The reading was good. Nicely paced.

The accent Ben gave Art reminded me of a character Stephen King would’ve written, I thought it was brilliant.

And the description of the tentacles hitting Marcus’ coworkers…wow. I think I actually shivered at one point.

I liked the ending. The uncertainty of what happened — were the Chalkies eating them? Turning them into incubators for their eggs? Getting revenge? Just bored? — worked for me, because the unknown and unexplained is often much scarier than the known/explained.

I’m going to look askance at any weird little divots in my walls from now on. =P

Can’t wait to read more.

Enjoyed it and will look for more.

Good words to you,

Jean

I do look forward to more from the author though.

Count me squarely in the half and half camp. I absolutely loved the set up, especially the mundanity of it. There’s a running joke where I come from (the Isle of Man, itself, to many, a running joke) that everywhere residents go looks, when it comes down to it, like the island. Other worlds when we get there will look like this one and probably feature airport departure and arrival lounges, unpleasant work colleagues and people in bars who wished they had better jobs. Brilliantly handled and observed. Likewise the Chalkies themselves were a great conceit and whilst I can see the ‘and then the tentacles killed everyone’ criticism, they were convincingly ALIEN, which is very nearly impossible to do. The one problem I had was with the ending. Again, I liked the mirroring of the opening and the disorientation but, if I can be frank, the story stopped as much as it ended. I still enjoyed it, but I felt the ending let it down a little.

That aside, I’d love to read/hear more of Doug’s stuff:)

I knew where Doug was going roughly, and I knew that the Chalkies were going to figure into the story as kind of neo-Aztecs or native americans, taking their revenge on the earthers. Once the Chalkies started up, though, the story started to fall apart. I’m pretty sure that the intestines/tentacles coming through the wall was supposed to be a stereotypical “nasty revelation,” but it didn’t hit me as scary at all…more like “and then the tentacles grabbed people inside the building.”

The nebulousness of the end also didn’t work for me. I can see where Kate came from in comment #25, but nebulousness isn’t scary, to me. So he’s wandering in endless corridors forever…it’s kind of like the airport from Hell, you know? If there were something else to that, I could see the horror. If his skin was becoming chalkish, I could see the horror. If he kept being pursued by Chalkies to the end of time, certain in the knowledge that they would eventually find him, I could see the horror. But wandering around doesn’t do it for me.

Of course, it could be me. I loved wandering around the stacks in my college’s grad library. Wandering corridors would be kinda fun. :)

Final note: While I didn’t like the story overall, there was enough that I did like that I’d be tempted to try another short story by Mr. Warrick.

Great story.

That being said, I do appreciate sci-fi horror, and I’d love more of the same!

Well written for sure, but the ending just sorta…well…ended.

Ben, your readings are fantastic. They always sound very noir-esque.

I liked your story, Doug. Ratscum (sp) has gotta be one of the nastiest names I’ve ever heard. Well done. The chalkie circles reminded me of China Mieville’s Iron Council some, which isn’t a bad thing either. I just wished your story had gone on a little longer — the ending came too quick for me. Keep up the good work everyone.

I mean, the concept was good, but it just kinda didn’t hit me really. The ending didn’t get me. It sort of dissolved in the end.

Thanks for the story though!

More, more, more!

Mur is queen of the segue.

Bottom line: I dug it. Click on my name to read a more detailed review in my blog.

This is something that should be made into a short film, like John Carpenter’s Masters of Horror series.

I think I’ll have to give it another listen…

The new file works fine.

For right now I’m restoring the original version so that your downloads will work properly. Please try downloading again. We still need to fix the sample rate thing, but we’ll make sure we test the hell out of it before we make it live.

Thanks for your patience, and sorry about the confusion.

Worse than the triangles and eyes in Infection.

thanks, I think. ^_^