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PseudoPod 601: Flash On The Borderlands XLIII: The Grinding of Gears

Suicide Vending Machine was first published in The Leicester Writes Short Story Prize 2017 Anthology in July 2017

Am I Repeating Myself? was first printed in Animated Objects in 1997 and reprinted in Outer Darkness in 1998 and How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend in 2011

At the Bureau originally appeared in 1980 in the anthology of quiet horror Shadows 3 edited by Charles L. Grant.

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Show Notes

stick my hands thru the cage of this endless routine

just some flesh caught in this big broken machine

Suicide Vending Machine: “I was in the crisp white gleam of the car showroom with a coffee machine and a stopped clock, and I couldn’t imagine anyone ever being allowed to leave.”

Suicide Vending Machine

by Thomas Welsh

Good morning sir. I see from my paperwork that you have a budget of ten thousand dollars, but I’m pleased to announce that you can benefit from our “recommend a friend” discount scheme. Yes sir, it’s another three thousand, and you should certainly thank them the next time you see them. Or perhaps allow us to send them a message of thanks  on your behalf?

I am glad you asked! You absolutely can make a referral too. Don’t worry; I’ll remind you when we finalize our documentation. Just the name and location is all we need, we will pick them up.

Alright then, let’s begin! (Continue Reading…)

Mather Tomb 2

PseudoPod 600: The Graveyard Rats

“The Graveyard Rats” was first published in Weird Tales, March 1936.

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The Graveyard Rats

by Henry Kuttner

Old Masson, the caretaker of one of Salem’s oldest and most neglected cemeteries, had a feud with the rats. Generations ago they had come up from the wharves and settled in the graveyard, a colony of abnormally large rats, and when Masson had taken charge after the inexplicable disappearance of the former caretaker, he decided that they must go. At first he set traps for them and put poisoned food by their burrows, and later he tried to shoot them, but it did no good. The rats stayed, multiplying and overrunning the graveyard with their ravenous hordes. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 599: The Boy with the Glass Eyes

PseudoPod 599: The Boy with the Glass Eyes is a PseudoPod original.

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The Boy With The Glass Eyes

By J.L. Flannery

My son arrived in a brown cardboard package, no bigger than a shoebox.

I lifted the lid to see him lying there flat on his back, eyes closed, as though he were asleep.

‘Go on,’ my Boss said, ‘lift him up.’

Nervously, I lifted him up out of the box and cradled him in my arms. His skin was velvet. His smell; pure talcum powder. I looked down at his sleeping face and put on a smile, pretending the nausea that was rising in my throat didn’t exist.

My Boss, Mr Yamamoto, stood staring, waiting for me to react.

‘It’s incredibly lifelike,’ I said in Japanese.

He nodded, ‘Just like a real baby. Go ahead. Power it up.’

I hesitated a moment. What on earth would Alice say when I bought this thing home with me?

‘It’s a great privilege to be chosen,’ Mr Yamamoto said smiling, as if he could sense my unease.

I nodded, ‘Yes, I know. Thank you. I’m very grateful about it, honest I am. It’s just…’

‘It’s just what?’

‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘it’s nothing,’ and I held down the button on the base of its spine and the baby woke up.

Slowly, his eyes opened and he turned his head to look at me with his blue eyes made of glass. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 598: Walk in Beauty

This story was first published in the PseudoPod 10th Anniversary anthology For Mortal Things Unsung and follows immediately after the end of Jim’s anthology Coyote Tales available now from your favorite purveyors of audiobooks. https://www.downpour.com/coyote-tales?sp=22087

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Walk in Beauty

by Jim Bihyeh

Tomacita Jones walked over the yellowing grass of the Carl Shepherd Memorial football stadium next to Wide Reeds Elementary School, listening to the autumn winds shake the elm trees at the edge of the gravel track circling the field. The winds were getting stronger now. The nights longer. The cold was becoming more real and the trees knew it. So they were letting their leaves die. She didn’t like that thought, as she bent over her knees and stretched her all-too-chubby legs under her all-too-puffy sweatpants. She double-knotted the laces on her scuffed running shoes. She hadn’t worn them in years, not since Rosa, her granddaughter, had been born.
She felt snot about to drip from the tip of her nose and she brushed it away with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

But she was wearing the damn shoes today.

And they were helping her forget about those trees, hissing and letting their leaves drop away. Maybe that’s what life led you toward. You let go of the things that were supposed to die.

And they dropped to the earth, so that the rest of you (what really existed, down in the roots) could survive the winter.

The rest of the text is available in our 10th Anniversary anthology For Mortal Things Unsung. Purchase of this book helps to support Escape Artists.

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PseudoPod 597: Fool’s Fire

Tim Pratt publishes a new short story every month for Patreon supporters (www.patreon.com/timpratt). Fool’s Fire was first published for his Patreon in October 2015, reprinted at Nightmare in November 2016. You can read along here: http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/fools-fire/

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Show Notes

“It was inspired by me thinking about how I used to get lost all the time, because I have terrible spatial sense, and now I never get lost, because my phone tells me where to go. But there have always been spirits that preyed on lost travelers, and surely they’d make accommodations to the modern age….”

Fool’s Fire

by Tim Pratt

The “going away together” part of the plan to save their marriage had gotten off to a bad start, and the probabilities of success continually ticked downward in Will’s mental calculations. Dori, who normally felt more comfortable in control, had gotten so tired of driving these tree-crowded country roads that she’d ceded the wheel to Will once night fell. Now she was navigating—“nag-ivating,” they used to jokingly call it, back when they’d joked—and displaying remarkably little patience with his requests for clarification. He tried again anyway. “But, look, I don’t even see a road coming up on the right, it’s all trees. Are you sure the map thingy on your phone is working?”

“It always has before. Looks like we’re only twenty minutes away from the cabin.” She had that tone she used more and more lately: ostensibly tolerant, but with a trivial shift in pitch, it could become nastily condescending. “No, wait, now it says twenty-two minutes. It’s adjusting to your slowness. I think I just saw a turtle on the side of the road pass us.”

Several spiteful retorts offered themselves for his use, but Will let them go, visualizing his reflexive anger away, just like his therapist had taught him: the bad feelings were water, flowing down from his head and out through his feet, disappearing into the sand, soaked up and gone. Dori had every right to snap at him, after what he’d done. The fact that she’d agreed to go on this long weekend, to try and remember what they’d once liked about each other, was already a concession worthy of beatification, if not sainthood. Being snippy on a long and confusing drive was totally understandable. Placate, don’t escalate, he thought. “Sorry, hon. It’s dark and I don’t want to drive into a tree or something. I’d rather annoy you by going slowly than annoy you by crashing into a pond.”

She made a noncommittal sound, but then said, “You heard about that woman who drove into Macon Lake last week because her GPS told her to turn there? Broad daylight, she just went into the water, like she thought there was an invisible bridge. That’s why I don’t trust this whole self-driving car idea. All these computer things work fine most of the time, but when they don’t….” (Continue Reading…)

Blood Standard cover

PseudoPod 596: Mysterium Tremendum – Part 3

“Mysterium Tremendum” was originally published in Occultation and Other Stories in 2010.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 57:15 — 39.4MB)

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Show Notes

Part 3 of 3

Listen to Part 1 here: https://pseudopod.org/2018/05/11/pseudopod-594-mysterium-tremendum-part-1/

Listen to Part 2 here: https://pseudopod.org/2018/05/18/pseudopod-595-mysterium-tremendum-part-2/

More information on Blood Standard here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35464016-blood-standard

Mysterium Tremendum

by Laird Barron

11.

During breakfast I relayed my encounter with the mystery animals, floating the idea that perhaps we should skip the hike. “Wow, a couple of bears outside? Why didn’t you get us up? I would’ve loved to see that.” Victor seemed truly disappointed while Dane and Glenn dismissed my concerns that we might run afoul of them during the day. Dane said, “We’ll just let Vicky run his yapper while we walk. Bears will hear that a mile away and beat it for the hills.”

“Gonna be hotter than the hobs of Hades,” Glenn said after shrugging on his backpack. “What the hell are hobs?” Dane said. “Hubs, farm boy,” Glenn said. “Don’t neglect your canteens, fellow campers. Put on some sunscreen. Bring extra socks.”

“How far we going? The Andes?”

“It’s a surprise. Let’s move out.”

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PseudoPod 595: Mysterium Tremendum – Part 2

“Mysterium Tremendum” was originally published in Occultation and Other Stories in 2010.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 57:14 — 39.4MB)

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Show Notes

Part 2 of 3

Listen to Part 1 here: https://pseudopod.org/2018/05/11/pseudopod-594-mysterium-tremendum-part-1/

More information on Blood Standard here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35464016-blood-standard

Mysterium Tremendum

by Laird Barron

7.

Sequim (pronounced Skwim by the locals) was lovely that summer. The town rested near the Dungeness River at the heart of a shallow basin of the Dungeness-Sequim Valley and not far from the bay. Fields of lavender and poppies and tulips dominated the countryside. There were farms and mills and old, dusty roads that wound between wooden fences and stands of oak and birch and poplar trees. Raymond Carver wrote a poem about Sequim. I’d never read that one.

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PseudoPod 594: Mysterium Tremendum – Part 1

“Mysterium Tremendum” was originally published in Occultation and Other Stories in 2010.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07:18 — 46.3MB)

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Show Notes

Part 1 of 3

More information on Blood Standard here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35464016-blood-standard

Mysterium Tremendum

by Laird Barron

1.

We bought supplies for our road trip  at an obscure general goods store in Seattle—a multi-generational emporium where you could purchase anything from space-age tents to snowshoes once worn by Antarctic explorers. That’s where we came across the guidebook.

Glenn found it on a low shelf in the rear of the shop, wedged between antique souvenir license plates and an out of print Jenkins’ Field Guide to Birds of Puget Sound. Fate is a strange and wondrous force—the aisles were dim and narrow and a large, elderly couple in muumuus was browsing the very shelf and it was time for us to go, but as I opened my mouth to suggest we head for the bar down the street, one of them, the man I think, bumped a rack of postcards and several items splatted on the floor. The man didn’t glance back as he walked away.