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PseudoPod 312: Feeding The Machine

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

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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.’

Pseudopod Default

PseudoPod 311: Flash On The Borderlands XIV: Resistance!

PseudoPod 311: Flash On The Borderlands XIV: Resistance! is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:51 — 21.3MB)

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Show Notes

For Pearl Harbor Day, three flash pieces about fighting back …

No Further was previously published in “Underground Voices” magazine and is one of two stories available to date from Mr. Acheson’s WHISPERS FROM THE NORTH saga, a series of linked short stories that sets the backdrop for his currently in progress fantasy novel.

The Conchie is a PseudoPod original.

Bitter Tea & Braided Hair was first published on Fiction365 on May 4th, 2012.

No Further

by Matthew Acheson

Their arrival was a terrible sight. The light from the full moon cast a strange, eerie glow upon the host of pale corpse things and their shrieking masters which stretched across the vale for miles in every direction. They swept the valley like a flood that left only ash, carrion and pestilence in its wake. (Continue Reading…)

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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…)

Pseudopod Default

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.’

Pseudopod Default

PseudoPod 308: The Crawlspace

PseudoPod 308: The Crawlspace is a PseudoPod original.

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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.

Pseudopod Default

PseudoPod 307: That Ol’ Dagon Dark

PseudoPod 307: That Ol’ Dagon Dark is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:58 — 24.8MB)

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That Ol’ Dagon Dark

by Robert MacAnthony

OL’ DAGON DARK

He’s never heard of such a thing. Still, the aroma is enticing. He checks the box and the shelf, but there is no price.

The shopkeeper is still in back, and all is silent within the store. Iverson contemplates the tobacco, then pulls a small plastic bag from behind a basket of pipes atop the shelves. He quickly loads what he deems to be two ounces of the blend into the bag, and makes his way out of the humidor. He leaves an adequate amount of money on the counter – more than adequate really, quite generous for a place like this – and pushes back out into the rain.

He doesn’t see the shopkeeper sitting just behind the curtain, doesn’t see the man slide into a crouch, back against the wall, and bury his face in his hands.

Pseudopod Default

PseudoPod 306: Night Fishing

‘Night Fishing’ first appeared in issue 3 of Shadows & Tall Trees, from Undertow Books, in 2012.

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Night Fishing

by Ray Cluley

‘So they don’t mind that I’m just a lowly fisherman.’

‘Nah, Christ was a fisherman so they’re good with that. Your lack of religion, though…’ Bobby tut-tut-tutted.

Terrence had grinned, chewing his food. ‘Means you’re the only one going to Hell.’

Looking up at the bridge, buffeted by a chill wind and rocked in the chop of an irritable sea, Terrence hoped there was no such place, but he knew there was because he was in it most days. Those gathering at the prow only proved it. Laura, Matt, and now the shin-splintered Lee holding himself up by the gunwales; Terrence had pulled all of them from the water over the last year, pulled others out after, and none of them would leave him alone.

The three stood, as best as they could, looking out at the bridge they had jumped from.

The Golden Gate Bridge was once the world’s longest suspension bridge and was declared a modern wonder. With the exception of London’s Tower Bridge, it was the most-photographed bridge in the world. It was also the world’s most popular suicide spot. ‘From the golden gates to the pearly ones,’ Bobby had joked once, back before his own dive from its heights. ‘People come from all over to do it. A permanent solution to their temporary problems.’

Statistics varied. One jumped every two weeks or thirty jumped per year, and Terrence had read somewhere else that every month saw as many as five people drop to their deaths. The only thing that didn’t vary was the fact that from that height, three hundred feet or so, hitting the water was like hitting concrete. Some survived, but not many. And usually not for long.

Terrence only ever found the dead ones.

Pseudopumpkin

PseudoPod 305: Pumpkinhead

“Pumpkinhead” first appeared in the anthology, SHADOWS OF THE EMERALD CITY which came out in 2009 and is based on the L. Frank Baum Oz books.

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Pumpkinhead

by Rajan Khanna

Mr. P sat at the table, his sagging head leaning against one gloved hand. It was tilted slightly to the side and he was waving the free fingers of his other hand in the air.

‘Mr. P?’ I said.

He tilted his head toward me. ‘Call me Jack,’ he said, for the hundredth time. But I couldn’t. He was my employer, but more than that, he was a celebrity, and a close personal friend of the queen. In fact, if it weren’t for his imminent need, she would be the one about to carve this pumpkin for him. He was basically part of the royal family.

He held out his hands and I placed the pumpkin into them. His arms, which he kept covered at all times, were little more than wooden sticks, like broom handles, but they were strong and sturdy and he pulled the pumpkin closer, cradling it for a second before placing it on the table in front of him.

Fascinated, I longed to watch as he carved it, to see how it was done, but it was such an intimate act, so very personal, and I couldn’t bear to intrude upon it. As the knife penetrated the rind and into the tender inner flesh, I turned and left the house and returned to the field where I belonged.