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The Sound of Horror. Pseudopod is the world’s first audio horror magazine. We deliver bone-chilling stories from today’s most talented authors straight to ears.
The podcast PseudoPod is created by Escape Artists Foundation. The podcast and the artwork on this page are embedded on this page using the public podcast feed (RSS).
“Tree of the Forest Seven Bells Turns the World Round Midnight” originally appeared in Sleeping Under the Tree of Life and was reprinted in Sycorax’s Daughters Hounds of Tindalos Strange Things Happen at the 1-2 Point Sarah Conner Chronicles Sarah Conner Chronicles Episode 210-Strange Things Happen At The One-Two Point Poison Ivy Thistle stepped over an upturned…
PseudoPod 970: At the God Show is a PseudoPod original. 6:15 A.M. “It’ll be Pternoch the Fisher,” Sheila overheard one pilgrim say to another. “Why did we bother coming?” “May the Green Damsel stitch your mouth shut until your blasphemies cease,” said the other. “We come to honor Her and reveal Her glory.” There was a silence as the two filled out their name tags, then, “Where’…
First published in Opportunity in 1925. When Hurston arrived in New York City in 1925, the Harlem Renaissance was at its zenith, and she soon became one of the writers at its center. Shortly before she entered Barnard, Hurston’s short story “Spunk” was selected for reprint in The New Negro, a landmark anthology of fiction, poetry, and essays focusing on African and African-American art and…
PseudoPod 968: The Vibrations, Louder is a PseudoPod original. Insanity? Sure, why not. My lawyer advised me to plead insanity, and maybe it will help me. At least I’ll be able to talk to somebody qualified. The state of mental health care is deplorable in this country. My insurance certainly doesn’t cover it, and I couldn’t afford to pay a therapist, even one as borderline…
PseudoPod 967: Two’s Company, Three Might Be A Sign of Demonic Possession is a PseudoPod original. CW: Intimate partner death; Second person point of view Also narrated by Pine Gonzalez: A Relationship in Four Haircuts, by Ai Jiang Tales from the Fringes of Reality podcast The Screwtape Letters You didn’t take the usual precautions when Lin died.
“Fat Betty” originally appeared in Shock Totem Issue 8 in 2014 From the author: “The story is meant to be set in a slightly dystopian near-future.” Fat Betty Listed Monuments The Watchers Ghost Stories The Woman in Black They say it’s God’s own country, and He’s always had a thing for rain. I’m high and soaked, looking over the valley with a sea of heather at…
PseudoPod 965: The Ecstasy of the Saints is a PseudoPod original. CW: body horror; self-harm From the author: I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school through the seventh grade. That meant I spent three days a week in church, plus Sunday mass with my family. I spent a lot of time staring at the ornate religious icons in the church, marveling at the lurid colors…
“The Darkness Carried by the Beasts” was originally published in The Sunday Morning Transport in 2023. CW: cancer, death of a family member From the author: This story came to me, at first, with the image of a man and his dog in the woods, somewhere in northern Sweden where I grew up, confronted by a shadowy creature in a snowstorm. The other inspiration, of course…
PseudoPod 963: Mavka is a PseudoPod original. CW: cannibalism, suicide, starvation, use of second person perspective You pray to forget this. You pray to forget the cold. Even under two wool blankets you’re always cold now. Skin and bones, you. A February moon hangs high in the starless sky when Andriy slips on the boots, soaked through from when you wore them…
“Hemorrhage” was originally published in the Book of Queer Saints Volume 2 CW: self-harm, drug abuse, addiction, physical abuse and coercive control It’s a dumb fight to pick, but I only learn that later. By the time they drag me out the back door of the bar, my face feels the way a Picasso painting looks. All rearranged, and probably the wrong colors.
PseudoPod 961: Body Heat is a PseudoPod original. C/W: death of a family member, cancer From the author: ‘Body Heat’ was inspired by a reoccurring dream during a 3-week solo expedition in the mountains. Void Merch Hot Singles In Your Area The river is moving too fast and Cassie knows it, but she crosses anyway. Icy water reaches her waist…
“Mummy” first appeared in Weird Tales, November 1929 The Old Lady The Shout Power of Darkness Them Jones Boys Nathan Drake Lara Croft I have always prided myself on being a practical man; prosaic, if you will. In the old days the boys used to call me the man from Missouri. Well, so I was. I had to be shown — and I was shown. Let me tell you. … It was in South…
“Powers Of Darkness” was first published in Collier’s, March 30, 1929. CW: Use of racial slurs as well as sexism and misogyny Beau Geste, Russel’s best known work was adapting this for the screen. Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness Nickerson, R.M., failed in judgment concerning his guest Dobel. This was the reason of his ordeal that night at Warange…
“The Shout” was first published in a limited edition chapbook, The Woburn Books #16, 1929. Jamie Oliver’s controversial children’s book has shone a spotlight on the importance of sensitivity readers Jamie Oliver pulls ‘offensive’ children’s book from sale Mark Kermode reviews “The Shout” When we arrived with our bags at the asylum cricket ground, the chief medical officer…
“Dead Mabelle” first appeared in the 1929 collection Joining Charles and Other Stories CW: Allusions to suicide The sudden and horrible end of Mabelle Pacey gave her a publicity with the European press worth millions to J. and Z. Gohigh of Gohigh Films Inc., Cal., U.S.A. Her personality flashed like a fused wire. Three-year-old films of Mabelle – with scimitar…
“The Old Lady” first appeared in the 1929 collection of ghost stories, Randall’s Round Penda’s Fen Void Merch Hot Singles In Your Area Adela Young must have come up to Oxford at the same time as myself; but no one, in a way, knew that she had. She was one of those people whom one never notices, physically or mentally – the kind of person whose adjectives you always…
“Summer Night” was first published in the 2024 anthology Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror “Chosen” was first published in the 2024 anthology Howls from the Scene of the Crime “The Encausting” was first published in Seaside Gothic and reprinted in the 2024 collection One Eye Opened in That Other Place “The Njogel” was first published in the 2024 collection The Dancing…
“Be Not Afraid” originally appeared in the 2024 anthology We Mostly Come Out at Night edited by Rob Costello The Mothman The Mothman Prophecies (Book) The Mothman Prophecies (Film) Krampus Krampus (2015 movie) “Take out all the yellow ones,” Mamaw says. “Put these in.” She takes a box of Christmas bulbs out of the plastic grocery sack from the Dollar General and…
“If You Don’t Want a Cat, Don’t Get a Kitten” originally appeared in the 2024 collection Recreational Panic From the author: “I dedicated one of my stories, ‘If You Don’t Want a Cat, Don’t Get a Kitten’, to Brian Keene. His adventures with stray kittens are well-documented online, namely the humanitarian work he undertakes by trapping them, getting them spayed/neutered…
“Onitsha Main, Ochanja, The Twins, Nkpor, and the Shadows of Shoprite” was originally published in the 2024 anthology, Escalators to Hell: Shopping Mall Horrors Onitsha Main. It started with the garri sellers. Basin by basin, their grains went gray with mold. Stall by stall, they all shut down. The small-scale carpenters down by the port were next. With soaring prices…
PseudoPod 951: Last Supper is a PseudoPod original. CW: Thanksgiving dinner drama “Last Supper” is a follow-up to “Licking Roadkill”, which previously appeared at PseudoPod (ep 786, Nov 2021) and in the collection A Meeting In the Devil’s House. From the author: “It’s [Last Supper] a standalone story, but if you tackle “Licking Roadkill” first…
“The Slow Music of Drums” was originally published in the 2024 Anthology Northern Nights edited by Michael Kelly TW: features grief, an implied apocalypse, sinister music, a family curse, cosmic horror and bees Astute readers and listeners may be aware, or interested to learn, that the C in A.C. Wise’s name stands for Campbell. The property described in “The Slow Music…
“Less Exalted Tastes” originally appeared in the 2024 collection All Who Wander Are Lost Gemma Amor https://gemmaamorauthor.com/ Total Immersion https://gemmaamorauthor.com/books-gemma-amor/full-immersion-by-gemma-amor/ Hot Singles In Your Area by Jordan Shiveley https://unbound.com/books/hotsingles Irish House Burning Mania https://www.countrylife.co.uk/architecture/
‘A Relationship in Four Haircuts’ was originally published in the 2024 anthology Welcome to Your Body: Lessons in Evisceration C/W for emotional abuse Iris, by the Goo Goo Dolls You met him on Etsy. That’s right. Not a dating app, but an online marketplace for small business owners. You’d asked about a custom jade ring you’d been sniffing around for but…
‘Will They Disappear’ originally appeared in the 2024 collection The Nightmare Box from Cursed Morsels Press From the author: “This piece is based on the horrendous real-life story of Jennifer and Sarah Hart, two white women who adopted six Black children and then proceeded to abuse them for years. (In a ghoulish twist, they brought their children to Black Lives Matter rallies.
PseudoPod 946: Toby and The Halloween Parade is a PseudoPod original. Andrew Garfield and Elmo Alasdair Stuart Previous Halloween Parades It’s a long walk from Founders Cemetery, but I am old, dying, and don’t mind the wait. The trick-or-treaters are out already, unusually boisterous this year, yet I barely hear them. I sit on my back porch in my creaky rocking chair…
PseudoPod 945: The Gobstomper is a PseudoPod original. A lot changes as you get older, thought Wilkie Saunders. For example, he’d been sure older boys like Tom Dunn—who was either in 10th or 11th grade depending on if you counted the year he was repeating—hated his guts. Tom had tormented Wilkie and his friends everywhichway for years. And yet here they all were in the dark…
PseudoPod 944: The House That Stands Over Your Grave is a PseudoPod original. From the author: “For as universal as it is, I find it weirdly difficult to explain grief in a way that feels satisfying. It’s a slippery, nebulous thing. It can hide from you or disguise itself, look like one thing on the surface while growing into something else underneath. It can reach out for the people…
“Oneirophobia” originally appeared in NEVER WAKE: A DREAM HORROR ANTHOLOGY, edited by Kenneth W. Cain and Tim Meyer, and published by Crystal Lake Publishing on 9/8/23 From the author: “I’ve experienced sleep paralysis a few times in my life, but the first time was the most unsettling, and the memory has remained with me ever since. In that instance, I was home from college for a…
PseudoPod 942: The Sound of a Jackknife is a PseudoPod original. The Dead Room Pontypool I only took the Tremaine gig because of Shepherd’s recommendation. “This one won’t pay much,” Shepherd admitted over the phone. People chattered in the background along with an indistinct electronic beat. “But Tremaine’s someone you’ll want to know in a couple of years.
“In Haskins” originally appeared in Apex, issue 127 Everyone, both the young and the old, went about their lives as usual on the day of the Mask Festival. The downtown streets were covered with colored leaves and Mr. Burkett still waved at children and swept in front of his storefront. Mrs. Farley still clucked to Mrs. Durant on how the new teachers at the old school would not…
PseudoPod 940: Controlling Your Weeds is a PseudoPod original. NIMBY https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/not-in-my-back-yard#:~:text=’Not%20in%20My%20Back%20Yard,development%20in%20their%20local%20area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY Get Out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Out I always mow it twice a week during peak season.
CW: Ableist slur This material originally appeared in The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt & Henry L. Herz published by Blackstone Publishing (©2023) I didn’t join in as my surviving family members conversed over dinner. Usually, the aroma of hearty pork and cabbage bigos stirred my appetite, but today it reminded me of the past…
“Sea Curse” was originally published in Weird Tales, May 1928 The Soul Cages And some return by the failing light And some in the waking dream. For she hears the heels of the dripping ghosts That ride the rough roofbeam. —Kipling THEY were the brawlers and braggarts, the loud boasters and hard drinkers, of Faring town, John Kulrek and his crony Lie-lip Canool.
PseudoPod 937: The Yearning of the All-Devouring Earth is a PseudoPod original. It’s always when we find a moment of peace that the universe remembers we exist—or maybe it’s less that the universe remembers, and more that it feels bored in our general vicinity and has to do something about that. The local middle school flooded over the summer. The afternoon rain we expected…
PseudoPod 936: Flash on the Borderlands LXXI: A Gibbet of Flesh is a PseudoPod original. “Every Part of You”: CW terminal illness, body horror, insects “Every Part of You” was first published in OOZE: Little Bursts of Body Horror, edited by Ruth Anna Evans, in March 2023 and was also included in Hexagon Magazine’s The Year’s Best Arthropod Short Fiction, Volume 1. “To Be Human”…
“The Hollow Temple” was first published in Black Mask, December 1928. This is the second of four novelettes that were fixed up into the novel The Dain Curse. The Thin Man (Novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Man The Thin Man (Movie) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Man_(film) Moonlighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlighting_(TV_series) Beyond Belief…
“The Hollow Temple” was first published in Black Mask, December 1928. This is the second of four novelettes that were fixed up into the novel The Dain Curse. IV I spent most of the day fidgeting in and out of my room. The general vagueness of my job in this Temple hadn’t bothered me much before—I had had plenty of even more aimless operations in my twenty years of sleuthing…
“The Hollow Temple” was first published in Black Mask, December 1928. This is the second of four novelettes that were fixed up into the novel The Dain Curse. I Eric Collison came into my office. There was too much pink in his eyes and not any in his skin. He sat down and said: “She can’t go. They can’t let her go. You’ve got to go with her.” His voice, like his face…
“The Man With a Serpent in his System” originally appeared in London Mystery Magazine Selection (No. 99) November 1973. Jane reached out to us in 2023. She told us that, back in the 1970s when she was in her twenties, she wrote and had ‘The Man With a Serpent in his System’ published in the London Mystery Magazine Selection. Now in her 70s, she was hoping that we might bring it to…
PseudoPod 931: What He Woke is a PseudoPod original. From the author: “This story was written before the 2024 British General Election. The MP whose voting record inspired these events has since been fired by his constituents. We didn’t feed him to a sea monster. Honest.” Sources The Woke thing was out of control, in Caroline’s humble opinion. Everything was woke.
“The Dabblers” appeared in the 1928 collection The Beast with Five Fingers It was a wet July evening. The three friends sat around the peat fire in Harborough’s den, pleasantly weary after their long tramp across the moors. Scott, the ironmaster, had been declaiming against modern education. His partner’s son had recently entered the business with everything to learn…
“Bonesoup” originally published in Strange Horizons, July 2022 From the author: “My initial idea was a Hansel and Gretel retelling where the Evil Witch actually has children of her own. It became a story about Greece’s intergenerational trauma, called Occupational Syndrome, caused by the Great Famine of 1941-1944. This trauma still influences the way people act to this day and…
PseudoPod 928: Mr. Harmon’s Girls is a PseudoPod original. CW: child sexual abuse, grooming https://www.elliottgishwrites.com https://www.facebook.com/elliottgishwrites The first day of school. Bright, cold, the sky that special autumn blue. All of us in new clothes and fresh white shoes, bold and laughing, shy and silent, angry and turned darkly inwards.
“Three Nights With the Angel of Death” was originally published in the anthology ALONG HARROWED TRAILS from Timber Ghost Press in July 2023 The Quick and the Dead Arizona, 1884—Day One The people of Vulture City are calling him the Angel of Death. But that makes no difference to us. There’s a one-thousand-dollar reward on him, and that kind of money never comes easy. No.
“Beach Head” was published in On Spec (longtime Canadian sci-fi/horror magazine) – 2008 & The Best Horror of the Year Volume 1 – 2009 CW: Drug use, problematic language “Are you still alive over there?” Alvy’s voice sounded weak, but it retained the bong-huffing tonality that had been his hallmark since he hit puberty. It grated at me almost as badly as the…
“Black Bargain” was originally published in Weird Tales, May 1942 “What Every Young Ghoul Should Know” was originally published in Amateur Correspondent, September-October 1937 What Every Young Ghoul Should Know” is a little piece of ephemera from an amateur zine, and very much written for Bloch’s friends. He sasses Clark Ashton Smith for taking his dictionary. He takes a shot at…
PseudoPod 924: The Things That Wash Up on Marble Beach is a PseudoPod original. From the author: “Following the enthusiastic and repeated recommendations of a good friend of mine (looking at you BDM), I read Dan Simmons’ Hyperion a couple of years back. Though I greatly enjoyed each of the pilgrims’ tales, the finale of one of them (not saying which one, you’ll just have to read the…
‘Too Little, Too Little, Too Much’ originally appeared in Cossmass Infinites in March of 2022 Fans of the urban legend of the Russian Sleep Experiment may be excited to see a recent movie release “The Soviet Sleep Experiment” is available online now with our very own narrator Paul Cram in the film as Subject 6. Here’s the movie trailer John Wiswell As soon as the adults…
PseudoPod 922: Something Stirring Underneath is a PseudoPod original. From the author: “At the far northwestern corner of Georgia down an unmarked path off a logging road lies the crumbling ruins of a manor that was host to murder and fire. It is only one of many forgotten places in the Deep South, some dating back thousands of years to civilizations that have been nearly lost to time…
‘Chickamauga’ first published in the San Francisco Examiner, January 20, 1889 One sunny autumn afternoon a child strayed away from its rude home in a small field and entered a forest unobserved. It was happy in a new sense of freedom from control, happy in the opportunity of exploration and adventure; for this child’s spirit, in bodies of its ancestors, had for thousands of…
This special return to the vault episode is in support of Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute now live on Kickstarter. Listen to editors Julie C. Day & Carina Bissett as they discuss the inspiration behind the Storyteller anthology. Tanith Lee wrote stories for an audience that was hungry for something beyond what was being offered at the time and yet her legacy is half forgotten.
“Just Another Apocalypse” originally appeared in Two Thousand Word Terrors released by Rooster Republic Press in 2023. Highway Song by Iggy Pop We cruise up the 5, zombies staggering on either side of the highway, their cerulean balloons straining in the wind like a flock of chained bluebirds. At first it was a viral game, a way to rack up social media hits: run up behind a…
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.
“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…
“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…
PseudoPod 916: Flash on the Borderlands LXX: Through a Glass Darkly is a PseudoPod original. “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…
“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.
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…
“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…
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…
“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…
“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.
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…
“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…
“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.
“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…
“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…
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…
“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.
“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…
“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…
“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.
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
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.
“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…
“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…
“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…
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…
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…
“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…
“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.
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.
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.
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…
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…
“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…
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…
“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…
“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…
“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.
“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…
“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…
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…
“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…
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…
“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…
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 .
“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…
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…
“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…
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…
“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…
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.
“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.
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…
“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.
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…
“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…
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…
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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
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…
“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…
“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.
“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…
“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…
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…
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.
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…
“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…
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.
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…
“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…
“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…
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)…
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’…
“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.
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
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…
“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…
“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…
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?
“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…
“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…
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.
“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…
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…
“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…
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…
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.
“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…
“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…
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…
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.
“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…
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…
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.
“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…
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.
“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…
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…
“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…
“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.
“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…
“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…
“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…
‘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.
‘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…
“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…
“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…
“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 #
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…
“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.
“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.
“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…
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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
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.”…
“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”…
“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…
“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…
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…
“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…
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.
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…
“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…
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…
“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…
“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.
“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…
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.
“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…
“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…
“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/
“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…
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…
“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…
“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.
“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…
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.
“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.
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…
“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.
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…
“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.
“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…
“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…
“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…
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…
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.
“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…
“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…
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…
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…
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…
“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…
“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.
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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
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.
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…
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.
“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…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
“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…
“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…
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…
“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…
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…
“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.
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.
“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…
“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’…
“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…
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…
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…
“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.
“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…
“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…
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.
“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.
“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…
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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
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…
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.
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…
“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…
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…
(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.
“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…
“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…
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…
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.
“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.
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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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.
“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…
‘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.
‘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…
‘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.
En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.