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Fiction

FRIGHTLY! Scary Stories and Tales of Terror

Enjoy a family fright night with stories that thrill—but don’t traumatize.

FRIGHTLY! drags classic and original horror tales into the cold light of your headphones (or car). From haunted manors to twisted minds, each story is performed with cinematic intensity—no cheap jump scares, no clichés, just unsettling beauty and bone-deep dread. Hear the masters of the macabre reborn, alongside new nightmares crafted to feel too real for comfort. Discover tasteful tales of terror without gratuitous gore. Frightly! features classic chills and traditional thrills.

Because fear deserves better storytelling.

FRIGHTLY! is part of Short Storyverses (shortstoryverses.com), a growing collection of podcasts devoted to exceptional storytelling. Explore Litreading—our original classic short story podcast featuring a variety of timeless tales; Season’s Readings to brighten your holidays any time of year; New Tales Told for original storiesr; and

Readastorus for for younger listeners. Search for all of these titles wherever you get your podcasts.

All episodes are narrated by professional voice actor, Don McDonald

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Latest Episodes:

The Rocking-Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence — How Much Luck Is Enough? Oct 29, 2026

Show notes

A beautiful woman married for love, and the love turned to dust. The family lives in style, always a little past its means, and the house has started to whisper. Her small son hears it. He would like very much to be lucky. D. H. Lawrence wrote this for a book of ghost stories in 1926, and it remains one of the most unsettling things he ever put on paper.

If you enjoy great stories visit shortstoryverses.com and please be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast service.

FRIGHTLY! is no longer adding stories. You’ll find these same tales of love, along with my latest narrations, on LitReading—where it all started. Search for LitReading in your podcast app and follow the show there.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Willows - Part Two by Algernon Blackwood — Something Beyond the River Is Watching Oct 28, 2026

Show notes

Below Vienna, the Danube floods out into a wilderness of sandbars and willow scrub that the maps mark only as marshes. Two old friends, an Englishman and a Swede, beach their canoe on a small island to wait out a gale. The wind won’t drop. The willows won’t keep still. By morning, one of them has stopped making jokes.

H. P. Lovecraft ranked Algernon Blackwood’s 1907 novella above every other supernatural tale in English.

For more short fiction podcasts, please visit shortstoryverses.com.

FRIGHTLY! is no longer adding stories. You’ll find these same tales of love, along with my latest narrations, on LitReading—where it all started. Search for LitReading in your podcast app and follow the show there.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Willows - Part One by Algernon Blackwood — Something Beyond the River Is Watching Oct 28, 2026

Show notes

Below Vienna, the Danube floods out into a wilderness of sandbars and willow scrub that the maps mark only as marshes. Two old friends, an Englishman and a Swede, beach their canoe on a small island to wait out a gale. The wind won’t drop. The willows won’t keep still. By morning, one of them has stopped making jokes.

H. P. Lovecraft ranked Algernon Blackwood’s 1907 novella above every other supernatural tale in English.

For more short fiction podcasts, please visit shortstoryverses.com.

Please follow and if you enjoyed the story leave a five star review at Apple Podcasts or rating at Spotify.

FRIGHTLY! is no longer adding stories. You’ll find these same tales of love, along with my latest narrations, on LitReading—where it all started. Search for LitReading in your podcast app and follow the show there.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yuki-Onna by Lafcadio Hearn — A Promise Made in the Storm Oct 27, 2026

Show notes

A blizzard on the river. A ferryman’s empty hut. An old woodcutter and his young apprentice bar the door and wait for morning. Lafcadio Hearn’s retelling of a Japanese legend, from Kwaidan (1904), is a quiet ghost story with a long, cold reach.

From Short Storyverses, where there’s always another story waiting at shortstoryverses.com.

If you enjoyed the story please follow and leave a five star review or rating.

FRIGHTLY! is no longer adding stories. You’ll find these same tales of love, along with my latest narrations, on LitReading—where it all started. Search for LitReading in your podcast app and follow the show there.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Hum by Don McDonald — A Widower Follows a Sound Beneath His House Oct 24, 2026

Show notes

It starts on a Tuesday in October, at ten minutes to three in the morning. A low tone with no seam in it.

Hollis Pike's neighbors can't hear it. His phone can't record it. The audiologist says his hearing is fine, better than fine, and writes something down.

So he goes looking for where it comes from. The county keeps records. The house has a history. The sound is patient.

An original story, written and read by Don McDonald.

This podcast is a part of shortstoryverses.com

FRIGHTLY! is no longer adding stories. You’ll find these same tales of love, along with my latest narrations, on LitReading—where it all started. Search for LitReading in your podcast app and follow the show there.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman — Is the Cure Worse Than the Illness? Oct 22, 2026

Show notes

John is a physician, and he has a plan for his wife. Rest. Fresh air. No visitors who might excite her. Absolutely no writing.

He's rented a colonial mansion for the summer and given her the big room at the top, the old nursery, with barred windows and a bed that won't move. She keeps a journal anyway, tucked out of sight whenever he comes up the stairs. In it she writes about the house, the garden, the baby, her husband's kindness.

Mostly she writes about the wallpaper.

Published in 1892 and still unsettling. Read by Don McDonald

Please be sure to follow on your podcast service and if you enjoyed the story please leave a five star review or rating.

For more short fiction podcasts visit shortstoryverses.com

FRIGHTLY! is no longer adding stories. You’ll find these same tales of love, along with my latest narrations, on LitReading—where it all started. Search for LitReading in your podcast app and follow the show there.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Below Ten Thousand by Don McDonald — All the Time and No Time Oct 19, 2026

Show notes

He has four words. He's had them for forty-two years. He's said them in the car, he's said them in the shower with the water running, and he still can't get the stress to fall where it belongs.

Now the seatbelt sign is on, the descent has started, and his brother is running out of days. In his jacket pocket is a voicemail he has never played.

There's a rule pilots follow below ten thousand feet. Nothing gets said that doesn't need saying. He always thought that sounded like a good way to live.

An original story, written and read by Don McDonald.

Please be sure to follow on your podcast service and if you enjoyed the story please leave a five star review or rating.

For more short fiction podcasts visit shortstoryverses.com

FRIGHTLY! is no longer adding stories. You’ll find these same tales of love, along with my latest narrations, on LitReading—where it all started. Search for LitReading in your podcast app and follow the show there.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Black Cat — A Classic Tale of Human Horror by Edgar Allan Poe Oct 15, 2026

Show notes

As a boy he was teased for his tenderness. He kept birds, rabbits, a dog, a small monkey. And a cat, enormous and entirely black, who followed him from room to room and would have followed him into the street. Now he sits in a cell with a pen, determined to set the record down plainly. He is not mad, he tells us. He is not dreaming. Edgar Allan Poe's 1843 tale.

WARNING: Contains graphic animal and human violence.

Follow FRIGHTLY! and each new story will show up in your library as soon as it's released. No searching, no remembering.

This show is one corner of Short Storyverses, a family of fiction podcasts. Some lean literary. Some are funny. Some will keep you up with the lights on, and some belong by the fire in December. There are classics nobody reads anymore and should, and original stories you won't hear anywhere else. They're all read by Don McDonald from his studio booth, and all short enough to finish on a drive, a walk, or a sleepless night.

Come explore at shortstoryverses.com. Pick a universe. Stay a while.

FRIGHTLY! is no longer adding stories. You’ll find these same tales of love, along with my latest narrations, on LitReading—where it all started. Search for LitReading in your podcast app and follow the show there.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Still Water by Don McDonald — Four aircraft carriers in a lake? Oct 12, 2026

Show notes

Dr. Nathan Cole measures water for a living. It's quiet work, gauges and spreadsheets, the slow arithmetic of things that don't change much. Then a reservoir gains four inches overnight with no rain, no inflow, no explanation, and gives them back by morning. Everyone blames the sensor. The sensor is fine. What follows is the worst thing a careful man can discover, which is that he's been measuring the right thing all along.

If you like short stories, there's a multiverse of them at shortstoryverses.com.

And one favor. Hit follow. It costs you nothing, it takes a second, and it helps keep a show like this going.

FRIGHTLY! is no longer adding stories. You’ll find these same tales of love, along with my latest narrations, on LitReading—where it all started. Search for LitReading in your podcast app and follow the show there.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Luella Miller – A Chilling Classic Short Story by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman Oct 08, 2026

Show notes

Everyone in town has a story about Luella Miller. She never seems to lift a hand, yet somehow, help is always at her side. And those who give it—well, they never quite look the same afterward. Some tales of horror are loud and bloody. This one is quiet, gentle… and suffocating. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman spins a ghostly puzzle where the most dangerous thing may be a smile too sweet to resist.

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman wasn’t known for monsters or gore. She wrote about the quiet corners of New England life—where duty, repression, and superstition sat heavy in the air. But every so often, she let the shadows slip through. “Luella Miller” is one of those rare stories, proof that horror doesn’t always need screams… sometimes it only takes a fragile smile.

FRIGHTLY! is no longer adding stories. You’ll find these same tales of love, along with my latest narrations, on LitReading—where it all started. Search for LitReading in your podcast app and follow the show there.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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