PseudoPod 881: How to Win a Dance Contest During an Apocalypse (In Nine Easy Steps!) is a PseudoPod original. From the author: “While I’m a horror fan first and foremost, I’m also a big aficionado of coming-of-age films and romantic comedies, especially of the 1980s. I’ve always thought that many of the films of that era have a sort of existential horror vibe, even if you have to look… Source...
Sep 01, 2023•38 min
“The King in Yella” was originally published in Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign edited by James Chambers. It won the Ditmar award in 2022 for Best Short Story. I’m always returning to Rapptown in my thoughts. Unbidden, unwanted, I’m taken back there. A hint of yellow. The smell of smoke. These things blind me to the present. I haven’t lived there for… Source
Aug 25, 2023•39 min
“Resilience” was originally released as episode 704 of PseudoPod. Jason gets home while I’m at the sink. He comes up behind me, holds me around the waist, and tickles the side of my face with his soft new beard. We watch the young squirrels shake a tree branch, listen to them chatter through the open window. They zoom across the front yard and across the street. Source
Aug 19, 2023•50 min
PseudoPod 878: The Son (El Hijo) and The Feather Pillow (El almohadón de plumas) is a PseudoPod original. “El Hijo” was first published under the title “El padre” in La Nación, 15 January 1928. “El Almohadón de Plumas” was first published in the magazine Caras y Caretas, 13 July 1907; it was revised when collected in 1917. Both of these are new translations by Shawn Garrett. Source...
Aug 13, 2023•32 min
PseudoPod 877: Billy’s Garage is a PseudoPod original. CW: Animal cruelty From the author: “This is my contribution to the “kids on bikes” subgenre of horror. It’s set back when I was a teen, and yes, we did have to dissect actual frogs.” Incidentally, the author in no way condones any of the actions depicted in this story, except for reading comic books. Source
Aug 10, 2023•35 min
This text was extracted from McClure’s Jan 1911, illustrated by Henry Raleigh. The short story was adapted by herself into a novel in 1913; and again adapted into an opera and numerous films (including one by Alfred Hitchcock) and radio plays. “THERE he is at last, and I’m glad of it, Ellen. ‘Tain’t a night you would wish a dog to be out in.” Mr. Bunting’s voice was full of… Source
Aug 03, 2023•42 min
This text was extracted from McClure’s Jan 1911, illustrated by Henry Raleigh. The short story was adapted by herself into a novel in 1913; and again adapted into an opera and numerous films (including one by Alfred Hitchcock) and radio plays. “THERE he is at last, and I’m glad of it, Ellen. ‘Tain’t a night you would wish a dog to be out in.” Mr. Bunting’s voice was full of… Source
Jul 22, 2023•37 min
“Bitter is the Sea, and Bright” was first published in Daily Science Fiction, November 2018 “Fishing Season” is a PseudoPod original — Fishing Season: I went fishing at a nearby reservoir, and I didn’t catch anything except water willow and the wisps of this story’s concept. “Snotty” is a PseudoPod original Snotty: I watched a documentary that featured snot otters and began… Source
Jul 14, 2023•24 min
PseudoPod 873: A Box of Hair and Nail is a PseudoPod original. “This story was inspired by an urban myth that terrified my mum when she was a teenager in Malaysia. The legend went that if you didn’t dispose of your nail and hair clippings carefully, an unwanted admirer could steal them and take them to a bomoh—shaman—and have a love spell placed on you. Rumour was that this happened to… Source
Jul 07, 2023•35 min
“The Strange Island of Dr. Nork” was first published in Weird Tales, March 1949 CW: racist language. Please note this story was first published in 1949 and contains language which would not be acceptable today, particularly with regards to race. Afflicted Season Two Fundraiser I Between the Greater Antilles and the Lesser Antilles rises a little group of… Source
Jun 30, 2023•1 hr 3 min
“Nymph of Darkness” was originally published in Fantasy Magazine, April 1935 Afflicted Season Two Fundraiser The thick Venusian dark of the Ednes waterfront in the hours before dawn is breathless and tense with a nameless awareness, a crouching danger. The shapes that move murkily through its blackness are not daylight shapes. Sun has never shone upon some of those misshapen… Source
Jun 24, 2023•50 min
“The Dancing Partner” is excerpted from Jerome’s non-genre novel Novel Notes where it is the second half of Chapter 11. The serialization of that chapter first appeared in the March 1893 issue of The Idler. “This story,” commenced MacShaughnassy, “comes from Furtwangen, a small town in the Black Forest. There lived there a very wonderful old fellow named Nicholaus Geibel. Source
Jun 19, 2023•23 min
“Audio Recording Left by the CEO of the Ranvannian Colony to Her Daughter, on the Survival Imperative of Maximising Market Profits” was originally published in Diabolical Plots, October 2021 “We didn’t set out to write this as a story: we only really set out to try and gross each other out, exchanging segments in a series of escalations for our own amusement. But then Matt considers… Source...
Jun 09, 2023•28 min
“The Coward Who Stole God’s Name” originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine in their May issue in 2022. “If I named any of the inspirations for this story, then I’d get into terrible trouble, wouldn’t I? You’d hate to upset Gavin and those who love him. This is the sort of story that I can’t imagine not writing. The ideas in it swirl through my mind too frequently. If anything… Source
Jun 02, 2023•44 min
PseudoPod 867: Chainsaw: As Is is a PseudoPod original. Gillian King-Cargile grew up in the land-locked, corn country of Illinois, but every summer she’d visit her grandparents on the Jersey Shore. She swam in the Atlantic Ocean like a fish and body surfed until the broken-up shells of the shallows sanded down her knees. She also soaked up stories of shipwrecks, East-coast ghosts… Source
May 26, 2023•30 min
“Litany In The Heart Of Exorcism” originally appeared in Flash Fiction Online, and is due to appear in Dutch translation in Speculatief “He’s Just Like You” is a PseudoPod Original — “‘He’s Just Like You’ stems from the anxieties of being a father and the quality of the traits you’re passing on.” “Take Root” is a PseudoPod Original CW “He’s Just Like You” The Dog Dies… Source...
May 20, 2023•32 min
PseudoPod 865: Wanted: Bone-White Skull-Patterned Lace Trim is a PseudoPod original. The stroller on the side of the road caught Nina Wong’s eye as her Fiesta rounded the bend on her way to work. She slowed down, noting the FREE! sign taped to its handles. Free was about the only price she could afford right now, since Will had been gone a month, taking with him his half of the… Source...
May 14, 2023•42 min
“All the Ways to Hollow Out a Girl” was originally published in Horror for RAICES from Nightscape Press and reprinted in the charity anthology Shattered and Splintered. It’s almost noon on Friday when the neighborhood boys murder me again for the third time this week. They do it with their hands today, bulging knuckles blanching white, their sweaty fingers wrapped tight… Source
May 05, 2023•33 min
Both “Coincidence” and “The Dream” originally appeared in The London Magazine, April 1927 and June 1927 respectively This is the story of a coincidence. At any rate I call it a coincidence. The road where I live is very long and very straight. It’s paved with wood and well lighted after dark. The result is that cars and taxis going by during the night . Source
Apr 28, 2023•40 min
“The Curious Story of Susan Styles” was originally published in 1893 The Society for Psychical Research was formed in 1882, 11 years before this story was written “Susan Styles,” the name is not a romantic one, and yet it is associated in my mind with a curious series of incidents, which, were I a member of the Psychical (or ghost investigating) Society1 I might have brought… Source
Apr 21, 2023•26 min
PseudoPod 861: Swing Batter Batter is a PseudoPod original. A baseball clubhouse is a weird place. You’ve got California prep school kids rubbing elbows with good old boys from Texas and Louisiana, and guys from the Dominican and Venezuela mixing with guys who grew up in the inner city and still found their way to baseball. Nothing in common, and yet, all sharing a love of the… Source
Apr 15, 2023•44 min
“Time Enough at Last” originally appeared in IF Worlds of Science Fiction January 1953. For a long time, Henry Bemis had had an ambition. To read a book. Not just the title or the preface, or a page somewhere in the middle. He wanted to read the whole thing, all the way through from beginning to end. A simple ambition perhaps, but in the cluttered life of Henry Bemis… Source
Apr 07, 2023•23 min
PseudoPod 859: We, the Ones Who Raised Sam Gowers from the Dead is a PseudoPod original. CW: Homophobic/transphobic violence Yes, to answer your questions, we were the ones who did it; we were the ones who dabbled into the forbidden arts, who so casually threw away the good Christian values of our country for a flash of bloody vengeance. We are the ones you want… Source
Mar 31, 2023•38 min
“On the Getting of Husbands and the Spawning of Children” previously appeared in Arsenika in April 2021 “The Chairmaker’s Daughter” is a PseudoPod original “Concerning the Fantastic Native Flora of the Indo-Chinese Padma Valley” is a PseudoPod Original. “Concerning the Fantastic Native Flora of the Indo-Chinese Padma Valley” is inspired by the giant flower found in Southeast… Source
Mar 24, 2023•33 min
PseudoPod 857: Of Dark That Bites is a PseudoPod original. CW: Traumatic birth “Where do we go when we die?” asked Bea. She was in her car seat, a masterpiece of straps and safety standards that did less than nothing to assuage the mad patter of Lucy’s heart whenever she had to drive over Brassknocker Hill. The slopes were too steep, the roads too narrow. Source
Mar 17, 2023•51 min
“Them Doghead Boys” originally appeared in Current Affairs Magazine in their Jan/Feb 2021 issue Things got bad bad once the Ravels was gone. Five-Oh swooped down and arrested damnear eighty of them and after that wasn’t nobody on the corners slingin but things wasn’t no safer. Up at the corner of Brainard and Josephine there was a murder at five or six in the evening. Source
Mar 14, 2023•48 min
PseudoPod 855: And The Water Said Kneel is a PseudoPod original. Content Warning: Rape Revenge The river claims her like a lover, like someone who needed her whole and open and honest. It feels like she’s supposed to expose her throat, to bow for the very water itself, or at least for the man who put her there. She doesn’t want this though, she never has… Source
Mar 04, 2023•24 min
“Bones in It” was originally published in Lightspeed in May 2021 Good Bones by Maggie Smith Besides the vedma who lived behind the stove in steam room three, the banya in Grand Lake Plaza was the same as any other budget day spa on Chicago’s West Side. It had deep-tissue massages and signature facials, plus day passes for the communal baths and steam rooms. Source
Feb 25, 2023•35 min
PseudoPod 853: Oni in the Box is a PseudoPod original. Now, Sobo was our late father’s mother. By our mother’s accounts she was mad, if not wicked. Gossip ran muddy in our family. One relative, now deceased, told me she was once the personal Tay? of the now equally dead Abetake Risu; former, and most honorable, Daimyo of Ouja-jo. Another cousin was far more grandiose in his… Source
Feb 19, 2023•41 min
“Every Body Depicted Is Exploited” was first published in PopCult’s Gruesome Love anthology as “Crit.” Everyone knew that Pamela was the only real artist there. The rest of us were just play-acting. The sensible ones, like me, figured out pretty early on that the program was a joke. Formulaic. Easy to phone in. Still, there were plenty of students who told themselves they had a… Source
Feb 10, 2023•25 min
