Spitzbergen, 1881. The whaling station stinks, metallic and rank, even though it’s slap-you-in-the-face cold. David Grace---born and raised in the Welsh valleys---had thought he’d known cold. A thin layer of ice on milk left out overnight, his sisters tracing patterns in the frost on the bedroom windows. But the last few weeks in the Arctic seas have taken him somewhere entirely different. Up here, the cold gets into a man’s bones. He looks at the huts huddled around the small bay. | Copyright 2021 by Ally Wilkes. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.

Nightmare Magazine - Horror and Dark Fantasy Story Podcast (Audiobook | Short Stories)

Ally Wilkes | Where Things Fall from the Sky

I have spent my life trying to understand what the thing called memory is. I know some of what it is not. It is not the opposite of forgetting. And it is not a record of what happened. How many summers did we spend at the castle? Five? Seven? We did not go there every summer, though now it seems impossible childhood summers could have existed without the castle. | Copyright 2022 by Ray Nayler. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.

Ray Nayler | The Summer Castle

She remembered the scent of rain and bamboo. The squish of her shoes in the soft loam as she followed her father through the forest. He with his axe over one shoulder, and she carrying a lunch her mother had packed for them. She had always thought him a giant of a man, so powerful and strong. But she remembered following along behind him and noticing the delicate curve of his back. | Copyright 2022 by Kiyomi Appleton Gaines. Narrated by Taylor Meskimen.

Kiyomi Appleton Gaines | The Elements of Her Self

Ass o’clock in the morning and it’s black out. BLACK black, the kind of black you only get in these miserable, middle-of-nowhere places. No, “middle-of-nowhere” is too generous; this is past that, right at the line where nowhere becomes miles of uncharted forest thick with months of snow and screaming with wolves and whatever other ungodly feral things make noise when everything decent in the world is asleep. | Copyright 2022 by Ian Muneshwar. Narrated by John Allen Nelson, Justine Eyre.

Ian Muneshwar | Dick Pig

At least twice a day it occurs to Marissa that the photos she uses to find Neolithic long barrows and Roman forts were taken to better plot destruction. Every image passing through her hands is labeled at the top in a language she cannot speak. A freezing of the land to ease the locating of bombs and the advancing of invasions. | Copyright 2021 by Steve Toase. Narrated by Gabrielle de Cuir.

Steve Toase | To Rectify in Silver

Stopping by the canal to piss, and only a third of his way back to the House of Death, Ah Keng found his friend Leung, dead of the cholera. He recognized his oldest friend immediately, even in the darkness; even in this state. Leung’s sickness-shriveled body lay a few feet from brackish water, pallid face upturned towards the moon. Leung. It was really Leung. | Copyright 2021 by Manish Melwani. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.

Manish Melwani | The Plague Puller

For my eighteenth birthday, I get a tattoo. A small red heart on my shoulder, Loot inked across it in black cursive. Loot was my brother’s nickname. He was twelve years old when he disappeared. I was seven. The next morning, I peel off the bandage to take a look. A vine with thorns where there was no vine with thorns. It wraps around the heart, above and below Loot’s name. | Copyright 2021 by Julianna Baggott. Narrated by Susan Hanfield.

Julianna Baggott | Inkmorphia

My visitor gazes at our family bookshelves. I perceive right away that this is less the helpless bibliophile’s habit of scanning the titles of any shelf encountered in the wild, than an exercise in measuring me, of finding the best means of approach. We are in the family living room, a welcoming space with, among other things, three double bookcases. It is not an extraordinary book collection to find in the home of people who read. | Copyright 2021 by Adam-Troy Castro. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.

Adam-Troy Castro | Glimpses in Amber

This time I will definitely die, Jeffords thinks. He feels that this conscious thought affords him a certain immunity from such a fate, though logically he knows that’s nonsense. As always, he chooses a window seat, not the aisle or---worst of all---the middle seat. The window seat is essential for a simple reason: Jeffords must remain in control of the window shade being up or down throughout the flight. At certain times it must be closed. At certain times he must open it, even though he dreads doing so, for, when he does, he finds himself trapped in one of three familiar nightmares. | Copyright 2021 by Jon Padgett. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.

Jon Padgett | Flight 389

He looks at me, and I am his. A steady rhythm of flickering light cast from above, pursuing me like a shadow. I scurry through tunnels, crawl through gutters and across fields, and always he is there. Relentless, wearing me down, toying with me. I escape it, breathless and relieved. But when I look down into the puddle of water at my feet, he is me. Black eyes slowly displace my brown, like thick tar pouring slowly into my pupils. Soft red lips stretch into a hard, pointed beak. Oily black feathers spread across brown, hairless skin. | Copyright 2021 by WC Dunlap. Narrated by Janina Edwards.

WC Dunlap | Caw

I would call her beauty “otherworldly,” but that doesn’t really describe her cheekbones like scalpels, the ice that rimes the bird’s nest knots of her hair, or her ghost-cold touch when she visits me. “Beauty beyond description” or “the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen” just means the viewer, personally, finds her pleasing. What does a description like that tell you about the bored, dark dip of her eyes, the curve of her lip, and the forward thrust of her nose? | Copyright 2021 by Gillian Daniels. Narrated by Justine Eyre.

Gillian Daniels | Frost Bloom

You wake with a start, your dream cutting off like a break in the film. If you could just remember it, you’d be getting somewhere, but it’s gone, the screen in front of you blinding white, the film spinning on its reel, the trailing end going flip flip flip as it turns. With a sigh, you shut off the machine, take that trailing bit of film, feed it back through, start rolling the whole thing again, from the bottom. The images on the screen move backward and too fast. | Copyright 2021 by Orrin Grey. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.

Orrin Grey | Chanson D’Amour

They didn’t find anything but the teeth. I heard somewhere that’s what pigs do, eat everything but the teeth. Except there were no pigs here. Just bloody molars strewn across the forest floor like a shattered pearl necklace. The parents of Mill Creek had already buried seven almost-empty coffins that summer. It was about to be eight. Me and Taylor and Easton and the rest weren’t supposed to be playing outside when we found them. By that time, our parents had gone from strict before-dark curfews to full on house arrest. | Copyright 2021 by B. Narr. Narrated by B. Narr.

B. Narr | Cadaver Dogs

You’ve enjoyed a few of his stories and you follow each other on Twitter, so when you see that horror and weird fiction author Gordon B. White has started a Patreon, you think, “Sure, I’ll throw him a couple of bucks.” You pick the $7 tier---Postcards of Lesser Known Haunted Houses---thinking it might be a lark to get a picture and a microfiction each month for your modest contribution. | Copyright 2021 by Gordon B. White. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.

Gordon B. White | Gordon B. White is creating Haunting Weird Horror

He asks for a table by himself, in a quiet part of The Periphery. It’s late, nearly ten, and the pub is just about empty. Ali has twenty minutes left on her shift. She doesn’t care where he sits. “Anywhere you want is fine, sir,” she says. He slips into a booth full of shadows. One of the lights on the wall is gone. He’s a tall man, this man who slouches down in the seat, his features worn. She cannot guess his age. | Copyright 2021 by Benjamin Peek. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.

Benjamin Peek | At The Periphery

Edited by bestselling, award-winning anthologist John Joseph Adams, NIGHTMARE is a digital magazine of horror and dark fantasy. In its pages, you will find all kinds of horror and dark fantasy, from zombie stories and haunted house tales, to visceral psychological horror. Every month NIGHTMARE will bring you a mix of original fiction and reprints, and featuring a variety of authors: from the bestsellers and award-winners you already know to the best new voices you haven't heard of yet. When you read NIGHTMARE, it is our hope that you'll see where horror comes from, where it is now, and where it's going. The NIGHTMARE podcast, produced by Grammy Award-winning narrator and producer Stefan Rudnicki of Skyboat Media, is presented twice a month, featuring original audio fiction and classic reprints.