Howls from the Scene of the Crime

Howls from the Scene of the Crime

Project Overview

From the creators of esteemed horror anthologies Howls from Hell, Howls from the Dark Ages, and Howls from the Wreckage, comes the next print, ebook, and audiobook publication planned for May 2024: Howls from the Scene of the Crime.


For this anthology, HOWL Society Press dives into the world of CRIME HORROR! 


When we talk about crime fiction, we mean “the genre of fiction that deals with crimes, their detection, criminals, and their motives”1. Within crime you’ll find subgenres like noir, murder mystery, heist stories, detective, and more, or it can be none of the above and just deal with what happens when the law is broken. The blend of horror into crime is our sweet spot: this anthology will feature stories that go beyond your average thriller into fiction that can disturb, frighten, shock, or create feelings of dread or disgust in a reader. While each story deals with some aspect of crime, they also comfortably fit within the genre of horror (and all of its subgenres). 


Read the following before you audition:

  • All genders, identities, and backgrounds are welcome, however we plan to feature underrepresented voices.
  • We will only choose narrators auditioning with professional equipment and performances capable of meeting Audible ACX-level standards.
  • Payment of $75 per finished hour is dependent on a successful Kickstarter campaign, however you will find we have successfully funded campaigns in the past.
  • If you are selected and choose to enter a contract, initial recordings will be due on February 1st, 2024, and final edited recordings meeting production guidelines due on February 15th, 2024.


Timaeus Bloom, Co-Editor: Timaeus Bloom fancies himself a makeshift magus, Eldritch underling, and shadowy specter that began writing way too late. He now types away in the most inopportune moments playing catch up. Timaeus is proud to represent Black authors in speculative fiction.


Jessica Peter, Co-Editor: Jessica Peter writes dark, haunted, and sometimes absurd short stories, novels, and poems. She lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. You can find her writing in Haven Speculative, The NoSleep Podcast, and Brigid’s Gate anthologies, among other places. You can find her at www.jessicapeter.net or @JessicaPeter1 on Twitter.


Solomon Forse, Audiobook Producer: Solomon is the founder of HOWL Society, a horror community and book press. When he’s not hanging on the Discord server or handling various publisher duties, Solomon spends his time role-playing horror with tabletop RPGs like Call of Cthulhu or shredding horror on the guitar in his Lovecraftian metal band Crafteon. Otherwise, he’s busy attaining pilot ratings or pursuing his new career as an aviation accident investigator. Find out about his fiction works at solomonforse.com.


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Latest Updates

  • All auditions reviewed; sending offers soon

    Hi everyone, and thank you for the auditions. We are so grateful to have received a total of 189 recordings. At this time we have a longlist of preferred narrators and will now review the stories from our anthology and attempt to pair the right voices with the right manuscripts. If you've been selected, you should expect to receive a DM via Discord or CCC within the next several days. Even if you posted a fantastic audition, it's possible that we don't find a good fit, so please don't take it personally if you're not selected. Either way, thanks so much for using your personal time to prepare a sample of your voice for this project.

    Cheers,

    Solomon Forse

Project Roles: Narrator: Indigenous Voice Actors Only Narrator: Black Voice Actors Only Narrator: General Auditions (No gender preference) Narrator: General Auditions (Woman protagonist) Narrator: General Auditions (Man protagonist) Narrator: General Auditions (Man protagonist, Old West setting)
Voice Actor
Voice Actor
Narrator: Indigenous Voice Actors Only
open
Paid: Flat Rate 75 USD

We are only accepting auditions from Indigenous narrators for this particular role. All genders welcome. Please see our other roles below for general auditions.


This anthology features dark fiction, so we want to hear your ability to guide the listener's emotions--whether the appropriate emotion is dread, shock, horror, terror, or disgust.


Please audition with the following excerpt: 


I swallow. Right now, I’m not worried about the theft or the probable jail time or whatever could feasibly happen. Right now, I’m more worried that Chris is gonna set fire to the whole damn place. 

I’m in this now. There’s no way out. 

We trample down weeds and cattails, nearing the tent. It’s illuminated from the inside, lights flickering like it’s full of drunken fireflies.The number of vehicles parked nearby is scant and I wonder about attendance. But there’s a din of crowd noise, a booming microphone voice saying something like, “Ash-a-ramalama-rama-nikola-hendo” over and over in different variations. There are spouts of “Amens!” and “Yes!” There’s no music, just the faint silhouettes imprinted on the tented walls, writhing with fervor.

Chris’s pocket buzzes, he slides his phone out.

“SA.” the text reads. The SA stands for “straight ahead” as in, burst through those tent flaps and make a beeline straight for the offering chest. 

Chris looks over at me, slides his mask over his face. It’s a giant paper wasp nest, punched out holes for eyes, pits of blackness. Looks like a formed burlap bag. His hair is in a bun, so nobody can clock him by his braids.  

He hands me a mask, a dried gourd that’s been halved and painted. Rubber band straps keep it over my face.

Red’s on the inside with a booger mask of his own. A big fake brown beard. Thick rimmed glasses. Giant mole on his cheek. A Wal-Mart fedora. Satchel and suspenders. “Make sure your tattoos are covered,” we told him. 

Chris talks, his voice a muffled echo. “Remember, things go south, Red has the firepower in his satchel. Rendezvous at my place.”

I nod my booger gourd face.

We’re hunkered down behind a white pickup truck, dressed in masks and waiting to rob a church service. All we’ve gotta do now is wait for the fireworks.

Language:
  • english
Voice description:
  • male adult
  • audiobook

  • *Say something you think would fit*

Favorite role Save Role for Later Total Submissions Toggle 2 Submissions Apply / Audition
Voice Actor
Voice Actor
Narrator: Black Voice Actors Only
closed
Paid: Flat Rate 75 USD
Role assigned to: LKAT Candace Marie

We are only accepting auditions from Black narrators for this particular role. All genders welcome. Please see our other roles below for general auditions.


This anthology features dark fiction, so we want to hear your ability to guide the listener's emotions--whether the appropriate emotion is dread, shock, horror, terror, or disgust.


Please audition with the following excerpt OR a selection of your own choosing:


The blue house begged to be broken into.

It pleaded, empty windows like puppy dog eyes. Sagging porch a pitiful pout. The whole town knew it was unoccupied. Mrs. Wells had been admitted to the health centre, and at ninety-six there was only one way she was coming back out. No one was looking after the place. The lawn grew wild and yellow. The weeds stank.

Please, it whispered.

The house watched Morgan in the dark while her friends drifted down the street like reckless tumbleweeds. They laughed around the rims of Gatorade bottles spiked with vodka. Crowed about their plans for summer vacation.: gGetting out of this hell-hole ditch in the badlands. Somewhere green. Somewhere with blue water.

Morgan stared back at the house. The night breeze made it breathe. Rustled the drought-tight grasses. 

Please.

Morgan’s lips parted, a thought caught on her dry tongue. Why?

Language:
  • english
Voice description:
  • female adult
  • audiobook
  • black american

  • *Say something you think would fit*

Favorite role Save Role for Later Total Submissions Toggle 9 Submissions Apply / Audition
Voice Actor
Voice Actor
Narrator: General Auditions (No gender preference)
open
Paid: Flat Rate 75 USD

Narrators of all genders, identities, and backgrounds welcome. This short story is told from the perspective of a prison cell.


This anthology features dark fiction, so we want to hear your ability to guide the listener's emotions--whether the appropriate emotion is dread, shock, horror, terror, or disgust.


Please audition with the following excerpt:


Up the stairs, take a left, go around the corner, and enter the second blue door: that’s me. I have a narrow window, which is my greatest luxury, but besides that, I am like all the other cells in this prison. White cinder block walls bear down on the platform bed with a sagging mattress, and the smell of sweat and shit and disinfectant seeps through the door gaps. Over the years, many people have watched the sun rise and set through my window, waiting for the day when I would finish feeding, and they would be bundled out, led down the stairs and into the brown brick room where they would meet their end.

I was empty for many years, until 1977, when Hank Gielen came to occupy me. He had been convicted of killing seven young women, but he whispered to my walls that there were more. He told me about them, in a low, crooning voice; how he’d met Gloria at the library, and Lorraine at the Piggly-Wiggly, how he’d given Rose a ride home and replaced Terri’s tire. He told me what they looked like, how he loved their orange-red hair and the freckles across their noses, how their bodies went limp under his when he strangled them.  

Language:
  • english
Voice description:
  • androgynous
  • male adult
  • female adult
  • female senior
  • male senior
  • audiobook

  • *Say something you think would fit*

Favorite role Save Role for Later Total Submissions Toggle 77 Submissions Apply / Audition
Voice Actor
Voice Actor
Narrator: General Auditions (Woman protagonist)
closed
Paid: Flat Rate 75 USD
Role assigned to: Kylie Rutzen Justine ✨ L. J. Long Laura Mirsky

Narrators of all genders, identities, and backgrounds welcome.


This anthology features dark fiction, so we want to hear your ability to guide the listener's emotions--whether the appropriate emotion is dread, shock, horror, terror, or disgust.


Please audition with the following excerpt:


I swallowed down a flood of nerves and stood. Walking home sounded miserable, but no way would I call my roommate and beg her to save me. 

If Jerry had offered me a ride, I might have taken him up on it, but Leo? I’d just met Leo.

I turned for the door, walking straight on my bare feet.

Leo stood up beside me, one hand reaching for me. “Hey, hey, where are you—”

“Sharon’s coming to get me.” The lie felt easy on my lips. “You two have a good night.”

Jerry grunted behind me. “Keys’ll be here for you tomorrow.”

I waved back at him, pretending his voice didn’t sound disappointed. Pretending he didn’t sound annoyed.

“Night. See you next time, maybe?” Leo’s voice followed me out the door. “Nice talking to you!”

I made it to the edge of the parking lot, out of view of the Goodnight’s front door. The lamp post caught me as I turned to look back. Neither man had followed me outside. Not yet.

The woods beckoned, so I took a hard left into the deeper darkness and walked on autopilot. No way could I walk home. Not right now. I could barely stand, and all of us in that bar had seen it. 

When I fell down against a tree, I forced myself upright and leaned my head back. Staring into the dark, willing myself back awake.

Somewhere behind me, the bar door opened and shut again. Voices sounded out, a muffled staccato of annoyance. Anger, even.

My eyes closed, listening. Heart speeding, I wondered if they’d follow me into these woods.

Language:
  • english
Voice description:
  • female adult
  • audiobook

  • *Say something you think would fit*

Favorite role Save Role for Later Total Submissions Toggle 31 Submissions Apply / Audition
Voice Actor
Voice Actor
Narrator: General Auditions (Man protagonist)
closed
Paid: Flat Rate 75 USD
Role assigned to: rein

Narrators of all genders, identities, and backgrounds welcome.


This anthology features dark fiction, so we want to hear your ability to guide the listener's emotions--whether the appropriate emotion is dread, shock, horror, terror, or disgust.


Please audition with the following excerpt:


Finally alone, I stand over the locked glass case containing Randy’s typewriter, another Underwood model 11 on a cart nearby. I’d painstakingly filed off the serial number from the left interior wall of the imposter machine and spent weeks carving the new number, CL-0112666-US and chemically aging the surface back to a perfect patina. No one would notice the difference, at least not anytime soon. I’d be long gone before the next scheduled cleaning of Randy’s infamous machine.

In the minimal security lighting of the museum hallways, the typewriter is unusually ominous. The multiple angles of the display lighting do not pierce the shadows beneath the round keys or the skeleton cage typebars and arms. I know nothing is there, but I feel eyes looking up at me with hunger, much like Randy looking into the machine in all the photos.

I punch in the code on the keypad on the side of the display’s pedestal and lift the glass cover. It was quiet before, but the instance the cover is off, the silence is heavier, invasive. Maybe the HVAC system switched off at that precise moment, removing that final touch of white noise constantly haunting empty rooms. Either way, it is eerie. I hold my breath, afraid to intrude on the silence as I listen deep for any hint of what I feel is watching.

“Time to get this done then live the good life on the beaches of Mexico,” my voice cuts through the room as I reach for the sides of Randy’s machine. Only me to hear. Not even a recording. I’d planned a malfunction of the cameras for this half of the building, which I would conveniently notice before the end of my shift and note in the security logs.

Language:
  • english
Voice description:
  • male adult
  • audiobook

  • *Say something you think would fit*

Favorite role Save Role for Later Total Submissions Toggle 33 Submissions Apply / Audition
Voice Actor
Voice Actor
Narrator: General Auditions (Man protagonist, Old West setting)
closed
Paid: Flat Rate 75 USD
Role assigned to: JoeBVO Patrick McCook Rich Summers VO

Narrators of all genders, identities, and backgrounds welcome. 


This anthology features dark fiction, so we want to hear your ability to guide the listener's emotions--whether the appropriate emotion is dread, shock, horror, terror, or disgust.


Please audition with the following excerpt:


I pulled some bullets from my belt, made sure to make a show of some nervous jittering, dropping one or two. Once I finished loadin’ the gun, I pulled back the hammer, let it slip as though my sweat was makin’ it difficult.

Then I raised the gun once more without cocking the hammer and pulled the trigger.

Y’ see, like I’ve said, us Dogs use magic of our own. We deal enough with the supernatural that it makes enough sense that we, ourselves, deal in the supernatural as well. But unlike ol’ Ben and his cult, we use ourselves as fuel. It’s the natural order of things, the balance to this here life.

My gun went off, takin’ not the metal of the bullets inside for ammunition, but rather tearin’ off a piece of my soul. And nothing kills a demon faster than the electric snap of one’s soul.

A part of my personality slipped away with that shot. I think maybe it was my joy as there was no fun to be had watchin’ the deputy’s face sour in surprise as part of me slipped into his skull and blasted the shadows out of his body. It fell to the ground, no noise, no movement. 

Like I said, demons were arrogant.

Both the deputy and devil were dead.

Language:
  • english
Voice description:
  • male adult
  • wild west
  • western/cowboy
  • audiobook

  • *Say something you think would fit*

Favorite role Save Role for Later Total Submissions Toggle 39 Submissions Apply / Audition
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