Word Processor of the Gods, followed closely by Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut. Of course, this is based on not reading the collection recently. Maybe I should crack that puppy open…
I love Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut. But I also love The Mist. And I think The Jaunt is one of the finest short stories ever written.
The Mist is the scariest of those. And The Jaunt has the best shock ending. But Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut has the best characters, so that’s what I picked in the poll.
Could easily have gone with any of those, though.
Oh, yeah, Word Processor of the Gods. That’s one of the King stories I used to introduce my older daughters to King when they were considerably too young for most of his stuff. I started out with that one, and The House on Maple Street from Night Shift.
I voted for The Mist. It’s closely followed by The Jaunt, with Survivor Type at third. The Mist gets the nod because its longer length lets it pack in more creepiness than The Jaunt.
Still, *“Longer than you think, Dad! Longer than you think!” *
Hard to pick one, but I had to go with The Jaunt, followed closely by Survivor Type.
That line creeps me out to this day. Also, “It’s eternity in there.”
Can there be a worse fate?
This motivated me to read it again, but I can’t find it now :smack: Well, trip to the trade-a-book never hurt anyone.
Except that one guy who had a book shelf fall on him.
Survivor Type would be my favorite out of the collection (“Lady fingers…they taste just like lady fingers.”).
No love for The Reaper’s Image? I thought that one was just good, dumb fun.
“Survivor Type”, which I always thought should have been entitled “You are what you Eat”. Darkly humorous and a sense of karmic justice. A close second for “The Reach”.
SS
This.
I chose Survivor Type.
I always think of a poem from one of my very old Monty Python books:
“Much to his mum and dad’s dismay,
Horace ate himself one day…”
Just so folks don’t go looking in the wrong place, The House on Maple Street is from Nightmares & Dreamscapes
:smack:
You’re right, of course! I shouldn’t post when I’m so tired!
I thought The Mist was more of a novella, but I had to throw this in the mix with The Jaunt and Survivor Type.
I finally went with The Jaunt. It really packed a punch, and teaches you that you should never never never push that red button that says DO NOT TOUCH.
Side note: On my computer system at work, there is a button on the touch screen that literally says “DO NOT PRESS”. So I pressed it. It shut down the system and it took the manager about ten minutes to reboot and fix it back to startup standards. But then again, I’m a wet paint kind of guy. If I see a “Wet Paint” sign, I’ll touch the surface, just to check.
Hey, you got to check the slackers, right?
Uncle, whenever a waiter in a restaurant warns me not to touch a hot dish, I do it straightaway. 
Ditto.
“Look out, that plate is hot.”
“Really?” touches plate “Yep.” :smack:
Geez, this is next to impossible. It’s right up there with “what’s the sound of one hand clapping?” and “could God create a stone so big even he couldn’t move it?” It’s an imponderable: “What’s the best story in Skeleton Crew?”
I exclude The Mist, for one reason only: In my mind, this is a novella. It’s an outstanding story, I love it, but it’s too long to be included in the short story category. I’ve always divided up Skeleton Crew into two parts: The Mist, and everything else that comes after. So The Mist doesn’t get the nod, even though I do love it.
The Jaunt, Survivor Type, Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut, The Raft, and Word Processor of the Gods are clearly in the first tier. So it’s gotta be one of these. But there’s no way I can choose.
The one that stuck most with me is Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut. I have a weak spot for stories in which reality just turns out to be not quite as fixed and firm as it’s made out to be.
I like to think that’s just an outgrowth of my sceptical nature (better, at least, than I like to think that I’m just an idiot sometimes).
Huh. I didn’t feel that way at all; I thought most of the stories were pretty weak, but a few were fantastic. Contrast that with Night Shift, where I thought the majority of the stories were pretty good, but there weren’t any as good as “Survivor Type” or even “The Mist”.