“The dead have highways,” Barker tells us in the frame tale that begins this collection. He then proceeds to take us on a tour of some of those hidden highways. The tour begins with “The Midnight Meat Train,” and ends with the novella “The Last Illusion,” the basis for Barker’s 1995 film, Lord of Illusions. In between these narrative bookends, Barker offers us a series of unforgettable images. In “The Body Politic,” a pair of severed hands leads a revolution. “Son of Celluloid” features a sentient tumor that comes to life in a nearly deserted cinema. In “Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament,” a bored and suicidal housewife discovers a capacity to transform the human body. “The Yattering and Jack” presents a comic tour-de-force about the relationship between a minor demon and the man he haunts. “The Forbidden,” which inspired the film Candyman, concerns a graduate student who uncovers the secret hidden in a rundown housing project. And in “Rawhead Rex,” a giant entity terrorizes a rural English community.

These visions are accompanied by the author’s own original artwork.