You’ve found the world’s premier horror fiction podcast. Pseudopod brings you the best short horror in audio form, to take with you anywhere.
WARNING: This is a podcast of horror fiction. The stories presented here are intended to disturb you. They are likely to contain death, graphic violence, explicit sex (including sexual violence), hate crimes, blasphemy, or other themes and images that hook deep into your psyche. We do not provide ratings or content warnings for specific stories. We assume by your listening that you wish to be disturbed for your entertainment. If there are any themes that you cannot deal with in fiction, that are too strongly personal to you, please do not listen.
Pseudopod is for mature audiences only. Hardly any story on Pseudopod is suitable for children. We mean this very seriously.
By Edward Morris
Read by Ben Phillips
A cold, black, liquescent fear laps at the edges of my heart as I approach the first gate in the long Caliph’s Maze of Airport Security. Some darker force is trying to sway me unobtrusively away, to make me renege my retainer’s oath, cut my losses and run headlong to South America with the dwindling remains of my bank account.
Should I die on my quest, a first-class seat in Paradise awaits me.
In my time, I have lived through every hell Shaitan could possibly devise right here on Earth, moving behind newspaper headlines which even Al-Jazeera fears to run. Enquiring minds want to know, but some truths are better left to the darkness at the center of the universe, to be drowned out by the skirlings of the blind piper and his retinue of idiot flute-players..
Standard Podcast [34:07m]:
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By Jeff Carlson
Read by David Moore
Sauber wasn’t crazy. He’d planned on never hitting the same place twice. He even kept a check-list — near the toilet, in case it needed to be destroyed in a hurry. But two hundred and nine days crawled past before he’d bagged every store in Berkeley and Oakland, so it seemed impossible that anyone would remember him at Greenwald’s, his favorite. His first.
Sauber was at the register before the girl stopped him. “Those are mine,” she said, reaching out.
He held the packet against his chest. “What?”
“Look at the label.”
Of course he’d already studied it carefully. Thirty-six exposures, regular 35mm film. Jennifer Crisp. The address, written in delicate cursive, was just two blocks from here.
This week’s episode sponsored by Audible.com, who has extended their generous offer of a free audiobook download of your choice from their selection of over 40,000 titles.
By Lavie Tidhar
Read by Ralph Walters
“Excuse me,” said the old man by the door. He was hidden from view behind the bookshelves, and though Gerald had seen him come in, he couldn’t see who he was talking to. “Does the presence of this chapter make it the true first edition or the second state? I can never remember, you see, whether ‘Fathers’ is the missing chapter or the correct one.”
“The pulped version, of course,” said a gruff voice behind the books.
“Ah, of course. Thank you.”
Gerald sat behind the counter, wrapped up in a coat, wondering what on earth they were talking about. He applied for the job at the small bookshop just off Charing Cross the week before, and to his surprise the owner — a short, stocky man who looked more like a bare-knuckle boxer than a bookseller — hired him.
“You start on Monday,” he said. “And don’t let the bastards steal anything or spend too long in the basement. If they start tapping on walls, or doing any other strange shit, kick them out.”
Mr. Mendoza seemed to have a low opinion of his customers. After a week of being left in charge of the shop, however — Mr. Mendoza having left for an unspecified length of time on what he called, in his strangely accented English, a “trade trip” — Gerald began to wonder.
This week’s episode sponsored by Audible.com, who has extended their generous offer of a free audiobook download of your choice from their selection of over 40,000 titles.
Standard Podcast [34:25m]:
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By Michele Lee
Read by Ben Phillips
Music by Harmaline
Home? it asks, clothed in black feathers and flesh. A winged messenger come to carry me home.
Yes! I cry silently. I turn towards it, trying to pull my arms from the wooden posts that bind them. The voice caws out in fear, then vanishes in a black blur into the sun.
Another one gone. I’ve lost count, and the math doesn’t matter any more.
They killed me I suppose. That pair of walking pools of hate. What else could have happened? I suppose I’d cry, if I could. If my tear ducts weren’t ash mixed with the glue remains of my eyes.
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By Chandler Kaiden
Read by Richard Dansky
At first, there was only numb horror.
He couldn’t move his arms, couldn’t catch his breath. Everything was black. The thick stench of mildew, of rust and minerals, coagulated in his nose and throat. Steaming water spilled over his forehead, rained into his eyes, seeped between his lips. Brackish, foul water, full of chemicals.
It seemed to go on forever.
He tried to move. But he was confined, his limbs pressed tightly against his body.
When the water stopped, he heard dull, heavy thumping, like the machinations of an enormous water-logged engine.
The air was thick with steam. The foul water collected around his eyes, spilled into his nostrils, packed his sinuses.
There, in the wet darkness, he tried to drown himself. He inhaled the water. Tried to hold his breath — that breath he’d been instinctively fighting to catch when he came to — and found that he could hold it and hold it and hold it, and nothing happened.
_I want to die._
This week’s episode sponsored by Audible.com, who has extended their generous offer of a free audiobook download of your choice from their selection of over 40,000 titles.
Standard Podcast [25:21m]:
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By Vinnie Hansen
Read by Ben Phillips
When had the idea first possessed her? Victoria peered about the dim one-car
garage and squatted to look under the counter along the wall. Pushed behind the
containers of old paint, the new bag of concrete stared ominously back at her. Ben had
hidden it like one would an Easter egg from a child. Did he think she was such a dolt she
wouldn’t notice? She came out here regularly to do laundry.
Ben had not said anything about a project requiring concrete. Neither had his
hunting buddy Jack. They always worked together. But there had been nary a word
about fixing a fence post or repairing the walk. She dragged the bag from its hiding spot,
proud of her strong, lithe body, even if Ben’s eyes constantly swiveled toward cleavage.
She forced herself to read the directions. She glanced around the garage for a water
container and decided she would have to use something from the house—the thermos,
maybe, or the plastic pitcher, but she didn’t want to return to the kitchen any sooner than
necessary.
This week’s episode sponsored by Audible.com, who has extended their generous offer of a free audiobook download of your choice from their selection of over 40,000 titles.
Standard Podcast [16:14m]:
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(Publisher’s Note: This is a repost to send out the corrected version of the file; the original download was unfortunately truncated a couple minutes from the end. Sorry, folks.) –Steve
By B.J. West
Read by Leann Mabry
“How long’s it been?”
“Almost a year.” She dabbed her eyes on her sleeve. “Seems longer though.
Gavin joined the Army just after we got married. They transferred him to
Fort Hannah when things started heating up with the Indians.”
Missy continued plucking clothespins. “My daddy was in the Army. I think I
saw him two weeks out of every year, usually at Christmas time. My momma
said that sometimes she felt like a widow.” Selena nodded again without
looking up. “You must really be looking forward to seeing him tomorrow.”
Selena only shrugged. Missy stopped and put her fists on her ample hips.
“You don’t look too excited about it. What’s the matter?”
“I’m scared.”
“What for? He’s still your husband.”
“I’m scared he won’t come.”
Standard Podcast [23:24m]:
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By Howard Phillips Lovecraft
Read by BJ Harrison
I have examined maps of the city with the greatest care, yet have never again found the Rue d’Auseil. These maps have not been modern maps alone, for I know that names change. I have, on the contrary, delved deeply into all the antiquities of the place, and have personally explored every region, of whatever name, which could possibly answer to the street I knew as the Rue d’Auseil. But despite all I have done, it remains an humiliating fact that I cannot find the house, the street, or even the locality, where, during the last months of my impoverished life as a student of metaphysics at the university, I heard the music of Erich Zann.
This week’s episode sponsored by Audible.com, who has extended their generous offer of a free audiobook download of your choice from their selection of over 40,000 titles.
By Adam La Rusic
Read by Cheyenne Wright
A painful kick to my shin woke me. Squinting against the harsh fluorescents
in the office, I bleared up to see Kim holding out my hat and coat.
“Come on, Gerry. It’s show time. Let’s ride,” she said.
The police scanner sputtered with the kind of staccato dialogue that
indicated something big was happening. I leaned forward and cranked the
volume, bowling over a collection of styrofoam coffee cups in the process.
“10-47. We’re going to need more units,” the scanner blurted. Hostage!
Cruisers headed to the area like swarming wasps. Every other news beat in
town monitored the police bandwidth and I bet they’d be clamoring at the bit
for this one. We had to get there fast.
“What’s going on?” I asked, accepting the hat and coat, forcing myself
awake.
“In the car,” she said.
“Hang on,” I said, but she didn’t. Grabbing my camera bag and checking my
battery supply, I took off after her.
Standard Podcast [24:00m]:
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