Fireplace: A Short Horror Story — Intrusive thoughts made horrifyingly intimate

"The thought of tossing our baby in the fireplace first popped into my head a month or so ago."

That's the opening line. That's how Clay McLeod Chapman greets you. No warm-up, no easing in—just a parent casually mentioning intrusive thoughts about infanticide like they're discussing what to make for dinner. And honestly? This is why I do this. This is horror that respects the genre.

When the Author IS the Voice

Look, author-narrated audiobooks are a gamble. For every Neil Gaiman blessing us with his velvet-fog delivery, there's a writer who should've stayed behind the keyboard. Chapman? He gets it. Reading your own horror aloud isn't just recitation—it's performance art.

The thing that got me—and I was listening to this at like 1 AM because apparently I hate myself—is how he balances the creepy with something almost... funny? Not ha-ha funny. More like nervous-laughter-at-a-funeral funny. The kind of humor that makes you uncomfortable because you're laughing at something you absolutely should not be laughing at. One listener nailed it when they said the narrator "somehow manages to serve up this creepy tale with a large dollop of funny, so it's creepy and funny all at once." That's not easy. That's craft.

The sound effects integration here is chef's kiss. Clean production, nothing overwrought. Just enough atmospheric texture to make you feel like you're in that house, staring at that fireplace, having thoughts you shouldn't be having.

The Shirley Jackson Problem (In a Good Way)

Here's where I have to be honest with you: this is 19 minutes. Nineteen. I've had longer arguments about whether The Haunting of Hill House is scarier than anything King ever wrote (it is, fight me). Some listeners were frustrated by the length, calling it "just a chapter." And yeah, I get that. If you're expecting a full meal, this is an amuse-bouche.

But—and this is important—short horror has a lineage. Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is what, 3,000 words? Sometimes the knife that slips in quick is the one that cuts deepest. Poe understood this viscerally—Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Raven Edition, Volume 2 is full of those quick, brutal stabs that stay with you long after the final page. Chapman's writing has that same quality. Esquire called him one of the authors shaping horror's next golden age, and based on this? I believe it.

The story ends on a cliffhanger that left me genuinely unsettled. Not in a "I need resolution" way, but in a "the absence of resolution IS the horror" way. The uncertainty is the point. What happens next? You don't know. You're not supposed to know. You're supposed to sit with that dread.

Who Gets This (And Who Won't)

This is part of Nightfire's Come Join Us by the Fire anthology—Season 2—which is stacked with names like Seanan McGuire, T. Kingfisher, and Caitlín R. Kiernan. Good company.

Best for: Horror fans who appreciate short-form fiction. People who want something intense for a quick commute. Anyone who's ever had a dark intrusive thought and wondered "what if I leaned into that?" (Don't worry, we've all been there. That's literally what intrusive thoughts are.)

Skip if: You need your horror to have a neat bow. If cliffhangers make you angry rather than unsettled. Or if you're expecting a full-length audiobook experience—this is a short story, priced accordingly.

Content warning: this deals with disturbing thoughts about harming a baby. It's handled with psychological nuance rather than gratuitousness, but if that's a hard no for you, respect your limits.

Staring Into the Fire

I listened to this in the dark. (Shirley—my cat, not Jackson—was unimpressed. I was not.) For 19 minutes, Chapman crawled inside the head of a parent having the kind of thoughts that polite society pretends don't exist, and he made me stay there with him. The narration commits. The production is tight. The horror is psychological rather than gory.

Is it too short? Maybe. Did I want more? Absolutely. But that wanting—that feeling of being left at the edge of something terrible—that's the whole point.

My podcast listeners are going to love this one. Quick, sharp, and deeply uncomfortable in all the right ways.