Eight macabre short stories in the Sci/fi, horror vein

Linked together by the story of people doomed to serve a mysterious Fire. Tales are told about a father who must fulfill a horrible bargain with Satan deep in the depths of the New Jersey pines, a couple, on their way to a family dinner, encounter heavy traffic straight from Hell.

Two colleagues, in a small bistro, start an argument that unleashes a monster from the depths of the Human psyche. A man in a retirement home tries to outrun time itself. Two astronauts fight to save a puppy, and learn the secret that will save Humanity in the vastness of the universe.

A hitman invents a way to die, and achieves immortality. A man wakes up on the luckiest day of his life. Finally, the story is told of the source of the mysterious Fire that enslaves them and of their only terrible possibility of escape.