STORY SHOWCASE #22

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LEGACY

by S. M. Davis

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A little taster…

It had been a fox, but now it was a bloody mess, its stomach torn apart and ropes of intestines spilling out, a large pool of blood soaking the earth around it. Worse, though, were the mushrooms. Its stomach cavity was filled with mushrooms, growing like tumors, eating the carcass from the inside out. Some were even emerging through its fur, growing in a band around its neck and across its jowls. Fungal growth ringed the devastated remains, growing through the pool of coagulating blood like the chalk outline at a murder scene. This was not good.

His mind raced as he skirted around the mess, going up the steps and cautiously approaching the door, only to hesitate on his front stoop. The door was ripe with fungi, growing right from the wood. Dark patches of growth framed the door and were spreading out across the walls. He pushed the door open further, careful to touch only the wood, and the smell of dark earth assaulted him. A desperate need emanated from the blackened interior. He stepped back on the small porch, his feet cresting the top step. He didn’t want to go in there.

Directly behind him, a ragged hiss pierced the air.

About the author

S. M. Davis was born, raised and educated in New England, receiving undergraduate degrees in theater and religion and a Masters of Divinity in Buddhist Ministry. He is a Buddhist teacher and a translator, splitting his time between India and the USA. His writing has previously appeared in Garbology: The GarbAugust Anthology of Awesome Trash.

We asked S. M. Davis …

K&R: What was the spark or idea that led you to write this story?

SMD: It’s hard to think of anything trashier than jumping on the mycological horror trend at the moment, and I love folk and occult horror, so thought it would be fun to play in both of those sandboxes at once. Then, for some reason, my brain started itching with the phrase “devouring embrace,” and the story, which at this point clearly had to be a romance, or, at least, romantic, sprouted from there.

K&R: Do you have any other work do you have out there, for folks to dig into?

SMD: I have a story in Kilter & Rammel’s Fun in the Dark #2: Open Water which releases on 1 July 2026.

K&R: What’s next for you as a writer?

SMD: I have a lot of inspiration  but right now writing is on the back burner, ideas fermenting comfortably.

K&R: What does “trashy fiction” mean to you, and what do you love about it?

SMD: I try, with everything I read, to use the art as a chance to learn something about myself, learn something about the world, and to be entertained… But that is the work of the reader, not the writer, and trashy fiction itself isn’t interested in teaching you anything. Trashy fiction is, to me, fiction that is unabashedly created for the sake of entertainment. It is almost always going to be genre fiction, it will often be picking up on trends and ideas in the socio-cultural zeitgeist, and it isn’t afraid to lean into genre tropes if it can wring some pleasure out of them. That said, the best of it is still creative and original, but it is self-aware enough to know what genre it is playing in and making the most of what that genre has to offer. 

K&R: Hit us with your own favourite “trashy” fiction recommendations!

SMD: I recently picked up the novelization of the new Toxic Avenger movie, written by Adam Cesare, and I haven’t read it yet but am pretty excited for that (not only because the new film was a lot of fun but also because Cesare is a huge Tromo fan). I have also recently become a fan of the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch, which in some ways is bog standard urban fantasy/occult detective stories set in contemporary London, but the character work is great and they’re a lot of fun (and at ten novels and more than a half dozen novellas in the series it is quite comfortably in the trashy camp!)

K&R: If you’ve read the rest of the stories in Trash Tales, what’s your favourite, and why?

SMD: I think its a great collection and think all the stories collected are fun, but my trashy little heart will always lie in horror, and “Momma’s Good Silver,” “Bonding Time,” and “Sciuridcerebromaximatosis” all hit the spot.

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