PseudoPod 57: Tenant’s Rights
Tenant’s Rights
by Sean Logan
Albert climbed onto the shelf in his closet and lifted the hatch to the attic. He scanned his immediate surroundings for terrorists and spiders. Clear. He hoisted himself up and crawled along the stealthway to the lockbox hidden under the insulation in Sector Alpha. He removed a small baggie and a vial of liquid, slid them into a secret pouch in the left arm of his trench coat and returned to his room.
He dumped the contents of the baggie into a silver alchemist’s mixing bowl (they said it was a dog’s water dish at the pawn shop, but that seemed unlikely). He looked closely at the fine flaky powder and thought he could detect movement, which made sense, because at a microscopic level were millions of tiny insects. Itching power, the professional kind, illegal in the United States. Those little bugs crawled under the skin and caused unbearable irritation. And when Lance showed up at dinner tomorrow, itching like a mangy dog, there was no way Sally-Ann’s grandparents would want her living in this vermin-ridden hovel with that disease-carrying hobo.
And just to make sure it was effective, Albert implemented the next phase of his plan.
About the Author
Sean Logan
Sean Logan lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his lovely wife and a skinny dog that is part piranha. At night he writes unpleasant stories, and in his marketing day job he also writes about scary subjects—like banking software. His stories have appeared in about two dozen publications, including ONE BUCK HORROR, the anthologies VILE THINGS and SICK THINGS, and multiple visits to Pseudopod.
About the Narrator
Alasdair Stuart
Alasdair Stuart is a professional enthusiast, pop culture analyst, writer and voice actor. He co-owns the Escape Artists podcasts and co-hosts both Escape Pod and PseudoPod.
Alasdair is an Audioverse Award winner, a multiple award finalist including the Hugo, the Ignyte, and the BFA, and has won the Karl Edward Wagner award twice. He writes the multiple-award nominated weekly pop culture newsletter THE FULL LID.
Alasdair’s latest non-fiction is Through the Valley of Shadows, a deep-dive into the origins of Star Trek’s Captain Pike from Obverse Books. His game writing includes ENie-nominated work on the Doctor Who RPG and After The War from Genesis of Legend.
A frequent podcast guest, Alasdair also co-hosts Caring Into the Void with Brock Wilbur and Jordan Shiveley. His voice acting credits include the multiple-award winning The Magnus Archives, The Secret of St. Kilda, and many more.
Visit alasdairstuart.com for all the places he blogs, writes, streams, acts, and tweets.
