Flash fiction anthology. I didn't read all of them. I mostly made my choices based on name recognition.

My favorite of the bunch was Toy by Bill Pronzini which was a re-read. His other two contributions were worth reading. I won't skip any future stories of his I come across. I liked the Saki stories also. I plan to skip any future stories by Joe R. Lansdale, William F. Nolan and Charles L. Grant. Their contributions were enough to put them on my 'skip-em' list.
-------------------------

Read only these:

~ The Cobweb - (1914) short story by Saki 3.5*
The wife of the current owner of a family farmhouse daydreams of claiming a bit of the home for herself, in particular the beautiful sitting window in the kitchen. But with the home comes an old woman who has been working in the home for decades. How can she possibly claim something that has been the domain of another for so long? No matter, the husband dies and the woman is forced to move on as the farmhouse goes to the next relative. That part spoke to me and spoke louder than the "horror" part of the story which was the old lady's premonition with a twist.

I liked the reading between the lines it caused in me, regarding the "shadows" of owners past, their brief stays in the homes, rarely documented but they were there. People living their lives, working their asses off, raising their families, making their plans.

I got to live in a 250 year old farmhouse in my early teens. It was memorable, I could see the shadows of the former owners everywhere.

~ Sredni Vashtar - (1910) by Saki 4* short story
An ill orphan boy living with an unkind pious aunt carves out a bit of a sanctuary for himself. In this haven, he prays to a different god, Sredni Vashtar, a ferret. His aunt tries to take away his sanctuary ...

~ Dead Call - (1976) by William F. Nolan 3*
Nice classic Twilight Zone type of story. A phone call from the dead best friend with some advice.

~ He Kilt It with a Stick - (1968) by William F. Nolan DNF
A guy walking home after leaving a movie because it was too violent and depressing him, starts describing the way he kills cats after seeing one in a store window. wtf

~ Down by the Sea Near the Great Big Rock - (1984) by Joe R. Lansdale 3*
That was a fun little horror story. A family camping at the beach start having bad thoughts.

~ Duck Hunt - (1986) by Joe R. Lansdale 1*
Maybe one of the stupidest stories I ever read. The Hunting Club has a really fucking stupid way to make a kid a man.

~ Fish Night - (1982) by Joe R. Lansdale DNF
I just don't care, was not engaged. I guess we are not a good match.

~ We Have Always Lived in the Forest - (1987) by Nancy Holder 2*

~ Peekaboo - (1979) by Bill Pronzini 3*
That was fun. He awoke in the middle of the night with a sense that someone else was in the house. We tip toed around with him while he looked.

~ The Same Old Grind - (1978) by Bill Pronzini 2*
meh "How does he stay in business with selling these sausages so cheaply? "Come in back, I got something to show you"... "Why do you have such a large meat grinder?"

~ Toy - (1985) by Bill Pronzini Re-read 4*
Such a unique story. A boy finds a model kit. You will never imagine what it is. Oh fuck!

~ Something There Is - (1981) by Charles L. Grant DNF
He and I are not a good match, this is the 2nd story I tried by him this week :/ The story is about a man happily entering a dream, looks forward to it. Then instead of at bedtime, he enters the dream while awake, at work and ... author name dropping, time lost while in the dream but it's not clear at this time what the dream is about. quitting. I hate dreamy, unclear stories.

~ Up Under the Roof - (1938) by Manly Wade Wellman 2*
The youngest member of the home keeps hearing noises above his bed when it's dark. He says it sounds like an amoeba moving. One day when he is home alone, he hears it during the day instead of the night. Instead of running away, he looks for it by climbing into the rafters. He didn't find anything and he never heard it again. A moral story? Confront your fears?

~ Where Did She Wander? - [John the Balladeer] - (1987) 3* by Manly Wade Wellman
I would never skip a John the Balladeer story but this one is skippable :) He comes to a town and tries to unravel the mystery of the local lore.

~ Spring-Fingered Jack - (1983) by Susan Casper 3*
Interesting and sick. There is a video game in the back corner of the old arcade that lets you be Jack the Ripper. Well matching what a progressive video game is like. "Forget to put your hat on and the victim won't go with you. Game over". When the arcade closes for the night, he decides to practice with real victims so he can hopefully beat the game tomorrow. ( )

100 stories; 10 or 20 of which are okay. My reaction to most of them was "I can't believe somebody paid these guys money to write this junk." My reaction to the rest were "And then what happened?" or "So what?"
In other words, they weren't hair-raising (I still have my bald spot to prove it) and few qualified as horror. Nor does it live up to the intro where it says these are short-shorts. Many run quite a few pages and too many stop abruptly without coming to a real conclusion.
The ones by Poe and Bierce are generally good (although they've been anthologized dozens of times elsewhere), the modern ones are generally poor.
But that's only my opinion. Others may vary. ( )

As the title states, this is a tidy collection of 100 horror stories, spanning perhaps the last 150 years. Including such classic authors as Washington Irving and Edgar Allen Poe, as well as Charles Dickens, H.P. Lovecraft, Mark Twain and Stephen Crane, and others less well known outside horror, science fiction or mystery circles. The stories are arranged alphabetically by title. As with most collections of this size, there are always amazing stories and boring stories, but this collection, over all, was excellent. The editors did a fine job of collecting tales of all sorts - creepy, gory, subtle and chilling.

My favorites:

The Grab by Richard Laymon: It seemed like such a normal story until the end....

Examination Day by Henry Slesar: Scary because we aren't far from this as a society.....

Making Friends by Gary Raisor: Children are creepy, dark-hearted little vipers..... ( )

Great for horror junkies because the stories are short and quick. ( )