Wait for the Thunder: Stories for a Stormy Night by Donald R. Burleson

Trade paperback format.  Great cover art by Portland, Maine native Tom Brown.  Out of print.

What was it about those tumbleweeds that didn't seem quite normal? How could something be walking around the walls in the next motel room, especially with that many feet? What could be sinister about a child's game of hopscotch? What did those old town legends mean, about what might have been buried in a certain cellar? That face in the window had always been far, far too large, and could it still be there after all these years?

When had it really started, the folktale about the turtle and the thunder? What is it like to wake up in one's coffin, after putrefaction has set in? Can a windmill really be haunted, and can it rip itself up from its moorings and stalk abroad at night?

These and many other matters await the reader of this extraordinary collection, matters dark and beckoning, matters writhing alive with horrors that will disturb your sleep for a long time to come.

Donald R. Burleson's horror stories have appeared in Twilight Zone, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Deathrealm, Inhuman, Terminal Fright, Cemetery Dance, and many other magazines, as well as in numerous major anthologies. His previous short story collections include Beyond the Lamplight, Lemon Drops and Other Horrors, and Four Shadowings. He is also the author of three novels and a leading scholar on H. P. Lovecraft. He and his wife Mollie live in Roswell, New Mexico.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Tumbleweeds
One-Night Strand
Hopscotch
Jigsaw
Country Living
Sheep-Eye
Tummerwunky
A Student of Geometry
Fwoo
Down in the Mouth
Crayons
The Weeping Woman of White Crow
Spider Willie
Jack O'Lantern Jack
The Watcher at the Window
Desert Dreams
Grampa Pus
Gramma Grunt
Sheets
Up and About
Blessed Event
The Cryptogram
Leaves
Pump Jack
Lujan's Trunk
Wait for the Thunder
Papa Loaty