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PseudoPod 152: Hometown Horrible


Hometown Horrible

The Legacy of a Wisconsin Writer Revisited

by Matthew Bey


“So much stays behind when a man dies,” Bestlonic says. “You could rebuild Finch from what we have left of him.”

Together we walk the three blocks to downtown Chippewa Falls, and he tells me why Finch is the greatest writer who ever lived.

We talk mainly about the “Biter” series. It doesn’t take much to get Bestlonic raving about these stories. The most cited story in the series, the eponymous “Biter,” tells the tale of a man who finds a note in his jacket pocket that prompts him to eat his own extremities, methodically avoiding blood loss and undue trauma in the process. The story is nearly 30,000 words long, surprisingly little of which is gruesome depictions of auto-cannibalism. The bulk of the text concentrates on the “unthinkable horror” written on that slip of paper. Finch never states outright what that might be, presumably because it would cause the readership to imitate the hero’s compulsive mutilation. He merely reveals that the phrase is twelve words long, and we should be very careful what we read.

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PseudoPod 151: The Undoing


The Undoing

by Sarah Totton


There are two accepted procedures for performing ocular excision. One involves suturing the eyelids shut prior to dissection and removal of the skin and soft tissues around and within the orbit. In the second method the eyelids are sutured open before the eye is dissected out. Given my patient’s particular circumstances, I was instructed to use the first method. This method has an added appeal for me; although the second method is less bloody, it involves performing the operation with the eye open — and I dislike being watched while I work.

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Pseudopod 150: Break the Vessel


Break the Vessel

by Vylar Kaftan


Even a god has human needs, if he resides in a living body. He must breathe the purest air possible. He must consume fresh food, and sleep on good bedding. And he must excrete. Some priests say that this is not truly the god’s need, since it results from the mortal body he occupies. I say this need is as important to a god as any man, because even gods create things they wish to be rid of.

In this incarnation, Aki prefers a mid-morning session. We meet in our chamber–a narrow aisle, with gold-leaf handholds on each side. I attend him with my box of soft cloths, jintilla oil, and incense. He dismisses his other attendants with a wave. They drift behind tall stone pillars fifty paces away, giving him privacy.

Full text available online at Transcriptase

…along with many other fine stories.

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PseudoPod 149: Mira

Show Notes

Closing music by Hopeful Machines, a side project of Ego Likeness


Mira

by Michael James McFarland


I won’t go into the details surrounding my dismissal from a well-known East Coast brokerage firm. other than to say I inadvertently let slip some information of a rather sensitive nature and, when it came down to drawing the line, the firm was more interested in maintaining their reputation than my livelihood.

Of course they were. But I didn’t exactly walk away empty-handed. They were all very civilized. There were no black marks on my resume; hell, they even found me another job. At a much smaller firm in Seattle.

And that’s where I met Mira, who this tale is really about.

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PseudoPod 148: Graffiti


Graffiti

by K.S. Dearsley


It was exactly what Marian was looking for–a home of her own, an address to prove she existed. She looked around feeling someone behind her. Gareth entered the lounge carrying a packing case. He spoke over the top of it.

“It’s a bit of a mess.”

The previous tenants had left stained carpets, chipped paintwork and crayon on the walls.

“Nothing that soapy water and a paintbrush can’t fix.”

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Flash: Stepfathers


Stepfathers

by Grady Hendrix

Read by Nerraux


He’d spent his free period reading up on the Lurker at the Threshold, the All-in-One and the One-in-All, the Opener of the Way, and now he tried to detect the signs of Its presence. But nothing smelt like the stench of the grave. No hideous ichor was seeping out from underneath his bedroom door. The upstairs hall was painted the same robin’s egg blue that it’d always been and it was not suffocating beneath an encrustation of poisonous mold that glowed a deathly, bioluminescent green. He took a deep breath and opened the door to his bedroom. Yog-Sothoth sat at the end of his bed, absorbed in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4.

“Hey,” Billy said, dropping his book bag.

“Hold on,” Yog-Sothoth said without looking up. “I have almost… accomplished my… Pro Challenge.”


Happy Father’s Day!

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PseudoPod 147: Orifice


Orifice

by John F.D. Taff


The needle touched skin, vibrated with the small hum of a person in deep concentration.

A smell, electrical, full of ozone with metallic undertones, crackled from everything in the cramped little backroom of the tattoo parlor.

There was a brief moment of contact, full of excitement and anticipation.

Jesse grasped my hand, squeezed it tightly.

Then, the needle broke the skin, punched through.

A dot of color, a bright, iridescent green, lay side by side with a perfectly circular dot of blood that had been coaxed to the surface by the tattooist’s instrument.

Jesse’s skin flinched, relaxed.

The needle approached again, penetrated.

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PseudoPod 146: The Button Bin


The Button Bin

by Mike Allen


Willett’s thin, angular face, with the stubble-shrouded cleft in his chin, remains handsome, or would have without the fleshy puckers where his eyes once were. But it’s as if those scars can see, because he turns to you.

You’re finally here, he says. His voice sounds choked with grit.

Do you know where Denise is?

He laughs. It’s a bark tinged with hysteria. Yes. Yes. Lenahan has her. He put us both deep under but he only kept what he wanted from me. Denise, he kept all of her. He planned to all along.

Who’s Lenahan?

Maybe, maybe — and now he’s struggling to speak, as though someone just told him an incredible joke and he’s still gasping for breath — maybe if you ask nice he’ll bring her back. He wanted me to tell you if you asked. He told me to.

Who is he?

And Willett tells you.