What We Owe
Justice - the horror trope that never goes out of style
Welcome back.
I noticed a common thread in the stories you all posted in chat last week. The question seemed to reverberate: what does it mean to get what we deserve?
The stories below don’t all answer that the same way. Some find fury. Some find resignation. Some find the dark, absurd comedy of realizing you never read the fine print. But they’re all circling the same wound. What happens when the time comes to reap what you’ve sown?
Enjoy.
Announcements
Have an announcement to share (releases, calls for submissions, or milestones)?
Let us know in the comments or the chat, and we’ll help spread the word.
Featured Stories
Standout posts from last week.
Jason Duck gave us a quiet gut-punch about a man named Shaun, who spent fifty years bleeding for a company that handed him a gold-plated watch on the way out the door. Sometimes horror isn’t about the melodrama. It sits in the quiet dread of a life wasted. Enjoy “Gold watch Blues.”
Bill Hiatt continued his serialized fantasy The Imperator's Spy with "Desperate Gamble," and if you haven't been following this one, now is the time to start. Our spy is trapped in a chamber with a ruler who may not deserve the loyalty he's been shown, and every move is a calculation between survival and conscience.
Mata Haggis-Burridge brought us “One Among the Herd.” A psychic cow walks into a slaughterhouse knowing exactly what's coming. What she does next is quiet, devastating, and morally complicated in ways the story doesn't flinch from. Mata also includes generous writing notes on metaphor families and point of view. In his posts you always find a genuinely useful exploration of craft tucked behind each story.
EJ Trask opened Season Three of Beach Reads for Goth Kids with "Xtreme Mancation," and it is exactly as unhinged as it sounds. Marc is on a men's retreat that won't let him leave. His friend Braden is receiving a waterfall of increasingly desperate postcards. If you have never partaken in EJ’s Beach Reads for Goth Kids, and horror with a Hawaiian shirt is your jam, subscribe!
Community Recommendations
Have a story you think deserves more readers?
Reply to this post or respond in the chat we’re always looking for pieces the community loves.
Recent Publications
Have a book or a story in a magazine or anthology published recently?
Post a link in the comments, and we’ll include it in an upcoming issue.
New Voices
New to the Macabre Monday community?
Post a link to your Substack in the comments! We’ll feature your work in an upcoming issue!
The chat is open. Bring your stories, your poems, your freshly published pieces and your works-in-progress. Bring the thing you wrote that you’re not sure anyone will understand. Someone here will. Come say hello.
Thanks for the shout!
Thanks for including my story in your post.