Archive for Podcasts
PseudoPod 546: Monsters Exist
Monsters Exist
by Ian McHugh
I.
Monsters exist. Their numbers and nature vary from time to time and place to place, but they are always near.
More often than not, they are nearer than we like to think.
Monsters do not appear in the world fully formed. They are not angels, fallen from the sky. Monsters grow, here. They germinate, as if from a seed, and we water and nurture the seed ourselves.
II.
For him, it starts with hair.
The smell of his mother’s hair is all that he remembers of her. That is what he tells himself, anyway.
Monsters are supposed to have mummy issues. Heroes tend to have daddy issues. That is the truth, as told in stories.
Most monsters are socialised and reified by the monsters around them. He does not have that luxury. A fabricated memory of his dead mother is something to cling to, at least. (Continue Reading…)
PseudoPod 545: Indiscretions
Indiscretions
By Hillary Dodge
During the full pound and punch of her morning run, in the steadily lifting gloom, Mary sees a figure, indistinct and blurry, at the end of the broken street where no one ought to be. She skids to a stop and blinks. The figure is gone.
Most of her neighborhood is undeveloped and has been for some time. There are wide open tracts of weeds, cracked flats of dirt, and animal holes in abundance. There are also three foundations, gaping holes, really, and another with a rotting timber frame above. It is as if the contractors went out for lunch and never returned. Even the For-Sale signs have disappeared, perhaps toppled by wind or kids and eventually buried.
There is nowhere for a person to have gone. She approaches one crumbling basement hole after another. In one she sees the shape of a snake slither into the deep shadows. In another she is impressed by scattered anthills, which make the basement floor resemble the cratered surface of the moon in the early morning half-light. She sees a spider dangling beneath its intricate silvery web. But there is no person. Nor any sign of one.
Something about the foundation with the rotting timbers doesn’t feel right. Its framework is tilted and warped and she is overcome by an inexplicable feeling of grief. She avoids looking at it.
As she retraces her steps through the un-neighborhood, she only counts three rabbits scattering as the sun slips above the horizon. Perhaps they are being scared off or eaten by the dogs she hears howling and fighting at night. (Continue Reading…)
PseudoPod 544: Under the Rubble
Show Notes
“This story is dedicated to Takeo Murata, Ishiro Honda, and Rod Serling.”
The horror of an earthquake is something you’d never wish on anyone. In 2015, in the span of three weeks, two severe earthquakes struck the nation of Nepal. The damage was so great that much still hasn’t been rebuilt. If you’re moved by this story, please consider a donation to relief efforts. More can be found at https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/nepal-earthquake-relief-fund/
Go check out A River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey and Greedy Pigs by Matt fn Wallace.
Under the Rubble
By John Wiswell
The world trembled until Samantha opened her eyes. She groaned, then coughed and spat dust. Every hitch of her chest made breathing harder, and there was something on top of her, crushing her left breast. She looked at it, but the air was too dark to see anything, so she tried pushing it away and found her arms could barely move. It felt like a metal bar pinning across her chest and biceps, digging into her skin, so she braced her elbows against the floor and heaved. The bar budged just an inch, but the inch was all it took for her to take the deepest breath of her life.
Dust poured out of the blindness, filling her nostrils with a stinging sensation, clinging to her perspiration, and giving the darkness a cloying texture. The illogic of drowsiness sagged away as she forced herself to breathe normally, and she realized for the first time that this wasn’t her apartment. Her eyes scanned for a window and failed to find one. This wasn’t the middle of the night. Where the hell was she?
Oh Saints, the store. She’d only ducked in for some milk and maybe one of those chocolate bars with the air bubbles in it. She’d been reaching for her wallet when the earthquake hit and everything crashed. Was she still in the store? (Continue Reading…)
PseudoPod 543: Be Still, My Dear, And Listen
by J. T. Glover
Of course we called her “Audrey.” We were sixteen, mad about Sherilyn Fenn, tuned in together every Thursday, and we went to school with a pimply, stinking cow named Audra Horning? What happened was inevitable.
PseudoPod 542: That Only a Mother
That Only a Mother
by Judith Merril
A well-known geneticist, in the medical news, said that it was possible to tell with absolute certainty, at five months, whether the child would be normal, or at least whether the mutation was likely to produce anything freakish. The worst cases, at any rate, could be prevented. Minor mutations, of course, displacements in facial features, or changes in brain structure could not be detected. And there had been some cases recently, of normal embryos with atrophied limbs that did not develop beyond the seventh or eighth month. But, the doctor concluded cheerfully, the worst cases could now be predicted and prevented.
PseudoPod 541: Tessa Told Me
Show Notes
“I always like to say that there’s nothing more terrifying than the human heart.”
Tessa Told Me
by Rob Kotecki
Julie only half listened to Mr. Garland as he ran through the emergency numbers on the fridge, distracted by why Liam hadn’t texted her back. It had been forty-five minutes. They’d agreed to break up when she moved, but spent more time talking now than they ever did living ten minutes away from each other.
“I mean it,” Mr. Garland said, bringing her back to her babysitting gig. “Don’t forget to have fun… just wait until Noah goes to bed,” and he pinched his fingers and brought them to his lips.
As if. She had no idea where to buy yet. The stay at home Dads were always the worst, as they were either OCD about their kid’s every move, or desperate to prove they stayed home because they were so chill. Really.
“If all goes well, I’ll be home around one. If it goes great, I won’t be home at all.” Julie mustered a smile that fell just shy of condescending. He seemed to want something from her. “Don’t worry. Noah and I are going to be fine.”
That did the trick, and he grabbed his guitar case. He was off to play in some sad cover band at the sports bar that seemed like an off-brand TGI Friday’s from the outside. But as soon as he left, there was nothing to distract her from checking her phone and refusing to send a second text, until Liam responded to her last one.
Noah was lost in some stupid video game that seemed set in World War II. He was cute now, even a little shy, but she saw the inner frat boy Noah would grow up to be. She tried to do her calculus, but her attention never drifted far from her phone. Fine. “Busy?” she texted Liam, feeling so cavalier about it right until it was sent, at which point she realized how sad and desperate she was.
She decided to shut her phone off before she did even more damage to her self-respect and offered to play with the kid. Noah wagged his head.
“Tessa says no.”
“Who’s Tessa?”
“She’s nice. She likes you, but she thinks you should go home.”
“Well, too bad for Tessa.” But he merely shrugged and went back to the game.
“She says too bad for you.”
Imaginary friend. Fine. At least the kid’s quiet. (Continue Reading…)
PseudoPod 062 Replay: Faith in Sips and Bites
We are digging a classic from the vault and reloading it into your queues anew. We hope that it makes you consider diving into our decade of back-catalog.
Michael Chant writes fiction, poetry, and reviews of books, music, and film. His work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Twilight Showcase, Quantum Muse, Electric Wine, The Chiaroscuro, Nocturnal Ooze, and GC Magazine.
Your narrator is the Lich King, Ben Phillips.
If you are reading this, we must’ve done it. I’m going to tell as much as I can. You newspaper people will have to clean up the spelling. Going to have your work cut out for you. Make it pretty for the front page. Crazy thinking something I write is going to be on the front page. That’s the Lord working in His mysterious ways again. Got to type it out. When I write it out longhand it looks like Chinese. Just have to hunt and peck as best I can. Can’t write no more. Hands shake too much. Nerve damage. All of us got it now.
In Kristi Demeester’s novel BENEATH we have a pastor struggling with a crisis of faith, and an investigative journalist endeavoring to subdue shadows of the past to shield from the greater darkness to come. We have an innocent touched by that darkness that wants to catalyze her to transform the world from that which we know to one of Stygian dreaming.
The cover art is phenomenal. Considering our troubled preacher, it evoked feelings like those from Night of the Hunter, particularly the impressive shot of the underwater grave. Does the stone keep her grounded and prevents her from floating away? Is the snake and her faith keeping her connected or tempting her elsewhere? Which is the shackle and which is salvation? Beautifully executed, and perfect for the conflict within.
More about the book at Word Horde.