Ambrose Bierce’s tale of a murderous son in “The Parenticide Club” available as a free audio book.Though writer Amrbose Bierce has been almost forgotten today, his work is still just as terrifying in these modern times as it was when it was first written in the latter part of the 19th Century.

In his short story, “The Parenticide Club,” Bierce tells the first person account of a prisoner accused of killing his mother and admitted to having killed his uncle.

The prisoner recounts how a judge described his deed as, “one of the most ghastly crimes he had ever been called upon to explain away.”

But as this trial rolls on into its seventh year, writer Ambrose Bierce gets into the sadistic head of the murderer and leads the reader on a sick and twisted path that would have caused Edgar Allen Poe would to stand and cheer.

Bierce, who was born in 1842 in Ohio, would lead an exciting life, first, as a soldier in the American Civil War, then becoming a newspaper man, then even being accused of calling for the assassination of President William McKinley, and ultimately disappearing while on a trip to Mexico in 1914.

Leaving behind a collection of novels and short stories, his work would go on to inspire film makers like Gregory Peck, Alfred Hitchcock and Quinton Tarantino.

His tale of “son gone wrong” still frightens people today.

To hear this story as an audio book, visit LibriVox.