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PseudoPod 536: ARTEMIS RISING 3: Meat

PseudoPod 536: ARTEMIS RISING 3: Meat is a PseudoPod original.

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Meat

by Sandra M. Odell

A poster on the far wall of the crowded cafeteria chamber shows an identical man and woman in coveralls and happy smiles with their hands on the woman’s pregnant belly.  The caption at the bottom reads: A REPRODUCTIVE WORKER IS A HAPPY WORKER.  MED CALL TO SCHEDULE YOUR NEXT SEXTIME TODAY.

Ollie puts her hands to her belly, her empty belly.  Three miscarriages in the last eleven cycles.  Only two more chances for a live baby before the overseers stuff her in a containment suit and ship her to processing half a kilometer below the meat farm.  No one comes back from processing.  “My baby won’t look like everybody else’s.  It’ll be different.  Better.  Everyone will know it’s my baby.”

Across the table, Charlie shrugs and keeps shoveling meat porridge into his mouth.  Like everyone else in the meat farm.

She looks around the cafeteria.  The same faces, the same voices.  Sluggo.  Mary.  Abner.  Patty.  Gwen pulling her hair out one strand at a time.  The woman who eats rats.  The bald boy who constantly bangs his head against the wall until he passes out.  All crazyheads.

Ollie picks at a few of the darker lumps in the center of her bowl, takes a bite, says to Charlie, “How many babies do you have now?  Five?  Six?”  When he doesn’t answer, she continues, “I went to the nursery before shift.  You have six crib babies and two in the walker room.  Do you ever go to the nursery?”

Charlie shakes his head and keeps eating.

Ollie pushes her bowl away.  “What’s your fertility rating?  Nine?  Nine-point-five?”

Charlie scrapes the last bits from the side of his bowl.  “Don’t care.”

Ollie stares at him.  “How can you not care?  I don’t have one baby and I care.”

Charlie taps the side of her bowl with his spoon.  “You gonna finish that?” (Continue Reading…)

PseudoPod 535: ARTEMIS RISING 3: The Lady with the Light

“The Lady with the Light” was published originally in For Mortal Things Unsung in February 2017.

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Show Notes

PseudoPod wants to draw your attention to an anthology that dovetails nicely with Artemis Rising.

Sycorax’s Daughters, is a new volume of dark fiction and poetry and it is our understanding that this is the first horror anthology written entirely by Black women. It explores the intimate details of cultural nuance, race, and gender. Sycorax’s Daughters mission is to work “as a visionary space where Black women explore horror on their own terms.”

Those familiar with William Shakespeare’s The Tempest may remember Sycorax. She is an African sorceress operating as “the absent presence” throughout the play. While never on the stage, she is influential. She haunts the white male characters. She refuses to be excluded from the story.

 

While we’re talking about anthologies, let’s mention For Mortal Things Unsung.

If you liked “Standard Procedure” by Dagny Paul at the beginning of this month or “The Lady with the Light” by Mel Kassel, you should go pre-order our anthology. Both of those stories were originally published in our 10th anniversary anthology. If you backed our kickstarter, your copy showed up in February. If you missed out, it will be available for purchase at the end of March for your reading pleasure.

 

 

 

 

I’m enthralled when I arrive at the house in Hawaii. I see so many things that my mother would call “wonders”: sea turtles heaving themselves up from the surf, leaving clumsy sand–angels; jellyfish dying slowly in the sun; seaweed pods that burp out air, the breaths that they held for years.  

Not everything is a wonder, of course. There are fish bones and dollops of seagull shit and women with floppy hats who coo over shells. But the ocean still surprises me. It coughs up newness now and again for me to discover, usually in the morning, when I leave the cat chewing on his food and walk down to the shore.

I establish a routine to keep myself from seeking out other tourists: wake up, walk along the beach, write for a few hours, eat lunch, watch a movie, go to The Log for dinner and exactly two beers. The people at The Log encourage me to bring in fresh pages for them to read aloud. To them, writing is a grand gesture, the mark of a man who can assemble his thoughts in a secret language. I tell them that the book is bad, and they don’t care. 

The book is bad. It’s worming itself out of me like a mucus. Better to spit it than swallow, but when I look at it, I’m disgusted. The main character is a detective. I’ve never met a detective, but I’m pretending to be Reggie Barns, a person who holds a pistol without wondering what to do with his thumb.

PseudoPod 534: ARTEMIS RISING 3: In The Country

PseudoPod 534: ARTEMIS RISING 3: In The Country is a PseudoPod original.

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In the Country

By Christi Nogle

At sunset everything is pink and blue-violet. The mother, Myrna, stands out on the balcony surveying the hills and follows the diagonal lines of them in zigzag down and past the tree line to the scene on the lawn. The little boy and little girl’s nightdresses glow pink in the sunset, succulents at their feet all spiral-shaped, soft and pebbly, the harder white of lilies behind them and the red-green foliage of the roses behind them. Their hair, which always shimmers in the light—his yellow-gold and hers deep reddish brown—is darkened now and so their skin glows healthier rose against it. There are no shadows on their faces. The pebbles between the flower beds are flat rose-gold. The paper lanterns the children hold are brighter rose-gold.

The little boy moves like a little girl, carefully, cringing back from others’ movements and from sharp or hard surfaces. His blonde curls will be cut off soon now. His plain nightdress is already wrong. The girl’s lace-trimmed nightdress cuts tight under the arms, and the sleeves are too short. She twirls with the lantern after her father lights it, then climbs the little ladder to hang it on a stake. Her legs are slim and darker rose. (Continue Reading…)

PseudoPod 533: ARTEMIS RISING 3: Drift Right

PseudoPod 533: ARTEMIS RISING 3: Drift Right is a PseudoPod original.

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Show Notes

This piece was inspired by a trip to the Columbia River Maritime Museum and the Bumblebee Cannery Museum, both of Astoria, Oregon. Astoria has a long history of fishing and many of its original settlers were Finnish. It was also a hotbed of unionizing activity during the first few decades of the 20th century.

Drift Right

By Wendy N. Wagner

The tide was in, and the butter and brine smell of the sea covered the stink of the river. The Kultaseni nosed against the current, keeping to the edge of the shipping channel. Ben kept a tight hold of the tiller and found himself forgetting to blink as he peered ahead into the darkness. Clouds like wool felting wrapped up the sky, and the air was thick with unshed rain.

He risked a quick glance at the man standing in the stern. Arlo Koski’s bigness defined him, set him apart from the other men in Astoria. At the Suomi Ladies Auxiliary annual tug of war, Koski was always called to be team captain. At union meetings, even the Seattle organizers shut up for him to talk. Ben could remember sitting at the back of the Suomi Brotherhood Hall with his brother Joe, listening to Koski and wishing he could be something, anything like the man.

Now his boss stood motionless, just a darker silhouette against the vaguer darkness of the night, watching for snags and boat traffic—the  last the most important since they were out here with no running lights. On a normal night, they might see three dozen boats on the water, but half of Astoria was down at the hall talking strikes. Ben wondered if he could still convince Koski this was a bad idea. (Continue Reading…)

PseudoPod 532: Flash On The Borderlands XXXVI: Artemis Rising Showcase

PseudoPod 532: Flash On The Borderlands XXXVI: Artemis Rising Showcase is a PseudoPod original.

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Show Notes

“When First He Laid Eyes” first appeared in Fireside, February 2016. Sometimes what is scariest in the world is what we normalize. This story is for the women who have lived this reality.

“Eyes That See Everything” is a Pseudopod original.

“Standard Procedure” first appeared in the anthology For Mortal Things Unsung.

“Us, Here” is a PseudoPod original. “A while ago I ran a roleplaying event, tabletop style, that explored a character’s dysphoria and body-anxiety through this kind of “meatscape” environment, basically exaggerating and inflating all of the points of greatest unease, making the internal external. I’d been thinking of incorporating that idea into a more discrete story for a while, and this seemed like a great time to do that”.

“Nothin’ ever seems to turn out right/I don’t wanna grow up”
Tom Waits

When First He Laid Eyes

by Rachael K. Jones

A girl’s first stalker is always a cause for celebration. She will phone her mother with the big news and spill the story in a tangle of words, voice raw with emotion.

Her mother’s heart will swell at her daughter’s achievement. Every mother hopes for this day. A stalker means beauty. A stalker means desire. It is always a compliment for a girl to become a man’s intended. Her mother will fuss over the details: How did they meet? What was he like? When will they see each other again?

These are hard questions for a girl. If her stalker is a proper stalker, if he observes his social graces, his intended cannot pinpoint the enchanted instant when he first chose her, the moment their lives entangled. She thinks it might have been on a dark thirty run at Cape Canaveral, when the humid Southern air pressed hot and moist around her like a stranger’s breath. She remembers red Mars, hazy through the Spanish moss on the oaks. She fancied she could run there if she continued down the trail through the park, past the beach, and on into the Everglades, into an alien world. Her stalker must have spotted her on that route as he walked home from the bar that sold half-price beer to men in uniform. She probably waved to him, because a girl is friendly to everyone. A girl always smiles. A girl ignores the dread in her stomach when a man’s gaze impales her like a needle rammed through a butterfly’s thorax. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 531: Gleed

PseudoPod 531: Gleed is a PseudoPod original.

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Gleed

by Jason Rush

The first thing I notice is that goddamn old-timey music, Suwanee River or some shit.

I smell stale peanuts and beer. Also coal and dirt, but that’s always there. As much my fault as anyone’s.

I’m already seated. My head sags, and my hands rest on a small, oak table. Car keys and cell phone in front of me.

My head pounds.

“Guys?” Danny says across from me. My brow creases as I look up. He, Johnson and Huck sit around the table. My crew. Why are their hardhats still on? Dirty work clothes. Smudges of grime on their faces. And how the fuck did we get here? (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 530: The Madness of Bill Dobbs: A Tale of Snuff Movies and Cannibal Cults

PseudoPod 530: The Madness of Bill Dobbs: A Tale of Snuff Movies and Cannibal Cults is a PseudoPod original.

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Show Notes

This is the author’s first sale

Pseudopod wants to direct your attention to a project by one of our Authors, Greg Stolze. This is a good time to go back and relisten to episode 317, Enzymes.

YOU is a novel, set in the universe of the democratic horror game Unknown Armies, which pits readers against a book that hates them while situating them in the person of a middle-aged businessman named Leo Evans.

Leo is divorced, a fan of racquet sports, and a cultist of the Necessary Servant—a quasi-religion he freely admits seems silly, except for the way it grants him extra senses and paranormal abilities. The chief cultist, however, is his ex-wife, and the two of them clash over a key question of what it means to truly “serve” with integrity.

In the process of hashing all this out, Leo must survive a couple attempts on his life, come to grips with an enchantment that makes him hate the person he previously loved most, and deal with lingering issues between himself and his son.

This novel is Kickstarting in February, check the trailer at www.gregstolze.com/you

The Madness of Bill Dobbs: A Tale of Snuff Movies and Cannibal Cults

By Sean Pearce 

Eaters is regarded by some as a flawed masterpiece and an underground classic. To others, it is vile, racist, ethically bankrupt, and derivative.

It makes for peculiar viewing. The plot follows the formula of the Italian cannibal movies for which director Bill Dobbs had an unashamed fondness. An anthropological expedition into the Amazon jungle encounters and brutalises a tribe of ‘savages’ in the name of science, and find themselves pursued, captured, and finally gruesomely eaten alive.

(The film was originally going to be released as Dark-skinned Cannibals of the Tropics, though thankfully someone more enlightened than Dobbs suggested the title we now have. It almost goes without saying that Dobbs has been unanimously described as a completely unrepentant racist.)

Eaters is a movie with a mythology around it. Dobbs himself famously went insane shortly after release, and no less than three cast members died during location shooting (in what may be a rare flash of good taste, Dobbs chose not to use the footage of the unfortunate actress Lisa Springer’s fatal accident in the film), and, in a strange echo of Cannibal Holocaust before, Dobbs was briefly investigated by the authorities on suspicion of producing a snuff film. However, it was later revealed that Dobbs had in fact bribed an FBI agent into launching the investigation as a publicity stunt – it worked. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 529: Luella Miller

“Luella Miller” was first published in Everybody’s Magazine, December 1902.

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Show Notes

Pseudopod wants to direct your attention to a project by one of our Authors, Greg Stolze. This is a good time to go back and relisten to episode 317, Enzymes.

YOU is a novel, set in the universe of the democratic horror game Unknown Armies, which pits readers against a book that hates them while situating them in the person of a middle-aged businessman named Leo Evans.

Leo is divorced, a fan of racquet sports, and a cultist of the Necessary Servant—a quasi-religion he freely admits seems silly, except for the way it grants him extra senses and paranormal abilities. The chief cultist, however, is his ex-wife, and the two of them clash over a key question of what it means to truly “serve” with integrity.

In the process of hashing all this out, Leo must survive a couple attempts on his life, come to grips with an enchantment that makes him hate the person he previously loved most, and deal with lingering issues between himself and his son.

This novel is Kickstarting in February, check the trailer at www.gregstolze.com/you

Luella Miller

by Mary Wilkins-Freeman

 

Close to the village street stood the one-story house in which Luella Miller, who had an evil name in the village, had dwelt. She had been dead for years, yet there were those in the village who, in spite of the clearer light which comes on a vantage-point from a long-past danger, half believed in the tale which they had heard from their childhood. In their hearts, although they scarcely would have owned it, was a survival of the wild horror and frenzied fear of their ancestors who had dwelt in the same age with Luella Miller. Young people even would stare with a shudder at the old house as they passed, and children never played around it as was their wont around an untenanted building. Not a window in the old Miller house was broken: the panes reflected the morning sunlight in patches of emerald and blue, and the latch of the sagging front door was never lifted, although no bolt secured it. Since Luella Miller had been carried out of it, the house had had no tenant except one friendless old soul who had no choice between that and the far-off shelter of the open sky. This old woman, who had survived her kindred and friends, lived in the house one week, then one morning no smoke came out of the chimney, and a body of neighbours, a score strong, entered and found her dead in her bed. There were dark whispers as to the cause of her death, and there were those who testified to an expression of fear so exalted that it showed forth the state of the departing soul upon the dead face. The old woman had been hale and hearty when she entered the house, and in seven days she was dead; it seemed that she had fallen a victim to some uncanny power. The minister talked in the pulpit with covert severity against the sin of superstition; still the belief prevailed. Not a soul in the village but would have chosen the almshouse rather than that dwelling. No vagrant, if he heard the tale, would seek shelter beneath that old roof, unhallowed by nearly half a century of superstitious fear. (Continue Reading…)