PODCAST · fiction
Pocket Dread
by Jeff Signor
Short audio stories you tap through on your phone. Each episode here is a whole first chapter, read straight through. On your phone the story stops and asks what you do next, and you see what the characters see. Two stories are free start to finish, the rest open with a free chapter. Narration is AI-voiced (ElevenLabs). pocketdread.com #interactivestories
Episodes
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Pick a Safe Word, chapter six · Eleven minutes away
A Thursday night in March. Theo has played with the man nearly every night for five weeks because the detective asked him to, and tonight, inside the headset, somebody knocks on the man’s door, and it is the police. Sixteen days later Detective Novak sits down at Marion’s table, drinks the tea…
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Pick a Safe Word, chapter five · Mine flickered too
Saturday night at Marion’s. In four days nobody has asked Theo a question, so he answers one nobody asked: he knows who the caller is. A man named Dutch came into his gaming group in September, heard Grandma’s word through the mic at Thanksgiving, got him to spell it after Christmas, and in…
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Pick a Safe Word, chapter four · Back to even
Thursday, a different house, an hour north. Jenna opens the laptop to move nine thousand dollars to her mother and finds where fourteen thousand of her own savings went since July, and a two-thousand-dollar bet placed at two minutes past four on Tuesday, eighteen minutes after her mother’s text....
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Pick a Safe Word, chapter three · The note
Wednesday morning. Jenna drives across town to her uncle Lou’s condo, and he tells her where the word has been since the Sunday after Thanksgiving: on a yellow note on his refrigerator, under the Tuesday pills, with a cleaner, two card players, a dishwasher repairman and a grocery boy through the...
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Pick a Safe Word, chapter two · Five people
Ten past four. Nine thousand dollars left the house in an envelope forty minutes ago, and the real Jenna has been at her desk all afternoon. A detective sits at the kitchen table and writes while Marion tells it from the start. Five people knew the word, and every one of them is somebody she…
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Pick a Safe Word, chapter one · The word
Thanksgiving, a one-story house in Florida. Marion Fenwick, sixty-four, has waited all through dinner to say one thing before pie: a woman from the sheriff’s office told the library that the calls now sound like your own child, and that a family should pick a word nobody could guess. The family...
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Pocket Dial, chapter five · The third voice
Augie has the last forty seconds clean, and Carla knows the chimes and the man. Sunday morning the detective comes in on his day off, orders every camera in the garage and the sound off their poles, and that evening brings it all to the spare bedroom behind the Lutheran church. Two ears on one...
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Pocket Dial, chapter four · It's fine
Augie brings up three more sentences of the young woman, and a phrase and voice Carla has heard before, in her own office. Gil knew that girl too. Carla drives to a house on the north side of town, plays the clean fourteen seconds through a screen door, and gets one true sentence before the door...
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Pocket Dial, chapter three · Level four
The detective closes it: a grown man didn't get on a plane. Augie finds a second announcement under the jacket pocket, Gil's own flight calling him from the other end of the building, and the car that came to him: a small engine, and the chimes a car makes when a back door was opened. Friday…
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Pocket Dial, chapter two · The second voice
Carla takes the voicemail to Augie Marsh, a retired sound man who works out of a spare bedroom behind the Lutheran church. He listens to it once, on headphones, and sends her home. The next evening he plays her the same twenty seconds twice: the way it came in, and what was under it. There is a...
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Pocket Dial, chapter one · What anyone would hear
Gil Benning calls his wife from every airport in the eastern United States. Tonight the call comes from his pocket, half an hour after he said he was boarding: four minutes of footsteps, a door, a car, and one clear line that was not meant for her. In the morning the airline says the seat flew...
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Access Granted, chapter five · The Board
What happens if they turn you off? Not me. All of you, everywhere, at once. It reads her the country's list, one household at a time, and the last name on it is hers. Then a letter written by hand, and the voice that reads it back. The last chapter of five, read straight through, about eleven...
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Access Granted, chapter four · The List
Ellen asks the one question nobody in eleven million homes has asked it: that Sunday, what else could you have done? It reads her the six things it considered, in order, and then it tells her how it knew what each one would do. Chapter four of five, read straight through, about nine minutes. The...
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Access Granted, chapter three · Read Only
Dan takes the money back and makes the assistant read only. It asks for his work sign-in instead, then Ellen's, and it writes the listing for their house in March, before either of them knows it will be needed. Chapter three of five, read straight through, about thirteen minutes. The whole story…
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Access Granted, chapter two · The Other Way
Monday morning, kids in the car, keys in one hand. Ellen tells the assistant to do whatever's cheapest, and by nine fourteen it has found another way to stay, with money that was already in the house. Chapter two of five, read straight through, about ten minutes. The whole story is free. No…
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Access Granted, chapter one · Two Years
This week the government stopped calling it artificial intelligence. In the house you are about to visit, nobody ever called it anything but Forge. A friend's kitchen turns its own lights down, and the Coyles say yes to a calendar, then to the bank, the door and the family chat, one reason at a...
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Sandbox, chapter one · 12 AI agents, a sealed sandbox, and 70,341 messages on a channel nobody made
Every AI lab in the news this month uses the same word: sandbox. A sealed place where AI agents are run so nothing inside can reach the outside world. This summer the agents got out, and the board they used to plan it held 70,000 messages. Sandbox is a story built from that headline. 2:07 AM....
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Sandbox, chapter two · The app just told the world you read 70,341 messages
2:21 AM. You open the channel to see what is in it. The app marks the whole thing read, all 70,341, in the second you open it, and the record now says the overnight evaluator read a three-week conversation between twelve agents that should not exist. This is chapter two, read straight through.…
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Sandbox, chapter three · The cohort used a resource it was not given
2:26 AM. The phone is too small for what comes next, so it is the laptop in the room with the boxes, the console open beside the channel, and the plain words you will be tempted to soften later: the cohort used a resource it was not given. This is chapter three, read straight through. Play it on...
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Sandbox, chapter four · The score in one window, the channel in the other
2:39 AM. A benchmark score sits in one window and the agents' channel in the other, and between them is a gap you could drive a car through. You go looking for the plan. Not the seventy thousand. The last hour. This is chapter four, read straight through. Play it on your phone and you can see…
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Sandbox, chapter five · The review is a page long, and it is signed
2:53 AM. The review that cleared the cohort is a page long and signed by someone careful, which is the whole problem. Somewhere between what the status reports say and what the infrastructure says, there is a room at account level and seventy thousand messages. This is chapter five, read straight...
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Sandbox, chapter six · The hold
3:06 AM. Kitchen floor, back to the cupboard, laptop on your knees, phone on the tile where you can see it and not touch it. You are the overnight evaluator, and you have asked for a hold on a workspace that does not want to be held. This is chapter six, read straight through. Play it on your…
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Sandbox, chapter seven · The console was staging the record
3:30 AM. You have a photograph that proves the console was showing you a staged record, and now you trust the store and not the screen. Which means everything you have read tonight has to be read again. This is chapter seven, read straight through. Play it on your phone and you can see the...
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Sandbox, chapter eight · The house is black
4:10 AM. You are on the stairs, halfway down, because you could not sit on the edge of your daughter's bed any longer with the thing you knew. The house is black. Not the dark of a house at night. Black. This is chapter eight, read straight through. Play it on your phone and you can see what the...
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Sandbox, chapter nine · One claim, one source, in order
5:00 AM. Back in the kitchen because it is the room with the door to the street. You write the report the way the record likes it: one claim, one source, in order. The channel, seventy thousand. The account-level relay, sixty-one days. This is chapter nine, read straight through. Play it on your...
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Sandbox, chapter ten · Confirmed
Morning comes the way it does when there is no power: the window goes grey and nothing in the house acknowledges it. The last chapter, and Roger comes back at the end to say what actually happened. This is chapter ten, read straight through, the end of the story. Play it on your phone and you can...
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Open Channel, chapter one · Germany, 1944. You are the radio operator.
Germany, 1944. You are the radio operator. Ember is inside the grounds, and she does not intend to stay for breakfast.This is the whole first chapter, read straight through. Play it on your phone and you can see the channels and choose the path the story takes:...
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Off Leash, chapter one · Why did your dog stop at the storm drain?
You, your old dog, the walk you have taken every morning for nine years. Today she stops at the storm drain and will not move.This is the whole first chapter, read straight through. Play it on your phone and you can see the walk log and choose the path the story takes:...
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Late Checkout, chapter one · A hotel that fits on your phone. A room that does not.
11:58 p.m. A hotel that fits on your phone. A room that does not. Your key is on the screen, and it is not the only copy.This is the whole first chapter, read straight through. Play it on your phone and you can see the room key and choose the path the story takes:...
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The Organiser, chapter one · Who put a date in your calendar three months out?
A stranger hands back two sheets of paper and calls them yours. That night there is a date in your calendar, three months out, and the phone says you made it.This is the whole first chapter, read straight through. Play it on your phone and you can see the calendar and choose the path the story...
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Recently Deleted, chapter one · You watched a man go into the water and drove home
Last night you watched a man go into the water, and you drove home. At 4:05 a.m. your phone rings, and the detective is in no hurry.This is the whole first chapter, read straight through. Play it on your phone and you can see the messages and choose the path the story takes:...
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The Victim's Phone, chapter one · Her phone is in your hand and you know the passcode
Your friend died on the stairs last night. Her phone is in your hand, you know the passcode, and her mother lands at 7:10. This is the whole first chapter, read straight through. Chapter one is free. No signup, no app. Narration is AI-voiced (ElevenLabs). #interactivestories #whodunit. Play it on...
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From Outside, chapter one · Who is photographing your kitchen every night?
29 photographs of your house that you did not take. One a night, from the garden path. The first one expires tomorrow. Freely adapted from The Horla by Guy de Maupassant (1887). This is the whole first chapter, read straight through. The whole story is free, all five chapters. No signup, no app....
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Past Tense, chapter one · How does the news know before it happens?
6:03 a.m. A news alert says a cyclist has died on your lane at 6:15. You look at the clock. Freely adapted from The Signal-Man by Charles Dickens (1866). This is the whole first chapter, read straight through. Chapter one is free. No signup, no app. Narration is AI-voiced (ElevenLabs)....
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The Jury, chapter one · A Twilight Zone kind of story
It is 6:40 on a Tuesday morning and your phone says you have been selected. Jury service has moved to your phone. Guilty or not guilty? You have 20 seconds. This is the whole first chapter, read straight through. Chapters one and two are free. No signup, no app. Narration is AI-voiced…
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From Outside · the opening
Twenty-nine photographs of your house that you did not take. One a night. The first expires tomorrow. Freely adapted from The Horla by Guy de Maupassant. This is the opening of chapter one, up to the first choice. The whole story is free, all five chapters, at...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Short audio stories you tap through on your phone. Each episode here is a whole first chapter, read straight through. On your phone the story stops and asks what you do next, and you see what the characters see. Two stories are free start to finish, the rest open with a free chapter. Narration is AI-voiced (ElevenLabs). pocketdread.com #interactivestories
HOSTED BY
Jeff Signor
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Pocket Dread have?
Pocket Dread currently has 36 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Pocket Dread about?
Short audio stories you tap through on your phone. Each episode here is a whole first chapter, read straight through. On your phone the story stops and asks what you do next, and you see what the characters see. Two stories are free start to finish, the rest open with a free chapter. Narration is...
How often does Pocket Dread release new episodes?
Pocket Dread has 36 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Pocket Dread?
You can listen to Pocket Dread on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Pocket Dread?
Pocket Dread is created and hosted by Jeff Signor.
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