PseudoPod

“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

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

“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

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

“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

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

“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

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

“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

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

“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

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

“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

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… Source

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… Source

“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… Source

“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… Source

“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… Source

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… Source

“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… Source

“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… Source

“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… Source

“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… Source

“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… Source

“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… Source