In “Old Ben” by T.G. Smith, an immigrant zoo worker navigating unfamiliar snow and baffling English idioms finds himself haunted by an unexpected presence during his nightly rounds. The story explores isolation, cultural displacement, and the eerie persistence of memory when the world feels both strange and unwelcoming.



The Kaidankai Podcast features original short fiction exploring horror, fantasy, science fiction, and the strange.

New episodes every Wednesday.

Subscribe on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Read the stories at kaidankaistories.com

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Have a story you'd like us to read? Send submissions to [email protected].

A subtle supernatural horror story in which an unknown presence has a warning. 

Set against the mundanity of everyday life, "Negative Space" uses slow-dripping dread to expose a presence and its terrifying warning. Is there a way to counter the impending tragedy that is predicted?

Jennifer Peaslee is a dark fiction writer with an affinity for fairy tales and folklore. She lives in Atlanta with her cat, Trouble, and runs bleedingtypewriter.page, a community for new and emerging writers.

The Kaidankai Podcast features original short fiction exploring horror, fantasy, science fiction, and the strange.

New episodes every Wednesday.

Subscribe on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Read the stories at kaidankaistories.com

Follow the show:
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Bluesky

Have a story you'd like us to read? Send submissions to [email protected].

A haunting supernatural story in which a woman receives a phone call from herself—warning her about the life she’s about to live. 

Blending psychological horror with speculative dread, "Torn" uses the uncanny device of a doppelgänger to explore a world where the past, present, and future collide. The story asks whether foreknowledge is a gift—or just another form of cruelty.

Melissa Miles is a writer based in Aotearoa/New Zealand and is delighted to return to Kaidankai. Melissa has had numerous short stories published in online magazines, and has featured in a number of print anthologies. She has one children’s book out, Terri the Tiny Dragon, and is currently working on a short story collection and completing a Steam Punk novel. When she’s not writing she’s caring for her menagerie of rescue animals.

The Kaidankai Podcast features original short fiction exploring horror, fantasy, science fiction, and the strange.

New episodes every Wednesday.

Subscribe on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Read the stories at kaidankaistories.com

Follow the show:
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Bluesky

Have a story you'd like us to read? Send submissions to [email protected].

A quiet supernatural story about aging, death, and the unsettling certainty that something always comes after. When a man is interrupted by an unexpected knock, he’s forced to face his mortality.

Told with restraint and dark humor, What Comes Next explores the thin boundary between life and whatever waits beyond it. This is a story about endings--life, relationships, our existence in a world we belong to, and what happens if that world tells us its time to move on. It's about the deeply human desire to remain in a world we know—even when the universe has other plans.

David Corisis is a born-and-raised Idahoan and graduate of Gonzaga University. He lives the exciting life of a programmer by day and aspiring writer by night. When not sharing a keyboard with his cat, David enjoys running, brewing mead, playing Magic the Gathering, camping, and worrying about the ever-marching hand of time stealing everything he holds dear. His favorite books include At the Mountains of Madness, and Flatland. He couldn’t be happier taking on the world and its challenges with his eternally inspirational wife at his side. To find out more, you can visit www.dcorisis.com.





The Kaidankai Podcast features original short fiction exploring horror, fantasy, science fiction, and the strange.

New episodes every Wednesday.

Subscribe on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Read the stories at kaidankaistories.com

Follow the show:
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Bluesky

Have a story you'd like us to read? Send submissions to [email protected].

A first-person supernatural confession about inheriting witchcraft, where fear, taboo, and belonging collide.In That Sound That the Crickets Make, tradition is not comfort—it’s obligation, and refusal has a cost.

This is not a story about monsters from the outside, but about what it means to inherit a world you didn’t choose. Told with brutal honesty and dark humor, it explores witchcraft as culture, survival, and generational obligation—and asks whether tradition must always be obeyed.

Valerie Tendai Chatindo is a biochemistry graduate, writer and communications consultant. She’s a regular contributor for The Kalahari Review, Enthuse Magazine, The Diplomat Zimbabwe and EarGround. Her work has also appeared in Pink Disco Magazine, Creepy Pod, Agbowo, Argyl Literary Magazine, The Afterpast Review, Whisper House Press, Omenana, Efiko Magazine, Writer’s Space, and Literary Yard. Her short story “Sheba,” was shortlisted for the African Cradle African Heroines literary prize, and her pieces were featured in Povo Afrika’s Nehanda Reimagined anthology. Her debut novel Mono: Tales of The Tapa Kingdom is shortlisted for the Iskanchi Book Prize. The twenty-nine-year-old resides in Harare, Zimbabwe with her cat, Muffins. She runs her own Literary Platform, Shumba Literary Magazine.

You can read "That Sound That The Crickets Make" at https://www.kaidankaistories.com.

Illustration by Aubrey Beardsley



The Kaidankai Podcast features original short fiction exploring horror, fantasy, science fiction, and the strange.

New episodes every Wednesday.

Subscribe on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Read the stories at kaidankaistories.com

Follow the show:
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Bluesky

Have a story you'd like us to read? Send submissions to [email protected].

A powerful retelling of the legend of La Loca, where betrayal, hypocrisy, and supernatural vengeance collide. A mythic tale of feral justice and reckoning.

In this haunting story, justice is not delivered by courts or institutions, but by something older and wilder. La Loca is no innocent, but neither is she deserving of her fate. What follows is a reminder that some legends endure because they speak truths society would rather ignore.

Robert Walton is a retired middle school teacher, rock climber and mountaineer with ascents in Yosemite and Pinnacles National Park. Walton is an experienced writer. His novel Dawn Drums won the 2014 New Mexico Book Awards Tony Hillerman Prize for best fiction. His novella “Vienna Station” won the Galaxy contest in 2011and was subsequently published by Rosetta Books. Most recently, his story “Suka Blat” was included in Alternative Truths, an anthology of protest literature. 

You can read "La Loca" at https://www.kaidankaistories.com.

The Kaidankai Podcast features original short fiction exploring horror, fantasy, science fiction, and the strange.

New episodes every Wednesday.

Subscribe on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Read the stories at kaidankaistories.com

Follow the show:
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Bluesky

Have a story you'd like us to read? Send submissions to [email protected].

A retired sailor’s fond memories of a ship’s cat take on a chilling afterlife.

In “Polydactyl Aboard,” a retired sailor recalls his years at sea and the extraordinary ship’s cat whose talents went far beyond catching rats. The bond between sailor and animal becomes something deeper after death. 

Set against the rhythms of life aboard ship, the story explores loyalty, instinct, and the quiet persistence of the past.

Thomas Koperwas is a retired teacher living in Windsor, Ontario, Canada who writes short stories of horror, crime, fantasy, and science fiction. His story Vacation won a Freedom Fiction Journal Top Crime Editor's Choice Award 2024. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming in: Anotherealm; Jakob’s Horror Box; Literally Stories; The Literary Hatchet; Literary Veganism; Bright Flash Literary Review; Bombfire; Pulp Modern Flash; Savage Planets; Dark Fire Fiction; The Sirens Call; Yellow Mama Webzine; 96th of October; Underside Stories; Danse Macabre; A Thin Slice Of Anxiety; Androids and Dragons; Chewers & Masticadores Canada; The Piker Press; etc..

You can read "Polydactyl Aboard" at https://www.kaidankaistories.com.

The Kaidankai Podcast features original short fiction exploring horror, fantasy, science fiction, and the strange.

New episodes every Wednesday.

Subscribe on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Read the stories at kaidankaistories.com

Follow the show:
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Bluesky

Have a story you'd like us to read? Send submissions to [email protected].

A quiet man’s passion for rare books draws him into an exclusive invitation—one that reveals an old literary grievance demanding a very personal and terrifying form of justice.

Nick Young is a retired award-winning CBS News Correspondent.  His writing has appeared in more than thirty publications including the Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Garfield Lake Review, Backchannels Journal, the San Antonio Review, the Bosphorus Review of Books, The Best of CaféLit 11 and Vols. I and II of the Writer Shed Stories anthologies.  He lives outside Chicago.

You can read "Redress" at https://www.kaidankaistories.com.

Website: kaidankaistories.com
Please feel free to contact me through the website contact form.

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Substack


The Kaidankai Podcast features original short fiction exploring horror, fantasy, science fiction, and the strange.

New episodes every Wednesday.

Subscribe on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Read the stories at kaidankaistories.com

Follow the show:
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Bluesky

Have a story you'd like us to read? Send submissions to [email protected].

The annual alternative Charles Dickens story to A Christmas Carol.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Linda

The Kaidankai Podcast features original short fiction exploring horror, fantasy, science fiction, and the strange.

New episodes every Wednesday.

Subscribe on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Read the stories at kaidankaistories.com

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Have a story you'd like us to read? Send submissions to [email protected].

A drifter joins a strange sheriff’s posse, only to discover he’s part of a ghost-hunting ritual—and far closer to the dead than he ever realized.

This story appeared in the Fall 2024 issue of SPOOKY Magazine.

Chad Gayle’s short speculative fiction has appeared in DreamForge Magazine, Inner Worlds, and Cosmic Horror Monthly.


You can read "Dead Man's Posse" at https://www.kaidankaistories.com.

Website: kaidankaistories.com
Please feel free to contact me through the website contact form.

Follow us on: 
Instagram
Facebook
Bluesky
Substack


The Kaidankai Podcast features original short fiction exploring horror, fantasy, science fiction, and the strange.

New episodes every Wednesday.

Subscribe on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Read the stories at kaidankaistories.com

Follow the show:
Instagram
Facebook
Bluesky

Have a story you'd like us to read? Send submissions to [email protected].