by Ritch Duncan  —

“Hi, I’m Ritch Duncan, writing to welcome you to Deathbed, a new, weekly, online publication and newsletter presenting original horror stories from comedy writers, officially launching on Monday, September 29^th, 2025.

But before we invite you to creak open the cellar door and take your first tentative steps down the basement stairs, directly into darkness, towards the wet, thumping sound that drew you out of bed in the middle of the night—which honestly, is probably just an old washing machine, they sometimes make noises like that in these old cabins when the rain is coming down the way it is—before you push through that feeling that says, ‘maybe I shouldn’t be doing this’ you may have questio-”

The Shambler’s axe hit the side of Duncan’s skull with the force of a speeding car, obliterating not only the right side of the comedy writer’s head, but also the possibility of an open casket funeral for his mother.

This wasn’t a huge tragedy, however, since, in all fairness,

a) there weren’t that many jobs out there for creative writers in 2025 anyway,

and

b) Honestly? He wasn’t even that creative. I mean, he’d stolen that open casket thing from the movie Goodfellas. You all noticed that, right? And even worse, unlike the gushing head wound he just sustained, it wasn’t exactly a deep cut.

The Shambler turned to the audience, eager to take over narration duties and allow Duncan to get back to whatever it was he did all day on LinkedIn or Threads or whatever.

“Urrghth Ennnouonnenshhhhpghht”

The Shambler stopped attempting to speak, and instead reached both blood-soaked hands around to the back of the shapeless brown sack mask on its head. With a grunt, The Shambler pulled off the mask, revealing the stunningly beautiful face of the actress Sydney Sweeney.

“Hi. I’m actress, producer, and current “It Girl” Sydney Sweeney,” said the Shambler, shaking her head to free her gorgeous, shoulder-length blonde hair from the confines of the filthy mask. “And when I’m not dominating the cultural conversation by sparking discussions about acting, eugenics, or my objectively perfect breasts, I like to axe-murder comedy writers. But enough about me. You probably have questions about Deathbed. I mean, what business do comedy people have writing horror stories?”

Sydney Sweeney stepped over Duncan’s corpse, which had crumpled forward, ass up, in the middle of the staircase, the axe still lodged in the side of his skull. The end of the handle had caught one of the steps at an awkward angle, twisting the body around in a weird, catlike pose, and impeding its ability to roll. Sydney Sweeney wrinkled her nose in disgust and poked the corpse with her foot, hoping to nudge it the rest of the way down the steps. It didn’t budge.

Blood was dripping from Duncan’s half-shattered head, each thick drop rhythmically splatting into a widening puddle under the steps, like the tapping of a ghoulish metronome.

“Eww,” said Sydney Sweeney, pouting. “Gross.”

She walked up the stairs into the cabin’s kitchen, stopped in front of the sink, and rolled up the sleeves of her navy blue coveralls. “Here’s the thing about horror and comedy,” Sydney Sweeney said, washing clumps of brain matter off her delicate forearms. “They’re related. Intimately.”

“Both genres attempt similar things. They strive to elicit involuntary physical responses in an audience, be they laughs... or screams. They do this by creating an atmosphere of tension and release. The tension steadily builds, but the arrival of the release remains ambiguous, keeping the audience on edge as they wait for the trap to be sprung.”

Sydney Sweeney stepped away from the sink, drying her hands on a terrycloth dish towel. She turned her back, looked over her shoulder at the audience, and smiled coyly, slowly pulling down the long zipper on the front of her coveralls. “Talented practitioners of horror and comedy know that the success or failure of the twist is dependent on one key element...” she said, looking back over her other shoulder.

In a single motion, Sydney Sweeney stepped out of her coveralls, wearing a full-length crimson gown, glittering with what had to be hundreds of crystals.

“…timing.”

Unsurprisingly, Sydney Sweeney looked terrific, if a little odd, as she was still wearing The Shambler’s bloody work boots.

A smartly dressed assistant with a headset walked briskly out of the rustic living room and gave her hair a zhuzh. “Wonderful, darling,” he whispered. Another assistant, this one female, but dressed identically, emerged from the downstairs guest bedroom, and placed a plate of California rolls on the kitchen counter, artfully arranged in a circle around a tiny dish of edamame. The taxidermied head of a glassy-eyed bison leered down from the living room wall. “Thanks, but I’ll eat later.” Sydney Sweeney said. “I’m trying to tell these nice people about the relationship between comedy and horror.”

“You see, both genres thrive on expectations,” Sydney Sweeney continued, clomping over to the counter, her boots leaving ruddy, crimson tracks across the rough-hewn, wooden floorboards. “They set something up, and then toy with the audience on the way to the inevitable payoff, whether it’s the slow, shambling gait of a brain-eating zombie, or an old dowager who places an expensive vase up on a pedestal, and tells the The Three Stooges to ‘be careful.’”

Sydney Sweeney popped a slice of California roll in her mouth, taking a moment to daintily chew and swallow. She flashed a million dollar smile, and held it for a moment before continuing. “Comedy and horror also seek out relatable human anxieties, name them, exaggerate them, and put them on display so the audience can communally exorcise them. Not only did two of the biggest names in horror today, Jordan Peele and Zach Cregger, start out in sketch comedy, but Ari Aster, one of contemporary horror cinema’s most respected auteurs, followed up two of the best horror films in a generation, Hereditary and Midsommar with Beau is Afraid, an experimental, Lynchian tour-de-force that included dark, comedic elements that many critics have compared positively to the comedy masterpiece Airplane!”

Sydney Sweeney looked back at the plate, contemplating the edamame. Deciding against it, she continued:

“The examples of comedy and horror overlap are too numerous to list, but society has always sought to neutralize its greatest horrors with mockery, a tradition we’ve seen play out in a direct line from Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, to Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, to Max Brooks’ The Zombie Survival Guide, to the seemingly endless contemporary reboots of the IP of The Addams Family and Scooby Doo. Honestly,” said Sydney Sweeney, twirling a finger in her hair, “it’s just a matter of time before someone asks me to play Daphne.” The male assistant ran out to help with her hair, but Sydney Sweeney shooed him away. “My point is, the skills needed to create comedy are not only similar to the ones used to create horror, but both genres feed one another, and provide essential ways to help understand, decode, and process the trauma of being human.”

Sydney Sweeney popped another piece of California roll in her mouth.

“Comedy and horror, while seemingly very different, are in fact, natural bedfellows. So in that spirit, Ritch Duncan’s new online publication, Deathbed, will seek out diverse comedic voices to create short, scary, funny, or just plain weird stories, from a group of comedy writers he’s been friends and colleagues with for over thirty years. Honestly, it’s kind of a shame that I just axe-murdered him, because he's already gathered a number of short stories, poems, and comic art that will start rolling out just in time for Halloween.” Sydney Sweeney shrugged. “With any luck, he’ll be back.”

**thunk**

A loud, wet sound rang out from the basement.

Another rang out, louder this time.

THUNK

Then another, even louder. Or was it...closer? .

THUNK

“Ugh,” said actress and producer Sydney Sweeney. “That fucking washing machine. It always does that. I’ll be right back.”

She pulled the cellar door open. The reanimated, zombielike corpse of Ritch Duncan stood in the doorway, swaying, axe in hand, chunks of brain mixed with flecks of shattered skull oozing onto his blood-soaked T-shirt. Sydney Sweeney screamed. A guttural, primal scream. A scream that generated pure terror from every core of her being.

Duncan lurched forward.

She slammed the door. The body could be heard tumbling down the stairs.

“Look,” said Sydney Sweeney, “there’s going to be plenty of time for all that bullshit starting on September 29^th. But for now, we could use some help getting the word out about Deathbed. Forward this to friends, share on social media, or, I don't know, print out a bunch of hard copies and hand them out to trick-or-treaters? (actually, don't do that, this site isn't really for kids.) Anything you can do to help spread the word about Deathbed would be great, which we are expecting to remain free of charge.We don’t really know what Deathbed is going to be, if it will work, or if anybody will read any of these horror stories at all. And that’s a little scary, because it’s unknown. But isn’t the unknown also...a little bit exciting?”

Sydney Sweeney pressed her ear to the closed cellar door. Something down there was stirring again. “This door will open again soon” she said. “But not today.” Sydney Sweeney slid the deadbolt into place, locking the door. She kicked off one of her work boots. “I really hope you’ll be back here on September 29^th for the premiere of Deathbed. It’s really going to be something.”

She kicked off her other work boot, sending it flying against the wall.

“Now can someone get me a fucking cheeseburger?”

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