, strange creatures scuttle the halls, and children sing nursery rhymes about Prickly.
The Kennel by Maurice Level (orig Tales of Mystery and Horror, 1920)
A cuckold husband finds the body of his wife's lover and disposes of it.
Onawa by Alan Ryan
An adoptive native girl with a taste for blood
A Telephone Booth by Wade Kenny
A gambler can get tips from the future from a pay phone.
Straw Goat by Ken Wiseman
Folk horror with murderous farmers and a sacrificial straw goat.
Horrible Imaginings by Fritz Leiber
Long piece about a creep being obsessed with his neighbor, which I skipped.
The Blind Spot by Saki (orig Beasts and Super-Beasts, 1914)
Comedy piece about a killer servant.
The Dust by Al Sarrantonio
A simpleton shut-in is obsessed with dust.
It Grows on You by Stephen King
A vignette of small town misery which feels more like background to a fuller story. It's been re-written a few times, and later versions may be more tied in to the Castle Rock mythos and be more explicitly horrific. Something about a house getting a new wing built connected with people dying, but not much meat on the bones here.
The Copper Bowl by George Fielding Eliot (orig Weird Tales, December 1928)
Nasty proto-shudder pulp yellow peril story of a French Legionnaire's love being tortured by a Chinese despot.
From Amazon https://amzn.to/3vkEvlR
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