On a treelined suburban sidewalk, a man wearing a white mask and blue coveralls steps out from behind a hedge.
  • A still from Revenge of the Creature in which the Creature is stomping off toward the ocean

    Back to the lagoon for us gill creatures!


    This concludes cycle 4. Have a witchin summer & we’ll catch you this fall. Meanwhile, we’re laying out the CDSOB chapbook series (stay tuned!) & planning our 100 days to Halloween watchlists! We’ll remain open for submissions, so please send us your horrors. Thanks for reading & writing & staying weird! - 7/8/2024

  • Some mean looking cartoon deer snarling and showing sharp teeth

    Watch for Deer by Michael Sikkema


    Soon we will all be saying “watch for deer” when we leave the party and go out into that big night. Today, we feature new poems from CDSOB regular Michael Sikkema’s “Watch for Deer” series, in anticipation of his forthcoming CDSOB chapbook of the same name. Watch for deer. Read the poems.

  • A line drawing of a vintage projector

    Friday Feature


    Mini-reviews of horror movies, books, albums, and other cultural artifacts dropping every Friday.

    Now screening: In a Violent Nature (2024)

Recent Work

The author stands beneath the Mahoning Drive-In sign, which is advertising Alien Invasion Weekend

Screen of the Heavens: Alien Invasion Weekend, Mahoning Drive-In by J †Johnson

The truth was out there at Mahoning Drive-In’s Alien Invasion weekend, & so were we. JJ gazes at that great screen in the sky & writes about an out of this world 35mm double-double feature🥁🛸📽️🍿

Published June 5, 2024

Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolf Man

Dry
by Tim Lynch

What do you see in the face of the monster? Tim Lynch looks the wolf in the eye and sees the man before him, in today’s featured poem.

Published June 10, 2024

A fluffy white cat with green glowing lights in its eyes

Muffin
by Karthik Kotresh

Here, kitty kitty. At CDSOB, we’re cat people. We’re also monster people. Today, we feature Karthik Kotresh’s short story, “Muffin.”

Published June 3, 2024

Funhouse in Night of 1000 Corpses

Since He’s Been Gone
by Cassandra Walters

“The sign outside read ‘Cursed, Not Jilted,’ but the lights in the word ‘Not’ flickered intermittently. You could get your fortune read for $50. Or, guess the owner’s name correctly for a free reading.” And so we arrive at the fortune teller’s table, ready (or not) for some truth to be told.

Published May 20, 2024

Black and white image of an owl statue on top of an ornate building

Beware of the Owls’ Herald
by Matt Shadbolt

“But in New York, when you tear down a building, you always leave its ghosts.” Here’s where the story takes a turn, and the owl eyes begin to pulse green. Today we present Matt Shadbolt’s hyperreal neo-gothic mystery, “Beware the Owls’ Herald.”

Published May 13, 2024

Marion Crane deep in thought while driving her car in the movie Psycho

Spiral
by C.M. Dreibelbis

What shadows do our daily concerns cast over us, become monsters, and what common things do we fear? C.M. Dreibelbis is not afraid to place this question, in its many ordinary forms, on the table. Today we present a poem called “Spiral.”

Published May 6, 2024

Vampire Poem
by Sylvia Gorelick

Creatures of the night do not cease to exist in the light of day. Sylvia Gorelick reminds us that shadows are not the absence of light, but a form of lighting effect at play with bodies. Just so, this monster is both substance & projection, surface & interior condition. If the vampire resists representation, they are no less reflective. Their pleasure, & their queerness, are one.

Published April 29, 2024

A still from the movie Dolls, in which a woman with a masked doll face holds her eyeballs in her fingers next to the empty eye holes of the mask

Four Poems
by Melissa Eleftherion

The horror books we read as kids reveal a darkness we might spend a lifetime working through, along with the very real terrors we encounter. Melissa Eleftherion parses memories of strange companions from formative reading experiences in poems from their “suture” series.

Published June 24, 2024

A black and white movie still from Nosferatu where the shadow of Count Orlok is creeping up the stairs
An image from the movie Candyman, where Candyman hovers vertically in the air near the ceiling in a hospital room
A still from the movie Carrie, where Carrie stares blankly with eyes wide while she is covered in blood against the blue curtain
A still from the movie Re-Animator where Dr. West is filling a hypodermic needle with a glowing green liquid