The roundup returns with 5 more stories I’d like to share with you. 5 things I read this week and enjoyed. There is a lot of dark and horror on the slate this week but there is also some pure fun and funny of the light hearted and macabre sort. Every story this week is available to read for free, though I always encourage you to support your favorite magazines when and if you can. By word of mouth for stories you particularly like if nothing else. Now, on with the recommendations!

“There, in the Woods” by Clara Madrigano from The Dark #68

Kicking things off with a good old ‘there is something in the woods’ story. It’s grim (though not gruesome) and the weight of near-hopelessness descends by the end but the story drew me in, much like the woods our protagonist lives by, and I found myself wanting to stay with it to the end. After, as I thought more and more about the story of Lucy and the creepy land and forest that has taken her parents, her husband, and a local boy she didn’t even know I found myself trying to decide if she had been fated to some kind of doom from the moment, as a child, when her parents moved the family to their new house by the woods, or from the moment she let herself fall for her husband Nick. Perhaps one led, in an inevitable sort of way, to the other. “There, in the Woods” feels like, as Chuck Wendig has described Paul Tremblay’s writing, “supernatural-adjacent” horror and it is the parts of the story that would be unsettling even if there weren’t something in the woods that will likely leave you thinking over the story again later.

“The Love Song of M. Religiosa” by Nibedita Sen from Kaliedetrope

And now for something completely different. Now hear me out here: what if a story that feels like say, Finding Dory, but instead of a fish looking for his friend it’s a preying mantis looking for the answer to having sex without getting killed by a fellow mantis he very much longs for named Cersei Mantister. Still with me? Good. Look, it’s a fun story, it’s an adventure through the world of bugs living in a University research lab, and it might just be the thing you need to put a smile on your face. It certainly did mine.

“Everyone You Know is A Raven” by Phil Dyer from Diabolical Plots #71

Can you make the post-apocalypse fun and light? Apparently you can! This story, which Dryer imbues with a voice that makes me so happy even as it reveals the extent to which the world it is describing has been devastated, is all about how the Ravens had to step in and save the world when humanity had just gone too far in failing to do so itself. Think the matrix if the matrix was Raven’s using their mimicry and cleverness instead of machines using virtual reality and you’ll sort of get it. Weird sounding though it may be I loved it and it is both funny and fun. It only gets creepy if you really stop to think about it too long so just relax and let the Ravens tell their stories and everything will be just fine.

“Daughters With Bloody Teeth” by Marika Bailey from Beneath Ceaseless Skies #321

According to Marika Bailey’s biography that accompanies this story “a childhood obsession with mythology led to her current habit of writing stories that try to explain ‘where do people end and gods begin?’ and that absolutely shines through in “Daughters With Bloody Teeth”. At almost 6000 words this is a fairly long short story and it has plenty of room for secondary world mythology and the concept of where people, and the self, end and gods and other things begin is very front and center as one of our dual protagonists, the human Ikiro, is consumed by and merges with the other, a laughing dog named Kuleika. How and why is a mystery for most of the tale but eventually there are answers. This is myth seen from the inside out where things are not always as clear cut and easy to understand as when the stories are later retold. It is a delightful tale evocatively told, with prose that is poetic at times. Great, fresh-feeling fantasy.

“Rotten Little Town: An Oral History (Abridged)” by Adam-Troy Castro from Nightmare Magazine #100

Here we have a novelette, but its conversational format and compelling, if disturbing, subject matter give it the feel of a fairly fast read that really moves along well. I’m often a fan of fiction done in various non-fiction styles and here the ‘oral history’ format lends itself very well to a dissection of the history of a horror TV series. As presented, in this particular version of our world ‘Rotten Little Town’ would have been perhaps the first “prestige TV series” filling a place akin to a show like The Wire, except that it was a western with supernatural horror elements, and it would also have been one of the more cursed productions in TV history. Where this story really shines for me is the many levels of horror at play here. There are strong hints that the show’s creator (Jerry Stracker) may well have supernatural evil connections of his own and there is the, obvious if not outright said, conclusion that he has personally committed or have caused to be committed terrible, heinous crimes to ensure the success of his show and the compliance of his actors. For all that though it is the mundane horror infused throughout the story that really left me chilled. Take away all the the obvious hints as to his worst crimes and you are still left with the kind of cold manipulative man we have heard about all too often from the worst stories from Hollywood and TV. The man who is likely incapable of caring for anyone other than himself and anything other than his desires. The sort who will put his cast and crew through hell in the name of art. The sort who could have anything but will go to great lengths to take what he wants from people who don’t want to give it because it makes him feel powerful. The sort who will make sure to undermine the women who work for him and go to great lengths to remind them of his power over them and the place he perceives them to have. And, of course, that a man like that will often be excused, admired, and even find allies happy to help him do it all. Yes, the creepiest thing of all about this well down horror tale is that the mirror it holds to its subject matter barely needs any warping at all to give us the reflection it does.

That’s it for this week and as always If you’d like to see the full list of previous Roundups and the authors included in each you can find that here. I hope to be back in a week with another roundup. If you find something you enjoy reading in my recommendations I hope you’ll shout that story out to people you know.