Where The Dead Roam
Three stories. Zero safe exits.
Good morning all you Macabrians!
This week we have something for every flavor of dread. A dead wife who came home with a letter and a demand. A young man alone in the Appalachians with his grandmother’s ashes and the creeping feeling the mountain knows he’s there. And a forgotten village on a Japanese mountainside where the most terrifying thing isn’t what haunts the living. It’s what the living did to deserve it. Three writers, three very different kinds of darkness, and every single one of them will stay with you.
Settle in. You’re going to want to read all of these.
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.
J Wirrowac posted “Hut at the end of our village”, a psychological horror story that works as a standalone tale, or as part of a greater web of interconnected stories.
Set in a forgotten Japanese mountain village, this is the story of Noroi, a village outcast whom many believe is a monster. What happens when they decide to do something about it? Atmospheric, deeply human, and told with the kind of quiet precision that makes you feel the smoke in the back of your throat. Go read it, but maybe not in the dark.
S.M. Osborne gave us the first chapter of his serial, Believe You Me.
A young man heads alone into the Appalachian wilderness to spread his grandmother’s ashes. But with absolutely no hiking experience, the mountain wastes no time making him feel the weight of his family errand. To survive, he’ll have to remember his grandmother’s stories of all the horrors the woods are home to.
This is a brand new serial, but I’m really excited to see where this one goes. Beautifully written, deeply atmospheric, and the perfect read for anyone who has ever felt the pull of somewhere they had no business going.
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
A.M. Blackmere | Author just released the paperback version of their newest novel, Shadows of the Wall!
Summary:
Rome is dying, and the silence at the world’s edge is hungry.
At the frozen limit of the Empire, the wind speaks with the voices of the dead.
Praepositus Aelius Corven is the last breath of a suffocating command. Stationed at Hadrian’s Wall, he oversees a starving garrison and a stone barrier that no longer holds back the night. The supplies have stopped coming. The patrols are vanishing. But it is the silence from the north that chills the blood—a calculated, watching silence that suggests the enemy is no longer afraid.
The Picti are not just raiding. They are evolving.
Strange omens drift over the parapets: ash that smells of bone, wolves that judge the living, and voices in the mist that mimic Roman sentries with terrifying precision. As the discipline of the Legion crumbles into paranoia, Aelius is dragged into a nightmare beyond the shield wall—a captive of the druid Mael, a man who intends to dismantle the Empire not with swords, but by rewriting the souls of its soldiers.
Haunted by the memory of his stolen daughters and bound by a duty that has lost its meaning, Aelius must navigate a landscape where reality thins and the old gods hunger. But the ultimate horror waiting in the northern wilds isn’t death. It is the discovery of what has been taken from him—and the realization that some things are not meant to be saved.
When the Wall falls, the only path left is into the dark.
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
We have a new voice in the community! Cody Gaul comes to us from Iowa, where the winters are long, the isolation is real, and apparently the horror writes itself. A lifelong devotee of Stephen King and Adam Nevill, Cody writes the kind of slow-burn psychological dread that gets under your skin and stays there. Ordinary people, extraordinary darkness, and guilt that won’t stay buried. His debut short story collection is coming later this year, but in the meantime, he is publishing here.
Read "Miss Me?". It builds exactly the way the best horror does: quietly, then all at once. Give it a read, leave him a comment, and make him feel welcome.
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.
Thank you for the feature 🙏🏼🙏🏼
When I saw you liked my story last night I thought... okay, maybe I actually made it in. Thank you so much for the feature and for building such a great community for horror writers. Hope everyone enjoys Miss Me?
There's more darkness where that came from. Welcome to the dread.