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PseudoPod 542: That Only a Mother

“That Only a Mother” was originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, June 1948. It appears here with appreciation through the assistance of the Virginia Kidd Agency.

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That Only a Mother

by Judith Merril

A well-known geneticist, in the medical news, said that it was possible to tell with absolute certainty, at five months, whether the child would be normal, or at least whether the mutation was likely to produce anything freakish. The worst cases, at any rate, could be prevented. Minor mutations, of course, displacements in facial features, or changes in brain structure could not be detected. And there had been some cases recently, of normal embryos with atrophied limbs that did not develop beyond the seventh or eighth month. But, the doctor concluded cheerfully, the worst cases could now be predicted and prevented.

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PseudoPod 541: Tessa Told Me

PseudoPod 541: Tessa Told Me is a PseudoPod original.

CONTENT WARNING:

Spoiler

Sexual Assault, Rape

[collapse]

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Show Notes

“I always like to say that there’s nothing more terrifying than the human heart.”

Tessa Told Me

by Rob Kotecki

Julie only half listened to Mr. Garland as he ran through the emergency numbers on the fridge, distracted by why Liam hadn’t texted her back. It had been forty-five minutes. They’d agreed to break up when she moved, but spent more time talking now than they ever did living ten minutes away from each other.

“I mean it,” Mr. Garland said, bringing her back to her babysitting gig. “Don’t forget to have fun… just wait until Noah goes to bed,” and he pinched his fingers and brought them to his lips.

As if. She had no idea where to buy yet. The stay at home Dads were always the worst, as they were either OCD about their kid’s every move, or desperate to prove they stayed home because they were so chill. Really.

“If all goes well, I’ll be home around one. If it goes great, I won’t be home at all.” Julie mustered a smile that fell just shy of condescending. He seemed to want something from her. “Don’t worry. Noah and I are going to be fine.”

That did the trick, and he grabbed his guitar case. He was off to play in some sad cover band at the sports bar that seemed like an off-brand TGI Friday’s from the outside. But as soon as he left, there was nothing to distract her from checking her phone and refusing to send a second text, until Liam responded to her last one.

Noah was lost in some stupid video game that seemed set in World War II. He was cute now, even a little shy, but she saw the inner frat boy Noah would grow up to be. She tried to do her calculus, but her attention never drifted far from her phone. Fine. “Busy?” she texted Liam, feeling so cavalier about it right until it was sent, at which point she realized how sad and desperate she was.

She decided to shut her phone off before she did even more damage to her self-respect and offered to play with the kid. Noah wagged his head.

“Tessa says no.”

“Who’s Tessa?”

“She’s nice. She likes you, but she thinks you should go home.”

“Well, too bad for Tessa.” But he merely shrugged and went back to the game.

“She says too bad for you.”

Imaginary friend. Fine. At least the kid’s quiet. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 062 Replay: Faith in Sips and Bites

PseudoPod 062 Replay: Faith in Sips and Bites is a PseudoPod original.

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We are digging a classic from the vault and reloading it into your queues anew. We hope that it makes you consider diving into our decade of back-catalog.

Michael Chant writes fiction, poetry, and reviews of books, music, and film. His work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Twilight Showcase, Quantum Muse, Electric Wine, The Chiaroscuro, Nocturnal Ooze, and GC Magazine.

Your narrator is the Lich King, Ben Phillips.

If you are reading this, we must’ve done it. I’m going to tell as much as I can. You newspaper people will have to clean up the spelling. Going to have your work cut out for you. Make it pretty for the front page. Crazy thinking something I write is going to be on the front page. That’s the Lord working in His mysterious ways again. Got to type it out. When I write it out longhand it looks like Chinese. Just have to hunt and peck as best I can. Can’t write no more. Hands shake too much. Nerve damage. All of us got it now.

In Kristi Demeester’s novel BENEATH we have a pastor struggling with a crisis of faith, and an investigative journalist endeavoring to subdue shadows of the past to shield from the greater darkness to come. We have an innocent touched by that darkness that wants to catalyze her to transform the world from that which we know to one of Stygian dreaming.

The cover art is phenomenal. Considering our troubled preacher, it evoked feelings like those from Night of the Hunter, particularly the impressive shot of the underwater grave. Does the stone keep her grounded and prevents her from floating away? Is the snake and her faith keeping her connected or tempting her elsewhere? Which is the shackle and which is salvation? Beautifully executed, and perfect for the conflict within.

More about the book at Word Horde.

 

 

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PseudoPod 540: The Dog Pit

“The Dog Pit” first appeared in Cthulhu: Deep Down Under and is soon to be reprinted in the Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2015.

“The Dog Pit came about as a story for the Australian-themed Cthulhu anthology Cthulhu: Deep Down Under, and was inspired by some history tours I took around Sydney. I’ve long had a fascination with colonial-era Australia, and the colourful old gangs of the Sydney Rocks area were just begging to be used in a horror setting. Sydney is an odd place, old in terms of European settlement, and incredibly ancient for the Indigenous peoples who lived in the region prior to first contact. The idea of these layers of humanity sitting above an eldritch horror seemed to gel, and of course we writers are lucky that a few Aussie Cthulhu mythos beasties can be used and reused. So enter the dingo creature Kurpangga, trapped beneath the earth for a million years…”

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by Jason Fischer

 

The Dutchman finally found the boy out on the gold diggings.

Being close to seven feet tall and as broad as an axe-handle at the shoulders, Cornelius Tesselaar was an instant curiosity in that place of mud and slap-shacks. His frock-coat and good boots spoke of a man more used to cobbled streets than a fossicker’s warren. He wore a top-hat, the good silk kind, and peered around him through a pair of expensive bifocals that by themselves would earn him a knifing if he stayed too long.

A quiet word and a handful of coins led Cornelius to the nearest opium den. He swept open the hessian sack that served as a doorway, and stood blinking at the thick cloud of smoke that drifted out.

“Toby Jangles,” the Dutchman boomed, striding inside. A dozen faces stared blankly at the man, even as he stepped over their sprawled bodies. One or two furtive shapes slinked away from the doorway, creeping into the furthest shadows of the clapboard shack.

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PseudoPod 539: The Fear

“The Fear” was first printed in Macabra: A Journey Through Australia’s Darkest Fears in 2010 and reprinted in the US in Year’s Best Horror 2010.

 

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Show Notes

“Yes – imagine that film! Even though it may not end up the way you expect, visualize just how it might look and sound on the screen!”

The Fear

by Richard Harland

 

“It’s impossible to explain without visuals. You’d have to see the movie to know why it was so frightening. Think yourself lucky you never will.”

NASA aurora image from April 10, 2015, Delta Junction, Alaska

PseudoPod 538: Flash On The Borderlands XXXVII: Higher Beings Command

PseudoPod 538: Flash On The Borderlands XXXVII: Higher Beings Command is a PseudoPod original.

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Show Notes

“Higher Beings Command…Their Powers To The Ground….”
Coil

“Behold, The Drowning” was first made available to the public via the “No Sleep” section of reddit.com.

“I would like the audience to consider, while listening to this story, the implications of sensory deprivation on fear. Loss of sight has been explored many times over; it is pivotal to our primordial fear of the dark. Loss of sound, however, receives far less attention and is, potentially, more horrifying for reasons stated by the story’s protagonist.”

“Bring The Moon To Me” was first printed in 2015 in the anthology SHE WALKS IN SHADOWS (later renamed “CTHULHU’S DAUGHTERS”), edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles

“The Hole At The Top of the World” is a PseudoPod Original.

“The story is about equal halves me imagining a character given his own space when, in many other stories, he’d be relegated to a minor role; and me thinking about depression.”

“This Creature, This Creature, This Wonderful Creature” first appeared in the short story collection SING ALONG WITH THE SAD SONG in 2016.

Behold, The Drowning by John Purfield

I once wished I could give both my eyes for a pair of ears that worked. My world is experienced through the narrow window of my vision. I hear no birds sing, nor waves crash on rocks. The intricacies of music are lost on me, but for the vibrations of a particularly obnoxious bass line. In the animal kingdom, there are many blind animals, but precious few deaf creatures. The deaf die fast and young, for hearing is the only sense that gives you full scope of your environment. You can hear a predator creep behind you, but you cannot see it unless it is in front of you. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 537: A World of Bones

PseudoPod 537: A World of Bones is a PseudoPod original.

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A World of Bones

By Brian Trent

She awoke in the blackness thinking she was still alive, fumbling for the lipstick she’d never found. Angela Chen jerked to her feet, confused at discovering herself in this place of shadows. She had been dreaming—if dreaming was the word now—of the wet corpses along Quinyun Road. Pawing at their pockets, feeling guilty as she did. Seeking only a little tube of lipstick on that rainy night as Shanghai fell.

And then the impact to the back of her head. The blood and teeth spilling in a syrupy glob from her mouth… (Continue Reading…)

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…)