Pseudopod · Escape Artists Foundation

PseudoPod 1021: Bad Doors

March 20, 2026·39 min·2 clips

Cosmo says the door is stalking them, while Jesse insists, “What is your trauma, man?”

1. Pseudopod 1021, “Bad Doors,” centers on a burgundy door that appears in Cosmo's home during the early COVID period. 2. Scott Campbell hosts the episode, Trendaine Sparks narrates it, and John Wiswell's story was originally published in Uncanny Magazine in 2023. 3. The episode asks what a person does when a door appears where no door should exist and keeps returning. 4. Cosmo first notices the door while NPR is talking about social distancing and he is stacking empty Coke Zero cans in his home office. 5. Jesse's dog Rufus noses at the door, and Cosmo spots something “thin and flaky” on the floor that looks like snakeskin. 6. Cosmo moves out, sells the house, and tells Jesse he is “not finding out” what the door is about. 7. The door disappears before the realtor, Mrs. Weiss, sees the house, and she comments that the hallway vibe is better without it. 8. Cosmo later finds the same burgundy door in his new home after he and Jesse carry in a beige sofa and sit down with a vape pen. 9. Jesse walks toward the door while Cosmo backs away, saying, “I just said I don't want to know,” and then Cosmo bolts out to the moving truck. 10. When Cosmo returns, Jesse is gone and the only clue is a long piece of snakeskin at the foot of the closed door. 11. Cosmo spends the police investigation in cheap motels and keeps Rufus close because dogs are being turned away from some shelters during COVID outbreaks. 12. Uncle Dahl dismisses the door over the phone, argues about Facebook conspiracy theories, and says Cosmo should invest instead of worrying about “evil doors.” 13. In a motel room, Rufus again noses at the wall and Cosmo sees the burgundy door beside the closet, with snakeskin dangling from the dog's mouth. 14. Cosmo buys a decade-old used RV with a recently replaced engine and measures it because the door has always appeared the same size. 15. He believes the RV is “the wrong dimensions for other things,” too short and too narrow for the door to fit. 16. At Uncle Dahl's house in Florida, Cosmo confronts a blue-painted brick wall, surveillance cameras, and his uncle's offer to let the door appear so they can make money. 17. Scott Campbell's closing commentary frames the story around fight, flight, and freeze responses, with Cosmo as flight and Uncle Dahl as fight. 18. The narration stays direct and conversational, with Trendaine Sparks carrying long stretches of dialogue between Cosmo, Jesse, and Uncle Dahl. 19. People who like pandemic-era horror and family conflict will get the most from it. 20. Listeners wanting a spoiler-free mystery with no supernatural door antics may skip it.

As heard by us

A family dispute and a missing cousin turn into a sharp horror story about dangerous doors.

Bad Doors turns a family argument, a missing cousin, and a COVID fight into horror that keeps circling back to doors you cannot trust. It stays close to ordinary domestic talk, which helps the dread land harder than any big setup would.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you want horror that starts at home and makes the doors in a house feel wrong, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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