Westside Fairytales: Horror and Dark Fiction Stories

We're now more than halfway through the off-season, and new episodes of Westside Fairytales are just around the corner. Today's minisode is just a trifle. A snatch of memory. The creeping sort of horror that walks with you for a while even after you've said goodbye.

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Artwork by Yui Breedlove

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Sometimes the things you own end up owning you.

This is the last of the minisodes for the Westside Fairytales summer off-season. We've got a slew of terrifying new content heading your way at the beginning of November, so remember to stay up to date with us on social media.

We hope you enjoy your Halloween.

Stay safe out there.

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Ever felt stuck in a rut? Today's episode of the Westside Fairytales is about a woman who feels trapped in a life she never expected to live. Her husband doesn't appreciate her. She doesn't have any hobbies, any friends, or really any social interaction aside from her children.

But an old friend has stopped by to help her break out of this funk. Somebody from her childhood that always shows up when she needs him.

This month’s recommendation:

Literature recommendation: ”Universal Harvester” by John Darnielle

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We all feel lonely sometimes. Some of us never really feel like we’re not alone, even when we’re surrounded by people. For guys like me, and our main character of this episode of the Westside Fairytales, that means slinking out to the bar. Secreting yourself away somewhere dark and comfortable, where it’s okay to be a man on his own.

Thing is, that kind of lifestyle can wear on you. It can get too comfortable, and the loneliness might end up becoming your only friend. You become a man alone, sitting at a bar, waiting for friends you barely know, who might not show at all.

This month’s recommendation:

Literature recommendation: ”The Historian” by Elizabeth Kostova

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Today’s tale is the story of a woman’s journey from a war-torn country to one of safety and prosperity. It is a time of sickness, of death, and the specter of death itself follows her on her voyage in the form of an ugly doll made of plaster.

This episode of the Westside Fairytales will cover only the first half of the story, and the second half will be available next episode.

This month’s recommendations:

Podcast recommendation: Counter Worlds Podcast

Literature recommendation: ”Carrion Comfort” by Dan Simmons

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You know the fear of drowning, even if you've never been near water. It's as inborn in us as the desire to keep breathing. When last we left our protagonist, she was in deathly danger of drowning, and trapped in the kitchen of a sinking ship.

This is part two and the conclusion of the Westside Fairytales story, "The Water-Rotted Doll." We hope you enjoy.

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Guilt grows like a weed in the hearts of sinners. It’s hard to imagine anybody who’s never wronged another person. At some point, all of us are going to make a decision we’ll have trouble living with for the rest of our lives. And even if it’s a small thing, a trifle, it’ll sit with you in the dark hours of the night, stroking the skin at the back of your neck to keep you awake.

Today's episode of the Westside Fairytales is about just such a feeling. A young boy in a bad neighborhood does something awful, and as he tries to move on from the deed, he finds it haunting him at every step. Never letting up for a second.

This month’s recommendations:

Podcast recommendation: Canadian True Crime

Literature recommendation: ”If We Were Villains” by M.L. Rio

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We all feel the urge to run sometimes. Pressure builds up around us, pushing on our chests and heads, caving in the soft bits inside our ears and eyes until we feel fit to burst. Money, family, loneliness, the struggle to be known, the pain of being forgotten, it all stacks up and gets heavier. And heavier. And heavier.

And when it gets to be too much, there’s a part of you inside that lets you know. We need to run now. We either run, or we die.

Today’s episode of the Westside Fairytales is about a girl who decides to run. She’s taken all she can of the life that was given to her at birth, a life that’s had terrible consequences for most all of the people who’ve gotten tangled up in it. She gets involved with a soon-to-be notorious outlaw, and cuts a path of crime and pain across America, until she arrives at her final destination a thousand miles from where she started, feeling like she’d never really left at all.

This month’s recommendations:

Podcast recommendations: Dark Topic and Canadian True Crime

Literature recommendation: ”A Winter Haunting” by Dan Simmons

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There’s an old sort of saying that the best judge is one who hates his work. A man eager to pass judgment on others, that is, is the man least capable of doing the job.

Today’s episode of the Westside Fairytales is about just that sort of man, a reserved individual sent to a small village in a seemingly medieval country, tasked with finding out why people passing by the town are being branded as criminals and hanged.

It’s not just a story on the passing of judgment, but on the nature of those judgments we pass and are forced to pass on each other. How eagerness for justice may lead us to injustice.

This month’s recommendations:

Podcast recommendation: Gamma Radio

Literature recommendation: “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest J. Gaines

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Artwork by Yui Breedlove

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Life has a pace, a rhythm. It’s always unsettling when things disturb it. The death of a friend, an injury, an accident, when the unexpected comes calling it usually visits with bad news in tow.

Today’s episode of the Westside Fairytales is about a man who sets his watch by life’s banalities. He lives a boring life, a life he generally enjoys, but things are about to change for him. It starts small; a gap appears on a street where there was no gap. But even a small change in a boring life can have extraordinary effects.

This month’s recommendations:

Podcast recommendation: 33% Pulp

Literature recommendation: ”Dry” by Augusten Burroughs

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Today’s episode of the Westside Fairytales is about a man trapped in a relationship he despises. He doesn’t know if he hates his wife, but he does know he plans on leaving her, just as soon as they reach the end of the long trip they’ve embarked on together.

But his plans are put on hold when they stop for gas at a remote desert gas station. Strange things have the building and its occupants under siege. There seems to be no way out, and unfortunately for our protagonist, “til death do us part” may be his only option.

This month’s recommendations:

Podcast recommendation: Evergreen

Literature recommendation: ”Night Shift“ by Stephen King

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Some fears are not shared evenly amongst the inhabitants of this little blue marble. The fear, for instance, that your agency could be stripped away at any moment without recourse isn’t something we all feel, but that some of us know all too well.

It’s fear that comes with a shaky position in society. Women, minorities, and folks with lifestyles and predilections that buck the status quo. If you’re not one of these folks, you might not know what it’s like to not be believed. To simply be ignored by the powers that be, to be dismissed casually. Even to have your life simply placed into the hands of another, regardless of how you feel about the situation.

Today’s episode of the Westside Fairytales lives amongst the tendrils of this idea. It is the story of a woman who wakes up to a life that isn’t hers, that she doesn’t want to live, and that certain forces, certain people, won’t allow her to leave. Our protagonist knows the truth about herself, but she’s stripped of her freedoms, even her dignity, simply because that’s the sort of thing that happens to women sometimes.

This month's recommendations:

Podcast recommendation: Hillbilly Horror Stories

Literature recommendation: ”House of Leaves” by Mark Z. Danielewski

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Artwork by Yui Breedlove

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Life is like the tides. It comes and goes, rises and falls with the moon and light and darkness. This endless force propels us forward no matter our situation, until we can be moved no more.

Today's minisode of the Westside Fairytales is about a man who takes his elderly grandfather on a late night surf trip. A last bit of kindness before the moon sets in the west.

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Artwork by Yui Breedlove

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The grind can get to you. My guess is you know what I’m talking about. Most of you, my Dear Listeners, are probably listening to this in the background of some banal task. You’re driving yourself to work, or the kids to school. You’re out mowing the lawn or sitting on a cold bench waiting for the train to finally show.

But like most people in this modern world, you’re somebody with someplace to be and something to do. And it’s hard sometimes, the way the days begin to flit by as you stack dollars and pay bills. As your hair grays and the days disappear until, one day, it’s like your whole life is behind you. But the grind, the grind never slows.

Today’s episode of the Westside Fairytales is about a man trapped in that same grind, by his own desire to become the master of the great millstone itself. But his preoccupation with success is getting to him, coloring every new day darker than the last.

This month’s recommendations:

Literature recommendation: ”Uzumaki” by Junji Ito

Random horror recommendation: Jacob’s Ladder

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Artwork by Yui Breedlove

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I fought a war once. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen combat, more than a decade actually. But even after all that time, the memories of Iraq: The sand. The heat. The people. The violence. Those have stayed closer to my heart than almost any other thing I’ve done.

In today’s episode of the Westside Fairytales, we follow a veteran who faces a similar problem, coming to terms with the guilt of surviving something many others did not. He’s a man who’s taken up ultra-marathoning as a way to escape the memories and feelings that have haunted him since his last ugly day in the sandbox. But on this run, he finds something else chasing him through the rocky sands of the Mojave desert. Something he might not be able to outrun.

This month’s recommendations:

Literature recommendation: ”The Complete Lovecraft” by H.P. Lovecraft

Random horror recommendation: Hollow Knight video game

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Artwork by Yui Breedlove

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Today’s episode of the Westside Fairytales is about a man living alone, with little more than the glow of his computer to keep him company. But something from beyond the veil of death and time may soon enter into the life of this modern hermit, whether he wants it to or not.

This month’s recommendations:

Literature recommendation: ”My Friend Dahmer” by Derf Backderf

Random horror recommendation: The Haunting of Hill House

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Artwork by Yui Breedlove

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Today’s episode of the Westside Fairytales is the second half of a two-part tale.

Last episode, we left the subject of our story, a young man named Barden, in his hermitage of a flat in Paris. He’s been bothered by strange knocking from the apartment downstairs, and visions of some pale-faced apparition that may or may not be a symptom of his self-imposed isolation. Barden is a man who likes solitude not because he enjoys it, but because he’s afraid of trying anything else. But he’s started hearing the first low peels of bellsong in the foggy Parisian night, and soon he may find the call of at least one of those long and lonely notes too enticing to ignore.

Literature recommendation: ”The House of Sand and Fog” by Andre Dubus III

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Artwork by Yui Breedlove

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Today’s episode of the Westside Fairytales will let us see the furthest limits to which loyalty might push us, by putting us in the shoes of a soldier faced with unthinkable duties. In the last months of a war he does not yet know has all but ended, he’ll be pushed to carry out orders beyond the scope of anything he’s ever, even in his worst nightmares, thought could come to pass. And we’ll see if those golden tethers of loyalty, so valuable and yet so easily broken, will bend him to the task at hand.

This month’s recommendations:

Literature recommendation: ”Night” by Elie Weisel

Random horror recommendation: Silent Hill from Konami

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Artwork by Yui Breedlove

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In today’s episode of the Westside Fairytales, the first of a four-part series, we join a young person, a human animal cast loose of the nest by a sudden death of one parent, and the just as unexpected madness of another. Setting out on a journey to understand a new and unfamiliar life, this child will come across demons both external and internal, and characters both familiar and unfamiliar to you, dear listener.

This month’s recommendations:

Literature recommendation: ”The Talisman” by Stephen King and Peter Straub

Random horror recommendation: The Wailing

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It’s on the Great Plains where we resume our story, the tale of a young person named Alex traveling across the country to the resting place of a barely known father. The hope is to find some deeper understanding of self through this visitation, but the paths ahead are riddled with pitfalls and parties of a dubious nature. Marks have been set into flesh that leave the scent of blood to linger on the wind, drawing forth a greater evil from the depths of the American Heartlands. A thing beyond reckoning, which must be faced in time.

Let us remind you that today’s story is the second of a four-part series. Our suggestion is that you return here after enjoying part one, but no worries if you’d like to listen out of order. We here at the Westside Fairytales sometimes eat our dessert before dinner as well.

This month’s recommendations:

Literature recommendation: “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman

Random horror recommendation:Apocalypse Now

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Artwork by Yui Breedlove

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