Archive for Stories

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PseudoPod 317: Enzymes

PseudoPod 317: Enzymes is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:46 — 17.1MB)

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Enzymes

by Greg Stolze

Maybe I’m not human, maybe I never was. I’m pretty sure humans never feel like I do when I drink gasoline, that sweet intoxication, so pregnant with possibility and power. It’s like the power of the sun, and of a great tree that drew in sunlight to grow, and of an ancient beast that ate of the tree and died, that sank into the earth and was worked on by millions of years until it turned to oil. It’s like all those kinds of power, concentrated step by step, and the toil of the drillers and refineries and pump mechanics too. Gasoline is everything. Gasoline is the elixir of modern civilization and I’m one with it when I drink. All the clouds of exhaust and all the labor of machines and their men, I’m all within it.

Then I drop off and I have to crawl out, I’m man-bodied again, dressed in jeans and a denim shirt with fake-pearl snaps. My fingers are crusted with rust and black under the nails but I run them through my hair anyway. It’s long hair, unkempt and black. I never get it cut, never trim my beard, but they stay the same.

The full text of “Enzymes” is available for free on Greg’s web site.

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PseudoPod 316: The Persistence Of Memory

“The Persistence of Memory” originally appeared in the collection DARK MELODIES (Dark Regions Press 2012). “Think of happy popular piano players/singers – Russ Conway, Liberace, Fats Waller, Fats Domino. And think of what’s behind the smiles.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:03 — 24.9MB)

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The Persistence Of Memory

by William Meikle

Betty woke with a start, heart pounding so loud in her ears that it took several seconds to realize a different sound had brought her so rudely awake; someone was playing the piano in the dining room beneath her.

She sat up in bed, gasping for breath, adrenaline jolting through her like fire.

‘George?’

It couldn’t be her husband, for he had been dead these three years now. But whoever was downstairs knew exactly what to play to get her heart racing; the old songs from when the sun shone and life was good.

‘I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places.’

Her heart refused to slow. The playing reached a crescendo for a final chorus and sent vibrations all through the old house, dust mites bouncing on the floorboards. The last chord rang and echoed in the still night. Then everything was quiet.

Betty stayed sitting upright in bed, straining to hear any sound of movement from below, waiting for the scrape as whoever had been playing stood from the piano stool. But there was nothing, just her heavy breathing that slowly returned to something approaching normal. She would not get any further sleep; that was for sure. She stepped out of bed, wincing at the cold that seeped from the floorboards, and pulled on her old dressing gown. When she got to her bedroom door she stood still for a while, listening, hearing only the slight rush of wind from outside and the far off sound of a car on the main road. She was already starting to dismiss the piano playing as the last remnants of a dream.

‘What else could it be?’

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PseudoPod 314: What Happens When You Wake Up In The Night

First published as a chapbook from Nightjar Press, September 2009, this story won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story in 2011 and appeared in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR for that year. The fee for this story has been generously donated to Cats Protection League – please click the link and consider making some cat’s life a little easier.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:57 — 16.5MB)

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What Happens When You Wake Up In The Night

by Michael Marshall Smith

The first thing I was unhappy about was the dark. I do not like the dark very very much. It is not the worst thing in the world but it is also not the best thing in the world, either. When I was very smaller I used to wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and be scared when I woke up, because it was so dark. I would go to bed with my light on, the one light that turns round and round, on the drawers by the side of my bed. It has animals on it and it turns around and it makes shapes and patterns on the ceiling and it is pretty and my mummy’s friend Jeanette gave it to me. It is not very too bright but it is bright enough and you can see what is what. But then it started that when I woke up in the middle of the night, the light would not be on any more and it would be completely dark instead and it would make me sad. I didn’t understand this but one night when I’d woken up and cried a lot my mummy told me that she came in every night and turned off the light every night after I was asleep, so it didn’t wake me up. But I said that wasn’t any good, because if I did wake up in the night and the light wasn’t on, then I might be scared, and cry. She said it seemed that I was waking every night, and the she and daddy had worked out that it might be the light that kept me awake, and after a while I was awake I’d get up and go into their room and see what was up with them, which meant she got no sleep any night ever and it was driving her completely nuts.

So we made a deal, where and the deal said I could have the light on all night but I promised that I would not go into their room in the night unless it was really important, and it is a good deal and so I’m allowed to have my light on again now, which is why the first thing I noticed when I woke up was that is it was dark.

Mummy had broken the deal.

I was cross about this but I was also very sleepy and so wasn’t sure if I was going to shout about it or not.

Then I noticed it was cold.

Before I go to bed, mummy puts a heater on while I am having my bath, and also I have two blankets on top of my duvet, and so I am a warm little bunny and it is fine. Sometimes if I wake in the middle of the night it feels a bit cold but if I snuggle down again it’s okay.

But this felt really cold.

My light was not on and I was cold.

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PseudoPod 313: The Dead Sexton

This story previously appeared in ACROSS THE BRIDGE the Christmas Annual of 1871 in the magazine “Once a Week”. It is set in Le Fanu’s invented Lake District town of Golden Friars.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:14 — 34.6MB)

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The Dead Sexton

by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

The sunsets were red, the nights were long, and the weather pleasantly frosty; and Christmas, the glorious herald of the New Year, was at hand, when an event—still recounted by winter firesides, with a horror made delightful by the mellowing influence of years—occurred in the beautiful little town of Golden Friars, and signalized, as the scene of its catastrophe, the old inn known throughout a wide region of the Northumbrian counties as the George and Dragon.

Toby Crooke, the sexton, was lying dead in the old coach-house in the inn yard. The body had been discovered, only half an hour before this story begins, under strange circumstances, and in a place where it might have lain the better part of a week undisturbed; and a dreadful suspicion astounded the village of Golden Friars. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 312: Feeding The Machine

This story previously appeared on Hunter’s blog at FORGOTTEN MANUSCRIPTS.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:12 — 16.7MB)

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Feeding The Machine

by Hunter James Martin

The moment I laid eyes on the new start I knew he wasn’t going to last. Half of it was the look on his eyes, the other half was the look on everyone else’s eyes when they watched him. A lot of people don’t make it in this line of work. Not many minds can cope with being planted deep into the ground for so long. The average new start does five days a week, while the average worker does seven. I have been doing entire weeks for longer than I remember, devoid of fresh air and sunlight. It has been a long time since I have seen my reflection, but I imagine I am not a pretty sight.

The atmosphere doesn’t help things either, the horrid gloom we work within. Even in my apathy I can taste it: the darkness that nestles within the oily depths of the shadows, the dull throb that resonates through the caverns, and the dreadful machine, always rumbling like an empty stomach. The heat too, emitted from its insides, made worse after twelve hours of working in the same suit collecting sweat and oil and dirt and sometimes piss. Then wearing it again the next day. Then for another year.

My suit smells terrible. Everyone’s does. The tough leather is falling apart and there is a tear behind my left shoulder. But we are used to it. Used to recycled uniforms and moribund tools. Used to safety equipment that is a hazard in itself. Used to the smell of ancient piss and shit. Hardly even notice it really. Only made aware of it when a new start comes down the cargo elevator twitching his nose and pretending the reek doesn’t bother them. They all do that, then they either get used to it or lose their job. Back up the cargo elevator, or worse.’

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PseudoPod 310: Unfeeling

PseudoPod 310: Unfeeling is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:34 — 14.9MB)

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Show Notes

This story will be one of four dark fantasy/crime-noir tales featured in the e-book A LONG WALK DOWN A DARK ALLEY, to be published on Smashwords.com and Amazon.com (and others) in late 2012.

Unfeeling

by J.D. Brink

The pecking order in the car is standard: George drives, the boss rides shotgun, and Shovel and Byrd ride in the back. The valet brings the Caddie around and everyone starts to climb in, but August takes Byrd’s seat and tells him to sit in the front. There’s a moment of confusion at this sudden change in protocol, but they’re soon on their way. Byrd runs the music too loud to talk, which is fine; the boss isn’t in the habit of explaining himself anyway and no one wants to ask. About halfway back to the house, August grabs Shovel’s idle hand and gives it a squeeze, kind of a _you’re my main man_ gesture. Shovel, as expressionless as ever, just gives the boss a single nod. Once they’re back at the house, he finds out why. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 309: The Strange Machinery Of Desire

This story previously appeared in STUPEFYING STORIES VOLUME 3, Dec 2011

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:10 — 22.9MB)

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The Strange Machinery Of Desire

by Justin A. Williams

Beside them, a young man—a boy really—was having disks of black metal implanted in the skin of his forearms. Zeljko looked on, his mind spinning with a strange mixture of fear, revulsion and excitement. The excitement moved toward arousal, and he was suddenly self-conscious. He turned away, and walked back into the main area of the club.

She was there again, the woman from earlier. She was gazing at a graffito-painting on one sooty wall. It depicted a man-figure, placed on a conveyor belt and fed into a great factory-machine as he struggled and writhed. He emerged from the other end a grotesque but fascinating mix of skin and steel.

‘I don’t know why he looks so unhappy,’ the woman said as she gazed at the figures contorted features. ‘Eventually, we’ll all be like that. Everything a mix, no difference between flesh and metal, no distinction between the workers and the machines they operate.’

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PseudoPod 308: The Crawlspace

PseudoPod 308: The Crawlspace is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:23 — 21.7MB)

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The Crawlspace

by Russell Bradbury-Carlin

There was a splash where there shouldn’t have been. Reed was shoving handfuls of dirty clothes into the washing machine when he stopped to listen closely. The sound seemed to have come from beneath the small wooden plank in the corner –- the one that covered the entrance to the crawlspace under the house. The splash had sounded distinctly like a weighty object –- a hand, maybe — slapping the surface of a body of water.

The laundry room was a small concrete-floored space between the main house and the garage. Reed had done everything he could to minimize his time in that room and to try and ignore the crawlspace’s entrance. This was made a bit easier due to the small wooden plank’s inherent “hiddenness”. It was covered with layers of dust the same color as the concrete. And veils of cobwebs hovered over it which held the threat of spiders, centipedes, and other creepy-crawlies. The corner seemed to exude a force of avoidance and Reed had been more than happy to comply.

The entrance was barely large enough to allow an average-sized adult to slip down into the dirt-floored space beneath the house. Reed had watched the hefty home inspector squeeze through the hole a few months earlier before he and his wife, Maisy, bought the house. Once the inspector pushed through the narrow opening, Reed saw that there was a bit more room for someone to, literally, crawl under the first floor. While watching the older man slide into the dark space, Reed’s mouth had gone dry and he suddenly had difficulty swallowing.