Anthologies and Collections – PseudoPod

Anthologies and Collections – PseudoPod https://pseudopod.org The Sound of Horror Fri, 12 Dec 2025 08:23:53 +0000 en-US hourly 1 PseudoPod 1007: The Children of the Event https://pseudopod.org/2025/12/12/pseudopod-1007-the-children-of-the-event/ Fri, 12 Dec 2025 05:01:25 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=12509 The first person to see the wave was a fisherman. Like most of his kind, he was strong, fond of water, and a heavy drinker; he wore rubber boots and a yellow coat slicked with salmon guts. It’s important to stress that there was nothing heroic about this fisherman. He was a normal man. He had friends and family. One bar server remembered that he used to show off on Friday nights, after the day’s…

]]> PseudoPod 1002: The Squatters https://pseudopod.org/2025/11/07/pseudopod-1002-the-squatters/ Fri, 07 Nov 2025 05:01:14 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=12452 The government begins excavating the bones in late February to coincide with the events planned to commemorate the massacre. It is meant to gesture that they truly do intend to follow through on their promise of “truth and reconciliation” and with the upcoming election, a way to score political points for the candidates of the ruling party. The site is one of a number of mass graves that have been…

]]> PseudoPod 997: Flash on the Borderlands LXXV: Together is Our Favorite Place to Be https://pseudopod.org/2025/10/10/pseudopod-997-flash-on-the-borderlands-lxxv-together-is-our-favorite-place-to-be/ Fri, 10 Oct 2025 12:41:33 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=12410 Our family doesn’t have to be perfect to be wonderful. There’s a gale when dawn illuminates our world. The morning light arrives as though leached from my son’s eyes, his gaze cast skyward, forever in search of hope, his dreams. He’s gone. There’s little else to mark the passage of time now, everything’s wind and survival…and heartbreak. When the world turned, we had no choice but to…

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]]> PseudoPod 995: Data Ghost https://pseudopod.org/2025/09/26/pseudopod-995-data-ghost/ Fri, 26 Sep 2025 04:01:08 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=12393 When the station stats popped up on the screen, the Interface said, Anomalous. Deni batted at their ear and muttered, “No, no, quit it.” In the second cockpit seat, Winnie threw them a look. “What?” At Deni’s shrug, her brows stayed up, skeptical. “Use your words, Tulip.” “It’s the Interface.” Deni thumped their head against the seat back, thinking about the urge to dig the thing out of their…

]]> PseudoPod 955: Flash on the Borderlands LXXII: 2024 Anthologies and Collections Showcase https://pseudopod.org/2024/12/27/pseudopod-955-flash-on-the-borderlands-lxxii-2024-anthologies-and-collections-showcase/ Fri, 27 Dec 2024 05:01:24 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=12048 “What once was pleasure now’s pain for us all (In my heart only shadows fall)” The dark called out in the shape of them—dark coming out of the dark and toward him and even the green of the trees seemed black through the sick-yellow shine of the streetlamp. His mind went deaf and his head went down like a beaten wolf and the ground glistened beneath his blue shoes as the men approached…

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]]> PseudoPod 954: Be Not Afraid https://pseudopod.org/2024/12/20/pseudopod-954-be-not-afraid/ Fri, 20 Dec 2024 05:01:09 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=12045 “Take out all the yellow ones,” Mamaw says. “Put these in.” She takes a box of Christmas bulbs out of the plastic grocery sack from the Dollar General and sets it on the kitchen table beside the tangled strings of lights I’m trying my best to work apart. They’re lined with green, blue, red, and yellow bulbs. “What color do you want me to replace them with?” I ask her. “Don’t matter…

]]> PseudoPod 953: If You Don’t Want a Cat, Don’t Get a Kitten https://pseudopod.org/2024/12/13/pseudopod-953-if-you-dont-want-a-cat-dont-get-a-kitten/ Fri, 13 Dec 2024 05:01:36 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=12042 For Brian Keene Some men woke to the sound of roosters. Brent knew it was a new day when he heard a steady chorus of scratches outside his window. He rolled off of his lumpy mattress, the worn comforter askew over the stained and dirty fitted sheet. One sure sign that a woman didn’t live there was that his bedsheets hadn’t been changed in months. Brent slipped into his moccasins and pulled a…

]]> PseudoPod 952: Onitsha Main, Ochanja, The Twins, Nkpor, and the Shadows of Shoprite https://pseudopod.org/2024/12/06/pseudopod-952-onitsha-main-ochanja-the-twins-nkpor-and-the-shadows-of-shoprite/ Fri, 06 Dec 2024 05:01:53 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=12036 Onitsha Main. It started with the garri sellers. Basin by basin, their grains went gray with mold. Stall by stall, they all shut down. The small-scale carpenters down by the port were next. With soaring prices, they could not afford to transport their production materials into town. The Abada textile dealers packed up their bales of fabric and locked them in a warehouse. They planned to wait out…

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]]> PseudoPod 951: Last Supper https://pseudopod.org/2024/11/29/pseudopod-951-last-supper/ Fri, 29 Nov 2024 16:58:37 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=12033 “Last Supper” by Richard Dansky The night I put down her brother, Cecily didn’t want to make love. I reached for her in the bed we shared in the massive farmhouse she’d inherited when she became leader of the pack, but she pulled away. “Not tonight,” she said. “I don’t want those hands to touch me.” “Is this because of your brother?” I asked. She rolled over and stared at me…

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]]> PseudoPod 950: The Slow Music of Drums https://pseudopod.org/2024/11/22/pseudopod-950-the-slow-music-of-drums/ Fri, 22 Nov 2024 05:01:08 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=12017 It was easier than I imagined, tracking down the last original member of Exquisite Corpse. My uncle left surprisingly detailed notes for a man with a disordered mind—left them, and then disappeared. Died. Disappeared. I don’t know. Julian was the name on my uncle’s birth certificate, but everyone called him Rabbit. We weren’t close when I was growing up, only after my own father died and I…

]]> PseudoPod 949: Less Exalted Tastes https://pseudopod.org/2024/11/18/pseudopod-949-less-exalted-tastes/ Mon, 18 Nov 2024 20:49:54 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=12014 John Guthrie stood at the end of a long gravel driveway and stared in unadulterated joy at the largest mansion he’d ever seen. In the meagre light of an autumn day, the scrolled corbels, smooth limestone ashlar, and innumerable sash windows of the house shone with promise, a promise picked out in high relief by a fleeting sun that occasionally fought its way through heavy, rain-laden clouds.

]]> PseudoPod 948: A Relationship in Four Haircuts https://pseudopod.org/2024/11/08/pseudopod-948-a-relationship-in-four-haircuts/ Fri, 08 Nov 2024 05:01:12 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=12006 You met him on Etsy. That’s right. Not a dating app, but an online marketplace for small business owners. You’d asked about a custom jade ring you’d been sniffing around for but never found one within your budget—until him. But what you didn’t expect was for him to break from his professional persona and ask for your hand in marriage with the same ring you were trying to purchase for $20.99…

]]> PseudoPod 947: Will They Disappear https://pseudopod.org/2024/11/04/pseudopod-947-will-they-disappear/ Mon, 04 Nov 2024 12:57:25 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=11995 I’m only fourteen and I don’t look like much and I’ve lived in more foster homes than I can count on two hands but I’ve learned a lot of lessons anyway. Like: playing dumb is a real smart strategy, most of the time. So is playing weak, only showing my strengths when it’s the right time. I didn’t do too good a job with that one, but if the names “Jessica and Elizabeth Love” ring a bell…

]]> PseudoPod 899: Arcanum Miskatonica https://pseudopod.org/2023/12/29/pseudopod-899-arcanum-miskatonica/ Fri, 29 Dec 2023 05:01:40 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=11640 Every university has its reputation—some for solid, middle-of-the- road studies in business, medicine, law, others for scientific research, and hopefully all for excellence. But some have shadows behind their ivy-grown cloisters, dusty corners where past mysteries linger, and some secrets are guarded, not merely jealously, but fanatically. I came to Miskatonic University, in the green hills above…

]]> PseudoPod 898: It Takes Slow Sips https://pseudopod.org/2023/12/22/pseudopod-898-it-takes-slow-sips/ Fri, 22 Dec 2023 05:01:15 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=11638 Forty minutes to drive eleven miles, and the daylight was souring over the trees behind the apartments. He had left in the dark and just made it home before the dark. For a moment he sat in his car and watched a white dog being walked in the park across the street, its fur almost shining. People were wearing coats now, but it was only September. It had gotten cold two weeks before his favorite…

]]> PseudoPod 897: The Red Lady https://pseudopod.org/2023/12/15/pseudopod-897-the-red-lady/ Fri, 15 Dec 2023 05:01:57 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=11623 Twelfth bell’s chime, fairest song, and poppy dew. For the Red Lady, ‘ fore the Red Lady, stand anew. Light flowed through the shutters for many hours, its pale fingers raking the room, yet it was an unexpected delivery that finally roused me. “Parcel for the young Masters.” A faint voice trickled up from the street. Henri lolled his head towards me from the chaise-longue.

]]> PseudoPod 896: Douen https://pseudopod.org/2023/12/09/pseudopod-896-douen/ Sun, 10 Dec 2023 01:54:11 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=11607 I see Mama in de cemetery when dey put de white casket in de ground. She was crying so hard she was shaking like when grandma died and Tanty, Mama’s aunt, had to hug Mama up tight, tight, to keep Mama from falling down. At grandma’s funeral, Tanty say, “Doux doux Shalini, yuh have to hold up yuhself. Yuh have yuh daughter Samantha to bring up. Yuh must be strong fuh she.” Mama wipe she own tears…

]]> PseudoPod 894: Thirteen Ways of Not Looking at a Blackbird https://pseudopod.org/2023/11/24/pseudopod-894-thirteen-ways-of-not-looking-at-a-blackbird/ Fri, 24 Nov 2023 05:01:52 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=11587 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 door. I see no one. I do not see my father. A severed hand floats in the air. Drops of blood fall to the floor, splattering out on both sides of the border between the linoleum and carpet.

]]> PseudoPod 893: The Stringer of Wiltsburg Farm https://pseudopod.org/2023/11/17/pseudopod-893-the-stringer-of-wiltsburg-farm/ Fri, 17 Nov 2023 05:07:23 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=11569 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, on the skin. Mud then clung to the sap, eventually drying to a thick crust that itched and flaked, turning brown skin ghostly gray. Still didn’t keep him from sending me out in the fields.

]]> PseudoPod 892: The Body Remembers https://pseudopod.org/2023/11/10/pseudopod-892-the-body-remembers/ Fri, 10 Nov 2023 05:01:53 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=11532 It takes a moment before it hits me that the screaming’s coming from my own mouth. Funny how the mind works. I catch myself debating whether to continue or just shut up. My leg—where it used to be anyway—is nothing but mangled shreds that remind me of pulled pork and I opt for silence. I grit my teeth against the pain and watch the leg reform from those shreds of bloody meat for a moment before I…

]]> Anthologies and Collections from 2023: Bloodline https://pseudopod.org/2023/11/09/anthologies-and-collections-from-2023-bloodline/ Thu, 09 Nov 2023 19:21:23 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=11536 Novels are all very well, but is there anything more satisfying than a well-crafted short story? We don’t think so, here at PseudoPod towers. A gripping introduction, a compelling narrative and a hard-hitting ending, all in under six thousand words. A point well made and a story well told. Some may be nibbles while others are more… substantial, but they’re all, in a manner of speaking, bite-sized.

]]> PseudoPod 845: 15 Eulogies Scribbled Inside a Hello Kitty Notebook https://pseudopod.org/2022/12/30/pseudopod-845-15-eulogies/ Fri, 30 Dec 2022 15:14:56 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=11073 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-eaters attacked, and he didn’t know not to scream. Stuff like gullet-eaters and werewolves and carnivorous pixies didn’t happen at his old school, I guess. Anyway, they ripped his throat out in…

]]> Anthologies and Collections from 2022: Dream Warriors https://pseudopod.org/2022/11/03/anthologies-and-collections-22/ Thu, 03 Nov 2022 04:01:46 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=10920 Here at PseudoPod we believe that short stories in anthologies (pieces by different authors) and collections (pieces from a single author) deserve to be seen by more readers. We, and our audience, love short fiction and we never have enough slots to run everything we’d like to in a year – but what we can do is shine a light on some of the many, many books that feature amazing selections of stories.

]]> Anthologies and Collections and PseudoPod and You III: Dream Warriors https://pseudopod.org/2022/06/02/anthologies-and-collections-2022/ Thu, 02 Jun 2022 17:11:21 +0000 https://pseudopod.org/?p=10730 There are a number of short stories in anthologies and collections that deserve to get in front of more readers. We want to shine more light across our community and widen our circle to make room for more writers and readers. We and our audience love short fiction, and we never have enough space to run everything we want in a year, so we want to get samples of entire books of short fiction in…

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