by Christine Brooke-Rose - presented here through the kind courtesy of her literary executor, Jean-Michel Rabaté, who has allowed us to produce this story.

This week’s episode sponsored by Audible.com; they offer Pseudopod listeners a free audiobook download of their choice from Audible’s selection of over 100,000 titles.

“Red Rubber Gloves” was originally read by your editor in the late 1970s (when he was a small lad) in a collection called TALES OF UNEASE edited by John Burke and published in 1966. The book was a tie in to a soon-forgotten, and now seemingly lost, regional television anthology horror show of the same name that ran on London Weekend Television.

CHRISTINE BROOKE-ROSE (1923-2012) was one of the greatest British experimental novelists (the novel, BETWEEN (1968) is written entirely without using the verb “to be”), as well as a critic and a leading interpreter of Modernism. She was born in Geneva, Switzerland. During World War II she worked at Bletchley Park as a WAAF in Intelligence, later completing her university degree. She then worked for a time in London as a literary journalist and scholar. Because she often used alternative narrative devices (including unorthodox chronology and unusual typography) to create alternative realities, her work is sometimes classified as science fiction, though much of it is beyond category. As with much postmodern fiction, her writing — organized around an unspoken compact between the author, who is unspooling the text, and the reader, who is watching it unspool — is about the act of writing itself. As her New York Times obituary said “Ms. Brooke-Rose was a linguistic escape artist. In book after book she dons self-imposed syntactic shackles, and in book after book she gleefully slips them.”

Your reader this week - Kim Lakin-Smith - writes dark fantasy and science fiction short stories that have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies including Black Static, Interzone, Celebration, Myth-Understandings, Further Conflicts, Pandemonium: Stories of the Apocalypse, The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories By Women, and others, with ‘Johnny and Emmie-Lou Get Married’ shortlisted for the BSFA short story award 2009. She is the author of the gothic fantasy Tourniquet; Tales from the Renegade City, the YA novella Queen Rat, and Cyber Circus which was shortlisted for both the 2012 BSFA Best Novel award and the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel.

Her short story ‘Beyond Hope’ features in Solaris Rising 2, which is launched at this year’s Eastercon. Later in the year, her crossover YA novel Autodrome will be published by Snowbooks. Autodrome is part Speed Racer, part Death Race - on the same day that 15 year old Zar Punkstar qualifies as Pro Leaguer, he finds his inventor father murdered. His opposition are polished Pro Leaguers, hired thugs, and parts pirates. But who to trust in a world of competitors?

Visit Kim at her website

“In the kitchen window of the right-hand house the panel of two squares over two over two over two is open to reveal a· black rectangle and the beginning of the gleaming sink. Inside the sink is a red plastic bowl and on the window-sill are the red rubber gloves, now at rest.

In the morning the sunlight slants on all the windows, reflecting gold in some of the black squares but not in others, making each rectangular window, with its eight squares across and four squares down, look like half a chessboard gone berserk in order to confuse the queen and both her knights.

In the black rectangle of the open kitchen window the sunlight gleams on the stainless steel double sink unit, just beyond the cream-painted frame. Above the gleaming sink the red rubber gloves move swiftly, rise from the silver greyness lifting a yellow mass, plunging it into greyness, lifting it again, twisting its tail, shifting it to the right-hand. sink, moving back left, vanishing into greyness, rising and moving swiftly, in and out, together and apart.

On closer scrutiny I can see that in the left-hand house the wooden frames of the thirty-two black squares, eight by four in each of the rectangular windows, are painted white. It is only the right-hand house which has cream-painted windows. They all looked the same behind the trees against the strong September sun that faces me on my high balcony. The left-hand house seems quite devoid of life. Possibly the two rectangular windows, one above the other in the square end of the inverted U, are not the windows of the bathroom and kitchen at all in the left-hand house. It is difficult to see them through the apple-tree, and of course through the goldening elm in the garden at the back of my block. In the right-hand house, however, the lower room is definitely the kitchen, in the black rectangle of which the red rubber gloves move swiftly apart, shake hands, vanish into greyness, lift up a foam-white mass, vanish and reappear, move to the right, move back, lunge into greyness, rise and move swiftly right. Beyond the red rubber gloves is a pale grey shape, then blackness.”

PLEASE HELP PSEUDOPOD AND ANSWER A VERY SHORT DEMOGRAPHIC SURVEY AT THIS LINK. IT WILL HELP US IMMEASURABLY! and thank you!

SURVEY

 

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by Vylar Kaftan.

“The Suicide Witch” originally appeared in Daily Science Fiction, July 2012 and can be read here. She says “I wrote this story for the Codex Halloween contest. Codex is an online group of professional writers, and every year we trade “seeds” to spark new stories. My seed for this story was to write about a mortician who glues hair for special events. Clearly I have some funny ideas about how morticians live.”

VYLAR KAFTAN has published about 40 short stories in places such as Asimov’s, Lightspeed, and Clarkesworld. She’s the founder of a new literary-themed science fiction convention in the San Francisco Bay Area called FOGcon, which happens in March (click link under the name). She was nominated for a Nebula in 2011 and blogs at here. Her novella which will be out in Asimov’s in the February issue - it’s an alternate history in which the Incan Empire survives into the 19th century, and bargains with America for a smallpox vaccine.

Your reader this week - Rikki LaCoste - is the creator and co-host of the metaphysical and esoterically flavoured podcast, Kakophonos Internet Radio available for free from iTunes. At this time, Kakophonos is undergoing a further incarnation, so if you visit www.kakophonos.com or search iTunes and cannot find it, check back again in a couple of weeks. His odd, informative, and provocative show often collapses into the silly and the absurd whenever it begins to get a little too serious. Rikki is a writer of strange articles on occult subjects, is a musician and the creator of Panthea, the co-creator of a cartoon strip about Aleister Crowley, a Hermetic Philosopher, a Ceremonial Magician, a summoner of daemons, and teaches piano to happy little children. He currently lives just East of Toronto in a dubious little house that emits strange sounds and eldrich odours all hours of the night..

“The suicide witch crushes glass in her leather gloves. Shards crumble like crackers over soup, filling her metal bucket. The witch’s fingers squeak together in the damp cellar air. Glitter escapes over the worktable’s edge, like white stars vanishing in the low torchlight. A peasant girl lies dead on a funeral board, her dress nailed to the wood in thirteen places.

The witch’s name is Yim, but none call her that. She lives under the noble house of Jiang in the province of Kung-lao, in a cellar with puddles like rice paddies. In the summer, fat flies buzz around her face until she swats them down. In the winter, her knees ache, and she coughs in the dampness as if she were an old hag. But Yim’s ragged hair is black without silver, and her face shows no lines. She can still see in the dark.”

AS PER AL’S OUTRO NOTES - COME EXPERIENCE THE ZOMBLOGALYPSE!

ZOMBLOGALYPSE

ZOMBLOGALYPSE: THE MOVIE!

 

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by Wolf Hartman.

“What It’s Come To” is first appearing here!

WOLF HARTMAN is twenty-two years old and lives in Orange County with his boyfriend, Matt. He is a student at Chapman University studying philosophy and English. This is his first short story. If you like what you’re hearing, be sure to become a fan of him on Facebook at WOLF HARTMAN

Your reader this week - Zhames Tremarco -has a band called Cyranoid you really should check out - HERE.

“The gas station climbs out of the dark.

‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Hey. Excuse me.’”

 

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by David X. Wiggin.

“Bunraku” was originally published in BETE NOIRE MAGAZINE #8

DAVID X. WIGGIN spent the earliest years of his childhood in Japan and was lucky enough to see a bunraku show live. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his very much flesh-and-blood wife. His fiction has appeared in STEAMPUNK MAGAZINE, STEAMPOD, THEAKER’S QUARTERLY FICTION and ALT HIST MAGAZINE.

Your reader this week - John Chu - has had short fiction published in markets including BOSTON REVIEW, ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION and TOR.COM. He blogs HERE.

“’They make her look like just another beautiful young woman,’ the old man said, ‘but really she’s more beautiful than any woman could be. I suppose it wouldn’t be fair to expect a drawing to capture what even photograph couldn’t. She’s at her most beautiful when she’s moving. When she’s still, it’s like admiring an unbent bow or an unsheathed sword.’

Now Shizuo recognized the old man as Kinoko’s puppeteer. The thought of this shriveled crab with his claw in her back, pulling strings and turning knobs, filled him with loathing. He wanted any reminder of that ugly truth out of his sight. He kept his eyes on the poster. The old man went on.

‘I noticed you in the crowd. You caught my attention immediately- your eyes did. I saw real love in them for Kinoko. I’ve always said that the truest proof of her perfection would be if someone fell in love with her. I’ve seen all sorts of eyes in the audience. Lustful, admiring, jealous, curious… but your eyes were the first I ever saw with love.

Shizuo still could not bring himself to look at the puppeteer but he nodded.”

 

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by Walter De La Mare.

“Bad Company” was originally published in the collection A BEGINNING & OTHER STORIES in 1955. There is a recording in the BBC Archives from January 19, 1954 of de la Mare reading this story. It is not commercially available. Rights to use this story were graciously granted by The Society Of Authors. The Society is a membership organization which has over 9,000 members writing in all areas of the profession and has been serving the interests of professional writers for more than a century. The story itself is available in SHORT STORIES 1927-1956 by Walter de la Mare, published by Giles de la Mare Publishers Ltd. This collection is now available as an Ebook. (you lucky people). Links, as always, under the names!

WALTER DE LA MARE OM, CH (1873-1956) was an English poet, short story writer and novelist. He worked in the statistics department of the London office of Standard Oil for eighteen years while struggling to bring up a family, but nevertheless found enough time to write, and, in 1908, through the efforts of Sir Henry Newbolt he received a Civil List pension which enabled him to concentrate on writing. His post-war COLLECTED STORIES FOR CHILDREN won the 1947 Carnegie Medal for British children’s books. He is probably best remembered for his works for children and for his poem “The Listeners”. He also wrote some subtle psychological horror stories, amongst them “Seaton’s Aunt” and “Out of the Deep”. Gary William Crawford has described de la Mare’s supernatural fiction for adults as being “among the finest to appear in the first half of this century” and several writers, including Robert Aickman and Ramsey Campbell, have cited de la Mare’s fiction as inspirational. .

Your reader this week - Paul Jenkins - has narrated for Escape Pod, Pseudopod and PodCastle a number of times (and was honored to be asked to read the story for the very first episode of PodCastle). His science fiction podcast novel THE PLITONE REVISIONIST is available for free at Podiobooks.com. His skeptical blog is Notes from an Evil Burnee and his skeptical podcast is Skepticule Extra (aka “The Three Pauls Podcast”).

“It is very seldom that one encounters what would appear to be sheer unadulterated evil in a human face; an evil, I mean, active, deliberate, deadly, dangerous. Folly, heedlessness, vanity, pride, craft, meanness, stupidity - yes. But even Iagos in this world are few, and devilry is as rare as witchcraft.

What was wrong with him?”

 

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both by Algernon Blackwood

“Entrance And Exit” was originally published February 13, 1909 in The Westminster Gazette and republished in TEN MINUTE STORIES in 1914. “The Terror Of The Twins” was originally published November 6, 1909 in the same newspaper and republished in 1910 in THE LOST VALLEY AND OTHER STORIES.

ALGERNON HENRY BLACKWOOD, CBE (1869–1951) was an English short story writer and novelist, one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre. He was also a journalist and a broadcasting narrator. He was born in Shooter’s Hill, Kent, England and, after schooling in Europe, Blackwood’s father sent him to Canada in 1887 on business. From Canada, Blackwood moved to New York City, which was a less agreeable experience. He said of New York: “I seemed covered with sore and tender places into which New York rubbed salt and acid every hour of the day.” He was surrounded by criminals and other undesirables, and his roommate stole much of his money. He was sick and in poverty most of the time, and he was framed for arson. His jobs in New York included reporter for the Evening Sun and the New York Times. Blackwood returned to England in 1899. During the ensuing years, he traveled throughout Europe. His travels included a trip on the Danube River and camping on an island near Bratislava, which he used as a setting for possibly his most famous story, “The Willows”, praised by H.P. Lovecraft and others. In 1900 he joined the secret occult society the Order Of The Golden Dawn. It wasn’t until 1906, when Blackwood was in his late 30s, that he had his first major publication, which was a collection entitled THE EMPTY HOUSE AND OTHER GHOST STORIES. Two years later, his fame was assured with his stories of John Silence, a psychic investigator, and he spent the rest of his life writing, traveling extensively (he acted as an undercover agent for British military intelligence in World War I). In 1934, at 65 years of age, Blackwood started a new career by reading ghost stories on BBC radio, which enjoyed immense popularity. Two years later, he started appearing regularly on television. He retired in 1940 to Kent and continued preparing radio productions. He was made a Commander in the Order of the British Empire in 1949. After a life in which he received a modest income from his writing, Algernon Blackwood died in 1951.

You have two readers this week!

“Entrance And Exit” was read for you by David Rees-Thomas, the co-editor of Waylines Magazine, which can be found here. Issue 2 just came out March 1st! Check it out!

“The Terror Of The Twins” was read for you by Simon Meddings, who is a writer and director at Martian Creative, a company creating audio books, plays, podcasts and scripts for televison. Click the link under their name for a listen! Simon ALSO also runs the Waffle On Podcast with his friend Mark all about classic television shows and films from around the world. Available on itunes, Stitcher radio and direct at Podbean.

“These three — the old physicist, the girl, and the young Anglican parson who was engaged to her — stood by the window of the country house. The blinds were not yet drawn. They could see the dark clump of pines in the field, with crests silhouetted against the pale wintry sky of the February afternoon. Snow, freshly fallen, lay upon lawn and hill. A big moon was already lighting up.

‘As though Nature,’ the physicist went on, half to himself, ‘here and there concealed vacuums, gaps, holes in space (his mind was always speculative; more than speculative, some said), through which a man might drop into invisibility — a new direction, in fact, at right angles to the three known ones — higher space, as Bolyai, Gauss, and Hinton might call it; and what you, with your mystical turn’ — looking toward the young priest — ‘might consider a spiritual change of condition, into a region where space and time do not exist, and where all dimensions are possible — because they are one.””

“That the man’s hopes had built upon a son to inherit his name and estates — a single son, that is — was to be expected; but no one could have foreseen the depth and bitterness of his disappointment, the cold, implacable fury, when there arrived instead — twins. For, though the elder legally must inherit, that other ran him so deadly close. A daughter would have been a more reasonable defeat. But twins — ! To miss his dream by so feeble a device — !

‘At twenty-one,’ Edward, the elder, would remark sometimes, unhappily, ‘we shall know more.’ ‘Too much,’ Ernest would reply, with a rush of unreasoning terror the thought never failed to evoke — in him. ‘Things father said always happened — in life.’ And they paled perceptibly. For the hatred, thus compressed into a veritable bomb of psychic energy, had found at the last a singular expression in the cry of the father’s distraught mind.”

 

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by Nathaniel Lee

“Wings” was previously published nowhere else (though not for lack of trying)

NATHANIEL LEE recently turned 31. He’s got an English degree and thus considers himself basically unemployable if he ever loses his current (unrelated) position. His son, Archimedes Lee (a.k.a. Archie) is 13 months old, and Nathaniel can’t get any work done around the house. But at least he’s not someone’s flying monkey.

He still runs MIRRORSHARDS, which is now on an erratic “whenever he gets the chance” schedule because: baby. The MIRRORSHARDS book still exists at Amazon, too. His self-described sappy little story “The Alchemist’s Children” is in Alex Shvartsman’s extremely entertaining UNIDENTIFIED FUNNY OBJECTS anthology.

John Bell - is your reader this week. John is the president and CEO of John Bell Creative, LLC, and is available to write, produce, and/or voice anything from radio commercials to audio dramas to you-name-it. You can contact him at jbellvoice@gmail.com. For family-friendly fun, listen to BELL’S IN THE BATFRY, a comedy podcast available on iTunes and/or at the link under the name.

“Fresh wails assault my ears as I leave the cell and haul the rusty door shut. The lock clicks. I wonder briefly if anyone still has the key. Well, the witch can sort it out if she wants to. I’m too tired to care.

I see the witch, standing two cells down. She seems hesitant. ‘It’s very… damp,’ she remarks.

‘Yes,’ says the witch. ‘We have Dorothy. Bring me her little dog, too.’”

 

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by P.G. Bell

“The Trinket” was first published by Morrigan Books in the anthology THE PHANTOM QUEEN AWAKES in 2010

P.G. BELL was born and raised less than a mile from the old Roman fortress of Caerleon in south Wales, a site that served as inspiration for much of this story. He now lives in Cardiff with his wife Anna and son Aurelien, where he is currently putting the finishing touches to his first novel. He’s an editor at Impossible Podcasts, where he’s in charge of the ‘Stories in Print’ thread, exploring all manner of sci-fi, fantasy and horror literature.

John Trevillian - is your reader this week. John is an award-winning British author of the dystopian A-Men trilogy - The A-Men, The A-Men Return and Forever A-Men start with a classic mix of Mad Max and The Matrix – and this is a future with it’s fair share of urban undead and nightmarish storylines. It also contains a pitch for a movie called Nighties of the Living Dead… so there’s much here for the modern horror reader! Available in print, audiobook and ebook formats, the first novel is also downloadable as a free dramatized podcast. Trevillian’s work is informed as much by the roles of magazine editor, technology writer and IT journalist as his training in the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids and Native American shamanism. Check out his blog.

He’s also founder of the Talliston House & Gardens project – basically the transformation of an ordinary house into thirteen unique rooms from different times and places in history. Medieval Watchtower living room? Check. Cambodia bamboo treehouse attic? Check. Art Nouveau Scottish haunted bedroom? Check! Take a look for yourself at Talliston House & Gardens.

“They burned Gederus in the yard outside the barracks. Dawn had brought the first break in rain for ten days and the men, still cold and filthy from the construction work, cast anxious glances at the black weight of cloud that threatened to stamp out and drown the struggling flames. Those closest to the pyre stole a guilty pleasure from its warmth.

All except Rufinius, who stood to attention at the head of the bonfire, his nostrils thick with the smell of pitch and roasting meat.

He nodded to the priests, who stepped forward and began reciting the prayers for the dead. Rufinius did not listen. Instead, he narrowed his eyes against the smoke and surveyed the army standing ready around him. A full century of men, their plate armor dull and glassy in the pale sunlight, the auxiliary soldiers and craftsmen standing in a looser huddle farther out. Surrounding them all, the fledgling stronghold of Glevum rose black and skeletal from the churned clay of the earth.”

 

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by Ted Kosmatka

“Cry Room” is available to read over at fellow horror fiction website NIGHTMARE MAGAZINE. Check out their biweekly offerings of new horror fiction, non-fiction and podcast readings on their main page for current and past horror fiction and recordings by authors like Margo Lanagan & Norman Partridge, all curated for you by the tireless John Joseph Adams - and tell ‘em PSEUDOPOD sent ya and please remember to extend a tentacle in friendship! “Cry Room” was inspired by events that occurred a few years back. The line between fiction and reality is probably not where you’d expect.

TED KOSMATKA set his sights early on being a writer. This mostly involved having all his writing rejected, pursuing a biology degree, dropping out before graduation, and becoming a steel worker like his father and grandfather. Then the mill went bankrupt. After that he worked various lab jobs where friendships were born and fire departments were called. (And where, incidentally, he learned the fine point of distinction between fire-resistant and fire-proof) Eventually, Ted finished college and worked in a research lab with electron microscopes. Then came the final logical step: ditching all that to write video games at Valve. Ted’s fiction has been widely reprinted and nominated for both the Nebula and Theodore Sturgeon awards. His first novel, THE GAMES, was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the best genre books of 2012 and is currently available on Amazon. His second novel, PROPHET OF BONES will be released in bookstores on April 2.

Peter Piazza - is your reader this week. Pete narrates stories for sites including StarshipSofa and Tales of Old (as well as Pseudopod, of course).

“Around him, ladies fanned themselves in the heat, dressed in their Sunday finest. At the front of the church, the minister began. He was an older gentleman, narrow and angular as the church itself. Somewhere up ahead, among the sea of blue hair and balding pates sat his cousin Jason—along with Jason’s wife, her grandparents, and other assorted relation, both close and distant, all here for the special occasion.

His daughter was good for the first minutes of the minister’s sermon. Then it began: she slid down his knee to the floor.”

 

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by Kyle S. Johnson

“I Am The Box, The Box Is Me” is previously unpublished - the story was conceived on a gloomy Sunday afternoon at the best coffee shop my little town had to offer

Kyle. S. Johnson spent the last two years teaching in Korea. His work has appeared in anthologies such as THE WORLD IS DEAD (Permuted Press), DARK FAITH (Apex Publications), DARK FAITH: INVOCATIONS (Apex Publications), and the upcoming VAMPIRES DON’T SPARKLE (Seventh Star Press).

Pete Milan - is your reader this week. Pete writes, and produces audio drama for Pendant Audio, and can also be heard in audio dramas from Gypsy Audio, the Colonial Radio Theater On The Air, and Cape Cod Radio Mystery Theater. He has also performed free audiobooks for Librivox. You can visit him at twitter.com/PeteMilan..

“The crate, as best I can tell, hangs high above some sprawling dock, some bustling seaport. The smells are pretty unmistakable, but it’s the sounds that do the most telling. Gulls talk, water babbles. A lot of ships come and go. I can hear their massive hulls cutting the waves. I hear their horns, which sound somber and gloomy in the distance, then earsplittingly awake and angry when close. Foggy, lumbering mastodons, I imagine. Things crawling up out of the mist and out of history itself.

When I imagine the sea, the world outside the box, I always picture it dark. I don’t mean that to suggest I’m being fatalistic. I don’t brood because I don’t have time to. I’m far too busy in here, you see. If I started brooding now, I’d tumble down into it, and it would be a forever-slope that I couldn’t climb back up from. I see it as dark because that’s just how it naturally feels through the cracks.”

“I Am The Box, The Box Is Me” uses these creaking and harbors sounds from Freesound.

“treehouse” by mystiscool

“tie the boat” by laurent

“creaking silver birch” by ERH

“dock ramp” by epolk

“tree creak” by department64

“HarborToulon” by DifferentSoundScapes

 

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