NIGHT TERRORS
by Jim Murphy
An old gravedigger embeds five mild horror stories, all featuring young people, into an account of his peregrinations. In ``Catseye,'' Jessica and the malicious Kristen discover a backless closet in a witch's house; the trip that three teens are making to a party is interrupted when their car breaks down near a hungry couple's isolated shack; Brian brings a large and famished collection of mummified Egyptian animals to life; a prospective grave-robber is seized and buried by a living watchman and an animate corpse, working together; and, in ``Just Say Yes,'' Kelly is invited by her science teacher—and, to her amazement, her bubble-headed best friend—to be a werewolf. The stories—nearly free of explicit gore or violence—follow predictable paths and are written in a conventional style that's at odds with the narrator's gruff, personal voice. Compared to Gordon's The Burning Baby and Other Ghosts (p. 1273), this collection seems decidedly anemic. (Short Stories. 11-13)