My technohorror story Blame has been published in Soul: A Paranormal Anthology by Graveside Press.
Blame is about an audio engineer at a software company investigating strange sounds heard during customer voice chats. It’s a “found footage” story told through emails, Slack conversations, Reddit threads, phone transcripts, and more unusual artifacts like git commits, JIRA tickets, door entry logs … even a Walmart receipt.
Content warning: misogyny, sexual assault (mentioned), suicide (mentioned)
The audio production of my horror drabble Everything You Know About Witches is now available for free from the Tiny Frights podcast. It’s about a woman about to be burned at the stake, and the (mostly) mistaken assumptions that sent her there.
My weird fiction story The Salt Circle has been accepted in the Howl anthology by Graveside Press. It’s a like a werewolf story, but with slugs. Yeah.
She waved her tissue with a dismissive gesture. “It’s just a little salt.”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” Linda said, wiping at her nose with a soggy, crumpled tissue. “I’m worried about you.”
I extended my eye stalks toward her, giving her what I hoped was a look of indignation. I couldn’t believe she was trying to spin it like it was my fault. “If you didn’t want me to get hurt, maybe you shouldn’t have been so quick to deploy the chemical weapons.”
My dark sci-fi drabble Final Notice has been accepted by 100-Foot Crow. It’s about what happens when you forget to make the payments on your self-driving car.
The first time I tried Chauffeur, it felt like magic. I watched in awe as it effortlessly piloted my car through traffic, the driver’s seat empty. Naturally, I signed up. $199 per month. I thought I could afford it.
I was wrong.
The audio production of my nostalgic 1980s “kids on bikes” horror story Many Deaths Before Dying is now available on The NoSleep Podcast. When a giant, silvery puddle appears in the field where they play, four boys encounter an inexplicable horror that will change them forever.
I’ve had a number of stories produced by The NoSleep Podcast over the years, but this is the first full-length story that has appeared in a regular episode. It took almost two years for this to be released, but I’m so happy with the end result. They did an excellent job with the casting and production.
Content warning: suicide (implied)My story starts around 44:45.
Two more of my stories—Matches and A Piece of the Sky—have been accepted by the Lunatics Radio Hour podcast. These will be my fourth and fifth stories to appear on the show. Their recent production of A Sinking Feeling was exceptional, so I’m looking forward to hearing what they do with the next ones.
My psychological horror story A Perfect Fit has been published in Mono No Aware: Stories on the Fleeting Nature of Beauty by Culture Cult Press. It’s about a middle-aged woman who will do anything to maintain her youthful appearance.
I stepped back to admire Poppy’s frame, noting the slight swelling of her hips and the fine vertical lines above her upper lip. The ghost of a gray hair peeked out from the bangs she had added to hide her creased forehead.
“Poppy! Look at you!” I gushed. “How are you so perfect?”
My modern dark fantasy story Dragonsbreath has been accepted into Spectacular, Spectacular! An Anthology of Circensian Horror, a collection of circus-themed tales of terror. It’s the story of a teen forced to wear a fireproof mask to protect himself and others from a power he can’t control.
The woman’s head lurched forward as her SUV slowed to a jarring stop, its bumper only inches from the police car parked sideways across her lane. Half a dozen emergency vehicles crowded the street ahead of her. There were police cars. Fire trucks. An ambulance.
The woman watched with mounting horror as a pair of paramedics lifted a gurney out of the ambulance and began wheeling it up the driveway of a nearby house.
Her house.
My weird fiction story The Salt Circle has been published in the latest issue of Moonday Mag. It’s a like a werewolf story, but with slugs. Yeah.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” Linda said, wiping at her nose with a soggy, crumpled tissue. “I’m worried about you.”
I extended my eye stalks toward her, giving her what I hoped was a look of indignation. I couldn’t believe she was trying to spin it like it was my fault. “If you didn’t want me to get hurt, maybe you shouldn’t have been so quick to deploy the chemical weapons.”
She waved her tissue with a dismissive gesture. “It’s just a little salt.”
My psychological horror story A Perfect Fit has been accepted into Mono No Aware by Culture Cult Press, an anthology about the fleeting nature of beauty. It’s the story of a middle-aged woman who will do anything to maintain her youthful appearance.
I stepped back to admire Poppy’s frame, noting the slight swelling of her hips and the fine vertical lines above her upper lip. The ghost of a gray hair peeked out from the bangs she had added to hide her creased forehead.
“Poppy! Look at you!” I gushed. “How are you so perfect?”
Warren Benedetto 