History Literature / SkeletonCrew

* EyeScream: At the end of "The Jaunt", [[spoiler:the hideously-aged and completely insane Ricky claws out his own eyes]].

* HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace: "The Jaunt". Going through a Jaunt gateway while conscious is invariably a mind-breaking experience. The physical trip is instantaneous, but to the mind, it's [[MadnessMantra longer than you think]], [[spoiler:Dad! [[DoubleMeaning Longer than you think!]]]]

** Ricky DidntThinkThisThrough on [[spoiler:going through the Jaunt awake and holding his breath]].

* LandlineEavesdropping: In "Gramma", George does this a few times and hears [[Literature/TheDeadZone Henrietta Dodd]] gossiping with Cora Simard.

* GrandTheftMe: In "Gramma" [[spoiler:the title character does this to her grandson George]].

* MadLibsCatchPhrase: In "The Monkey", Hal imagines the eponymous toy speaking to him, and every time it says some variation on "Who's dead next, Hal? ''Is it you?''"

* MindControl: The living sand of "Beachworld" has this power.

* SentientSands: "Beachworld" takes place on a planet entirely covered by malevolent sand with the power of MindControl. It can also assemble into various shapes like a hand to try grabbing the protagonists' spacecraft in order to prevent them from leaving the Beachworld.

* EldritchAbomination:
** The creatures in ''The Mist'', though they are ultimately biological entities that can bleed and die.
** Some of the things Homer Buckland half-glimpses on the road to Bangor in "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut", not to mention the 'woodchuck' stuck to the grille of her Mercedes.

** Lampshaded in "The Raft" when Deke and Randy realize that they and Laverne are trapped on a raft in the middle of a lake with an EldritchAbomination trying to eat them, and which has already eaten Rachel. As Randy puts it, they just took off and left without telling anyone, on an impulse trip. The summer cottages nearby are empty in late fall, hunters don't come till next season, and it's unlikely a caretaker will come.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Just if the tiger in the bathroom in "Here There Be Tygers" is real is left ambiguous, although it can't be denied that the mean teacher and student dissappeared without a trace after walking around the corner where it was.

* ExtradimensionalShortcut;

* EyeScream: At the end of "The Jaunt" [[spoiler:the hideously-aged and completely insane Ricky claws out his own eyes]].

* {{Irony}}: In "Survivor Type", Richard Pine notes that, as a surgeon, even from a young age he has always fastidiously protected and cared for his hands. [[spoiler:The story ends with him about to cut off one of his own hands in order to eat it.]]
* {{Jerkass}}: Richard Pine in "Survivor Type" is not a very nice man -- a corrupt, self-centered, {{hypocrit|e}}ical and egotistical disgraced surgeon who eventually resorted to smuggling heroin.

* PostPeakOil: The world hit this in the 1980s in "The Jaunt", where the price of gas rose to $15 per gallon and Americans could only drive two days per week. In the winter of 1986, around ten thousand people froze to death simply because there wasn't enough energy to heat their homes. All of this, combined with fears of mass starvation and anarchy in the 1990s, the government began sponsoring private researchers for a solution, leading to Victor Carune's invention of his teleporter.
* ReedRichardsIsUseless:

* ShoutOut: "Here There Be Tygers" shares its title with a 1951 short story by Creator/RayBradbury (although the two stories have nothing to do with one another plotwise).

* TimeAbyss: In "The Jaunt, teleportation works perfectly, as long as you are unconscious. Anyone who goes through it awake describes it as an eternity of disembodied nothingness, which either kills them or drives them insane upon emerging.

** In "The Jaunt", Victor Carune tests the process on a pair of goldfish after the test mice all died or went catatonic. One fish dies, but the other somehow manages to shake off the effects after a few moments, which is implied to be because of it's limited memory making simply ''forget'' about the time-dillation effect of The Jaunt. The idea that goldfish only retains a few seconds of memory at a time is a popular myth, but it doesn't have any actual truth to it.

* ArtisticLicense: The main character of "Nona" procures a police shotgun that he identifies as a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_action pump-action]], but when he later uses it to murder an innocent man and attempt to kill a second, its functions are explicitly described as being those of a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-barreled_shotgun double-barreled boxlock]].

* AndIMustScream: In "The Jaunt", [[YearInsideHourOutside the teleportation process is instantaneous, but if you go through it awake, you experience it as being trapped in a horrific void seemingly without end]]. The first human test subject said of the experience, "It's eternity in there." before dying, appearing to have aged hundreds of years after emerging. [[spoiler:Mark's son experiences the same thing.]] Even worse, someone was pushed into a open Jaunt with no exit as is the case of one woman who was pushed into one by her husband for her infidelity. This becomes terrifying when you remember that less than a second through the jaunt feels like millions of years to the conscious mind. Since she is stuck in there forever, every second of that eternity is its own eternity.

* NaturalizedName: Richard Pine was born "Pinzetti", and a small part of "Survivor Type" discusses why he changed it -- not only to get ahead in a medical field full of WASPs, but out of what seems to be genuine hatred for the Italian-American parents that held him back, especially his drunken, belittling father. While his mother despaired when he Anglicized the family name, Richard darkly notes that she went on to marry a Jewish grocer and take the name "Steinbrunner" not long after.

* MeaningfulName: Richard Pine spends most of "Survivor Type" desperating pining for something to eat.

* MirthlessLaughter: Richard Pine tends to write out "ha! ha!" in his journal entries in "Survivor Type"; it starts as a contemptuous mockery of others, but over time it becomes more sincere and a indicator that he's starting to lose his grip on his sanity.

* TheDeterminator: In “Survivor Type” Richard Pine is stranded all alone on a tiny rock of an island. [[spoiler:He eventually resorts to cutting off parts of his own body and eating them to survive.]] Yet, through it all he remains convinced that he will be rescued and live a nice long life afterwards. A foreword to the story puts the trope this way; How much trauma can a human body endure? Answer: how badly do they want to survive?

* EvenEvilHasStandards: In “Survivor Type” Richard admits to performing unnecessary surgeries, then makes a point of saying he never performed one against a patient’s will.

** “Survivor Type”: With each diary entry we see Richard, who is stranded on a tiny island by himself with no food, is slowly but surely losing his mind.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: In "The Jaunt", the story of a man who shoved his adulterous wife into an open teleport with no exit is brought up. It's mentioned that, at the man's trial for murder, his lawyer attempted to make the case that his client wasn't guilty of murder because [[ExactWords his wife was technically still alive]]. Unfortunately for him and his client, the jury only have to briefly consider [[AndIMustScream the absolutely horrific implications of that defence]] before finding the man guilty and sentencing him to death.

* JustToyingWithThem: One possible interpretation of the monster's actions in "The Raft", though both we and the characters don't know the real limits of its abilities. (It's pretty definitely the case in the Creepshow adaptation, with its DiabolusExMachina ending.) In the end, its attacks are relentless enough to force Laverne and Randy to [[spoiler:stay awake all night]]. Randy to his credit holds out, only to [[spoiler: give into sleep deprivation and despair, deciding to feed himself to the monster]].

** The ending of "Big Wheels" makes it unclear if [[spoiler: Bob genuinely kills his wife due to being sick of her, or if Spike somehow influenced him into doing it. There's also the matter of Rocky claiming to see a giant bug when he gets drunk, which Spike somehow seemingly knows about despite not having been there.]]

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: When Victor Carune decides to begin animal testing in the backstory of The Jaunt, he puts a white mouse in front of the entrance portal and waits for it to walk through. The skittish animal instead makes a break for it, since there's nothing keeping it in place or forcing it to walk in one direction. The mouse actually manages to escape through a crack in the wall before Carune can catch it. [[spoiler: It ends up being the only survivor of the test mice, since all the others died from the effects of the Jaunt.]]

---> Last night a dark man with no face crawled through nine miles\\

* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler: If he ever actually existed in the first place, it's unclear if Bellis the Fornit died from the strain of writing the final message to Henry, or merely passed out from exhaustion. Either way, he isn't mentioned again after Henry leaves to try to get to Reg's house.]]

---> ''Longer than you think, Dad!''

---> '''Richard Pine:''' ''ladyfingers they taste just like ladyfingers''