Strange Highways (story collection)

Strange Highways
Author(s)	Dean Koontz
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror, Suspense
Publisher	Cemetery Dance Publications, Warner
Publication date	1995
Media type	Print (Hardback, Paperback)

Strange Highways is a collection of 12 short stories and two novels by best-selling American suspense author Dean Koontz, released in May 1995. Four of the stories are revised from their originals. A British edition of the book (without the novel Chase) was previously issued by Headline in April 1995.

Cemetery Dance Publications printed a limited edition hardcover of the book (ISBN 1-881475-15-8). It was slipcased and limited to 750 signed and numbered copies.

Featured stories

• "Strange Highways" (novel): a failed author returns to his hometown after many years to attend his father's funeral, only to find himself suddenly and inexplicably thrust back through time to relive a traumatic event from his past. In the introduction, Koontz lists the Centralia, Pennsylvania mine fire as an inspiration for this story.
• "The Black Pumpkin": a twelve year old boy tries to stop his cruel brother from buying a black pumpkin from a creepy pumpkin carver. He buys the pumpkin anyway, and later that night gets what he deserves.
• "Miss Attila the Hun"
• "Down in the Darkness": after a couple buys a new house, the husband discovers a mysterious door that leads to a dark cellar.
• "Ollie's Hands": a young man with extraordinary psychic abilities and his tragic attempt to pursue a relationship with a woman whose life he saves. [Revised version]
• "Snatcher": a purse snatcher steals a purse from a strange old woman, only to find that he's made a terrible mistake.
• "Trapped": a woman and her son trying to fend off an attack by giant, mutated rats.
• "Bruno": a private eye and a "probability cop" from another dimension hunt down a dangerous alien. [Revised version]
• "We Three": three siblings with special powers eliminate the rest of mankind, thinking that they're the "new race", but soon one of them is pregnant with a creature even more powerful who just might eliminate them. [Revised version]
• "Hardshell": a wounded cop stalks a killer through an abandoned warehouse, but there's more to this seemingly stereotypical situation than meets the eye.
• "Kittens": the first short story Koontz ever sold. A girl learns the truth about God "taking her kittens to Heaven", and she decides to get even. [Revised version]
• "The Night of the Storm": a group of intelligent robots go on a hunting trip in the woods, where they learn that the myth of "human beings" may not be a myth after all.
• "Twilight of the Dawn": a devout atheist who finds his lack of faith challenged in the wake of his son's painful death from cancer.
• "Chase" (novella)

References

Link to limited version on Cemetery Dance Publication's webpage