“Chickamauga” by Ambrose Bierce

Summary: A very young boy loses himself in the woods and stumbles upon a group of shambling, decaying undead. He and his new “companions” come across the remains of a Civil War battlefield, then across his own home engulfed in flame and his mother.

Note: Ambrose Bierce is a deeply respected but infrequently read 19th-century writer of what might sometimes be termed Gothic horror. Although his story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is sometimes taught in high school and college classrooms and has been frequently reproduced in various media, Bierce’s most impactful legacy derives from “An Inhabitant of Carcosa,” the story which inspired Robert Chambers’ The King in Yellow and, in turn, H. P. Lovecraft’s entire body of cosmic horror. It was nice to see a lesser known piece of Bierce’s work narrated here.

Review: The story is haunting, with much of its power coming from disturbing and beautiful descriptions. Bierce is also an artful navigator of a story about a six-year-old that is not narrated by the child; there are brief moments where the narrator acknowledges or describes something and directly addresses that the child would not have noticed such a thing. If you’re looking for something dark and pretty, don’t pass this one up. The audio is only maybe 15 minutes when you trim out the editorial information Pseudopod’s host provides about both the author and the story.