PseudoPod

PseudoPod 919: Grinning on the Way to See Mom Die is a PseudoPod original. Aunt Sara doesn’t like phone calls, so I get a text that Mom’s dying, hospital address included. I sigh a long one. A weird mix of emotions wrestle in my gut. I reply: Ok thx. I know how this went down. Mom got really sick, delayed telling anyone because she doesn’t like doctors or medical bills.

Source

“The Dreadful and Specific Monster of Starosibirsk” originally appeared in Weird Horror in May 2021 Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher I know what you will say. You will say to me, Arseny, there are enough real monsters in this world—why do you make your own? But before I begin, before you make your judgments, like the others, before you tsk-tsk-tsk our failures and tell me…

Source

“Henry” was originally published in the collection Strange Fruit in 1928 For four hours every morning and for twenty minutes before a large audience at night Fletcher was locked up with murder. It glared at him from twelve pairs of amber eyes ; it clawed the air close to him, it spat naked hate at him, and watched with uninterrupted intensity to catch him for one moment off…

Source

“Three Awakenings: Hello, World” is a PseudoPod original “Mirrors at Night” is a PseudoPod original “A Persistent Woman” was originally published in the 1927 collection Dark Ann and Other Stories “How to Fight the Devil” appeared in Sam Lawson’s Oldtown Fireside Stories in 1881 From the author of “Mirrors at Night”: This story was a bit premonitory for me.

Source

“Heavy Rain” originally appeared in the 2023 anthology Howls from the Wreckage CW: Suicide, bloody body parts Samaritans 988 Lifeline List of suicide crisis lines on Wikipedia I’m standing in the doorway where you last stood before you got up on a chair, slipped the belt around your throat like a necktie, and kicked the chair out from under you.

Source

PseudoPod 914: Spirit Husband is a PseudoPod original. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover Don’t collect gifts from strangers. Don’t pick up money on the streets. Don’t take food in your dream. The spicy fried exterior of the akara melts over my tongue, and the soft baked beans within seep into my taste buds. The flavour ripples into my teeth and tickles my ears…

Source

“The Vengeance Of Nitocris” was first published in Weird Tales, August 1928 Hushed were the streets of many-peopled Thebes. Those few who passed through them moved with the shadowy fleetness of bats near dawn, and bent their faces from the sky as if fearful of seeing what in their fancies might be hovering there. Weird, high-noted incantations of a wailing sound were audible…

Source

PseudoPod 912: The Eidolonpterist is a PseudoPod original. I was climbing through the window of a ruined castle the only time the police ever caught me. I turned out my bag to show them everything I carried: a torch, pencils, notebooks. I flipped through one book, holding up sketches: the Convolvulus Hawk-moth, the Swallow-tailed moth, the Light Grey Tortrix – Cnephasia incertana…

Source

“Masks” originally appeared in Forbidden Futures and was reprinted in the 2022 collection How to See Ghosts & Other Figments “The Machete at the End of the World” appeared in the collection Nightfall & Other Danger “The Tale of Belette” previously appeared on Tales to Terrify Spoiler Nice [collapse] “You, sir, should unmask. Indeed it’s time. We all have laid…

Source

“Lidless Eyes That See” was first released by PS Publishing in From the Waste Land, an anthology inspired by T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land.” The story was a finalist for the 2022 Aurealis Award for Best Horror Short Story [note: The Waste Land was published in 1922 and is in the public domain for use of some or all] We are silently going mad, the boy and I.

Source

PseudoPod 909: The Witch in the Whale Bone Hut is a PseudoPod original. Four massive ribs held the hut together, two forming a thick arch near the front door. The bones were pockmarked and yellow, no doubt leftovers from the town’s glory days during the height of the whaling industry. Jamie’s heart sank as he stared at the bones. They had once belonged to a beautiful creature…

Source

“Bring Them All Into the Light” originally appeared in the Great British Horror 7: Major Arcana representing the card The High Priestess. Heathen They’re on holiday when he sees the cottage. Julie and Nico are bickering in the back seat, Maggie searching through the glovebox for something – anything – that might shut them up for five minutes. He rubbernecks as they pass it at…

Source

“Rare Providers” originally appeared in Fusion Fragment in November 2022 I like to hunt in the campground that sprouted from the outskirts of our town before we lived here. It’s hard to tell just where the town ends now that the world has grown wild, but there’s not much beyond the campground apart from trees and the scrub and grass growing up through the broken roads.

Source

“The Cask of Amontillado” originally appeared in Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book, November 1846 The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively…

Source

“Phoenix Claws” was originally published in Black Cranes A block from the Jade Garden restaurant, I reached out and grasped Fin’s arm. “Hang on.” So many boyfriends had failed; I wasn’t going to let it happen again. I made a fuss of straightening his collar, smoothing the flannel fabric over his weekend sweater. “You know to hold your rice bowl, right? Thumb on the lip…

Source

PseudoPod 904: Jinx is a PseudoPod original. CW: domestic violence/intimate partner violence. Your first date with Jake is perfect. So. That’s fucking weird. Not a complaint, obviously. Actually, it’s a relief: you’ve been on far too many first dates with guys who, at first blush, seemed like cute, funny, thoughtful dudes with passionate but not emotionally…

Source

“Skule Skerry” was originally published in the 1928 collection The Runagates Club The Excavation of Hobs Barrow The Stone Tape The Woman in Black It happened a good many years ago, when I was quite a young man. I wasn’t the cold scientist then that I fancy I am today. I took up birds in the first instance chiefly because they fired what imagination I had got.

Source

“The Ghost” was first published in The Windsor Magazine, May 1928. “Half-Past Two” was first published in the August 15, 1928 edition of The Daily Mail. She was a girl of fourteen, and she sat propped up with pillows in an old four-poster bed, coughing a little with the feverish cold that kept her there. She was tired of reading by lamplight, and she lay and listened to the…

Source

“The Shadowy Escort” was first published in The London Magazine, May 1928 Seigfried Sassoon Base Details by Siegfried Sassoon Almost everybody has at one time or another wanted to write a detective story, but, for the greater well-being of publishers and publishers’ readers, not everybody has tried. Among those who have, with varying degrees of success, must be numbered a…

Source

“The Red Lodge” originally published in the 1928 collection They Return at Evening. I am writing this from an imperative sense of duty, for I consider The Red Lodge is a foul death-trap and utterly unfit to be a human habitation — it has its own proper denizens — and because I know its owner to be an unspeakable blackguard to allow it so to be used for his financial advantage.

Source

“Arcanum Miskatonica” was originally published in Lovecraftiana Vol.3, No.1, April 2018 and reprinted in the 2023 anthology The Nameless Songs of Zadok Allen & Other Things that Should Not Be edited by Jessica Augustsson From the editors: The Nameless Songs of Zadok Allen & Other Things that Should Not Be is JayHenge’s 20th speculative fiction anthology, and editor Jessica Augustsson…

Source

“It Takes Slow Sips” first appeared in the anthology Lost Contact and was reprinted in the 2023 collection The Inconsolables CW: Stalking, allusion to date rape From the author: “The word incel, which means “involuntary celibate,” is never used explicitly in “It Takes Slow Sips,” but this community, to use the term loosely, makes the skin crawl like little else in the…

Source

“The Red Lady” was originally published in the 2023 anthology Collage Macabre presented by the Future Dead Collective SHOW NOTES The Whoniverse The Full Lid ‘Art is never finished, only abandoned.’ – This week’s closing quote has a fascinating, and very complex history. From the author: “The works of Robert W. Chambers were some of the first horror shorts to get me…

Source

“Douen” was originally published in The Dark Magazine and reprinted in the 2023 collection Skin Thief. From the author: “This story is set at my Grandmother’s house in Trinidad. The story itself is written in dialect the way I would have spoken it. It poured out of my head that way fully completed. Because I’m part of the diaspora, it is really reflective of how my parents spoke to…

Source

“The Belsnickel” has previously appeared on the online platforms Vocal and Patreon. From the author: ”I loved the stories my German great-grandmother shared about belsnickels – friends and neighbors who dressed in big fur coats and frightful masks and went house to house on the nights around Christmas to sing, visit, play music, and give the kids a little scare. It was a tradition…

Source

“Thirteen Ways of Not Looking at a Blackbird” was originally published in the 2023 anthology No Trouble at All edited by Alexis Dubon and Eric Raglin Hugh Dancy: Will Graham I. I am a baby boy. In the bathtub, looking out, past my mother as she cries and holds the already wet washcloth to her eyes. Over her mouth. I am looking into the full-length mirror on the bathroom…

Source

“The Stringer of Wiltsburg Farm” was originally published in Vastarien and was reprinted in the 2023 collection Who Lost, I Found Dark Harvest novel Dark Harvest Daddy called tobacco a quick and dirty crop. Quick because it was one hundred days from planting to harvest. Dirty because cutting the leaves off the plants released a juicy, dark sap that dried, sticky sweet…

Source

“The Body Remembers” was originally written for, and published in, the anthology Dark Matter Presents: Monstrous Futures in April 2023. CW: War, death, graphic descriptions of injuries, self-harm, suicidal ideation From the author: “The idea for this story came from thinking about how even when we heal from physical trauma and no visible scars remain, we can still be…

Source

“The Evaluator” was originally published in “A Breath from the Sky” in 2017 and is included in the 2023 collection “No One Will Come Back for Us and Other Stories.” It is the first of Premee’s stories to appear on Ellen Datlow’s annual ‘Honorable Mentions’ for her ‘Best Horror of the Year’ anthology. From the author: “I wrote this one for the call as well, and this time I started…

Source

PseudoPod 890: The Halloween Parade and Twin Xolotls of Sorrow and Salt is a PseudoPod original. This year you pass through a stone arch to reach the Parade. The churro stand is to one side, the bouncer to the other. You can’t quite tell if the bouncer is checking if you’ve been to the churro stand or if you’ve got your wristband. You do know both are pointedly ignoring the plate…

Source

“Darke’s Last Show” opens the 2023 collection Have You Seen the Moon Tonight? & Other Rumors I’m still smiling when the rideshare car pulls up. Silver Honda Accord. Driver: Raul. 4.9 star rating, meaning some monster gave him a petty 4-star review once—there is no circle of Hell low enough. Raul’s a handsome kid, maybe twenty, lots of hair product, a fade shaved onto the back…

Source

“Made of You” is a PseudoPod Original “Dancing With Etta” appeared first in Maudlin House (October, 2020) “A Well Polished Puppet” is a PseudoPod Original “Summer of George” is a PseudoPod Original I will be who I will be I was a blister clinging to the throat of your shower drain. I didn’t know I was alive, let alone that, as I built myself from your beautiful waste…

Source

“Midnight in the Southland” was previously published in Liminal Spaces: An Anthology of Dark Speculative Fiction by Cemetery Gates Media in 2021. “From the grim Ohio Valley to the mists of the Appalachian Plateau, this is Midnight in the Southland with your host Gus Guthrie. Now, here’s Gus…” That’s how Midnight in the Southland always started. Back in the ‘90s and early…

Source

PseudoPod 886: A Wonder of Nature, In Need of Killing is a PseudoPod original. From the author: “This story was inspired by the snapping turtle who lives in a neighbor’s pond. Each spring she crawls from the water to the shrubbery in front of our house, where she digs a nest beneath the azaleas and lays a dozen or more eggs. Why she digs so close to human habitation is a mystery.

Source

“The Grave of Angels” first appeared in Vastarien Volume 4 Issue 1, June 2021. CW: intimate partner death From the author: “This story incorporates many of my recurrent themes–rituals, religion, the end of the world, and did not end up where I thought it would when I began.” The Grave of Angels by Erica Ruppert Corra Martin, last child of her family line…

Source

“Report on the Flanking Action” was originally published in the braided collection, Tales of the Callamo Mountains. CW: racial slurs M.R. James Shadows at the Door Mark Nixon The Thing Search & Rescue A Podcast to the Curious From the action report of Captain William Meecher: “…the engagement ended with the capture of most of the hostiles and seven…

Source

“Ba’alat Ov” originally appeared in The Jewish Book of Horror In the night, the spirits spoke with hisses and gurgles like serpents wrapped around my head. I awoke covered in sweat, barely able to breathe, so afraid of what they would ask me to do. They whispered things over and over, crying out for understanding. There was never a choice in my action, only the act itself or…

Source

PseudoPod 882: See That My Grave is Kept Clean is a PseudoPod original. CW for suicide Dig a hole, climb in, cover yourself in grave dirt. Not your face. You aren’t ready to join the dead, not yet. The bone men tend the graveyard, unaware they’re being watched. You’re crying because you’d lost hope of ever seeing them. They step so softly they appear to drift…

Source

PseudoPod 881: How to Win a Dance Contest During an Apocalypse (In Nine Easy Steps!) is a PseudoPod original. From the author: “While I’m a horror fan first and foremost, I’m also a big aficionado of coming-of-age films and romantic comedies, especially of the 1980s. I’ve always thought that many of the films of that era have a sort of existential horror vibe, even if you have to look…

Source

“The King in Yella” was originally published in Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign edited by James Chambers. It won the Ditmar award in 2022 for Best Short Story. I’m always returning to Rapptown in my thoughts. Unbidden, unwanted, I’m taken back there. A hint of yellow. The smell of smoke. These things blind me to the present. I haven’t lived there for…

Source

“Resilience” was originally release in episode 704 of PseudoPod. Jason gets home while I’m at the sink. He comes up behind me, holds me around the waist, and tickles the side of my face with his soft new beard. We watch the young squirrels shake a tree branch, listen to them chatter through the open window. They zoom across the front yard and across the street.

Source

PseudoPod 878: The Son (El Hijo) and The Feather Pillow (El almohadón de plumas) is a PseudoPod original. “El Hijo” was first published under the title “El padre” in La Nación, 15 January 1928. “El Almohadón de Plumas” was first published in the magazine Caras y Caretas, 13 July 1907; it was revised when collected in 1917. Both of these are new translations by Shawn Garrett.

Source

PseudoPod 877: Billy’s Garage is a PseudoPod original. CW: Animal cruelty From the author: “This is my contribution to the “kids on bikes” subgenre of horror. It’s set back when I was a teen, and yes, we did have to dissect actual frogs.” Incidentally, the author in no way condones any of the actions depicted in this story, except for reading comic books.

Source

This text was extracted from McClure’s Jan 1911, illustrated by Henry Raleigh. The short story was adapted by herself into a novel in 1913; and again adapted into an opera and numerous films (including one by Alfred Hitchcock) and radio plays. “THERE he is at last, and I’m glad of it, Ellen. ‘Tain’t a night you would wish a dog to be out in.” Mr. Bunting’s voice was full of…

Source

This text was extracted from McClure’s Jan 1911, illustrated by Henry Raleigh. The short story was adapted by herself into a novel in 1913; and again adapted into an opera and numerous films (including one by Alfred Hitchcock) and radio plays. “THERE he is at last, and I’m glad of it, Ellen. ‘Tain’t a night you would wish a dog to be out in.” Mr. Bunting’s voice was full of…

Source

“Bitter is the Sea, and Bright” was first published in Daily Science Fiction, November 2018 “Fishing Season” is a PseudoPod original — Fishing Season: I went fishing at a nearby reservoir, and I didn’t catch anything except water willow and the wisps of this story’s concept. “Snotty” is a PseudoPod original Snotty: I watched a documentary that featured snot otters and began…

Source

PseudoPod 873: A Box of Hair and Nail is a PseudoPod original. “This story was inspired by an urban myth that terrified my mum when she was a teenager in Malaysia. The legend went that if you didn’t dispose of your nail and hair clippings carefully, an unwanted admirer could steal them and take them to a bomoh—shaman—and have a love spell placed on you. Rumour was that this happened to…

Source

“The Strange Island of Dr. Nork” was first published in Weird Tales, March 1949 CW: racist language. Please note this story was first published in 1949 and contains language which would not be acceptable today, particularly with regards to race. Afflicted Season Two Fundraiser I Between the Greater Antilles and the Lesser Antilles rises a little group of…

Source

“Nymph of Darkness” was originally published in Fantasy Magazine, April 1935 Afflicted Season Two Fundraiser The thick Venusian dark of the Ednes waterfront in the hours before dawn is breathless and tense with a nameless awareness, a crouching danger. The shapes that move murkily through its blackness are not daylight shapes. Sun has never shone upon some of those misshapen…

Source

“The Dancing Partner” is excerpted from Jerome’s non-genre novel Novel Notes where it is the second half of Chapter 11. The serialization of that chapter first appeared in the March 1893 issue of The Idler. “This story,” commenced MacShaughnassy, “comes from Furtwangen, a small town in the Black Forest. There lived there a very wonderful old fellow named Nicholaus Geibel.

Source

“Audio Recording Left by the CEO of the Ranvannian Colony to Her Daughter, on the Survival Imperative of Maximising Market Profits” was originally published in Diabolical Plots, October 2021 “We didn’t set out to write this as a story: we only really set out to try and gross each other out, exchanging segments in a series of escalations for our own amusement. But then Matt considers…

Source

“The Coward Who Stole God’s Name” originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine in their May issue in 2022. “If I named any of the inspirations for this story, then I’d get into terrible trouble, wouldn’t I? You’d hate to upset Gavin and those who love him. This is the sort of story that I can’t imagine not writing. The ideas in it swirl through my mind too frequently. If anything…

Source

PseudoPod 867: Chainsaw: As Is is a PseudoPod original. Gillian King-Cargile grew up in the land-locked, corn country of Illinois, but every summer she’d visit her grandparents on the Jersey Shore. She swam in the Atlantic Ocean like a fish and body surfed until the broken-up shells of the shallows sanded down her knees. She also soaked up stories of shipwrecks, East-coast ghosts…

Source

“Litany In The Heart Of Exorcism” originally appeared in Flash Fiction Online, and is due to appear in Dutch translation in Speculatief “He’s Just Like You” is a PseudoPod Original — “‘He’s Just Like You’ stems from the anxieties of being a father and the quality of the traits you’re passing on.” “Take Root” is a PseudoPod Original CW “He’s Just Like You” The Dog Dies…

Source

PseudoPod 865: Wanted: Bone-White Skull-Patterned Lace Trim is a PseudoPod original. The stroller on the side of the road caught Nina Wong’s eye as her Fiesta rounded the bend on her way to work. She slowed down, noting the FREE! sign taped to its handles. Free was about the only price she could afford right now, since Will had been gone a month, taking with him his half of the…

Source

“All the Ways to Hollow Out a Girl” was originally published in Horror for RAICES from Nightscape Press and reprinted in the charity anthology Shattered and Splintered. It’s almost noon on Friday when the neighborhood boys murder me again for the third time this week. They do it with their hands today, bulging knuckles blanching white, their sweaty fingers wrapped tight…

Source

Both “Coincidence” and “The Dream” originally appeared in The London Magazine, April 1927 and June 1927 respectively This is the story of a coincidence. At any rate I call it a coincidence. The road where I live is very long and very straight. It’s paved with wood and well lighted after dark. The result is that cars and taxis going by during the night .

Source

“The Curious Story of Susan Styles” was originally published in 1893 The Society for Psychical Research was formed in 1882, 11 years before this story was written “Susan Styles,” the name is not a romantic one, and yet it is associated in my mind with a curious series of incidents, which, were I a member of the Psychical (or ghost investigating) Society1 I might have brought…

Source

PseudoPod 861: Swing Batter Batter is a PseudoPod original. A baseball clubhouse is a weird place. You’ve got California prep school kids rubbing elbows with good old boys from Texas and Louisiana, and guys from the Dominican and Venezuela mixing with guys who grew up in the inner city and still found their way to baseball. Nothing in common, and yet, all sharing a love of the…

Source

“Time Enough at Last” originally appeared in IF Worlds of Science Fiction January 1953. For a long time, Henry Bemis had had an ambition. To read a book. Not just the title or the preface, or a page somewhere in the middle. He wanted to read the whole thing, all the way through from beginning to end. A simple ambition perhaps, but in the cluttered life of Henry Bemis…

Source

PseudoPod 859: We, the Ones Who Raised Sam Gowers from the Dead is a PseudoPod original. CW: Homophobic/transphobic violence Yes, to answer your questions, we were the ones who did it; we were the ones who dabbled into the forbidden arts, who so casually threw away the good Christian values of our country for a flash of bloody vengeance. We are the ones you want…

Source

“On the Getting of Husbands and the Spawning of Children” previously appeared in Arsenika in April 2021 “The Chairmaker’s Daughter” is a PseudoPod original “Concerning the Fantastic Native Flora of the Indo-Chinese Padma Valley” is a PseudoPod Original. “Concerning the Fantastic Native Flora of the Indo-Chinese Padma Valley” is inspired by the giant flower found in Southeast…

Source

PseudoPod 857: Of Dark That Bites is a PseudoPod original. CW: Traumatic birth “Where do we go when we die?” asked Bea. She was in her car seat, a masterpiece of straps and safety standards that did less than nothing to assuage the mad patter of Lucy’s heart whenever she had to drive over Brassknocker Hill. The slopes were too steep, the roads too narrow.

Source

“Them Doghead Boys” originally appeared in Current Affairs Magazine in their Jan/Feb 2021 issue Things got bad bad once the Ravels was gone. Five-Oh swooped down and arrested damnear eighty of them and after that wasn’t nobody on the corners slingin but things wasn’t no safer. Up at the corner of Brainard and Josephine there was a murder at five or six in the evening.

Source

PseudoPod 855: And The Water Said Kneel is a PseudoPod original. Content Warning: Rape Revenge The river claims her like a lover, like someone who needed her whole and open and honest. It feels like she’s supposed to expose her throat, to bow for the very water itself, or at least for the man who put her there. She doesn’t want this though, she never has…

Source

“Bones in It” was originally published in Lightspeed in May 2021 Good Bones by Maggie Smith Besides the vedma who lived behind the stove in steam room three, the banya in Grand Lake Plaza was the same as any other budget day spa on Chicago’s West Side. It had deep-tissue massages and signature facials, plus day passes for the communal baths and steam rooms.

Source

PseudoPod 853: Oni in the Box is a PseudoPod original. Now, Sobo was our late father’s mother. By our mother’s accounts she was mad, if not wicked. Gossip ran muddy in our family. One relative, now deceased, told me she was once the personal Tay? of the now equally dead Abetake Risu; former, and most honorable, Daimyo of Ouja-jo. Another cousin was far more grandiose in his…

Source

“Every Body Depicted Is Exploited” was first published in PopCult’s Gruesome Love anthology as “Crit.” Everyone knew that Pamela was the only real artist there. The rest of us were just play-acting. The sensible ones, like me, figured out pretty early on that the program was a joke. Formulaic. Easy to phone in. Still, there were plenty of students who told themselves they had a…

Source

PseudoPod 851: Flash on the Borderlands LXIV: Purification is a PseudoPod original. Candlemas: “February 2, 2023 is Candlemas. I’ve always had a thing for microfiction -tiny, jewel-like figures, acting out their passion play to the chiming of a pocket watch. Repetition seems to polish such tales, not wear them down, till they shine like fairy stories, eternally recommencing in some…

Source

Presenters: Marguerite Kenner and Alasdair Stuart Hey folks, welcome to an Escape Artists metacast. I’m Marguerite Kenner. And I’m Alasdair Stuart. For those of you who have never heard a metacast before, think of this like a mini State of the Union address, a way for us to update you about what’s been happening at EA. The big thing is our news that EA now stands for the Escape Artists…

Source

“A Short Trip Home” was published in 1927 and is in the public domain F. SCOTT FITZGERALD – “The Diamond As Big As The Ritz” (1922) BLACKWATER 2: MORE TALES OF THE FANTASTIC by Alberto Manguel Stefan Grabinski KRAFTWERK – Trans-Europe Express (1977) Pierre Schaeffer – “Etudes aux Chemins du Fer” (aka “Railroad Study”) (1948) A Short Trip Home By F. Scott Fitzgerald I…

Source

“Two Black Bottles” originally appeared in Weird Tales, August 1927 Not all of the few remaining inhabitants of Daalbergen, that dismal little village in the Ramapo Mountains, believe that my uncle, old Dominie Vanderhoof, is really dead. Some of them believe he is suspended somewhere between heaven and hell because of the old sexton’s curse. If it had not been for that old…

Source

“Browdean Farm” originally appeared in the 1927 collection Some Ghost Stories Check out ll the amazing things W.J. Walton is working on at AWKWARD LABS (http://www.awkward-labs.com) ? Most people with limited vocabularies such as mine would describe the house loosely and comprehensively as picturesque. But it was more than beautiful in its venerable age. It had certain subtle…

Source

The original version was first published in “Ghost Stories Magazine” April, 1927, “On the Isle of Blue Men” was an atmospheric, Lovecraftian thriller -almost certainly inspired by the real world 1900 Flannan Isles lighthouse crew disappearance. This story was later republished in the anthology LIGHTHOUSE HORRORS in 1993, edited by Charles Waugh, in which it was noted that Waugh found…

Source

“Ye Goode Olde Ghoste Storie” originally appeared in Weird Tales, January 1927 under the pen name William A. P. White Derek Delgaudio Excellent and IMMENSELY spoiler-y piece about In & Of Itself ‘‘But there ain’t no sech thing!” said Jed Hoskins’ old man forcefully. ‘‘No such thing as what?” queried the stranger with the black bag, who had justed seated himself near…

Source

“15 Eulogies Scribbled Inside a Hello Kitty Notebook” originally appeared in Carlie’s debut collection, You Fed Us to the Roses, published by Robot Dinosaur Press in October 2022. February—Liam I didn’t know him well. Nobody did, really: he was the new kid. But he was funny, and he was cute, and I probably would’ve said yes when he asked me out, except that’s when the gullet…

Source

“The Oval Portrait” was published in the April 26, 1845 edition of the Broadway Journal. “Not More Lovely than Full of Glee” originally appeared in A Winter’s Tale: Horror Stories for the Yuletide The chateau into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance, rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night in the open air, was one of those…

Source

“Mother Trucker” originally appeared in Mother: Tales Of Love And Terror by Weird Little Worlds in Fall 2022 My mother hits the moose in the pitch black of 4:32 a.m. There’s almost nothing to see, just a blur of limbs burnt sepia by the headlights of her truck. But it’s the noise that really grinds its hooves in—a startling, thunderous clap that blooms from the moose’s body…

Source

“Palette” originally appeared in the anthology Howls From the Dark Ages: An Anthology of Medieval Horror. All of the ingredients for the woman’s makeup recipes are accurate for medieval Austria. The line etched across her forehead, deep as a vein, as if a string had been stretched against the skin. She rubbed it, but it would not erase; her young elastic skin would not…

Source

“Corporation” opened the collection Burn the Plans released by Cemetery Gates Media in February 2022 Sunlight blooms in the sky, rising up from behind all those glass and steel buildings. It burns away the dark blue. The Windows are still tinted from yesterday when I dimmed them. I touch the tablet to wake it up, then press the office icon. A new menu opens, I push the square…

Source

PseudoPod 821 Special Anniversary Episode: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT! is a PseudoPod original. Towards the end of July 2022 we released a special episode to mark Alasdair Stuart’s 15 years as the voice of PseudoPod. It included the story Celestial Shores, written by Sarah Day and Tim Pratt and narrated by Alasdair and his partner, Marguerite Kenner, as well as special tributes to Al and…

Source

“No Hungry Generations” was published originally in the October 2022 Anthology, Death In The Mouth. The bird looked like the last descendent of a prehistoric mishap. Fatter than a turkey and wild-eyed even after death, it had small feet and a golden beard on its chest that may as well have been a neon sign reading ‘SHOOT HERE.’ Mother Nature must’ve been nursing a hangover…

Source

“The Only Thing Different Will Be the Body” originally appeared in the anthology A Woman Built By Man published by Cemetery Gates Media My great-grandfather was an angel. When I told men that, they laughed. When I made it clear I was serious, they looked at me like I was crazy. For some, their eyes took on a blood-flushed sheen as they calculated the kind of fuck I’d be.

Source

“Old Haunts” originally appeared in the 2022 collection How to See Ghosts & Other Figments Kim Parks considered himself something of a connoisseur of the haunted attractions that sprang up every year around Halloween. While he was getting his masters, he had been to haunted attractions all over the country—New Orleans, St. Louis, New York. He worked as a systems analyst for a…

Source

“Offerings “was first published in Doorbells At Dusk from Corpus Press, 2018 and reprinted in the 2022 collection “Convulsive” Blaine’s head hurts at the sight of Amelia shuffling up the block. Hot from raking leaves, Blaine stretches as she admires her new house in her new neighborhood. The cold pinch of October air and brisk setting sun anticipate kids pouring in tomorrow at…

Source

PseudoPod 836: The Halloween Parade is a PseudoPod original. The parade this year feels brittle. At least at first. It reminds you of that first step into a swimming pool, wondering if it will be too hot or too cold. You brace yourself for sharp contrast, face the suck, breathe through it. And then you’re there. There’s an opening act waiting for you — the horror of wondering…

Source

PseudoPod 835: Trickin’ is a PseudoPod original. It’s time. Nestled beneath the rolling peaks from the mountain ranges, honeycombs of caves spread out in their like swollen slugs providing shelter from the weeping clouds. Raoul emerged from one of those caves. He scratched his scalp beneath his thick dreadlocked hair and squinted against the rain pouring across the lands.

Source

PseudoPod 834: To the Tooth is a PseudoPod original. I just wanted breakfast. Coffee, maybe an egg with spinach. But before I even stumbled over to the coffeemaker, a sprawling net of pasta stopped me. It stretched from the ceiling to the cabinets to the floor; its many strands twining like a starchy spider web across the narrow galley kitchen. This wasn’t normal. This wasn’t a…

Source

“Cockcrow Inn” was first published in the collection Who Wants a Green Bottle? and Other Uneasy Tales in 1926 Cockcrow Inn stands defiantly facing the sea. For countless years it has stood thus, holding at naught the greatest strength of wind and water, quite careless of the dazzling thunderstorms which on sultry summer evenings attack it as though with lifted sword-blades—a…

Source

Proverbs 16:31 – Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life. I suggest you don’t try to struggle, my dear. I’m sure you thought this would be easy. What danger is an old woman, all alone? In and out, simple. Help yourself to the purse on the kitchen table. Grab some jewellery – probably just lying around. Perhaps the Hummel figurines if you’ve any sort of an eye.

Source

PseudoPod 831: Idomeneja is a PseudoPod original. From the author: “The speculative elements from this story are based on the death masks found in the grave circles at the site at Mycenae. I have taken serious artistic liberties with the archaeology and the language, Linear B.” The whole ride back to the village I hold you steady in the bed of the pickup…

Source

“The Honey Witch” originally appeared in SHARP AND SUGARTOOTH: WOMEN UP TO NO GOOD edited by Octavia Cade (Upper Rubber Boot Books 2019) The Honey Witch By Kathryn McMahon My hood and gloves are on the table next to the smoker that, for now, remains unlit. Its charred pine needles quiet the bees and mask their alarm, a perfume that smells, improbably, of bananas. I don’t need the…

Source

“We’ve All Gone to the Magic Show” was previously published in Vastarien: Vol.3, Issue 1 by Grimscribe Press. Earlier this summer, word spread around our town that the Magic Show’s doors were open. Swollen and stained timbers that once barred the entrance were found scattered about its front stoop among a pile of last year’s dead leaves. The double doors, famously ornate from a…

Source

PseudoPod 828: Taxiptómy is a PseudoPod original. Mulholland Drive trailer Mulholland Drive ‘No Hay Banda’ scene Taxiptómy [tak-si-toe-mee] From the Greek words Taxis meaning “arrangement” and Ptóma meaning “corpse”. Noun Taxiptómist [tak-si-toe-mist] Noun Synonyms for Taxiptómist Red Artist (colloquialism), Babe-Butcher (colloquialism, vulgar)…

Source

PseudoPod 827: She Works in the Office Where They Died is a PseudoPod original. Dezra works in an office where 1000 people died. Well, 1082. People round down. No one’s told the ones who died. “Good morning,” says Dezra, to Brenda the security guard who mans the bag check. “Morning,” says Brenda, with a tired nod. Caroline, the receptionist, is hunched behind Brenda. She’…

Source

“Dream House” originally appeared in the anthology Georgia Gothic Alice and Rick turned off the highway onto the twisting gravel road. Oaks arched overhead, a tunnel of green. “Haven’t I always said I wanted a long driveway,” Rick said. “A daily nature hike to the mailbox?” At the final turn, a break in the woods, and Alice’s stomach tightened. Midday sun sparked the tin roof.

Source

“Flowering Evil” first appeared in Planet Stories, Summer 1950 Captain Bjornson shook a grizzled head. “I never saw a plant I liked the looks of less,” he said. “I don’t know how he got it through the planetary plant quarantine. You take my advice, Amy, and watch out for it.” He took another of the little geela nut cookies from the quaint old lucite platter, and bit into it…

Source

“Renascent” was first published by Aurealis in 2019. From the author: Renascent means ‘rising again into being or vigor’, an apt title for my story. The origin of this story came from my personal questioning about whether organ recipients take on the traits of their organ donors. I also learned about the horrific black market in organs during my research and wanted to shed light on…

Source

“Little Freedoms” was first published in ‘Shoreline of Infinity’ in December 2017. The room is cylindrical, metal, no doors or windows. Nine of us stand in a circle, not touching, but spread your arms and you’d hit someone. I think I could lie flat in here without brushing the walls, but not by much. The ceiling hatch above us locks shut with a scrape. We examine faces…

Source

“The Experiment of Erich Weigert” was originally published in Weird Tales in 1926 The moment I gazed out over the audience I saw him. He was seated far back under the balcony that overhung the little auditorium, but even in the heavy shadow I could see his eyes; eyes that seemed alight with cold brilliance, like a diamond in the moonlight. Although I was more or less…

Source

PseudoPod 821: Celestial Shores is a PseudoPod original. Britt drove silently while Ray gazed past her at the beauty of the rock-strewn ocean, beyond the sheer drop-offs and flimsy guardrails that separated the coast road from the end of the continent. They were farther north than he’d ever been in California, heading for Celestial Shores, a stretch of property that began life in…

Source

“Off the Road” was originally published in the Spring 2021 issue of Sein und Werden This story is dedicated to my daughter Kaetlyn Nicole–one of the strongest women I know. Thank you for always listening when I read my stories out loud. They’re gonna try to tell you that hitchhiking is dangerous. Mostly men. They’ll throw ‘girl’ in there, possibly lumped in with ‘pretty young…

Source

“Balloon Season” has previously been featured in Fusion Fragment and Dark Matter Magazine. I’ve never gotten used to the sense of urgency of summer afternoons, that feeling of being drenched in the thickness of that still, blanketed heat, and trying to think of anything I’ve missed while checking the outside of the house. I make sure to test the plywood boards over each of the…

Source

PseudoPod 818: Flash on the Borderlands LXII: Flash Fiction Contest 7 Winners is a PseudoPod original. Position: Overnight home companion for shut in. Must be able to read. Lack of imagination a plus. Salary: 250 dollars a night. I’ve never seen who pays. But the cash is there every morning at sunrise. A brown paper bag in the mailbox, twenties and tens. Good money, right?

Source

“Tommy’s Field” was originally published in the anthology Georgia Gothic – The final line is a nod to the superstition against whistling in a graveyard lest ye summon the devil. From the author: “This story is loosely based on a real person, and when I first heard of the real-life “Tommy” I couldn’t help but think the dead would show their gratitude if they could. I’m a huge fan of…

Source

“The Goatkeeper’s Harvest” was originally published in The Dark. Special thanks to the author for helping us find a reader. From the author: “When I was seven, I spent the summer on my aunt’s goat farm, and it was quite the experience. Anyone who’s dealt with goats knows that they’re stubborn creatures. They get everywhere. They jump fences, knock down gates. And they look at you in…

Source

PseudoPod 815: Stinkpit is a PseudoPod original. Ben Wheatley interview A Field in England trailer Under the Earth trailer John Arnold’s traps were full; too many rabbits for one man’s needs. He could try selling a few down The Lamb for a fiver or maybe just a pint, though if he did he’d have to suffer the taunts of “gamekeeper turned poacher”. It wasn’t accurate.

Source

“The Green Scarf” originally appeared in The London Magazine, August 1926 When the Wellingford family became extinct the days of Wellingford Hall as one of the great country homes of England were already numbered. The estate passed into the hands of commercial-minded people who had no reverence for the history of a great house. The acres around the old Hall became too valuable…

Source

PseudoPod 813: A Belly Full of Spiders is a PseudoPod original. Alone in a dark basement, Davey’s learned to do much without his eyes. He can hear the groaning of a house that never settles. He can taste different flavours of humidity: rust, cloth, mould, sweat. When he sniffs, he knows what Mom and Dad are cooking upstairs. Baked potatoes, drizzled in olive oil and peppered with…

Source

“The Old Switcheroo” first appeared in the anthology What One Wouldn’t Do from Scott J. Moses in autumn 2021. Calvin and I have been happy here, all told. With both of us orphaned early on, we were lucky to find each other, lucky to get out of the city and find this valley. We were luckier still to find this house well stocked with board games and books, space to spread out…

Source

PseudoPod 811: No One Really Lives Alone is a PseudoPod original. When the priest comes to your house to vanquish your demons, draped in ancient symbols with pockets of holy water oozing from her like sap, don’t ask who sent her. She’ll mark your doorstep with a small crucifix that she draws in the air with a careful and deliberate flourish, and you won’t be able to stop yourself…

Source

PseudoPod 810: Her Face All Teeth is a PseudoPod original. Denny did not want to spy on the confessional, but at the same time, he did. He wanted what he did not want, or he did not want to want what he wanted. As a Catholic, he should have been well-equipped to deal with this. Unfortunately, he was also well-equipped to spy on the confessional. Denny had a quiet body.

Source

“A Pearl as Red as Sin” originally appeared as “Baby” to open the anthology Good Southern Witches The baby bit hard into my flesh and held there. It dug into the left side of my womb with a pinprick pinch, sharp and determined. Lying in bed, cheek hot against the old pillowcase redolent of hair and bleach, I imagined the embryo floating through a warm-wet universe…

Source

“Food Man” was originally published in Crank! and was nominated for an Otherwise Award, known at the time as the Tiptree Award. Dinner was the real problem. Mornings, it was easy to rush out of the house without eating; when it wasn’t, when her mother made an issue of it, she’d eat an orange or half a grapefruit. At lunchtime she was either at school or out so there was no…

Source

PseudoPod 807: The Bleak Communion of Abandoned Things is a PseudoPod original. I accept the house in lieu of a settlement. I don’t want Ashley’s dirty money. The house is the least ill-gotten thing she owns, an isolated property she won in a card game and forgot. We’ve never even been there. I’m hoping that the lack of shared memories will make it a perfect place to hole up while…

Source

PseudoPod 806 : Garden Empire is a PseudoPod original. Insects, lots of insects I’d bought the house only the week before, when I was still in possession both of my teeth and of my job as the Head of Machine Learning for an Auckland-based startup. A two-story villa with a section of native bush so dense that it baffled the city noise into a murmur.

Source

“The Fifteenth Green” was first published in Nights of the Round Table, 1926. Yard Act-Land of the Blind If You Build It, They Will Move: The Los Angeles Freeway System and the Displacement of Mexican East Los Angeles, 1944-1972 Another night at Saunderson’s; a chilly night in early May, cold enough for the fire that roared and flamed cheerfully on the wide hearth that had…

Source

PseudoPod 804: Flash on the Borderlands LXI: Dead Man’s Party (April Fools’ Version) is a PseudoPod original. “The Tentacle and You” was originally published in Nature Futures back in 2019. “Backers” is a PseudoPod Original “Your Honor, My Undead Client Opposes the Application to Probate His Estate” is a PseudoPod original. “Backers”: “My wife and her friends are obsessed with…

Source

Laurie stands in front of a door. It’s old but solid, as many old things are. Whatever paint once covered it has long since worn away, and the wood beneath is striped, and furred with splinters. It is her very first door, of her very first day, of her very first job. Her ankles wobble over brand-new high heels, and her smart jacket is slightly itchy and entirely unsuited for the warm weather.

Source

“The Tentacle and You” was originally published in Nature Futures back in 2019. “Backers” is a PseudoPod Original “Your Honor, My Undead Client Opposes the Application to Probate His Estate” is a PseudoPod original. “Backers”: “My wife and her friends are obsessed with podcasts about serial killers – something I find it hard to understand. My kids are fans of various chirpy…

Source

PseudoPod 803: Them At Number Seventy-Four is a PseudoPod original. When body number four is discovered, Mrs Patterson thinks that surely now she and her husband will be caught. Days creep past, then a week. Two. Three. Their excitement and relief begins to fade. Once again, the desire blossoms, delicate at first, but growing bolder as the hours and days pass.

Source

“Laughter Among the Trees” was previously published by The Dark Magazine on February 1st 2021. The highway to the campground cuts through the granite Laurentian Plateau like a desiccated wound. It’s been twenty five years since I’ve retraced this road and, though the comfort stops along the route have been expanded and stream lined, the forest and rock remain the same…

Source

PseudoPod 801: The Bear Across the Way is a PseudoPod original. I paid no more attention to the bear than I would have any new neighbors. Despite what my husband might tell you, the fact that he was a bear played into my curiosity very little. It was his behavior that concerned me. The same behavior that would have concerned me of any new member to our community. And if people had…

Source

“The Parricide’s Tale” is an excerpt from a larger work, the notorious Gothic Novel Melmoth The Wanderer (1820) Wikipedia article on Melmoth The Wanderer This week’s quote It was in the midst of one of his most licentious songs, that my companion suddenly paused. He gazed about him for some time; and faint and dismal as the light was by which we beheld each other…

Source

“February Moon” originally appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies in May, 2020, and was the first in a series of monster stories I’m writing that take place in old Texas. Something killed our rooster and three of our brown hens during the night. Thin ice crusts the ground, and it breaks in delicate patterns as I step toward the scattering of feathers and bones.

Source

“Sometimes Boys Don’t Know” was originally published in the July 2021 issue of Nightmare Magazine. “Human Body as Compendium” is a PseudoPod original. “Never Enough Pockets” is a PseudoPod original Never Enough Pockets: body horror, self-harm “Human Body as Compendium”: “In moments of high anxiety I like to imagine that I can crack my skull open and take my…

Source

“New to It All” first appeared in the collection I Would Haunt You If I Could published in March of 2021 by Undertow. My first girlfriend, Niamh, was a scratcher. Saoirse wasn’t like that. The first time Niamh asked me to stay the night, she was testing me out. I can see that now, in retrospect. Nothing too scratchy to begin with. “I didn’t want to scare you away…

Source

“The Horse Leech Has Two Maws” was originally published in The Jewish Book of Horror This story deals with the Holocaust. This story has an academic frame and that the text on the website has a number of scholarly footnotes that provide additional context. The first footnote is “In Hebrew, alukah means “horseleech”—a type of leech with many teeth that feeds on the…

Source

‘The Last Seance’ was first published in Ghost Stories, November 1926 Raoul Daubreuil crossed the Seine humming a little tune to himself. He was a good-looking young Frenchman of about thirty-two, with a fresh-coloured face and a little black moustache. By profession he was an engineer. In due course he reached the Cardonet and turned in at the door of No. 17.

Source

‘The Man Who Was Saved’ was first published in Weird Tales, May 1926 ‘Only I escaped.’ The man whom they had found adrift in the dory hung his head. ‘The others—’ the listeners bent nearer to catch his throatily whispered words—‘the others—it got them—that monstrous, curved thing!’ His eyes rolled back, showing bloodshot whites; his body tensed and then he shook…

Source

“And No Bird Sings” was first published in the magazine Woman, December 1926. “Birdsong & Elemental Slug” soundbed by Shawn M. Garrett, dedicated to Adi Newton & The Anti-Group (TAGC) The red chimneys of the house for which I was bound were visible from just outside the station at which I had alighted, and, so the chauffeur told me, the distance was not more than a mile’s…

Source

“The Rocking-Horse Winner” was first published in Harper’s Bazaar, July 1926. There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them. They looked at her coldly, as if they were finding fault with…

Source

“Feast for Small Pieces” was originally published in The Bronzeville Bee in 2019 and reprinted in the collection Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy. “MeeMee” first saw print in the anthology Georgia Gothic. “The Shimmer of Trees” was originally published in the anthology Campfire Macabre. “The Incident in Exeter” was originally published in Curtains 84 Concert Visions To Benefit #

Source

PseudoPod 790: The Humbug is a PseudoPod original. Joshua caught it in a glass jar with holes poked in the lid. He came running up to the cabin with it, shouting, “I found a bug! I found a bug!” “There aren’t any bugs in winter,” Amanda said crossly, though no snow had fallen yet and the trees and ground outside were simply bare and gray. When Joshua placed the jar on the big…

Source

“I Will Not Walk in Darkness” originally appeared in the anthology Georgia Gothic and “High Water Slack” was first published by the IGNYTE Award Winning publication NightLight The song in “I Will Not Walk in Darkness” is Empty Bottle, Empty Bed by the Mini Vandals and the song in “High Water Slack” is P.C.G.C.P. by P C III It started the way most bad things in my life start.

Source

“The Stories We Tell About Ghosts” was originally published in Looming Low: Volume I and reprinted this year in A.C. Wise’s new collection, The Ghost Sequences. Growing up in Dieu-le-Sauveur, my friends and I told stories about ghosts—the Starving Man, the Sleeping Girl, and the House at the End of the Street. The summer I was twelve, I saw my first ghost for real.

Source

“On Seas of Blood and Salt” originally appeared in The Jewish Book of Horror This is what Reb Palache does when he finds a ship crewed by the dead. He does not know it is crewed by the dead, not at first. He is in his cabin, discoursing with the nameless angel who speaks in the silences of his mind. They are speaking of the Pirkei Avot and debating the words of Rabbi Chanina…

Source

PseudoPod 786: Licking Roadkill is a PseudoPod original. Cole was licking the highway when the cops picked him up the night before Thanksgiving. Reckless endangerment, they said, and obstructing traffic, and whatever else they could come up with to get him out of the road and into a holding cell. Later I went past the spot where they arrested him, on my way into town to bail him…

Source

“Closet Dreams” was originally published in PostScripts and was a finalist for the Stoker Award. Content Warnings Child Abuse, Stalking, Abduction, Confinement, Sexual Assault [collapse] Something terrible happened to me when I was a little girl. I don’t want to go into details. I had to do that far too often in the year after it happened…

Source

“American Remake of a Japanese Ghost Story” was originally released by Crystal Lake Publishing in the anthology There Is No Death, There Are No Dead There’s a curse in folklore known as a geas. That’s when a witch, or a fairy, or the supernatural entity of your choice, compels a hapless mortal to undertake duties on the creature’s behalf. Woe betides the mortal who shirks the…

Source

“Sleep Hygiene” was first published in Nightmare’s Realm: New Tales of the Weird and Fantastic and reprinted this year in the collection In That Endlessness, Our End Audio Production & DreamBed, assembled from various field recordings, by Shawn M. Garrett and dedicated to Dion McGregor, Brion Gysin & CURRENT 93 Shut your eyes, let your breathing slow. Then follow the map…

Source

PseudoPod 782: The Halloween Parade is a PseudoPod original. That’s what the parade is for. The cowboys with no faces are first this year. Men with bone white paint and matte black hats. Men whose eyes are filled with the combination of terror and rage that raises your hackles, your hindbrain warning you to stay as far away as possible. Each is on horseback…

Source

Source

“Screen Haunt” was first published in It Came from the Multiplex, published by Hex Publishers in September 2020 “What are you afraid of?” Jeanne asks, kicking her feet on the top bunk. I’m lying underneath looking up at the springs where they sag down under her weight. My mind is racing like a game of Memory, flipping over cards to see what comes crawling when exposed to the…

Source

“Flickering Dusk Of The Video God” was originally published in the 2020 anthology Monsters, Movies & Mayhem A fresh burst of white noise roars through my head and jittery tracking lines wiggle and squirm through my vision again, even worse this time. The world stretches and distorts like in a mirror in a funhouse that’s no fun at all. The girl behind the bar pushes my pizza…

Source

“Trowel, Brush, Bones” was originally published in the Iron Horse Literary Review in January 2021 Sites that help with and advocate for the safety for women: We arrive at the compound outside Huanca just after midnight. We are tired and hungry and altitude sick and irritated by the spotty signal. We keep refreshing our phones, which had guaranteed service…

Source

PseudoPod 778: Live From The End Of The World is a PseudoPod original. Highway 28 vanished and reappeared as the windshield wipers fought a losing battle against Hurricane Francis. This storm was Harriet’s big chance. She only hoped she’d live through it. The news van hydroplaned for a heart sickening moment, then the tires caught asphalt again. “Maybe this wasn’t my best idea.”…

Source

“The Family” was first Published in Weird Tales in January 1950 This is an abridged version of “The Devil’s Graveyard” which first appeared in First published in Hutchinson’s Mystery Story Magazine, December 1924 and was reprinted in Weird Tales in August 1926. “Endless Halloween” originally appeared in Supernatural Tales #44, August 2020. “Devil on your back, I can never die”…

Source

“Papa’s Wrench and the Wind Chime” was originally published by Mocha Memoirs Press in The Grotesquerie (2014) and reprinted in her collection, Cold Comforts (Crossroad Press, 2019). The patch of fog on the window, expanding and fading with each breath, was the only proof that I was still breathing as the school bus turned the corner. The driver slowed, and the brakes made a…

Source

“Miss Mack” was first published in the 1986 anthology Halloween Horrors When Miss Mack showed up in Babylon in the late summer of 1957, nobody knew what to think of her. She had come from a little town called Pine Cone, and had a brother back there who did ladies’ hair in his kitchen. Miss Mack was a huge woman with a pig’s face, and short crinkly black hair that always looked…

Source

PseudoPod 774: Vanity, Vanity is a PseudoPod original. The author had this to share about this piece: “Gothic rural horror and the amorphous disposition of evil have long preoccupied me. Moral and spiritual diffidence have weighed on my mind more recently. The troubling and self-reflective atmosphere of this past year, 2020, seemed a fit time to stew these themes together…

Source

“The Floor Above” was originally published in the May 1923 issue of Weird Tales SEPTEMBER 17, 1922. — I sat down to breakfast this morning with a good appetite. The heat seemed over, and a cool wind blew in from my garden, where chrysanthemums were already budding. The sunshine streamed into the room and fell pleasantly on Mrs. O’Brien’s broad face as she brought in the eggs…

Source

PseudoPod 772: Flash on the Borderlands LVII: The Loving Gaze of the Abyss is a PseudoPod original. “Five Films Reviewed by Dr. Frankenstein’s Creature” was originally published in Weird Tales in 2012. The poem “Advice I Wish I’d Been Given When I Was a 12-Year-Old Girl about to Watch The Exorcist for the First Time”” was originally published in Vastarien Volume 3, Issue 2 in 2020.

Source

PseudoPod 771: The Human Chair is a PseudoPod original. “The Human Chair” was originally published in Kuraku, October 1925, as “Ningen Isu.” As this story is in the public domain in its original Japanese, we thought a new translation would be a fascinating project that extends PseudoPod’s 1925 showcase from January of this year. Yoshiko was accustomed to sending her husband off…

Source

“The Garden of Adompha” originally appeared in Weird Tales, April 1938 Lord of the sultry, red parterres And orchards sunned by hell’s unsetting flame! Amid thy garden blooms the Tree which bears Unnumbered heads of demons for its fruit; And, like a slithering serpent, runs the root That is called Baaras; And there the forky, pale mandragoras, Self-torn from out the soil…

Source

PseudoPod 769: Songs in a Lesser Known Key is a PseudoPod original. From the author, “I’ve played saxophone and clarinet in big bands for more years than I care to admit to. And while I have performed Artie Shaw’s Nightmare once or twice (and as far as I know the audiences have largely survived the experience) I’ve never yet inflicted Gloomy Sunday on any of them. If I ever take the…

Source

“Perfidious Beauty” was originally published in the anthology Embark to Madness Beauty knelt over the cooling body of her husband, the prince. The elegant clock in the foyer, carved from ebony and teak, struck the midnight hour. The twelve tiny peals: the bells of heaven tolling, or the din of hell birds? One. Two. Knife strokes shearing through flesh as easily as…

Source

“Death Has Red Hair” was originally published in Weird Tales in September of 1942. This story is surprising in being an early entry that is unabashedly feminist with multiple shades of “street harassment” on display. We three men were hugging the open fire closely. The raw chill of that November night had closed in around us and the blazing logs yielded grateful warmth.

Source

“Knock, Knock, Wolf” was originally published in Flame Tree’s Gothic Fantasy anthology, Footsteps in the Dark, in October 2020 It was time to kill the sparrows. Every autumn, after the last leaves fell and the bare trees rattled their bone song to an empty sky, the widow Clarabel started baking. Five parts flour, three parts water, a pinch of salt and emptins for leavening…

Source

PseudoPod 765: The Child Feast of Harridan Sack is a PseudoPod original. I plant a whisper in my daughter’s hair when her shoulders shake and hunch up to her ears. It’s only a story, I say. I turn the page; I’ve resolved her fears. It’s only a story. That is what mothers say to their daughters. What kind of comfort is that? It’s not a reassurance, or a consolation.

Source

“The Hollow Tree” was previously published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies in November 8, 2018 (Issue #264) Sevatividam would let to give a shoutout to Dan of Groundcrew Studios in Charlotte NC. She recorded “The Hollow Tree” and “Grave Mother” there and he did a spectacular good job on both of these episodes. Schitts Creek Smallville (comics) Books of Blood There are two kinds…

Source

“Charged” was first published in Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells (Tor Books, 2011) The reader, Joe Williams, would like to dedicate the reading to their Father who recently passed away: “Allan Williams was Joe’s hero. Never short of experiences to share or advice to give he had been a merchant seaman, a kangaroo hunter, and a movie extra, among other things. As an example of how to live no…

Source

“The Thought Monster” originally appeared in Weird Tales in March 1930 Fiend Without A Face resources: Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTLRyLnqCH4 Wikipedia Page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiend_Without_a_Face Fiend without a Face and it’s surprising controversy https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/fiend-without-a-face-and-its-surprising-controversy/

Source

“The Black Stone Statue” was first published in Weird Tales, December 1937 We can’t help but wonder what Counselman would think of Annihilation. Directors, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass. Gentlemen: Today I have just received aboard the S. S. Madrigal your most kind cable, praising my work and asking—humbly, as one might ask it of a true genius!—if I would do a statue of…

Source

PseudoPod 760: Akiko’s Legacy is a PseudoPod original. “Mother, why are Grandma and Gramps ashamed of Father?” Akiko smoothed back the unruly curls from her son’s face. Robert needed a haircut. The tips of his brown hair had begun to feather up around his ears. His father’s hair had done that. Martin had called it his “bozo-the-clown look” and had the offending locks lopped off as…

Source

“The Withered Heart” was originally published in the November 1939 issue of Weird Tales As this was originally published as a novelette and a bit long for an episode of PseudoPod, staff turned this into an abridgement project to see if we could trim out some of the fat and keep the core of the story. What is presented is the abridged text we’ve edited. The Brothers Meredith Twitch…

Source

“Little Worm” was originally published in the anthology Black Cranes Ping-ping-ping-ping. The incessant chiming underscored the cabbie’s music and the occasional blare of a horn. Theresa wondered what the hell it was as she braced herself. There were no seatbelts in the back of the taxi. Hopefully, wedging herself tight between her luggage would work just as well.

Source

“The Woman the Spiders Loved” first appeared in Penultimate Peanut and was reprinted in her 2020 collection I’ll Tell You a Love Story. “Edge of the Cliff” was first published in Weird Tales in March 1941 “The Memory of Love” originally published in Demonic Visions I in 2013 and reprinted in his 2020 collection PseudoPsalms: Resurrection. “Three Years Ago this May” first appeared in Shock…

Source

PseudoPod 756: To Witness is a PseudoPod original. Though the author is a professional photojournalist and has covered many car crashes, all characters, events, and organizations depicted in this story are fictional. Bad Samaritan (YouTube link) Don’t Breathe (YouTube link) Nightcrawler (YouTube link) Savageland (YouTube link) Wesley had beaten the cops.

Source

“Exquisite” first appeared in the 2019 collection Served Cold. “On the Eyeball Floor” by Tina Connolly Scarfolk Hookland Tim Rinneman had never met a lock he couldn’t pick. It was his expertise, his pride. And his curse, as it had become a compulsion he could not resist. He grinned as he worked at the front door of his latest target, hidden in the night shadows of the porch.

Source

PseudoPod 754: Flash on the Borderlands LV: The Easily Digested Hurt is a PseudoPod original. “Step Down, Step Down” is a PseudoPod original “Snip Snip Snip” is a PseudoPod original “My Guests” appeared in a slightly different form on the SFF Chronicles website Step Down, Step Down: “I’ve always been fascinated by the tradition of murder ballads that are still sung and passed down…

Source

“The Boulevardier” originally appeared in the anthology Love Hurts, from Meerkat Press. Each of the neighbours the boulevardier refers to in this story have appeared in their own published tales, as have others who live around the gully he refers to. David coincidentally lives across the street from a very similar gully, frequented by wallabies, goannas, echidnas and the occasional snake.

Source

PseudoPod 752: It Rises From Between My Bones is a PseudoPod original. Cancer, Chemotherapy Sitting on the toilet for the first sleepy morning pee, I felt my ovaries twist as a little piece of me trying burst through in a micro-explosion of tissue, born into my desert of a womb. It made no sense. I sat staring at my bald head and face in the mirror hanging across from the…

Source

“As Well as the Infirm” was originally published in Dark Moon Digest, April 2020 From the author: “The title comes from a section in the Hippocratic Oath: ‘I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.'” $243,378 You get two shots at becoming a doctor after med school.

Source

“Bargain” first appeared in Mothership Zeta (Dec 2015) Malachai loved his work. He loved wandering among the trappings of enormous wealth and influence, seeing the baubles that humans excreted to express their status. He especially loved watching those wealthy, influential mortals tremble before the might of his inescapable superiority. Malachai worked exclusively with those humans who…

Source

“The Artist and the Door” was first published in Weird Tales in November 1952 The advent of the artist and the door was almost simultaneous. I have always wondered if the one would have been as sinister without the other. Of course, the evil was in the door, but if the artist hadn’t come along just then perhaps it might never have been released. I say that to comfort myself…

Source

“Notes on a Resurrection” was originally published in Strange Horizons (July 2019). The Feast Day of Lazarus is March 17 for the Eastern Orthodox Church. the reporter I heard about the story from the friend of a friend of an acquaintance, and didn’t put any stock in it at first. In my profession, you hear things like this with some frequency. You’d be a fool if you went running…

Source

PseudoPod 748: The Infinite Error is a PseudoPod original. This is this story’s first time appearing to the public. It will be included in the forthcoming collaborative collection The Latham-Fielding Liaison. —E.M. Cioran, The Trouble with Being Born Of course, I would have preferred to defecate at home in the privacy and comfort of my own bathroom, but my bowels refuse to move…

Source

PseudoPod 747: Keeping House is a PseudoPod original. “Isn’t it cute?” Keishya, the realtor, spread her arms in the center of the kitchen like a starlet in center stage. “It’s a killer find.” Lydia gingerly put her purse down on the counter. They’d seen three houses already today, all of them a bit too small or a bit too pricey or a bit too far from her work. Her feet hurt.

Source

“Rattlesnake Song” originally appeared in July 2019 in the the anthology Triangulation: Dark Skies. The Last Picture Show came to the movie house on the square in the fall of nineteen seventy-one. We snuck in with warm cans of Pearl and sat on the back row so we could take quick hits off our cigarettes and snub them out before anyone noticed the smoke. I fell in love with Cybil…

Source

“Cleaver, Meat, and Block” was originally published in Black Static #73 in January 2020. The first thing Hannah learned when she came to live with her grandparents after the Plague, was how to wield the meat cleaver. Grandma taught her, guiding her hands in the backroom of the old butcher shop on Main Street. Showing her how to wrap her fingers around the handle, how to put her thumb…

Source

PseudoPod 744: This Wet Red is a PseudoPod original. I lie listening to a mouse in the wall. Its tiny feet scrabbling across worn boards; its tiny heart beating and beating and beating. Its not so tiny pursuer winds through the dark, a soft caress of scales over pine. I track the path of the monster unseen from one end of the room to another, steady in pursuit. It knows the mouse…

Source

PseudoPod 743: Flash on the Borderlands LIV: Stage Three: The Bargain is a PseudoPod original. Content warning: Spoiler Racial slurs, systemic racism [collapse] “The Kid Learns” was first published in the New Orleans Times Picayune on May 31, 1925 “The Sputtering Wick of the Stars” was originally published in Halloween Forevermore in 2015 “If It Bit You” is a…

Source

This story was first published in Weird Tales, December 1925. JULY 16—We are caught in one of the great calms. There is water in the well, and our food is nearly gone. Everything is hid from view by the fog. I confess that I am a hopeless coward. The situation appalls me. What an expressive word is despair. I shall write it large—DESPAIR. Luckily a flying fish came scudding over the…

Source

“Lukundoo” was first published in Weird Tales, November 1925 Content warning: Spoiler Racial slurs, systemic racism, colonialism [collapse] “It stands to reason,” said Twombly, “that a man must accept the evidence of his own eyes, and when his eyes and ears agree, there can be no doubt. He has to believe what he has both seen and heard.” “Not always…

Source

“Kecksies” was first published in Regent Magazine, January 25, 1925 Two young esquires were riding from Canterbury, jolly and drunk, they shouted and trolled and rolled in their saddles as they followed the winding road across the downs. A dim sky was overhead and shut in the wide expanse of open country that one side stretched to the sea and the other to the Kentish Weald.

Source

First published in Hutchinson’s Mystery Story Magazine, July 1925. – “Morag-of-the-Cave” is an evocative tale of lovers from the sea that predates that fateful visit to Innsmouth by over a decade. But this version contains enough heat that Howie would have broken into a sweat. The pre-episode warning excerpt is from the beginning of “The Electronic Plague” by Edward Hades and it first…

Source

“Bewitched” was first published in Pictorial Review, March 1925 The pre-episode warning excerpt is from the beginning of “The Electronic Plague” by Edward Hades and it first appeared in Weird Tales, April 1925. It is narrated by Dave Robison. I The snow was still falling thickly when Orrin Bosworth, who farmed the land south of Lone-top, drove up in his cutter to Saul Rutledge’s…

Source

“Workday” first appeared in Shadows and Tall Trees 8 which was published by Undertow in March 2020 Reviews by Alex Hofelich for Shadows and Tall Trees 8 from Undertow Publishing and A Carnival of Chimera by Stephen Woodworth from Hippocampus Press. MEMO CORIVDAN INCORPORATED To: All Hourly Employees From: Human Resources Subject: Holiday Party Attendance Date: Nov. 20…

Source

“Lifeblood” was first published in Grimdark Magazine, edited by Adrian Collins and was republished in Lee Murray’s first collection Grotesque: Monster Stories. From the afterword: “‘Lifeblood’, with its mean-spirited prejudice towards immigrants, pits one marginalised group against another in grim-dark tale of poverty and desperation. Information about the 1898 Kauri Gum Industry Act and the…

Source

“The Slow King” originally appeared in the 2020 Anthology The Fiends in the Furrows 2: More Tales of Folk Horror. Reviews by Christi Nogle and read by Kat Day for The Fiends in the Furrows 2: More Tales of Folk Horror edited by David T. Neal and Christine M. Scott and the Gordon B. White collection As Summer’s Mask Slips and Other Distruptions. Campbell’s dad watched him from beyond…

Source

“Anatomist” first appeared in Orba/Artifact and was reprinted in her 2020 collection I’ll Tell You a Love Story. Review by Kitty Sarkozy for I’ll Tell You a Love Story the 2020 collection by Couri Johnson. Review by Shawna Borman for The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: Volume One edited by Paula Guran. Both reviews read by Graeme Dunlop. After the earthquake…

Source

“Late Sleepers” was first published in It Came from the Multiplex, published by Hex Publishers in September 2020 Reviews of It Came from the Multiplex edited by Josh Viola and Echoes of a Natural World: Tales of the Strange & Estranged edited by Michael P. Daley were written and read by Shawn Garrett, co-Editor. Ted woke up in the dark with a dull headache, deciding to sneak out…

Source

“Devil Gonna Catch You in the Corners” first appeared in Strange Aeons Magazine #20 (2016) Reviews at the end by co-Editor Alex Hofelich, read by Associate Editor Scott Campbell. The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature is a collection by Christopher Slatsky. Wonder and Glory Forever is an anthology edited by Nick Mamatas. THURSDAY, 8th March, 1849.— It has been a trying journey…

Source

This story was originally published in Black Cranes edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn. (2020) Reviews at the end by Associate Editor M.M. Schill, read by Assistant Editor Karen Bovenmyer. Black Cranes is an anthology edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn. Halloween Season is a collection by Lucy A. Snyder. She dreams of death and rebirth on her mother’s table.

Source

PseudoPod 730: The Smell of Night in the Basement is a PseudoPod original. Content warning: Spoiler Gutter vampires, exploitation [collapse] I looked up when Carlos came in with a girl, two Domino’s pizzas, and a bag of marijuana gummies. It was a big basement, finished in places, dirt in others, a kind of half-assed bathroom in the corner with no walls or a door…

Source

Source

PseudoPod 728: Teeth Long and Sharp as Blades is a PseudoPod original. Have you ever thought about how fairy tale heroines are like final girls? We survive poisoning, curses, imprisonment, mothers who want to cut our hearts out and hold them in their hands. But we survive, and our survival is an object lesson: act this way, and you’ll be all right. Be pure of heart.

Source

“The Uninvited Grave” originally appeared in the braided story collection The Unnamed Country published by Word Horde in 2019. Roadkill by Mercedes Lackey Heavenly Creatures trailer “Fuck my mother!” Depo Ep cried out when he saw the new tombstone in the precise center of his field of corn seedlings. By tradition, the dead were to be buried in the town or city in which they had…

Source

PseudoPod 726: The Sneakaboo is a PseudoPod original. I bought the walrus at the carnival off I-95. The one that sets up in the lot next to the Carvel every August. And I say bought because I couldn’t knock over a physically impossible pyramid of soup cans. My wife whispered “pussy” into my ear and squeezed my butt a bit too hard for it to be funny. So while she and Jackson were…

Source

“The Lonesome Place” was first published in Famous Fantastic Mysteries (February 1948) and collected in Lonesome Places (1962). Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals: https://gumroad.com/l/UEPhV You who sit in your houses of nights, you who sit in the theatres, you who are gay at dances and parties—all you who are enclosed by four walls—you have no conception of what goes…

Source

PseudoPod 724: Flash on the Borderlands LIII: What Dreams May Come is a PseudoPod original. “The Funeral Coat” is a PseudoPod original. “Cherry Wood Coffin” first appeared in Apex on May 29, 2018 “Grave Mother” was first published in Vine Leaves Literary Journal and The Best of Vine Leaves Literary Journal, 2014. Hamlet What Dreams May Come-Matheson What Dreams May Come-Movie…

Source

PseudoPod 723: Silver as the Devil’s Necklace is a PseudoPod original. La Llorona Wiki Page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Llorona Old Gods of Appalachia https://www.oldgodsofappalachia.com/ La Llorona Folk Song https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Llorona_(song) A black wail of wind curls around the house, la Llorona’s cold embrace, as Ruth opens the dresser drawer and takes…

Source

“Teeth” was the first story published at “Thomas Ligotti Online” in 1998. It was later reprinted in The Children of Cthulhu in 2002, in Dark Awakenings in 2010, and in the excellent 2019 collection “To Rouse Leviathan.” This last book was editor Alex’s favorite collection from 2019 and recommends it strongly to all fans of Ligotti. Part 2 of 2 Listen to the first part here: https…

Source

“Teeth” was the first story published at “Thomas Ligotti Online” in 1998. It was later reprinted in The Children of Cthulhu in 2002, in Dark Awakenings in 2010, and in the excellent 2019 collection “To Rouse Leviathan.” This last book was editor Alex’s favorite collection from 2019 and recommends it strongly to all fans of Ligotti. Part 1 of 2 1 My first and decisive…

Source

PseudoPod 720: Seance is a PseudoPod original. I have not performed since that evening, and even now I do not know if it is merely psychological or if there is some greater, unseen force at play. I cannot tell, nor do I have the means to explore the matter. It is my hope that perhaps penning a recollection of that evening will cure me. I miss the work. It was mine. I miss that small…

Source

“Cordona’s Skull” was first published in Weird Tales, July 1950 Joe “Fresno” Talley dropped his cigarette butt on the sidewalk and ground it out with his foot, careful not to step on it where the hole had worn through his shoe sole. Absently he felt in the pocket of his shabby trousers, before remembering. No more cigarettes; that last one had been picked up out of the gutter…

Source

PseudoPod 718: Tara’s Mother’s Skin is a PseudoPod original. Spoiler “Being from Trinidad, Caribbean folklore was a large part of my childhood. I grew up with stories about jumbies and La Diablesse. The figure that loomed largest for me however, was The Soucouyant. The idea of an old woman who could shed her skin and suck one’s blood kept me terrified and awake at night for at least…

Source

“The Mad Eyes of the Heron King” originally appeared in the anthology Dark Faith, Apex Publishing, 2010 There was a lake or something like one near Leonard’s office, and it was to that lake that Leonard occasionally took himself after work. He did so in order to relax, to avoid thinking about work, and generally to sidestep the possibility of doing anything he might later regret.

Source

PseudoPod 716: Big Brother is a PseudoPod original. “Although I have a younger sister, I’ve always felt more like a single child, since we were never very close. Ever since I was little I wondered what it would be like to have an older brother who could be a constant companion like I never had, and maybe beat up bullies and things. I think a lot of kids secret hope for a guardian angel.

Source

“Dive In Me” first appeared in The New Gothic, edited by Beth Lewis and published by Stone Skin Press in 2013. Caring into the Void: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/caring-into-the-void/id1348004415 Hot Singles in Your Area — buy your copy here: https://unbound.com/books/hotsingles/ Void Merch: https://voidmerch.threadless.com/ The girls were a gang of three: a triad…

Source

“Blackout” was originally published in Mantrap, October 1956 Dave Robison’s new domain: https://butterymanvoice.com/ Frankee White: https://twitter.com/frankee_white 20 Fists: https://gumroad.com/fdwhite#FVqmz It’s a hot night. I got that uneasy feeling again and I swing out of the poolroom, walk to the corner. Jim is there. He’s my buddy. We greet each other and he asks me what I’…

Source

“You Can Stay All Day” was originally published in 2017 in Nights of the Living Dead and reprinted in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror. The merry-go-round was still merry-going, painted horses prancing up and down while the calliope played in the background, tinkly and bright and designed to attract children all the way from the parking lot. There was something about the sound of the…

Source

PseudoPod 712: Flash on the Borderlands LII: You Know What You Are is a PseudoPod original. https://junjiitomanga.fandom.com/wiki/The_Enigma_of_Amigara_Fault Jack was four the first time he told me about the boy in the mirror. Shannon and I were watching TV when we heard the scream from upstairs. I sprinted up to Jack’s room, sure there’d be blood, but he was fine. Physically…

Source

PseudoPod 711: Les Lutins is a PseudoPod original. Content warning: Spoiler miscarriage, animal harm [collapse] EA YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLeMuTcFDtF2C3MiF6GPfQ EA Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/eapodcasts/videos Spoiler Search & Rescue Creepypasta https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/I%27…

Source

“Sandy the Tinker” originally appeared in the collection Weird Stories in 1882 “Before commencing my story, I wish to state it is perfectly true in every particular.” “We quite understand that,” said the sceptic of our party, who was wont, in the security of friendly intercourse, to characterise all such prefaces as mere introductions to some tremendously exaggerated tale.

Source

“Unhaunted House” originally appeared at Storytellers Unplugged, 2006 They huddled in the bathroom on the second floor, a family of three, afraid. Tap. Tap tap. Tap. The sounds came from all over the house. Everywhere glass faced the outside, they could hear the delicate impact of small branches tap tap tapping, trying to find their way in. That was why they had chosen the bathroom…

Source

“Tenderizer” was first published in the movie themed anthology The Cutting Room where it shared a Table of Contents with “Final Girl Theory” by A.C. Wise. Content warning: Spoiler death of a child, school shooting [collapse] Brutal Is the Night: A Review Remember The Blair Witch Project’s marketing campaign? It was an update of sorts on 1971s The Last House on…

Source

PseudoPod 707: Crybaby is a PseudoPod original. Per the author, “I watched several Michael Haneke films, back to back, one evening. A brilliant director, but not exactly light entertainment. The bleak, disturbing world of the director was hard to shake. I felt like I was trapped inside the films. What if someone was, I thought.” The lights came up abruptly.

Source

“The Giant Wistaria” was first published in the New England Magazine, June 1891 with the byline “Charlotte P. Stetson.” “Meddle not with my new vine, child! See! Thou hast already broken the tender shoot! Never needle or distaff for thee, and yet thou wilt not be quiet!” The nervous fingers wavered, clutched at a small carnelian cross that hung from her neck, then fell despairingly.

Source

“Vertep” was first published in The First Book of Classical Horror Stories, ed. D.F. Lewis, with Megazanthus Press in 2012 and then reprinted in Watt’s collection The Phantasmagorical Imperative, Egaeus Press, 2014. Interview with Colin Stetson regarding the Hereditary Score https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/12/17451100/hereditary-composer-colin-stetson-interview Tubular Bells https…

Source

PseudoPod 704: Resilience is a PseudoPod original. Escape Pod turns 15! Preorder the anthology! Check out the other news here: https://mailchi.mp/e7810b939179/escape-pod-turns-15 Jason gets home while I’m at the sink. He comes up behind me, holds me around the waist, and tickles the side of my face with his soft new beard. We watch the young squirrels shake a tree branch…

Source

“Dream House” was first published in Gothic Lovecraft in 2016 Escape Pod turns 15! Preorder the anthology! Check out the other news here: https://mailchi.mp/e7810b939179/escape-pod-turns-15 Creepy Podcast https://www.creepypod.com/ Channel Zero: Candle Cove https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candle_Cove Kris Straub https://twitter.com/krisstraub It was the last night of…

Source

“At the Farmhouse” first appeared in Hutchinson’s Magazine, March 1923 The dusk of a November day was falling fast when John Aylsford came out of his lodging in the cobbled street and started to walk briskly along the road which led eastwards by the shore of the bay. He had been at work while the daylight served him, and now, when the gathering darkness weaned him from his easel…

Source

“Technicolor” was first published in Poe: 19 New Tales of Suspense, Dark Fantasy and Horror in 2009 The inspiration, “The Masque of the Red Death”, was read on PodCastle and can be found here The Tor article that Alasdair mentions: https://www.tor.com/2019/11/13/the-things-we-do-for-course-credit-john-langans-technicolor/ Come on, say it out loud with me: “And Darkness and Decay…

Source

“Hop Frog” was first published in the March 7, 1849 Flag of Our Union. Twitch eapodcasts Hop Frog Animated Version Content warning: Spoiler Ableism, fatphobia, sharpening the guillotines [collapse] I never knew anyone so keenly alive to a joke as the king was. He seemed to live only for joking. To tell a good story of the joke kind, and to tell it well…

Source

Source

PseudoPod 698: Of Marrow and Abomination – Narration Only is a PseudoPod original. Spoiler Montauk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montauk_Project USS Eldridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Eldridge#Philadelphia_Experiment Gideon Falls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Falls Tanis: http://tanispodcast.com/ [collapse] I am very young when I first dream of the…

Source

PseudoPod 698: Of Marrow and Abomination is a PseudoPod original. Spoiler Montauk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montauk_Project USS Eldridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Eldridge#Philadelphia_Experiment Gideon Falls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Falls Tanis: http://tanispodcast.com/ [collapse] I am very young when I first dream of the ruined barn.

Source

PseudoPod 697: Five Fridays During Lent is a PseudoPod original. Spoiler “The Greek countryside crawls with legends of undead. They are a blend of what we today call vampires, ghouls and zombies, and they almost always meddle with the living. I have a book with such folktales by my desk for reference. So when during a writing challenge I was required to reach for the three nearest…

Source

“The Fog” first appeared in The Strand Magazine in October 1908 and was collected in MIDSUMMER MADNESS in 1909. The fog had been thickening for many weeks, but now, moving like a black wall, it fell on the town. The lights that guided the world were put out—the nearest were almost as invisible as the stars; a powerful arc-lamp overhead was but a blur. Traffic ceased…

Source

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this…” It is said that in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no man may kill a cat; and this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For the cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see. He is the soul of antique Aegyptus, and bearer of tales from…

Source

(Alasdair) Hi everyone, Alasdair here. We’re not going to ask how you are right now, because we have a pretty good idea. You’re fine. You’re FINE. You’re the same version of fine as everyone right now, the one Aerosmith sang about. The one where you’re alternately anxious, terrified, furious and calm. We empathise. We’re the same. This metacast was originally written nearly two weeks ago now.

Source

“Muse” first appeared in Tales of Blood and Squalor in 2017 I noticed him on a Saturday morning. He was fingering tomato plants across the square, nodding every so often at whatever the stall operator was saying. His eyes crinkled when he smiled, but too much, like he’d read the cliché about smiles not meeting eyes too many times and decided to reverse the idea—his never quite reached…

Source

“Robin’s Rath” first appeared in Hutchinson’s Story Magazine, Nov 1923 ‘So ye’re goin’ to buy Robin’s Rath, young lady?’ Ellen Vandermyl raised her arched brows with a touch of hauteur at the old man’s tone. Not the daughter of a hundred earls, but of one immensely wealthy pork-packer who could deny her nothing, even to the purchase of Ghyll Hall, she had, as have so many American…

Source

PseudoPod 693: Flash on the Borderlands L: Flash Fiction Contest 6 Winners is a PseudoPod original. Third Place: The Animals Are Becoming by Chantal Beaulne narrated by Hugo Jackson Second Place: In the End We Will All Be Loved by Avery Kit Malone narrated by Kitty Sarkozy Spoiler “Most of my childhood happened in the American South. Something that I really noticed in the rural…

Source

PseudoPod 692: FFUNS is a PseudoPod original. Holding the unlabeled black video cassette somehow reassured her of the legitimacy of its contents. With that reassurance came effervescent nausea, an ugly, unreal sensation befitting the place she was in and the sight that awaited her. There were thousands of purported “ffuns flicks” online, some more believable than others.

Source

“Half-Men of the Night Marie” first appeared in Phobos magazine issue 4, published in 2017 From the Author: Spoiler “Moby Dick is one of my favourite novels, and this story is inspired by the same incident which inspired Herman Melville; the fate of the whaling ship Essex, which was sunk by a sperm whale, leaving the surviving crew drifting at sea for 95 days.

Source

PseudoPod 690: The Aetherised Chamber is a PseudoPod original. In its inspiration this is sort of a science fiction story: I was reading about 17th century scientists and wondered, “What if they were right?” 17 October 1687: The God-machine failed, and I destroyed it. With the wood-axe I smashed the glass vacuum pump, the encircling copper spring, the clockwork armature…

Source

“Ages of Man” was previously published with Underbelly ‘Zine, Issue 3 Spoiler “We’ve often heard of science fiction stories where humans construct the perfect mate for themselves–in this one, I wanted to explore an android who built himself the perfect human.” [collapse] Nothing lives on the edge of the solar system. Nothing organic, at least, which is why AX-983 has…

Source

“The Tunnel Ahead” first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1961 The floor of the topolino was full of sand. There was sand in Toni’s undershorts, too, and damp sand rubbing between his toes. Damn it, he thought, here they build you six-lane highways right on down to the ocean, a giant three-hundred car turntable to keep traffic moving over the beach…

Source

“The Yellow Cat” originally published in Hutchinson’s Mystery Story Magazine, June 1924 Trophy RPG: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gauntlet/trophy-rpg?ref=discovery&term=trophy Duggan Hill Podcast: https://dugganhill.com/ The Walken Puss In Boots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEjKmsMkPKQ It all began when Grey was followed home, inexplicably enough, by the strange…

Source

“The Phantom Rider” originally appeared in Weird Tales, November 1924 Big Bill Hawkins laid the trap with admirable precision. Every little detail had been worked out with the utmost nicety. The care-free manner of his partner, Seth Ormsby, indicated that he suspected nothing, though he did seem somewhat puzzled by Big Bill’s unwonted loquacity and unprecedented joviality.

Source

“The Loved Dead” originally published in Weird Tales, May-June-July 1924 It is midnight. Before dawn they will find me and take me to a black cell where I shall languish interminably, while insatiable desires gnaw at my vitals and wither up my heart, till at last I become one with the dead that I love. My seat is the fetid hollow of an aged grave; my desk is the back of a fallen…

Source

‘The Most Dangerous Game” was originally published in the January 19, 1924 issue of Collier’s “Off there to the right—somewhere—is a large island,” said Whitney. “It’s rather a mystery—” “What island is it?” Rainsford asked. “The old charts call it ‘Ship-Trap Island,’ ” Whitney replied. “A suggestive name, isn’t it? Sailors have a curious dread of the place. I don’t know why.

Source

‘The Mystery of the Blue Jar’ was first published in the UK in issue 233 of The Grand Magazine in July 1924 and in the US in Metropolitan Magazine the same year. Reprinted in The Hound of Death and Other Stories (UK, 1933) and The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories (US, 1948). Jack Hartington surveyed his topped drive ruefully. Standing by the ball, he looked back to the tee…

Source

‘Pomegranate Pomegranate” was originally published in Black Static #69 in May of 2019. It was reprinted in the August 2019 issue of The Dark. This is what she knows: Do not immediately repeat a word. Do not immediately repeat a word spoken by someone else, and do not allow someone to repeat a word you’ve just said. Do not allow yourself to hear your own echo.

Source

“A Night of Many Months” was first published in Every Day Fiction 25th Dec 2017 He’d wondered, when he started the job, why he needed a belt with so many holes. Now he knew–it fitted around him twice and felt like it needed tightening again. It took months to visit every home in one night and he’d lived every minute, surviving on what was left for him. In some houses it was mince…

Source

“The Wild Wood” was originally published by The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1957 Content Warning: Spoiler Sexual Assault, Abuse, Captivity [collapse] Do you find most perfumes reek of banality and bad French puns? Do you want perfumes that resonate with your dark heart and blackened soul? Do you want perfume that speaks to you…

Source

“The Woman Out of the Attic” was originally published in Flame Tree’s Haunted House anthology Out this week is The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters. This coming-of-age horror novel focuses on a group who have named themselves the Dead Girls Club in celebration of the generally nameless victims of serial killers. They played a game when they were kids, leaving one of them dead.

Source

PseudoPod 678: The Boy Who Killed His Mother is a PseudoPod original. Content Warning: Spoiler gun violence [collapse] Nobody wanted to play with the boy who killed his mother. Nick Metcalf understood why in the same way he understood why the sun rose and set. Comprehension was simple for six year olds; things just were. So even though he accepted the other kids…

Source

“When a Beast Looks Up at the Stars” was first published in Orrin’s third collection Guignol and Other Sardonic Tales Werewolf Ambulance Podcast: http://werewolfambulance.libsyn.com/ Pure Cinema Podcast: http://www.nowplayingnetwork.net/purecinema Do you find most perfumes reek of banality and bad French puns? Do you want perfume that speaks to you…

Source

PseudoPod 676: Things My Father Taught Me is a PseudoPod original. Spoiler Bigotry, genocide [collapse] Spoiler This story is based upon Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart,” though it’s set in modern-day Nigeria rather than colonial times. Beyond the locale, it has a few deliberate parallels. I loved how Achebe qualified the characters’ actions with wise sayings…

Source

The New Mother was first published in Anyhow Stories, Moral and Otherwise, Macmillan and Co., 1882. Audio used in this episode: Spoiler https://archive.org/details/joel_pulham_0307/03_joel_260307_knitting_skylarks.mp3 https://freesound.org/people/viznoman/sounds/267306/ https://freesound.org/people/ross_sinc/sounds/444793/ [collapse] 1 The children were always…

Source

Dust was first published in Mercy and Other Stories Much has developed since the day in April I stumbled out of the Quiet Garden with blood running freely down my cheek. The intensity that has arisen over the months cannot be quelled, and I find myself engaged now in a monstrous negotiation, the nature of which I scarcely comprehend, and one that shifts ground continually.

Source

“Venio” was originally published in Vastarien, Spring 2019 Watch out. I’m going to tell you about something, and then . . . you’ll know. You won’t be able to un-know or forget why you should want to. And even if you decide you don’t believe it now, you’ll still have thought about it long enough to make that call, so it’ll still be too late. Because now it knows you know…

Source

PseudoPod 672: In Regards to Your Concerns About Your ScareBnB Experience and The Halloween Parade is a PseudoPod original. Effie Seiberg: “As a card-carrying wuss, this is the first horror-eque piece I’ve ever written. This story finally lets me say that my work can be found in every single Escape Artists podcast, which is very exciting because I’m a wuss when it comes to horror and never…

Source

“Only Unity Saves the Damned” first appeared in Letter to Lovecraft in 2014. We discovered this in the collection She Said Destroy released by the excellent Word Horde. Click the link to pick up the collection She Said Destroy released by the excellent Word Horde. “Dude, are you getting this?” Rosslyn Taro, 25, and Clark Dunkin, 25, are standing in the woods. It’s evening—the bald…

Source

“The Devil Came to Mamie’s on Hallowe’en” was first published in Cemetery Dance Magazine #60 Content Warning: Spoiler Animal cruelty [collapse] It was Hallowe’en night, and business was slow at the whorehouse. Leona didn’t put much stock in the stories that kept other folk indoors on this night. She’d laughed over stories about Jacky-Ma-Lantern…

Source

“Zanders the Magnificent” was first published in Fireside Magazine Issue 21 in March 2015. “My handsome, darling boys,” Mrs. Zander said, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. “Which one of you wants to be alive today?” Robby and Bobby turned their heads inward at the same time, staring at each other with identical dark eyes. Bobby blinked, followed shortly by Robby’s blink…

Source

PseudoPod 668: Flash on the Borderlands XLIX: Dirty Deeds is a PseudoPod original. Content warning: Spoiler assault, confinement, sexual violence [collapse] “Baby Fingers” is a PseudoPod original “Polaroid, 1979” is a PseudoPod original “Metal, Sex, Monsters” was originally published in Gamut #5 in May, 2017 Metal, Sex, Monsters: “As you might be able to tell…

Source

“Allochton” was first published in Letters to Lovecraft: Eighteen Whispers to the Darkness Hey PseudoPod family, is your TO READ pile getting shorter? We have a solution for you. Coming out this week is Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction. This is written by our friends Lisa Kroger and Melanie R. Anderson who host the Know Fear Cast along with Matt Saye.

Source

PseudoPod 666: Breaking the Waters & The Second Coming is a PseudoPod original. Content warning: Spoiler Sexual assault [collapse] “The Second Coming” by W.B. Yeats was first printed in The Dial in November 1920. “Breaking the Waters” is a PseudoPod original released jointly with Nightlight, a horror podcast featuring creepy tales written and performed by Black creatives…

Source

The Thames Valley Catastrophe originally appeared in The Strand Magazine, December 1897 Hey PseudoPod family, is your TO READ pile getting shorter? We have a solution for you. Coming out this week is Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction. This is written by our friends Lisa Kroger and Melanie R. Anderson who host the Know Fear Cast along with Matt Saye.

Source

“My Boy Builds Coffins” first appeared in Black Static, May-June 2015 I Susan found the first one when she was tidying his room. Chris was at school, and she’d been sprucing up the house before popping off to collect him after the afternoon session. The ground floor was done; the lounge was spick-and-span (as her mother had loved to say) and the kitchen was so clean it belonged…

Source

Source

‘Indian Giver’ first appeared in the collection, Probably Monsters, in 2015. It was reprinted in Ellen Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year (Volume 8). Content warnings: Spoiler Racial violence, genocide [collapse] Subscribe to the British Fantasy Award nominated newsletter, The Full Lid by Alasdair Stuart. Every man carries his share of ghosts…

Source

PseudoPod 661: The Happiest Place is a PseudoPod original. Spoiler A certain mouse-themed theme park has always been an object of fascination for me, and the more I read about it, the more strange an imitation of reality it appears to be. The lengths that employees are required to go to create a seamless fantasy experience for their guests seems altogether dystopian, and it didn’t…

Source

PseudoPod 660: Tiny Teeth is a PseudoPod original. From the author: “This story was inspired by and is dedicated to all the people around the world who have been forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, especially those who didn’t survive it.” Content Warnings: Spoiler fantasies of self harm, politics (abortion) [collapse] I risk walking to the doctor’s…

Source

“Lord Beden’s Motor” first appeared in The Strand Magazine in December 1901. Preorder Monster She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction by Lisa Kroger and Melanie R. Anderson. Then listen to them at the Know Fear Cast. A hard man was Ralph Strang, seventh Earl of Beden, seventy years of age on his last birthday, but still upright as a dart, with hair white as…

Source

“I Hate All That Is Mine” originally appeared in the anthology, Lost Films, published by Perpetual Motion Machine Spoiler Self harm, strong sexual themes [collapse] Title card music is “Coagula” by permission of Zeal & Ardor. We learned of this band when one of their albums appeared as a chapter heading for We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix. Click through for our…

Source

Source

“House Party Blues” originally appeared in Black Static #39 (TTAPress) 2014 “I used to live next door to a house rented out to college students, and while they were actually mostly very nice, the near-nightly, all-summer-long, ’til 3am outdoor bonfire & bongo parties when I had infant twins trying to sleep definitely was not my favorite thing about being neighbors. This story was written one…

Source

PseudoPod 655: Black Matter is a PseudoPod original. “I’m an aviation nerd with trainwreck syndrome, so air crash investigation is a subject dear to my heart. Having watched documentaries on (and read NTSB reports about) ever so many crashes, I began to wonder what it might be like if the investigators had one last secret fall-back option when no clear cause for an accident could be found…

Source

PseudoPod 654: Flash on the Borderlands XLVIII: Parts & Maintenance is a PseudoPod original. Content warning: Spoiler body horror, sexual abuse, predation, exploitation [collapse] “A Real Death” is a PseudoPod Original “Kintsugi” is a PseudoPod Original — Kintsugi: “I wrote the story for a contest on Codex Writers forum. So much fun to join with more than a hundred…

Source

“Spurs” was first published in Munsey’s Magazine in February 1923. Content warning: Spoiler Bigotry, ableism, cruelty [collapse] Jacques Courbé was a romanticist. He measured only twenty-eight inches from the soles of his diminutive feet to the crown of his head; but there were times, as he rode into the arena on his gallant charger, St. Eustache…

Source

‘He Dies Where I Die’ was first published in The Dark in 2018. Content warning: Spoiler Racism, body horror [collapse] Dion spun back to the oval of daylight and said a prayer. He didn’t pray to Jesus or Qamata. He prayed to his father, ten years lost and dead in the mines. Watch over me. Lead me to gold and back to the light. He sniffed his last lungful of…

Source

PseudoPod 651: The Coven of Dead Girls is a PseudoPod original. Content warning: Spoiler Kidnapping, confinement, predation [collapse] Spoiler I was an invisible teenage girl once. I was lucky to survive the situations I put myself in. I saw a story about teenage girls held captive for years, who escaped. And I wondered about those who didn’t live, but died…

Source

“The Detweiler Boy” was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1977. Thank you to Vaughne Hansen of the Virginia Kidd Agency for helping us secure the rights to this story. This episode is dedicated to horror hosts in general, and Sinister Seymour in particular. The room had been cleaned with pine oil disinfectant and smelled like a public toilet.

Source

“Whatever Comes After Calcutta” first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in November 2017, and was included in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year Volume Ten. Content warning: Spoiler lynching, politics [collapse] Exerpt from interview of David Erik Nelson about “Whatever Comes After Calcutta”. Full interview can be found here.

Source