The Best of Cemetery Dance. Volume 1 & 2 Omnibus

The Best of Cemetery Dance

by Richard Chizmar (Editor), Stephen King, Steve Bevan

11 • Introduction (The Best of Cemetery Dance) • essay by Richard Chizmar
29 • Chattery Teeth • (1992) • novelette by Stephen King
61 • The Box • (1994) • short story by Jack Ketchum
73 • Haceldama • (1993) • novelette by Gary A. Braunbeck
109 • The Pig Man • (1993) • short story by Augustine Funnell
125 • Mobius • (1987) • short story by Richard Christian Matheson
129 • The Rendering Man • (1994) • short story by Douglas Clegg
147 • Weight • (1994) • short story by Dominick Cancilla
159 • Layover • (1991) • short story by Ed Gorman
169 • Johnny Halloween • (1992) • short story by Norman Partridge
181 • Hope • (1993) • short story by Steve Bevan
187 • The Mailman • (1988) • short story by Bentley Little
197 • Silhouette • (1996) • short story by Stephen Mark Rainey
215 • Roadkill • (1991) • short story by Tom Elliott
221 • The Rifle • (1995) • short story by Jack Ketchum
233 • Pieces • (1992) • short story by Ray Garton
237 • Rustle • (1993) • short story by Peter Crowther
255 • When the Silence Gets Too Loud • (1995) • short story by Brian Hodge
269 • The Rabbit • (1990) • short story by Jack Pavey
281 • The Flood • (1986) • short story by John Maclay
287 • The Right Thing • (1994) • short story by Gary L. Raisor [as by Gary Raisor]
305 • Pig's Dinner • (1991) • short story by Graham Masterton
317 • Crash Cart • (1993) • short story by Nancy Holder
329 • Wall of Words • (1994) • short story by Lucy Taylor
337 • Metastasis • (1990) • short story by David B. Silva
349 • Wrapped Up • (1981) • short story by Ramsey Campbell
357 • Depth of Reflection • (1990) • short story by David L. Duggins
369 • The Mole • (1990) • short story by David Niall Wilson
375 • Saviour • (1991) • short story by Gary A. Braunbeck
391 • Great Expectations • (1990) • short story by Kim Antieau
397 • Shell • (1992) • short story by Adam Corbin Fusco
403 • Eater • (1995) • novelette by Peter Crowther
425 • Tyrannosaurus • (1994) • short story by Norman Partridge
429 • Vacation • (1994) • short story by Matthew J. Costello [as by Matthew Costello]
447 • A Taste of Blood and Altars • [Steve and Ghost Universe] • (1988) • short story by Poppy Z. Brite
455 • Mr. God • (1993) • short story by Thomas Tessier
469 • Drive-In Date • (1991) • short story by Joe R. Lansdale
485 • Desert Pickup • (1970) • short story by Richard Laymon
491 • Fyodor's Law • (1994) • short story by William F. Nolan
501 • Five to Get Ready, Two to Go • (1996) • short story by Hugh B. Cave
515 • Secrets • (1991) • short story by Melanie Tem
525 • With the Wound Still Wet • (1991) • short story by Wayne Allen Sallee
529 • Plainclothes • (1991) • short story by Steve Rasnic Tem
541 • The Pattern • (1971) • short story by Bill Pronzini
549 • Seesaw • (1990) • short story by David L. Duggins
553 • Trial by Fire • (1992) • short story by Barry Hoffman
575 • Almost Never • (1991) • short story by Edward Lee
589 • Bloodline • (1990) • short story by Roman A. Ranieri
599 • Four-in-Hand • (1989) • short story by William Relling, Jr.
605 • The Cutty Black Sow • (1984) • short story by Thomas F. Monteleone
619 • The Liar's Mouth • (1993) • short story by Darrell Schweitzer
633 • Shattered Silver • (1990) • short story by James Kisner
651 • YSEX • (1991) • short story by Steven Spruill
675 • Mongrel • (1990) • short story by Steve Vernon
679 • The Winds Within • (1991) • short story by Ronald Kelly
695 • Crying Wolf • (1990) • short story by Rick Hautala
709 • Animal Rites • (1995) • short story by Jay Bonansinga [as by Jay R. Bonansinga]
719 • Easy's Last Stand • (1991) • short story by Nancy A. Collins
737 • A Christmas Story • (1992) • short story by James S. Dorr [as by James Dorr]
741 • Comes the Night Wind, Cold and Hungry • (1991) • novelette by Gene-Michael Higney (variant of Comes the Night Wind, Cold, And Hungry) [as by Gene Michael Higney]
769 • A Conversation with Dean Koontz • (1997) • interview of Dean R. Koontz • interview by Robert Morrish
783 • Afterword (The Best of Cemetery Dance) • essay by David B. Silva

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction

786 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1998

About the author

Richard Chizmar is a New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Amazon, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author.

He is the co-author (with Stephen King) of the bestselling novella, Gwendy’s Button Box and the founder/publisher of Cemetery Dance magazine and the Cemetery Dance Publications book imprint. He has edited more than 35 anthologies and his short fiction has appeared in dozens of publications, including multiple editions of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories. He has won two World Fantasy awards, four International Horror Guild awards, and the HWA’s Board of Trustee’s award.

Chizmar (in collaboration with Johnathon Schaech) has also written screenplays and teleplays for United Artists, Sony Screen Gems, Lions Gate, Showtime, NBC, and many other companies. He has adapted the works of many bestselling authors including Stephen King, Peter Straub, and Bentley Little.

Chizmar is also the creator/writer of the online website, Stephen King Revisited. His fourth short story collection, The Long Way Home, was published in 2019. With Brian Freeman, Chizmar is co-editor of the acclaimed Dark Screams horror anthology series published by Random House imprint, Hydra.

His latest book, The Girl on the Porch, was released in hardcover by Subterranean Press, and Widow’s Point, a chilling novella about a haunted lighthouse written with his son, Billy Chizmar, was recently adapted into a feature film.

Chizmar’s work has been translated into more than fifteen languages throughout the world, and he has appeared at numerous conferences as a writing instructor, guest speaker, panelist, and guest of honor.

Reviews

[Conal Cochran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sadly, this book is nearly impossible to get--as is the case with so much great horror. But if you're lucky enough to have a library nearby, or to pick up a pricey copy online, do it. If you can't, then go to Cemetery Dance, look at the table of contents, and track down each story a la carte. You'll rarely be disappointed. This is essential horror reading.

My personal favorites:
"Halceldama" by Gary Braunbeck. It was the basis for "Coffin Country" by him, and it's a phenomenal gutpunch of a story. It's Lovecraftian in the best sense. Not that there are any hints of the Mythos or of overblown pulp writing, no--it's HPL-esque because it suggests truths about the universe that would drive you insane. Oh, and it's violent and tearjerking as well.

"Weight," by Dominick Cancilla. An almost unknown piece that's a brilliant and disturbing combination of Fahrenheit 451, Jenny Craig, and F. Paul Wilson's "Soft." A must-read.

"Easy's Last Stand," by Nancy Collins. A serial killer attacks a phone sex service's headquarters. Entertaining grue ensues.

"Eater," by Peter Crowther. Bloody, tense, and claustrophobic.

And that just scratches the surface, folks! Other great stories include "Tyrannosaurus" by Norman Partridge, "The Rendering Man" by Douglas Clegg, "Drive-In Date" by Joe R. Lansdale, "When the Silence Gets Too Loud" by Brian Hodge, and "Pieces" by Ray Garton.

[Fred Klein · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me three Halloween seasons to finish this collection (although I skipped a few items). It’s what you would expect from a short story collection. Some of the stories are good, some of them are not. Some of them have terrible endings. Some of them have no point. And there are also some winners.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love, love, love! A great collection of stories. Highly recommended for any horror fan.

[Bill Borre]

"The Mailman" by Bentley Little - Jack has a frightening encounter as a child with a dwarf at a carnival who demands a quarter from him. Years later as a prisoner in Viet Nam he encounters the same dwarf dressed as an officer still demanding a quarter. When Jack returns home he spots the dwarf in the crowd and knows he is being pursued. When he unpacks at his new home he is terrified to discover the mailman is a dwarf. He complains to the postmaster but the postmaster tells him there is no dwarf assigned to his route. Jack gets a gun and drives his car looking for the dwarf. He is about to give up when he spots him up the street and floors it through the intersection where another car hits him with enough force to impale him upon the steering wheel. The dwarf appears before him and asks if he has a quarter to phone an ambulance. The dwarf rummages through Jack's pocket and happily retrieves a bloody coin as Jack expires.

"Rustle" by Peter Crowther - The prison psychologist is questioning Edward about the disappearance of eleven women. He tells the doctor he has invited prostitutes back to his apartment but not to have sex. He asks them to enter a purple door that intermediately appears then disappears leaving only the women's clothes behind. He tells the doctor shadowy forms inside whispered he had to bring them women and if he refused they would take him and acquire victims themselves. The doctor goes to Edward's apartment where he gets a call informing him that Edward has hanged himself with an unlabeled bra. The phone wire is torn apart by cloth and the doctor sees clothes strewn about moving upwards to the purple door's knob to open it.

"Pig's Dinner" by Graham Masterton - David turns on the feed grinder unaware that his brother Malcolm is inside servicing it. Malcolm loses his legs and knowing that he is a dead man already tells David to switch it back on because the dying sensation is pleasurable. David does as he asks unaware that Malcolm is lying to him and desires revenge. David feeds Malcolm's remains to a large pig and it becomes possessed with a desire for vengeance against David. David goes to pet it and it crushes his hand and tears out his groin. Remembering his brother's dying words David makes his way to the feed grinder and the pig follows watching. David lowers himself into it, realizes his brother lied, and suffers an agonizing death.

"The Rabbit" by Jack Pavey - Dan and Benjy are harassed by their neighbor over their dog hopping the fence and getting in their yard. When the dog breaks the leash they secure him with and returns with the dead rabbit they decide to clean it up and place it back in its cage since they know their neighbor and her two children are not at home. The ruse doesn't work though because the rabbit died a week ago and the woman buried it in the backyard. The unbalanced woman thinks the rabbit has returned from the dead so she murders her two kids to test the process. Benjy shoots himself out of guilt and Dan prepares to leap from a bridge.

"Almost Never" by Edward Lee - Rocco and Binny are stalking little Katie as they want to sell her to child pornographers. They figure to murder her grandfather and kidnap her but discover too late that the old man is a werewolf who keeps a low profile by having Katie buy raw meat at the grocery store and Katie herself is a vampire who only drains the blood of small animals. The two supernatural creatures have no trouble disposing of the criminals.

"Animal Rites" by Jay R. Bonansinga - Norbert awakens to find that his stepdaughter has bound him to a chair in his toolshed with a gun pointed at his forehead. She leaves the toolshed and when the gun goes off at first he thinks it has misfired because he is still alive but then with dawning horror he realizes that she has cast a spell to slow time as the bullet slowly leaves the gun barrel and does not fall to the floor.

"Secrets" by Melanie Tem - Grace is obsessed about the secrets her dead husband kept from her and when her daughter dies from an overdose or suicide she takes a paring knife and enters the girl's bedroom. She approaches the corpse on the bed and inserts the tip of the blade into her daughter's temple to peel back a large flap of skin and peer inside her head.

"Mongrel" by Steve Vernon - The protagonist is cuckolded by a creature that lives in the cellar. He shoots his wife and the bastard then tosses the infant's corpse down the stairs to the cellar. He returns to the nursery and sits in the chair sticky with his wife's blood, waiting to confront the bereaved father with two bullets left in the gun, one for it and one for him.

"The Box" by Jack Ketchum - The narrator's son sits across from a man on the train with a box on his lap. The boy asks to see inside and the man obliges him. The boy loses his will to live and ceases eating. The condition spreads to his two sisters then his mother and they all starve leaving the narrator riding the train cars seeking an answer from the man with the box.

"A Christmas Story" by James Dorr - Timmy is angry at Santa because the year his father died and his mother had to pay funeral expenses he didn't get the presents he wanted. To get even with Santa he puts rat poison in the sandwich he leaves out and since his mother is unaware she has her new boyfriend take a bite out of it.

"Roadkill" by Tom Elliott - Bill and Johnny are cleaning up roadkill as community service when they come across the corpse of an alien. After a brief debate about whether to inform the authorities they just toss it into the back of the pickup because they are worried the CIA will make them disappear.

"Fyodor's Law" by William F. Nolan - James picks up Jack with the promise of work but intends to poison his drink so that he can dismember the corpse and photograph the parts for a montage. Jack switches drinks with him while he is retrieving his photo album so he ends up poisoning himself.

"The Rifle" by Jack Ketchum - Danny's mom discovers a rifle in his closet and goes out to his clubhouse to confront him about it. When she finds the corpses of dozens of animals within she realizes that he is going to grow up to be a serial killer and executes him with the rifle.

"Mobius" by R. C. Matheson - The story reads like Jimmy is being interviewed by a police detective about his killings but the end reveals that Jimmy is being coached by the killer to provide a fake confession to throw them off the trail.

"The Mole" by David Niall Wilson - Gus returns from Viet Nam disturbed by his experience and is placed in a mental hospital. When he escapes he believes himself still on a mission in the jungle and is hunted by the police.

"When the Silence Gets Too Loud" by Brian Hodge - Fathers taking their sons into the woods for a back to the wilderness experience are surprised when the boys respond to it far more strongly than they had anticipated.

"Hope" by Steve Bevan - John kills and eats his wife and daughter during a bleak prairie winter and the loneliness and guilty conscience convince him that the pair have paid him a visit during a storm.

"Crash Cart" by Nancy Holder - Alan is a doctor who is shocked to discover himself becoming sexually aroused at the thought of torturing one of his battered woman patients.

"Saviour" by Gary A. Braunbeck - The cynical protagonist imagines what it would be like to murder his family with his father's rifle to spare them the misery and toil of their lives.

"Wrapped Up" by Ramsey Campbell - Three men attempt to rob an Egyptian tomb but run afoul of an insect-like creature that they mistake for a mummy.

"Pieces" by Ray Garton - The narrator describes the sexual molestation he was put through by his father as his body pieces are literally falling off him.

"Tyrannosauras" by Norman Partridge - Janet burns her ex-husband to death in his Honda unaware that he has locked her son in the trunk.

"Great Expectations" by Kim Antieau - A hungry girl poisons her two sisters with rat poison so that she can consume their portions at dinner time.

"Weight" by Dominick Cancilla - This apocalyptic story describes how civilization meets its end through an infestation of parasitic worms.

"Seesaw" by David L. Duggins - Ted and his little sister are playing on the seesaw when a lunatic with a shotgun attacks the playground.

"Drive-In Date" by Joe R. Lansdale - Dave and Merle bring a corpse to the drive-in theater to have sex with during the movie.

"Plainclothes" by Steve Rasnic Tem - The narrator is a plainclothes cop who's been killed and haunts his beat.

"Depth of Reflection" by David L. Duggins - Schulton is a cop battling a killer that emerges from a mirror.

[Bryan Whitehead · Rating 4 out of 5]

If this sampling is representative of the typical content of Cemetery Dance magazine, its readers must really like slasher stories. Further, nearly half of the tales contained in this two-volume set (reviewed here as a single work due to the shared page numbering system) involve brutality of one sort or another inflicted on an animal or a child. That isn’t necessarily to say that they’re all bad; for example, Thomas F. Monteleone’s “The Cutty Black Sow” is the first really scary story I’ve read in quite some time. Some of the other entries, however, seem to be little more than sociopathic fantasy. Ick. I also confess that I skipped “Chattery Teeth,” which isn’t bad but doesn’t happen to be one of my favorite Stephen King stories. Finally, I feel the need to gripe just briefly about the editing, which was poor (typos aplenty, not to mention some weak writing that could easily have been spruced up a bit). Overall I’m not sorry I read these books, but I’ve spent more rewarding time with other anthologies in the past.

[Melody · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a ride! The genre was amazing! I can honestly say that there might have only been a couple of stories that didn't hold me but the stories that did, oh boy! Loved every bump in the night!

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cemetery Dance & Robert Chizmar never disappoint.

[Wendopolis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding collection.

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a collection of "the best of" this really didn't impress me. Most of the stories had me questioning if they were really horror, and in some cases if the story was just snuff. There were few gems, but most of it gave me a serious case of boredom or disgust. I can't say don't read it, because once every 7 or 8 stories you'll find one worth reading.

[Daniel DeLappe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ketchum, Garton, Little. I love short stories and Cemetery Dance publishes some of the best. Cemetery Dance is a fantastic magazine and if you have not read the magazine pick up an issue and give it a read

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories were excellent, while others just left me confused