Horrific Scribes
an online archive of the provocative, scary, and strange
L. Andrew Cooper, editor
Horrific Scribes is an expanding online archive of dark short fiction (and some poetry) by authors who share the Horrific Scribblings imprint’s dedication to the provocative, scary, and strange. It collects dark, transgressive fiction, mostly horror (all subgenres, bloodless to extreme, nothing off limits) and “horror-adjacent” work in areas such as dark fantasy, dark sci-fi, the surreal, and the experimental.
Works in the archive are intended for mature readers and often contain graphic violence, explicit sexuality, profanity, and other material that some readers may find triggering or offensive. By continuing, you acknowledge that you read at your own risk.
Coming Oct. 13: Extremely Weird Splatter!
Because gloriously countercultural splatterpunk fiction tends toward grounded, all-too-possible types of horror, while the more fantastic category of “weird” fiction has become far too respectable, we feel a need for EXTREMELY WEIRD SPLATTER, a pro-paying anthology of stories that highlight the awesome potential released when extreme aesthetics and splatter savvy fuse with the way-out weird that leaves “grounded” behind. To pay for the high quality the project deserves, we need your help with our Indiegogo campaign. And, of course, we offer lots of rewards! Or you can skip the extra support and simply pre-order. We’ll still love you, though we won’t promise that’s good.
NEW EXHIBIT!
Special Exhibit Five: We shouldn’t be here is our biggest Special Exhibit yet, combining eleven all-new works with three from the archive that are perfect fits for a showcase of liminal horror. Stories and poems focus on in-between, transitional spaces that terrorize their visitors by contrasting with and concealing the comforts of “normal,” by revealing hidden aspects of individuals and their worlds, and by consuming unlucky trespassers entirely.
Beardsell, "Fisher of Men"
Bertholet, "The Nightway"
Broderick, "Night Flight"
Brunell, "No Exceptions"
Duttagupta, "Five Matches"
Dutton, "Darcy's Docks"
Frank, "The Highline Grace"
Komen, Whispering Walls and Other Haunting Verses
Kumar, "The Soft Interior"
MacCulloch, Bare and Brittle Brick and Metal
Nathan, "Red Thread"
Pecha, "More Downstairs →"
Rajagopalan, "Industrial Accidents"
Townend, "When One Door Closes"
Horrific Scribes does not have “issues” like a magazine. However, it does have “Exhibits,” selections of stories and poems collected because of commonalities (themes, subgenres, images, etc.) and united by an introduction and cover art. Selections appear in a sequence that highlights meaningful connections.
Reading an Exhibit is like reading an anthology. Past Exhibits remain available:
ARCHIVED FEATURES
After time in the feature spotlight (below), Scribes and their Scribbles (or Scribblings) remain in the archives according to the months when their works first appeared. Browse the archival depths! For a specific author, try the “Authors” link above. For something else, try the “Search” option at the bottom of the screen.
FEATURED SCRIBES AND SCRIBBLES
(SCROLL DOWN FOR THE LATEST)
“Girl Dinner“
You’re being watched. Admired. Despised.
Read “Girl Dinner” (~4000 words)
Author Keywords: gore, horror, psychological horror, stalking, dark fiction
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): mild gore, highly unreliable narrator
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Charlie Ilett
Joined July 6, 2026
Charlie Ilett is producing stories of thrilling unease and moral murk.
Read more.
“Pockets“
If the government were in your thoughts, would they play fair?
Read “Pockets” (~1900 words)
Author Keywords: science-fiction, sci-fi, dystopia, anarchist, political, allegory, horror, dark sci-fi, revolutionary.
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): child abuse references, rape references, murder references, trafficking references. General mental invasion, lack of consent.
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Gerard J Waggett
Joined July 9, 2026
Gerard J Waggett loves his horror fiction and his mayonnaise.
Read more.
“Paulsy“
A father suspects that his daughter’s cerebral palsy was caused by the ghost of a disabled student he used to bully.
Read “Paulsy” (~4300 words)
Author Keywords: Ghost Story, Medical Horror, Revenge Tale
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): disability-related bullying, cerebral palsy, childbirth and medical trauma, grief, death, discussion of abortion, substance use, physical violence, and supernatural revenge/horror elements.
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Joseph Hirsch
Fourth Scribbling, July 14, 2026
Joseph Hirsch is a writer who has worked in diverse genres, but as time moves on, he finds himself more and more fixated on horror.
Read more.
“The Look on Your Face“
“Each subject appeared frozen in shock, stiff, as if having just been given the worst news of their life, told some ultimate and terrible truth right before the portraiture session commenced.”
Read “The Look on Your Face” (~4600 words)
Author Keywords: Art, Aesthetics, Cannibalism, Cancer, Photography, Wealth, Sadism, Prostitution, Vegas
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): Those with weak stomachs or readers who have any food phobias might want to stay clear.
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Bare and Brittle Brick and Metal
A suburb of London/an algebra of agony/deadwater ghosts/a prison that nobody here is escaping.
Read Bare and Brittle Brick and Metal (~400 words)
Author Keywords: Horror/surrealism/autobiography/poetry/liminal spaces.
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): None.
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
“Night Flight”
Now boarding…
Read “Night Flight” (~1500 words)
Author Keywords: eerie, creepy, horror, dread, uncanny, terror, alone, lost, fear, liminal space, airport, relationships
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): None (as far as I’m aware)
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
“The Highline Grace”
When the residents and staff of a luxury Manhattan apartment building begin to vanish, a reclusive scientist finds himself clinging to the human connections he spent his life avoiding.
Read “The Highline Grace” (~2600 words)
Author Keywords: liminal spaces, speculative fiction, psychological horror
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): reference to drug use
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Julia Rajagopalan
Joined July 20, 2026
Speculative fiction writer of dark humor and strange characters for everyone who laughs when they’re uncomfortable
Read more.
“Industrial Accidents”
A free yoga class in an old factory turns into a nightmare when a working-class woman discovers that some industrial accidents refuse to stay in the past.
Read “Industrial Accidents” (~2500 words)
Author Keywords: Body, Hauntings
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): Dismemberment, spectral sexual harassment, menstruation
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Raymond Brunell
Second Scribbling, July 20, 2026
He writes about the forms no one reads until it’s too late to withdraw them.
Read more.
“No Exceptions“
Every ticket in the room read PENDING. He’d come to withdraw his. The clerk smiled and asked him to take a seat.
Read “No Exceptions” (~4100 words)
Author Keywords: liminal horror, bureaucratic dread, waiting rooms, caregiving, terminal illness, institutional horror, quiet horror, the body as archive, administrative violence, Upper Peninsula
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): Terminal illness and caregiving; anticipatory grief; medical and institutional bureaucracy. No graphic violence or gore—the dread is procedural.
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Suvajeet Duttagupta
Joined July 20, 2026
Ph.D. in nanotechnology turned photographer/cinematographer and now also writing weird stories.
Read more.
“Five Matches”
He strained to see more, to find a door, a window, anything. But the matchstick was a cruel master, its light already fading, shrinking.
Read “Five Matches” (~2300 words)
Author Keywords: Liminal space, trapped
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): mention of blood
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Margo Pecha
Joined July 20, 2026
She lives in southwest Washington state where she writes about obsession, paranoia, and rurality.
Read more.
“More Downstairs →”
“At the back of the shop a doorway loomed, a curling paper tacked beside it noting More Downstairs →, which she followed dutifully, if only to get away from the lunatic stare of the skeleton.”
Read “More Downstairs →” (~2300 words)
Author Keywords: weird, psychological, surreal, liminal
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): N/A
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Rodney P. Bertholet
Joined July 20, 2026
Exploring the roads that shouldn’t exist and the spaces between worlds.
Read more.
“The Nightway”
Some roads exist only after dark.
Read “The Nightway” (~4800 words)
Author Keywords: Horror, Cosmic Horror, Liminal Spaces, Folk Horror, Wilderness Horror, Mountain Horror, Psychological Horror, Supernatural, Speculative Fiction, Weird Fiction, Road Horror, Isolation
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): Psychological horror, unsettling imagery, existential themes
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Prince Kumar
Second Scribbling July 20, 2026
He writes the kind of horror that stays with you.
Read more.
“The Soft Interior“
Some things don’t stay buried.
Read “The Soft Interior” (~2600 words)
Author Keywords: Horror, Psychological Horror, Dark Fiction, Suspense, Supernatural, Atmospheric, Mystery
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): Psychological distress, dark themes
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
“Red Thread”
The lights eat hearts…the lights eat hearts…
Read “Red Thread” (~2100 words)
Author Keywords: literary horror, weird horror, urban legends, body horror, haunted house, liminal spaces
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): Body Horror
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
“Fisher of Men”
A dark lighthouse summons those who are lost. What will be found within?
Read “Fisher of Men” (~3400 words)
Author Keywords: weird, cosmic, folk, LGBTQ, hauntings
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): none needed
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Zary Fekete
Second Scribbling July 28, 2026
Have lived on three continents and love to write about it all.
Read more.
“Bread and Body“
Take and eat, this is the Lord’s body.
Read “Bread and Body” (~1900 words)
Author Keywords: [none provided]
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): religious horror
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Abby Nicole Yee
Second Scribbling July 30, 2026
This author may or may not be seeing things, too.
Read more.
“Vision“
“The day you saw it was the first time you’d realized how little you’d been paying attention.”
Read “Vision” (~1500 words)
Author Keywords: psychological, horror, mental health, nature, science fiction
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): graphic descriptions of mutilated bodies
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
“Perfect Pitch“
Afterward, he could never remember if he saw the monster right away.
Read “Perfect Pitch” (~2300 words)
Author Keywords: psychological; music; horror; queer
Author Trigger Warnings (if any): domestic abuse, child abuse (both non-graphic)
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
