“Masks” originally appeared in Forbidden Futures and was reprinted in the 2022 collection How to See Ghosts & Other Figments “The Machete at the End of the World” appeared in the collection Nightfall & Other Danger “The Tale of Belette” previously appeared on Tales to Terrify Spoiler Nice [collapse] “You, sir, should unmask. Indeed it’s time. We all have laid… Source...
“Lidless Eyes That See” was first released by PS Publishing in From the Waste Land, an anthology inspired by T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land.” The story was a finalist for the 2022 Aurealis Award for Best Horror Short Story [note: The Waste Land was published in 1922 and is in the public domain for use of some or all] We are silently going mad, the boy and I. Source
PseudoPod 909: The Witch in the Whale Bone Hut is a PseudoPod original. Four massive ribs held the hut together, two forming a thick arch near the front door. The bones were pockmarked and yellow, no doubt leftovers from the town’s glory days during the height of the whaling industry. Jamie’s heart sank as he stared at the bones. They had once belonged to a beautiful creature… Source
“Bring Them All Into the Light” originally appeared in the Great British Horror 7: Major Arcana representing the card The High Priestess. Heathen They’re on holiday when he sees the cottage. Julie and Nico are bickering in the back seat, Maggie searching through the glovebox for something – anything – that might shut them up for five minutes. He rubbernecks as they pass it at… Source
“Rare Providers” originally appeared in Fusion Fragment in November 2022 I like to hunt in the campground that sprouted from the outskirts of our town before we lived here. It’s hard to tell just where the town ends now that the world has grown wild, but there’s not much beyond the campground apart from trees and the scrub and grass growing up through the broken roads. Source
“The Cask of Amontillado” originally appeared in Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book, November 1846 The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively… Source
“Phoenix Claws” was originally published in Black Cranes A block from the Jade Garden restaurant, I reached out and grasped Fin’s arm. “Hang on.” So many boyfriends had failed; I wasn’t going to let it happen again. I made a fuss of straightening his collar, smoothing the flannel fabric over his weekend sweater. “You know to hold your rice bowl, right? Thumb on the lip… Source
PseudoPod 904: Jinx is a PseudoPod original. CW: domestic violence/intimate partner violence. Your first date with Jake is perfect. So. That’s fucking weird. Not a complaint, obviously. Actually, it’s a relief: you’ve been on far too many first dates with guys who, at first blush, seemed like cute, funny, thoughtful dudes with passionate but not emotionally… Source
“Skule Skerry” was originally published in the 1928 collection The Runagates Club The Excavation of Hobs Barrow The Stone Tape The Woman in Black It happened a good many years ago, when I was quite a young man. I wasn’t the cold scientist then that I fancy I am today. I took up birds in the first instance chiefly because they fired what imagination I had got. Source
“The Ghost” was first published in The Windsor Magazine, May 1928. “Half-Past Two” was first published in the August 15, 1928 edition of The Daily Mail. She was a girl of fourteen, and she sat propped up with pillows in an old four-poster bed, coughing a little with the feverish cold that kept her there. She was tired of reading by lamplight, and she lay and listened to the… Source
“The Shadowy Escort” was first published in The London Magazine, May 1928 Seigfried Sassoon Base Details by Siegfried Sassoon Almost everybody has at one time or another wanted to write a detective story, but, for the greater well-being of publishers and publishers’ readers, not everybody has tried. Among those who have, with varying degrees of success, must be numbered a… Source
“The Red Lodge” originally published in the 1928 collection They Return at Evening. I am writing this from an imperative sense of duty, for I consider The Red Lodge is a foul death-trap and utterly unfit to be a human habitation — it has its own proper denizens — and because I know its owner to be an unspeakable blackguard to allow it so to be used for his financial advantage. Source
“Arcanum Miskatonica” was originally published in Lovecraftiana Vol.3, No.1, April 2018 and reprinted in the 2023 anthology The Nameless Songs of Zadok Allen & Other Things that Should Not Be edited by Jessica Augustsson From the editors: The Nameless Songs of Zadok Allen & Other Things that Should Not Be is JayHenge’s 20th speculative fiction anthology, and editor Jessica Augustsson… Source
“It Takes Slow Sips” first appeared in the anthology Lost Contact and was reprinted in the 2023 collection The Inconsolables CW: Stalking, allusion to date rape From the author: “The word incel, which means “involuntary celibate,” is never used explicitly in “It Takes Slow Sips,” but this community, to use the term loosely, makes the skin crawl like little else in the… Source
“The Red Lady” was originally published in the 2023 anthology Collage Macabre presented by the Future Dead Collective SHOW NOTES The Whoniverse The Full Lid ‘Art is never finished, only abandoned.’ – This week’s closing quote has a fascinating, and very complex history. From the author: “The works of Robert W. Chambers were some of the first horror shorts to get me… Source
“Douen” was originally published in The Dark Magazine and reprinted in the 2023 collection Skin Thief. From the author: “This story is set at my Grandmother’s house in Trinidad. The story itself is written in dialect the way I would have spoken it. It poured out of my head that way fully completed. Because I’m part of the diaspora, it is really reflective of how my parents spoke to… Source
“The Belsnickel” has previously appeared on the online platforms Vocal and Patreon. From the author: ”I loved the stories my German great-grandmother shared about belsnickels – friends and neighbors who dressed in big fur coats and frightful masks and went house to house on the nights around Christmas to sing, visit, play music, and give the kids a little scare. It was a tradition… Source
“Thirteen Ways of Not Looking at a Blackbird” was originally published in the 2023 anthology No Trouble at All edited by Alexis Dubon and Eric Raglin Hugh Dancy: Will Graham I. I am a baby boy. In the bathtub, looking out, past my mother as she cries and holds the already wet washcloth to her eyes. Over her mouth. I am looking into the full-length mirror on the bathroom… Source
“The Stringer of Wiltsburg Farm” was originally published in Vastarien and was reprinted in the 2023 collection Who Lost, I Found Dark Harvest novel Dark Harvest Daddy called tobacco a quick and dirty crop. Quick because it was one hundred days from planting to harvest. Dirty because cutting the leaves off the plants released a juicy, dark sap that dried, sticky sweet… Source
“The Body Remembers” was originally written for, and published in, the anthology Dark Matter Presents: Monstrous Futures in April 2023. CW: War, death, graphic descriptions of injuries, self-harm, suicidal ideation From the author: “The idea for this story came from thinking about how even when we heal from physical trauma and no visible scars remain, we can still be… Source
“The Evaluator” was originally published in “A Breath from the Sky” in 2017 and is included in the 2023 collection “No One Will Come Back for Us and Other Stories.” It is the first of Premee’s stories to appear on Ellen Datlow’s annual ‘Honorable Mentions’ for her ‘Best Horror of the Year’ anthology. From the author: “I wrote this one for the call as well, and this time I started… Source
PseudoPod 890: The Halloween Parade and Twin Xolotls of Sorrow and Salt is a PseudoPod original. This year you pass through a stone arch to reach the Parade. The churro stand is to one side, the bouncer to the other. You can’t quite tell if the bouncer is checking if you’ve been to the churro stand or if you’ve got your wristband. You do know both are pointedly ignoring the plate… Source...
“Darke’s Last Show” opens the 2023 collection Have You Seen the Moon Tonight? & Other Rumors I’m still smiling when the rideshare car pulls up. Silver Honda Accord. Driver: Raul. 4.9 star rating, meaning some monster gave him a petty 4-star review once—there is no circle of Hell low enough. Raul’s a handsome kid, maybe twenty, lots of hair product, a fade shaved onto the back… Source
“Made of You” is a PseudoPod Original “Dancing With Etta” appeared first in Maudlin House (October, 2020) “A Well Polished Puppet” is a PseudoPod Original “Summer of George” is a PseudoPod Original I will be who I will be I was a blister clinging to the throat of your shower drain. I didn’t know I was alive, let alone that, as I built myself from your beautiful waste… Source
“Midnight in the Southland” was previously published in Liminal Spaces: An Anthology of Dark Speculative Fiction by Cemetery Gates Media in 2021. “From the grim Ohio Valley to the mists of the Appalachian Plateau, this is Midnight in the Southland with your host Gus Guthrie. Now, here’s Gus…” That’s how Midnight in the Southland always started. Back in the ‘90s and early… Source
PseudoPod 886: A Wonder of Nature, In Need of Killing is a PseudoPod original. From the author: “This story was inspired by the snapping turtle who lives in a neighbor’s pond. Each spring she crawls from the water to the shrubbery in front of our house, where she digs a nest beneath the azaleas and lays a dozen or more eggs. Why she digs so close to human habitation is a mystery. Source...
“The Grave of Angels” first appeared in Vastarien Volume 4 Issue 1, June 2021. CW: intimate partner death From the author: “This story incorporates many of my recurrent themes–rituals, religion, the end of the world, and did not end up where I thought it would when I began.” The Grave of Angels by Erica Ruppert Corra Martin, last child of her family line… Source
“Report on the Flanking Action” was originally published in the braided collection, Tales of the Callamo Mountains. CW: racial slurs M.R. James Shadows at the Door Mark Nixon The Thing Search & Rescue A Podcast to the Curious From the action report of Captain William Meecher: “…the engagement ended with the capture of most of the hostiles and seven… Source
“Ba’alat Ov” originally appeared in The Jewish Book of Horror In the night, the spirits spoke with hisses and gurgles like serpents wrapped around my head. I awoke covered in sweat, barely able to breathe, so afraid of what they would ask me to do. They whispered things over and over, crying out for understanding. There was never a choice in my action, only the act itself or… Source
PseudoPod 882: See That My Grave is Kept Clean is a PseudoPod original. CW for suicide Dig a hole, climb in, cover yourself in grave dirt. Not your face. You aren’t ready to join the dead, not yet. The bone men tend the graveyard, unaware they’re being watched. You’re crying because you’d lost hope of ever seeing them. They step so softly they appear to drift… Source
