Out There Screaming

This anthology gathers 19 horror stories by Black authors, blending supernatural terror with the realities of race, power, and identity.

In N. K. Jemisin's "Reckless Eyeballing," Carl, a Black highway patrol officer, sees supernatural eyes on the headlights of cars driven by people hiding criminal activity. He exploits this power to make arrests and steal cash but is fired for assaulting a woman during a stop. After selling his corruptly acquired Porsche to Bo Walker, a neighboring sheriff, Carl learns Bo has begun dreaming of Carl's crimes. Carl murders Bo and finds the Porsche's trunk covered in blinking brown eyes, his own, while another eye pushes up beneath his skin.

Rebecca Roanhorse's "Eye & Tooth" follows sibling monster hunters Zelda and Atticus Credit, who carry hereditary supernatural gifts: Atticus has the Eye (clairvoyance) and Zelda has the Tooth (a predatory, fanged power). Their client, Ms. Washington, lures them to her farmhouse and drugs Atticus so her reanimated granddaughter can feed on his blood. Zelda unleashes her Tooth power, overpowers Washington, and takes the revenant child.

In Cadwell Turnbull's "Wandering Devil," Freddy, a man compelled to drift, stays three years in Pittsburgh with Dilah, the woman he loves. He recalls an old banjo player called Old Black Billy who warned that leaving Dilah would reveal terrifying unknown places. Despite his love, Freddy prepares to go. As he gathers his belongings, taloned fingers seize his leg and pull him through the floor into a sulfurous void.

Lesley Nneka Arimah's "Invasion of the Baby Snatchers" is narrated by a government Intake agent combating aliens that invade through human pregnancy. After an alien speaks her name, she is sedated and wakes to find her subject, Olivia Schultz, stolen by the agency's Research division, which has been harboring incubators. She discovers she is pregnant with an alien and realizes the specimens have evolved into something the human body will not survive.

In Violet Allen's "The Other One," a narrator with a mental health condition marked by a fear of abandonment is lured to her ex-boyfriend Oglethorpe's apartment by texts from Angela, his new girlfriend. She finds Oglethorpe blank-eyed, holding a many-armed creature, kills it, and discovers his extracted heart. She keeps the heart, ensuring he must love her. The story ends with Oglethorpe robotically repeating "I love you" while ants infest their home.

Erin E. Adams's "Lasirèn" is narrated by Wideline, a Haitian girl whose sister Marie was taken by a sea creature. Three years later, a transformed being called Not-Marie leads the sisters to a grotto. When the youngest sister, Lovelie, nearly drowns, Wideline offers herself to the creature in exchange for Lovelie's life. As Wideline sinks beneath the water, Not-Marie transforms back into the real Marie.

Tananarive Due's "The Rider" is set in May 1961. Sisters Pat and Priscilla Houston board a Greyhound bus to join the Freedom Riders, civil rights activists challenging segregated interstate bus travel. The driver veers into a swamp, where a supernatural entity called the Rider boards the bus. When armed white men block the road, the Rider fills Pat with resolve, and she drives through the barricade.

In Justin C. Key's "The Aesthete," set in a future where genetically engineered humans called Pieces of Art (POAs) live under constant surveillance, the narrator discovers he may be the only fertile POA alive. After a surgeon steals one of his organs for the black market, he tries to rescue Sasha, a fellow POA he loves, from the Collector, a legendary figure who harvests POA organs. He and Sasha are captured by an extremist posing as a driver.

Ezra Claytan Daniels's "Pressure" follows a mixed-race protagonist visiting their hometown for cousin Andrew's failed atmospheric pressure experiment. That night, objects explode, the sky turns green, and trees flatten. The three cousins hold one another as the world collapses in a scalding flash of white.

In Nnedi Okorafor's "Dark Home," Kolo, a Nigerian American woman, takes her deceased father's bronze society ring at his funeral in Nigeria, defying Ajofia, a towering masquerade spirit that honors titled men in death. Back in Phoenix, supernatural disturbances plague her smart home until Ajofia materializes at her door. Kolo throws the ring to the spirit, which snatches it and dissolves into the pavement.

L. D. Lewis's "Flicker" follows Kam after global blackouts called the Voids begin dismantling reality. Her brother dies when a plane crashes during the first 21-second blackout. As the Voids grow longer, people are found faceless and bodies fuse with their surroundings. Kam's friends Wolf and Ami shelter her and flee with her to a mountain cabin, where a Void ultimately fuses them both into a boulder. The story ends with Kam alone in the mountains as a bear speaking in Ami's voice closes in behind her.

Nalo Hopkinson's "The Most Strongest Obeah Woman of the World" follows Yenderil, a 13-year-old Jamaican girl who dives into a blue hole, a deep sinkhole, to kill the tentacled creature that killed her parents and their goat. She survives but emerges fused with the creature, one leg replaced by a tentacle. She defeats it by denying it water until it detaches, then sets out alone for the wider world.

Maurice Broaddus's "The Norwood Trouble" is narrated by Flora, a girl in Norwood, a Black community founded by Civil War veterans in Indianapolis. When a white mob surrounds the town, the community's elders perform rituals blending Christian prayer with Yoruba traditions, and the ancient orchard comes alive and destroys the attackers.

In Rion Amilcar Scott's "A Grief of the Dead," Mahad grieves his identical twin Jamal's death in a mass shooting and his sister Sorai's subsequent death. Spiraling, he pays $250,000 to stage his own death matching Jamal's wounds, only to be scammed. Jamal appears at Mahad's door, resurrected but deteriorating. Mahad's death wish passes, but Jamal, consumed by hunger, seizes his throat.

Nicole D. Sconiers's "A Bird Sings by the Etching Tree" follows Del, a Black woman's ghost tethered to Highway 76, who discovers she was shot by a white truck driver. She and fellow ghost Amber develop lethal powers and compete in a killing game targeting reckless drivers. The story ends as the same driver, now gray-haired, returns, and both ghosts race toward him.

Chesya Burke's "An American Fable" follows Noble Washington, a Black World War I veteran beaten by a white mob in Cincinnati in 1918. A girl, a manifestation of a water spirit, freezes his attackers and leads him to a house protected by Yoruba spirits. A priestess reveals the girl represents Noble's future daughter. A ritual triggers a flood that destroys the mob.

Terence Taylor's "Your Happy Place" follows Martin, a prisoner who discovers his facility uses brain-computer interfaces to control inmates as factory workers. After he exposes the operation, his reality dissolves: His heroism and family were fantasies generated by the system. His real memories reveal tragedy and violence. The system resets, and Martin wakes again into his happy place.

P. Djèlí Clark's "Hide & Seek" follows 11-year-old Jacob, who protects his younger brother Jamie from their mother, Julia. Julia has an addiction to junk, a residual magical energy used as a drug, that transforms her nightly into a monster. Using their dead grandfather's book of Hoodoo, a tradition of folk magic, Jacob creates invisible hiding places where the brothers wait in silence for dawn.

Tochi Onyebuchi's "Origin Story," written as a stage play, follows four white college students debating their role in a seminar on whiteness. They realize they lose individuality when contrasted with non-white classmates, and one insists they must embrace the villain's role, participating in violence he believes necessary for their classmates' transformation. The play ends as the other students arrive.