We Don't Hear Crickets Anymore

by Kel Byron

Spencer wakes one morning to find that something has moved into his old hunting blind, and it left him a startling image on his trail camera. Willow hasn't left her house in months, but the arrival of an uninvited guest in her home makes it hard to stay. Nathan, haunted by memories of the last camping trip he ever took with his childhood friend, comes back to see the shoe tree one last time. These six Midwestern Gothic short stories encompass the mundane, folkloric horror of the Great Lakes, with all the nostalgia of a campfire story.

173 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 14, 2025

About the author

Kel is a horror author whose work focuses on rural terror, character-driven stories, and weaving gruesome imagery with touching narratives about human bonds. Her work was inspired by the lingering spookiness of growing up in an isolated rural area and the superstitions and folktales that surrounded her childhood in the wetlands of Michigan.

She began her writing career in college where she would disgust her classmates on purpose, writing short stories about body horror, monsters, and the fear of the unknowable. When she joined Reddit's NoSleep forum under the username "Wendingus", her gloomy yet comedic stories about the gruesome folk horrors surrounding a fictional Appalachian village quickly formed a humble yet loyal fanbase.

Kel's online work has been narrated on YouTube by voice actors Autumn Ivy, MrCreepypasta, and others. After disappearing from the internet for several years to get treatment for multiple tumors, she returned in 2023 to completely re-write and re-imagine her previous work as a formal novel, beginning a trilogy that will continue in 2024. Kel's work often focuses on themes such as queer identity, grief, mental health, trauma recovery, and platonic love. Although horror is her main genre of choice, she enjoys weaving in comedic moments of feral, chaotic dark humor.

Today, she lives in Saginaw, Michigan where she works as a graphic designer and neonatal kitten rescuer. She likes to lie face-down on the kitchen floor, perch like a gargoyle, and eat leaves that she finds on the ground.

Reviews

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful short story collection that affirms Kel Byron as one of the best new voices in horror.

“As I began to paint the large open sky, the cloudless sunset, and the endless rows of corn, the purposeful absence of any end made my skin crawl just looking at it. Wide open spaces had always made me uncomfortable. If there was no road, no building, no landmarks to keep your eyes locked onto, one could easily imagine that it went on forever. That was the inspiration here: an endless field, bathed in red and orange, with no destination to cling to.” (p. 89).

We Don't Hear Crickets Anymore perfectly embodies what I find so unsettling about the Midwest. Driving across the flatness and wide open spaces has always given me the sense of a void that could swallow me whole.

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[Image: Book Cover]

Citation:
Byron, K. (2025). We don't hear crickets anymore (Kindle Edition). Kel Byron. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0G...

Title: We Don't Hear Crickets Anymore
Author(s): Kel Byron
Year: 2025
Genre: Fiction - Short Story Collection: Horror
Page count: 160 pages
Date(s) read: 11/17/25 - 11/20/25
Book 245 in 2025
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[Icy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story collection

Reads like a love letter to the vibe and heart of those dusty, oft forgotten places in the American midwest, only it's drenched in blood and trauma. The characters felt real and grounded, flawed in that perfectly human way. All six stories were strong, with unique individual voices that were at times touching, eerie, melancholic , and evocative of a nostalgic and bittersweet memory. A delightful collection that I didn't want to put down.

[The Atlas of Stars · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best way I can describe this is that it's a love letter to midwest gothic horror. Each story brought it's own feelings and questions. Everything about this was thoughtful, eerie, unsettling, heartbreaking, and bone chilling. My favorite from this whole book was Saint Lily. That one made my blood run cold and left me with so many unanswered questions. Kel Byron truly shines with every new release that she puts out and this is no exception.