Science Fiction: The Short Stuff discussion

Please nominate up to two works of science fiction shorter than a novel that you think our group would enjoy reading and discussing together this October. Since it's October, I want to add a restriction: let's look for horror-based SF, something like "Alien" scary. Deadline: the end of September 15, 2025.

I'll nominate:

I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison for short story, first published in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, March 1967 and won the Hugo for Best Short Story in 1968 and

The Jaunt by Stephen King for novelette, first published in The Twilight Zone Magazine in the June 1981 issue, and which never won any major awards as far as I can tell but is considered a cult classic in the horror infused science fiction world.

Looks good, David. At first I was going to disqualify the Stephen King entry, but I looked up some info about the story and see it takes place in the 24th century. Say hi to Buck Rogers for me! That's therefore inarguably SF. It's funny. I read Skeleton Crew in the 1980s, but sure don't remember that story! Thanks for the nominations.

Dan wrote: "At first I was going to disqualify the Stephen King entry, but I looked up some info about the story and see it takes place in the 24th century. Say hi to Buck Rogers for me! That's therefore inarguably SF...."

I originally thought about suggesting Mr. Harrigan's Phone, since the plot is centered on using a modern technology as the vehicle for supernatural occurrences, but after reading the story, it just seemed like strictly horror to me, so I went with The Jaunt instead.

I will nominate "Invisible Empire of Ascending Light" (2008) by Ken Scholes and "Calved" (2015) by Sam J. Miller. Both can be found in the ebook Forever Magazine, Issue 1, February 2015. The latter story took third place in the 2016 Asimov's Readers awards.