Happy Horrordays

Happy 250, America! May the wings of liberty never lose a feather. Welcome back to Happy Horrordays, my friends. This is my first recycled episode, but I think it's one of the best stories ever on the pod. Ambrose Bierce, of course, was an irascible writer, journalist, and soldier in the service of his country. If this tale is anything to judge by, he paid a heavy price. I wanted an American s...

Welcome back to Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan!" Chapter 3 is titled "The City of Resurrections," but I don't think anyone was bent on raising the dead in Helen's experiments. That said, there's certainly a kind of resurrection here. Details in the episode, but did you know that Pan is the only member of the Greek pantheon whose death was reported to men? As...

I've been a dad for almost 13 years, and I'm not sure if I've gotten more than a day right. I've been a son a lot longer than that, though, so I'm paying tribute to my dad this Father's Day. "When John Comes" is a variation on a story Dad used to tell me when I was a boy. I hope I've nailed it, but I'll be honest. This episode is mainly for my dad, just so...

Hello, my friends! Our month-long celebration of the Summer Solstice continues with chapter 2 of Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan," as read by my illustrious friend, David Milloway. Here, we see Mister Clark trace his memories and manuscripts, searching for Pan's fingerprints and actively trying to avoid them at the same time. I'm indebted to my friend Anna, who pointed out...

Our first multi-part episode! My friend David Milloway offered to read "The Great God Pan, "and once I heard his familiar voice turn completely alien to me, I couldn't say no! Stephen King has said he considers "The Great God Pan" the scariest horror story in existence. Who am I to argue? It certainly gives us a suitably pagan way of celebrating the Solstice. We'll see...

Rudyard Kipling wrote every kind of story imaginable. He was an esteemed poet and writer, and a great booster of the British Empire. However, as he aged and understood loss, he wrote children's stories (The Jungle Books, Just-So Stories) and a plethora of ghost stories. I like how human these tales are. So often, the loss of his son John colors Kipling's thoughts on war, love, and the afte...

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's classic tale of a mother in distress! I managed to use a different voice for the husband every time he spoke, which I think is half hilarious blunder, half stroke of genius. After all, we're hearing the version of John that exists in the narrator's head, and I think it's fair to say she thinks of him as a different man almost every time he speaks. Hallmar...

Our first recommendations episode! I usually restrict myself to the public domain, but I've decided to touch on some of the fine writers I can't cover properly here. The excerpts are brief, but Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury, and Walt Kelly are our stars tonight. Sturgeon's "It" is a wonderful tale for spring, all mucky life and death. Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine&quo...

Edith Wharton! One of the greatest writers of her generation, and one of the finest ghost story writers ever! "Miss Mary Pask" is a kind of resurrection tale. On a more profound level, it's about a man more interested in the idea of miracles than he is in the actual people around him. Whatta creep. While I think my slightly British interpretation of Grace's New England accent is pardonable, I want...

April sweet is rolling in, and the Feast of Fools is upon us again! Saki is our master of revels again this year, as his antihero Clovis Sangrail wanders onto the podcast for the first time. Clovis is an influential character. Along with the aunts that populate Saki's stories, Clovis helped inspire Wodehouse's "Jeeves and Wooster" stories. And if you've never read any Wodehou...

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Here we have a story from W.B. Yeats' own Fairy and Folktales of the Irish Peasantry. I was looking for a particularly grisly passage about roasting a corpse on a spit I remembered from another old story, but once I happened on this one, I couldn't resist its charms. Fairies are terrible, wonderful things in Irish stories, and even if they don't mean you...

Lafcadio Hearn collected ghost stories from New Orleans, from his adopted home, Japan, and from visiting scholars from China. The Tale of Ming-Y is a romantic ghost story, as befits the romance of the Red Lantern Festival, which marks the end of the Lunar New Year. I'll make this one brief. I borrowed music from Vivek Abhishek - "The Door" is still our theme, and "The Forest&quo...

We've got a horror story for Valentine's Day, never fear! However, this is a rare episode where the history lesson dominates and, believe me, it's worth listening to! Edgar Allan Poe wasn't the sad, lonely little man you probably imagined. His wife's death affected him greatly, of course, but Poe never wanted for companionship before, after, or even during his marriage. At the height of his fame,...

This story is actually perfect for the Lunar New Year and the Year of the Fire Horse! When my wife told me how that shook out, I kicked myself. No regrets, though, I think any story about animal exploitation works pretty well for Groundhog Day. This is the second, and probably the last, Mary Frances McHugh story on the podcast. She didn't publish much and, apart from her poetry and her childre...

If you're lucky enough to be born Southern, Old Christmas is the holiday your grandparents remember. Or maybe remember their grandparents reminiscing about. The Gullah and Geechee people of the Carolinas still practice it, I understand, and in some regions a boat or a bull named Old Buck visits the islands on Old Christmas. It's a downhome holiday, one I've always wanted to celebrate,...

W.E.B. DuBois is better known for his essays on race and civil rights than his fiction. That said, "The Comet" is a gorgeous yarn that sent its tendrils throughout various genres. His facility with language is on full display here, as is his deep exploration of what we feel in the middle of disaster. Written in 1920, it anticipates stories like "Time Enough At Last," Night of t...

W.F Harvey's tale of family gatherings, an empty house, and a "small favor" gone wrong! Fryer specialized in stories that don't hand you all the answers, and "The Clock" is wonderfully weird. It's short - a mere holiday treat and not a feast - but it's bound to get your heart pumping for the holidays! Our intro music is Vivek Abishek's "The Door."...

Our first Edgar Allen Poe story! "The Angel of the Odd" is a kind of horror, and its author's credentials give it some credibility in this area, but it's Final Destination by way of Wile E. Coyote. Either a drunken fool has a bad dream, or a drunken fool is haunted by a monster made up of equal parts alcohol and bad luck. That said, this is a story about arguments following a lus...

Saki may be my favorite pre-WW1 horror writer. His brevity and humor are unmatched, and he's not afraid to write about monsters. There aren't a lot of great short stories about monsters, but "Gabriel-Ernest" is a notable exception. October has given us a tableful of stories to feast on, and this is our dessert. Thanks so much for coming on this midnight ride through Halloween wit...

Robert Burns' "Tam o' Shanter" needs no introduction, but since I'm a heathen American, I'll give it one. A mock ballad by Scotland's national poet, who resides on the Scottish ten-pound note, it's a story of a drunken Scot who disturbs a Halloween party in a haunted church. It's 18th-century Scots dialect so I'll provide a brief glossary below. And if you know Scots dialect, be kind. I'm only a p...

Happy Halloween, friends! Richard Middleton was extremely talented and extremely depressed. He'd be a great subject for a ghost story, but for now, we'll have to settle for the unique take on ghosts the man gave us! Our theme music is Vivek Abhishek's "The Door." He does more than just horror music but I think he excels in this area. As always, I encourage you to investigate...

Mary Frances McHugh is almost unknown in contemporary circles, but I won't lie, this story hits at some deep, primal fear. If you're unfamiliar, it's much better unspoiled, though I should warn you - this time we're taking a journey into some dark places. I've read that content warnings actually increase the distress many folks experience, so I'll just say... if you're experiencing dark thoughts,...

Welcome, my friends, to the most wonderful time of the year. This is the first of four episodes for the Halloween season! I'll be putting out one a week until All Hallow's Eve, the result of a lot of reading and research. Glad I get to share it with y'all. William Fryer Harvey's "Midnight House" didn't make much of a splash when he published it in 1910. However, based on "August Heat"'s short, fir...

Happy Labor Day! If I understood Billy Joel correctly, we didn't start the class war, it was always burnin' or some such. An aristocrat's view of horror in today's story, Guy de Maupassant's "L'Horrible." There's class struggles aplenty here but also a deliciously grisly cannibalistic march through the Algerian desert. Perhaps the enlisted men were wrong to tu...

Light a lantern in memory of Hoichi for Obon, the Japanese feast of the dead! This peerless blind musician had an encounter with deadly forces that, in a roundabout way, enriched him but also cost him more than he could have imagined. Obon snuck up on me. In fact, I didn't realize it was a real holiday until very recently. I thought it was a plot device in "Kubo and the Two Strings."...