Posts Tagged ‘church’

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PseudoPod 322: Cry Room

“Cry Room” was originally published at and is available to read over at fellow horror fiction website NIGHTMARE MAGAZINE. Check out their biweekly offerings of new horror fiction, non-fiction and podcast readings on their main page for current and past horror fiction and recordings by authors like Margo Lanagan & Norman Partridge, all curated for you by the tireless John Joseph Adams – and tell ’em PSEUDOPOD sent ya and please remember to extend a tentacle in friendship!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:32 — 14.9MB)

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Show Notes

“Cry Room” was inspired by events that occurred a few years back. The line between fiction and reality is probably not where you’d expect.

Cry Room

by Ted Kosmatka

Around him, ladies fanned themselves in the heat, dressed in their Sunday finest. At the front of the church, the minister began. He was an older gentleman, narrow and angular as the church itself. Somewhere up ahead, among the sea of blue hair and balding pates sat his cousin Jason—along with Jason’s wife, her grandparents, and other assorted relation, both close and distant, all here for the special occasion.

Mitch came from Steel people, north counties, Hammond and East Chicago. But these were rural people down here. Farm people. His cousin’s wife’s side. In Indiana, an hour south might have been another world.

His daughter was good for the first minutes of the minister’s sermon. Then it began: she slid down his knee to the floor.