Kaidankai: Ghost, Supernatural, and Dark Short Fiction

Scientists exploring the deep sea encounter unexplained phenomena. Unexplained until they meet the perpetrator. Is it friend or foe? Stephen A. Roddewig is an award-winning storyteller and playwright from Virginia (USA). He won second place in the 2023 Vocal Painted Prose challenge, and his stories are featured in Abyss & Apex, Diet Milk Magazine, Struggle Magazine, and Wintermute Lit. When no...

Today’s character is certain that her fiancee’s mother doesn’t like her. But when the mother dies just a few hours after announcing the engagement, what does that mean for her relationship? Is she to blame for the family matron’s untimely death? And will she still get the family heirloom ring? S.E. Will lives in the Midwest, where she writes about the things that keep her up at night. Her most rec...

If you lose a child, the sight of a school bus can rip your grief wide open. But what does it mean when a school bus shows up in the middle of the night? Rick Sherman (he/him) is a retired award-winning Magician/Mentalist living in the manicured suburbs of Long Island, New York. Finding himself with a surfeit of free time he has turned to writing with increasing degrees of success. He lives with h...

A man goes in search of a godly godparent for his newborn daughter. But, when humans and gods form relationships, does the human always get what they want? Allister Nelson is an avid fan of fantasy romance, world mythology, and writing! She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, Tea Witch, armchair occultist, cult aficionado, Taylor Swift Truther, and big time navel gazer. She loves to cook, bake, bike, and...

Today’s character attracts the supernatural. But why? To introduce strange creatures to the world? Or because a horrible fate awaits? Simina Lungu is a speculative fiction writer currently residing in Timisoara, Romania. She has several short stories published in places such as Night Picnic, CommuterLit, or Dark Fire Fiction. Her writings explore primordial fears as well as the need for human conn...

Five poems-- "Doorways," "Hush," "Journeys," "She Laughed," and "The Last Time I Was Here"-- that journey into the afterworld and the feelings of curiosity, discovery, revenge and acceptance experienced by the living and the dead. Like a magpie, Rhonda Parrish is constantly distracted by shiny things. She’s the editor of many anthologies and author of plenty of books, stories and poems. She lives...

"Fox Hunt" first appeared in Commuter Lit on September 27, 2022 In Japan, foxes are messengers for the god of agriculture. In today’s story, a farmer hates foxes and spends his life hunting them with his dog trained for the hunt. So, how is it that he remains wealthy and unpunished for killing his god's favorite animal? Linda Gould is an American who has lived in six countries. The mythology and f...

Small acts of love and beauty can make the difference between wanting to die and wanting to live. In this case, the help comes from an unexpected source. Maia Brown-Jackson is a symphony of papercuts, banged-up knees, and stubborn determination. She believes in the altruism of strangers, the power of direct action, and the use of the Oxford comma. She strives to offer what she can; here, that offe...

What does it mean to come from "the longest and purest royal bloodline in history?" Hana Carolina is a pseudonym of an Edinburgh-based creative and academic writer. Born in Poland, she moved to Scotland and studied literature, film and television for many years. Since then, she has been working as a tutor, interpreter, and researcher, and publishing academically while writing dark stories about ho...

A psychic is hired to perform at an exclusive hotel. When he encounters a sad and lonely ghost, he thinks love is all the ghost needs to be released from our world. But something else is keeping the sad ghost and others from moving on. Geoffrey Marshall is a writer in Aurora, Canada. He knows just enough to be dangerous (mostly to himself) in several different fields. You can find his work in The...

After WWII, an injured man plans to recuperate at a countryside manor where he has a strange encounter. Claude Chabot has published five short stories and has produced and directed four radio plays based on his own stories. One of them, an adaptation of his own ghost story, was aired on public radio worldwide. He has also completed a collection of short stories exploring the conflicts and changes...

A young man suffers for his father's sins. Born in Tokyo and educated at ICU in Japan and Brown University in the United States, Akira Odani wrote for many years for the Japanese media. Today, his interest has turned to writing in English and subjects related to his experiences interacting with the two cultures. He is a member of the Florida Writers Association (FWA) and Taste Life Twice Writers’...

A young man is meeting his girlfriend’s parents for the first time. Is his nervousness from the parents’ oddness or his own secrets? Tyler Markham is a writer and horror enthusiast. Whenever he is not writing, or shivering under his covers with a scary story, he likes to spend time with his wife Chloe and their cranky ten-year-old dog Maggie.​ You can read "Indistinguishable" at https://www.kaidan...

This week, we honor Martin Luther King Jr. Today’s story uses three voices—a house, narrator and historian—and music to tell the stories of generations of people from a town in the Deep South of the US. Yes, it is a tale of bigotry and racism at the micro and macro scales. But also hope and determination to make a better world and a better life. It’s a beautiful example of how ghost stories can ch...

Addicts can be ghosts, too. The aftermath of their deaths can be just as tragic as their lives. Robert Pettus is an English as a Second Language teacher at the University of Cincinnati. Previously, he taught in rural Thailand and Moscow, Russia. His short stories have been published in numerous webzines, magazines, podcasts, and literary journals, including previously on Kaidankai. His novel, titl...

Today’s character lives in the arctic, long nights and depression are the least of her problems. She has to find a way to keep monsters at bay. Katy England has been writing for longer than she likes to admit. A journalist and communications expert by day, modder and fiction writer by night. She spends much of her time in the great expanse of the Maine woods with her husband, triplets, and select...

This week's story: A midnight raid of the fridge leads to an encounter that just might give us a clue about where ghosts come from. ​John Shea is a technical writer with a B.S. in Communications from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and an M.F.A. in Motion Picture and Television Production from the University of Southern California. He is extensively travelled and has been known to babble in Fren...

An author has a litany of problems that most authors experience, and an additional one that few of us have to worry about. John Shea is a technical writer with a B.S. in Communications from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and an M.F.A. in Motion Picture and Television Production from the University of Southern California. He is extensively travelled and has been known to babble in French, Spanis...

November 24 to December 24: Please support the Kaidankai podcast. Donate any amount via PayPal through the Kaidankai website or Ko-Fi (preferred). For select donations, receive a digital ghost story anthology, a Kaidankai t-shirt, or special readings available only to members. The Kaidankai website donation link: https://www.kaidankaistories.com/shopdonate.html Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/kaidankaigh...

November 24 to December 24: Please support the Kaidankai podcast. Donate any amount via PayPal through the Kaidankai website or Ko-Fi (preferred). For select donations, receive a digital ghost story anthology, a Kaidankai t-shirt, or special readings available only to members. The Kaidankai website donation link: https://www.kaidankaistories.com/shopdonate.html Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/kaidankaigh...

November 24 to December 24: Please support the Kaidankai podcast. Donate any amount via PayPal through the Kaidankai website or Ko-Fi (preferred). For select donations, receive a digital ghost story anthology, a Kaidankai t-shirt, or special readings available only to members. The Kaidankai website donation link: https://www.kaidankaistories.com/shopdonate.html Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/kaidankaigh...

November 24 to December 24: Please support the Kaidankai podcast. Donate any amount via PayPal through the Kaidankai website or Ko-Fi (preferred). For select donations, receive a digital ghost story anthology, a Kaidankai t-shirt, or special readings available only to members. The Kaidankai website donation link: https://www.kaidankaistories.com/shopdonate.html Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/kaidankaigh...

November 24 to December 24: Please support the Kaidankai podcast. Donate any amount through Patreon or Ko-Fi (preferred). For select donations, receive a digital ghost story anthology, a Kaidankai t-shirt, or special readings available only to members. All I want for Christmas is eternal life and endless beauty. Well, today’s character doesn’t make a Christmas wish, she just summons a demon and be...

November 24 to December 24: Please support the Kaidankai podcast. Donate any amount through Patreon or Ko-Fi (preferred). For select donations, receive a digital ghost story anthology, a Kaidankai t-shirt, or special readings available only to members. A group of men have been childhood friends from way back. Now, they meet every week over poker. A chance comment inspires one of them to call his c...

Car trouble strands a man on a freezing cold night. He can feel death encroaching from the tips of his fingers and toes. John A. Monaghan lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia with his wife and children and three dogs. He can be found on Twitter at TitusLivy72, but be warned, he does not tweet much. You can read "Lemon and Yellow" at https://www.kaidankaistories.com . Website: kaidankaistories.com Fol...