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Category: Horror Page 8 of 12

Drabblecast 252 – The Elder Thing and the Puddle People

On August 9, 2012

In Comedy, Drabblecast, Horror

Upon the coming of the rain and the and the reawakening of the Krr’at race, the Elder Thing returned to us and squealed Its sky-splitting squeal and waded in among us. It came with the green feet that had eyes and mouths, and with the yellow, rubbery outerskin, and with the lace and the glitter — oh, the horrible, horrible glitter…

This episode of the Drabblecast continues H.P. Lovecraft Tribute Month, specifically focusing on the frequent appearance of cults in Lovecraft’s work. In the drabble, cult meetings aren’t always all about sacrifices and secret rites. In the feature, what starts out as an innocent encounter between a little girl and her imaginary friends takes an ominous turn when the “puddle people” turn out to be real creatures who worship her as their capricious god. When a rebel revolts against the the cult to save her daughter from being sacrificed, how will their deity react?

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Drabblecast 251 – The Music of Erich Zann

On July 31, 2012

In Drabblecast, Horror

My room was on the fifth story; the only inhabited room there, since the house was almost empty. On the night I arrived I heard strange music from the peaked garret overhead, and the next day asked old Blandot about it. He told me it was an old German viol-player, a strange dumb man who signed his name as Erich Zann, and who played evenings in a cheap theater orchestra; adding that Zann’s desire to play in the night after his return from the theater was the reason he had chosen this lofty and isolated garret room, whose single gable window was the only point on the street from which one could look over the terminating wall at the declivity and panorama beyond…

This episode of the Drabblecast kicks of H.P. Lovecraft Tribute Month. It begins with a reading from Lovecraft’s Fungi from Yuggoth. In the feature, an impoverished student is forced to take an apartment in an almost empty building on the mysterious Rue d’Auseil. One of the other tenants, a viol player named Erich Zann, lives alone on the top floor and plays strange, otherworldly music at night. The student, drawn to his music, eventually gains Zann’s trust and learns catastrophic secrets.

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Drabblecast 244 – Doubleheader XI

On May 25, 2012

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror

It had rolled and tumbled, whatever it was, gelatinous and tentacled, from lake to canal to stream.

People watched from the shore, following it with opera glasses and sea telescopes. Some thought it was a squid, others an octopus, others still just a glob of fatty flesh from some aquatic animal long torn apart and rotten. It was milky and translucent with tiny red hooks lining the each of its sixteen flacid arms. Deep blue bruises speckled the skin, wrinkling in like spots on a tomato. It had no visible eyes…

This double header features two “postcard stories” by Will Ludwigsen. In Nora’s Thing, sickly Nora’s sister and friends bring her to a mysterious creature they hope has healing powers. In Endless Encore, a sinister puppet show occurs nightly for its audience of one.

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Cover for Drabblecast 241, The Dead, by John Deberge

Drabblecast 241 – The Dead

On April 26, 2012

In Drabblecast, Drama, Fantasy, Horror

Three boy zombies in matching red jackets bussed our table, bringing water, lighting candles, brushing away the crumbs between courses. Their eyes were dark, attentive, lifeless…

This episode of The Drabblecast is all about zombies. In the drabble, a post-outbreak actor is almost too talented for his own good. In the feature, a job interview leads Donald to contemplate the horrors of an economic zombie apocalypse: What happens to the living when the dead become a more valuable, more efficient substitute for both industrial and private uses?

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 239, Killing the Morrow, by John DeBerge

Drabblecast 239 – Killing the Morrow

On April 13, 2012

In Drabblecast, Horror, Sci-Fi

You know, I’ve heard my share of disembodied voices. I’m accustomed to their fickle, sometimes bizarre demands. But tonight’s voice is different, clear as gin and utterly compelling. I must listen…

This episode of the Drabblecast concerns time and inter-dimensional travel. In the drabble, a being hurriedly fleeing its own dimension accidentally merges with a pizza jockey but still cannot escape its pursuers. In the feature, Killing the Morrow, voices from a ruined future attempt to flee to our present, commandeering a workforce to construct bathtub chambers where they can grow physical bodies and ready cities from which to rule. Is this the end of mankind as we know it, or can a second faction of future-dwellers subvert this implosive invasion?

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 231, Trifec ta XX, by Brent Holmes

Drabblecast 231 – Trifecta XX

On January 31, 2012

In Comedy, Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi, Strange

The six of them meet for the first time in front of the sagging clapboard house where Everett Montrose was born. All are tired, with hollows under their eyes from driving or riding buses for days. Even so, they greet each other with shy, relieved smiles. Few words are said; most seem unsure of how to speak to each other. There are some handshakes, even a quick hug or two, but these interactions are awkward and all soon turn their attention to their reason for coming here. They all carry with them small pieces of Everett Montrose, and all instinctively touch the fragments as they look to the house.

This episode of the Drabblecast opens with an announcement that the Kickstarter goal for Norm’s new CD has been reached. The theme of the trifecta is Southern justice. In Whit Carlson’s Trespasser, chronic bellyacher Whit Carlson makes a complaint to the sheriff about a clown fishing on his property. In The Six Pieces of Everett Montrose, six strangers meet in front of the house where Everett Montrose was born and where his brother still lives. Each has been compelled to return the bone fragment he or she has found. In Boll Weevil, a man drives home through a plague of boll weevils to face the end of the world. Whether they are a bioweapon, a biblical plague, or aliens, the boll weevils have survived the winter and started breeding wildly, injecting their babies into people with each bite. After containment and quarantine have failed to stop them, a scorched earth policy is about to be enacted. The episode concludes with a bit by Hearty White reading a poetry submission rejection letter.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 228, A Fairy Tale of Oakland, by Bo Kaier

Drabblecast 228 – A Fairy Tale of Oakland

On December 27, 2011

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror, Strange

In some parts of the world — Austria, Croatia, Hungary — they still remember. They understand. You can’t have something bright without having something dark to balance it. If you’ve got St. Nicholas, you also need the Krampus…

This episode of the Drabblecast opens with Norm’s reflections on the holidays, Santa Claus, and the origins of flying reindeer. In the drabble, the mayhem of a large family’s holiday dinner leads to a darkly humorous tragedy. In the feature, an unsavory petty criminal has a chance encounter with a dying old man who confides that years ago Santa bestowed upon him a miracle, a wish, to teach the true meaning of Christmas. Unfortunately, as they both learn, it comes with a catch..

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 225, Trifecta XIX, by Steve Santiago

Drabblecast 225 – Trifecta XIX

On December 5, 2011

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror

Once, at the beginning, you asked why you were brought here. This is what I told you: your parents made a deal. I would rid them of their plague of rats, and they would pay me. I cleared the town of pests, easily done, and returned for my payment. They laughed at me and tried to send me away with less than they promised. Money is not important. Deals are.

The theme of this episode of the Drabblecast is fairy tale child abduction. In David is Six, David cannot wait to be seven. In his desperation, he strikes a bargain with a fairy that appears to him as a talking toad and is taken to the fairy queen. The Best Boy, The Brightest Boy picks up where the Pied Piper of Hamlin left off, following the children and the Piper into his kingdom under the mountain where after a series of cruel games and tests, only one boy remains alive. He becomes the Piper’s apprentice. In Broken, a father stumbles upon a fairy in the act of exchanging his disabled child for her own enchanted brood. A heart-breaking decision follows.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 221, Year of the Rabbit, by Rick Green

Drabblecast 221 – Year of the Rabbit

On October 30, 2011

In Drabblecast, Horror, Mystery

It used to be that the sun would go down and the streetlamps would come on and make pools of this wet, yellow light. No matter where you stood, you could see the lights on somewhere. You could run from streetlamp to streetlamp and you could look down the streets and you’d never drown in the dark…

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Drabblecast 217 – Followed

On September 26, 2011

In Comedy, Drabblecast, Horror

This episode of the Drabblecast presents “Followed” by Will McIntosh.

Norm also starts to ponder the nature of the undead. We conclude In Search of the Brain-Eating Nandi Bear serial featuring cryptozoologist Connor Choadsworth.

Following that is our feature story by Will McIntosh, author of Soft Apocalypse and the upcoming Hitchers.

Story Excerpt:

She came wandering down the sidewalk like any other corpse, her herky-jerky walk unmistakable among the fluid strides of the living. She was six or seven, Southeast Asian, maybe Indian, her ragged clothes caked in dried mud. Pedestrians cut a wide berth around her without noticing her at all…

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Drabblecast 216 – The Book of Eternity

On September 10, 2011

In Drabblecast, Horror

Cover for Drabblecast episode 216, The Book of Eternity, by Jan Dennison

Cover for Drabblecast episode 216, The Book of Eternity, by Jan Dennison

His name was Marvin Kasselmeier, though he changed it to Marcus Magnus
because he thought it sounded more impressive. He’d been a bright student,
solitary and humorless, with no friends, and a single obsession: he wanted to live forever…

Is eternal life real worth it? A demonic tale from Mike Resnick explores the question in the final week of Lovecraft months Story features In Search of the Brain-Eating Nandi Bear Part V.

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Drabblecast 215 – Dread Unlocks

On August 26, 2011

In Comedy, Drabblecast, Horror

Okay, no one expects eldritch horror in LA. Not that I know what eldritch horror really is. My old boyfriend (about fifteen boyfriends back) called anything that inspired dread “eldritch horror.” I guess that would describe my entire job, really…

Another story from Lovecraft month – elder horror in LA. Dread Unlocks is on the job!

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Drabblecast 214 – The Wish of the Demon Achtromagk

On August 17, 2011

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror, Strange

Achtromagk shuddered, lost in nightmare images: crimson lightning dotting a wasteland, twilight despair and feeble railings, isolation in a mewling throng. It thrashed and twisted but could not escape, could not stop the unwanted vistas in its mind.

It was silent. And soft. And dark…

Next up in Lovecraft month, a heart-warming tale of an extra-dimensional Lovecraftian horror (an ‘oh so huggable’ one) by Drabblecast favorite Eugie Foster.

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Drabblecast 213 – The Haunter of the Dark

On August 10, 2011

In Drabblecast, Horror

I have seen the dark universe yawning
Where the black planets roll without aim—
Where they roll in their horror unheeded,
Without knowledge or lustre or name…

To kick of Lovecraft Month Norm once again reads an H.P. Lovecraft classic.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 210, The Alphabet Quartet, by Matt Schindler

Drabblecast 210 – Trifecta XVII

On July 6, 2011

In Comedy, Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror

Another in the Drabblecast trifecta series. This time, we dip in to the Alphabet Quartet collection.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 209, Babyhead, by Johan Lindroos

Drabblecast 209 – Babyhead

On June 27, 2011

In Drabblecast, Horror

Cynthia couldn’t explain what she’d just seen in the vegetable patch.

She didn’t want to look again. She considered going back into the house, crawling back into bed with Mikey, and putting it down as a beer-inspired dream.

But that pinkish dome with the fuzzy down had felt soft under her fingers, and there had been the smell of manufactured newness, like a dusting of talcum powder wafting up to her nostrils, as she had pulled the coarse outer leaves of the cabbage apart…

Tales of parental love gone awry in this week’s unsettling Drabblecast.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 206, Creature, by Philippa Jones

Drabblecast 206 – Creature

On May 31, 2011

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror

And so came Creature out of the wasteland and into the city, bouncing from hilltop to hilltop like a bulbous ballerina skipping across the knuckles of a great hand. He was big as the moon and black as the night, and he came crashing into the city like a silent meteor. The cityfolk watched his approach with wide eyes and open mouths, and then scattered like leaves…

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Drabblecast 205 – Trifecta XVI

On May 18, 2011

In Drabblecast, Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi

A Trifecta is comprised of three similarly themed stories selected by The Drabblecast’s editors. Now for some raucous scary fun!

Love means never letting go. And biting..

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 201, Trifecta XV, by Alyssa Suzumura

Drabblecast 201 – Trifecta XV

On March 25, 2011

In Comedy, Drabblecast, Drama, Horror

“Are these fiddlebacks ferns mommy?” Cindy asked. Fiddlehead honey. Margery said absently. “Fiddlebacks are nasty spiders.” It was only later that she would realize Cindy, for once in her vacuous, Barbie obsessed life, was right.”

The first episode of Women and Alien’s month 2011 featuring three stories, each exploring nasty, insectile alien menaces. Fiddleback Ferns, a space infestation sends a mother to her breaking point. Killipedes, a dark, humorous tale where a doctor breaks down a patient’s nasty parasitical infection. In The Difficulties of Evolution, a mournful parent contemplates her child’s anthropomorphic metamorphosis.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 199, In the Octopus's Garden, by Bill Halliar

Drabblecast 199 – In the Octopus’s Garden

On February 27, 2011

In Drabblecast, Horror, Mystery

I woke to this new darkness, swirling about me. A phrase sticking in my mind — “Lazarus Syndrome.” What happened to people when they had died, but, for some reason, some lack of death’s completion — some unfinished business — had rejoined the living.

In this episode of the Drabblecast, with a theme ‘Control,’ Norm speculates on zombies as dependents. In the drabble, we visit the zombie apocolypse. In the feature story, the consciousness of a slain man forms a being out of his remains, and the sea life around the. What is the nature of this entity, what is its place, and ultimately, what is its sinister purpose?

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