Spawn of Inferno by Hugh B. Cave Episode #298
Hugh B. Cave | December 11, 2024-
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Spawn of Inferno by Hugh B. Cave Episode #298
Hugh B. Cave
SPAWN OF INFERNO
Episode #298 · Written by Hugh B. Cave · Narrated by Scott Miller
In 1840s Darbury, Massachusetts, an impossible noon-day darkness drops over the town, turning familiar streets into a hunting ground for thieves, killers, and something far worse. As bodies pile up in the black and a hideous presence feeds unseen, Dr. Bruce Moller races to a bitter recluse’s forbidden machine that may have opened a doorway to the Dimension of Death.
In the respectable 1840s mill town of Darbury, Massachusetts, Dr. Bruce Moller expects his days to be ruled by routine ailments and quiet evenings in his rooms off the square. Instead, a gray envelope arrives with a simple promise: he has less than twenty-four hours to live—and he’s not the only doctor in town to receive the same threat.
When an impossible darkness drops over Darbury at mid-morning, swallowing sunlight, streetlamps, and every familiar landmark, the city erupts into panic. Hidden in that suffocating black are looters, murderers…and something far worse, an invisible presence that breathes, stinks of decay, and leaves only mangled corpses and slime behind. Following the trail of terror, Moller is drawn back to the brooding house of Antone Sergio, a reclusive scientist who boasts of a crystalline “gateway” to the Dimension of Death—and a machine powerful enough to let its hungry inhabitants through.
“Spawn Of Inferno” is Hugh B. Cave in full command of his strange, nerve-tightening art: a fusion of science fiction and uncanny horror that feels like a lost case file from the age of gaslight and galvanism. Cave builds dread step by step, from whispered threats and asylum records to a desperate dash through lightless streets and a final confrontation with a machine that has no business existing in our world. If you enjoy atmospheric New England settings, cosmic menace just beyond the veil, and ordinary professionals caught in nightmare circumstances, this story will scratch every eerie itch.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hugh B. Cave (1910–2004) was one of the most prolific storytellers of the 20th century, selling hundreds of stories to the legendary pulp magazines and later to paperback publishers around the world. A regular presence in pages like Weird Tales, Astounding, and Unknown, he moved effortlessly between science fiction, horror, fantasy, mystery, and adventure, always grounding his wildest ideas in vivid characters and tangible, lived-in settings.
Over a career that spanned more than seven decades, Cave wrote everything from jungle thrillers and Caribbean voodoo tales to thoughtful, character-driven novels and award-winning horror. Yet readers keep coming back to pieces like “Spawn Of Inferno,” where his gift for pace, mood, and mounting unease is on full display. Hearing this story performed brings out all the crackling tension in his dialogue and the creeping dread in his descriptions—an ideal way to experience a master craftsman of vintage speculative fiction at work.
LISTEN TO THE STORY
Listen to Spawn Of Inferno by Hugh B. Cave — a vintage science fiction nightmare where a New England town is smothered in living darkness and hunted by something from beyond.
SCI-FI HORROR AND DARK SCIENCE FICTION
Some of the most unforgettable science fiction doesn’t just imagine the future—it unsettles it. These stories move beyond exploration and invention, stepping into places where something has gone wrong and no one fully understands why.
Strange signals arrive from empty places. Creatures appear where nothing should live. Ordinary people find themselves facing forces that ignore reason, defy explanation, and refuse to be controlled. Whether the threat comes from deep space, another dimension, or the hidden corners of Earth itself, the result is the same: a slow realization that the rules no longer apply.
These stories explore isolation, transformation, unseen presences, and the quiet dread that builds when answers never come. Step into worlds where the unknown isn’t waiting to be discovered—it’s already here, and it’s watching.
- The Voice in the Night by William Hope Hodgson
- The Hounds of Tindalos by Frank Belknap Long
- The Last Drive by Carl Jacobi
- The Shambler from the Stars by Robert Bloch
- The Grip of Death by Robert Bloch
- Spawn of Inferno by Hugh B. Cave
- The Dream Snake by Robert E. Howard
- The Fearsome Touch of Death by Robert E. Howard
- The Man Who Was Pale by Jack Sharkey
- Upon the Dull Earth by Philip K. Dick
- The Thing Behind Hell’s Door by Robert Silverberg
- The Moonlit Road by Ambrose Bierce
- The Eater of Souls by Henry Kuttner
- Dance of the Dead by Richard Matheson
- The City of the Singing Flame by Clark Ashton Smith
ABOUT THE LOST SCI-FI PODCAST
The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast is the most listened-to vintage science fiction podcast in the world. Ranked the #1 Science Fiction Podcast in 34 countries and heard in more than 190 countries, the show has surpassed 3.8 million listens.
Each episode features carefully selected stories from the Golden Age of science fiction, professionally narrated. Timeless storytelling the way it was meant to be heard.
What listeners are saying:
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“Brought home at last! Since reading Bradbury as a 10y/o, sci-fi remains close to my heart. After a brief foray into cosmic horror for a couple of years, you drew me back home. A sincere thank you. Rare I give 5 stars as nothing in life is perfect. Your team deserves it.”
— Disregard Reality
Vintage science fiction. Professionally narrated. Carefully curated.
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