The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

In “Afterlife,” a man who died of colon cancer keeps reliving the same life, repeating his mistakes over and over again.

Several stories feature characters at the end of life, revisiting their crimes and misdemeanors. Others address what happens when someone discovers that he has supernatural powers—the columnist who kills people by writing their obituaries in “Obits;” the old judge in “The Dune” who, as a boy, canoed to a deserted island and saw names written in the sand, people who then died in freak accidents.

In “Morality,” King looks at how a marriage and two lives fall apart after the wife and husband enter into what seems, at first, a devil’s pact they can win. “I made these stories especially for you,” says King. “Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth.”

Stories include:
- Mile 81
- Premium Harmony
- Batman and Robin Have an Altercation
- The Dune
- Bad Little Kid
- A Death
- The Bone Church
- Morality
- Afterlife
- Ur
- Herman Wouk Is Still Alive
- Under the Weather
- Blockade Billy
- Mister Yummy
- Tommy
- The Little Green God of Agony
- Cookie Jar
- That Bus Is Another World
- Obits
- Drunken Fireworks
- Summer Thunder