Pseudopod Default

PseudoPod 522: The Christmas Spirits – A Tale of the White Street Society

The Christmas Spirits was first published in “Tales of the White Street Society” in December 2012.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:46 — 45.8MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | TuneIn | RSS

Show Notes

Another true horror story of the season mentioned in the intro can be found here.

The Christmas Spirits

by Grady Hendrix

You can have your Paris, your London, your Vienna, your Rome; for this good Christian there is no city more sublime than New York at Christmastime. As I walked to the White Street Society clubhouse I sucked in great gulps of cold Yuletide air until my lungs froze solid with Christmas cheer. My feet were numbed with holiday spirit as they tramped the icy streets. My face and whiskers were chapped with all the joy of the season. Six carolers raced past me in the opposite direction, screaming, their exposed skin red and blistered with burns, their wet clothes steaming, flesh hanging from one of their faces in sheets. I smiled to myself a secret Christmas smile, for this meant that my good friend Augustus Mortimer was home.

‘God rest you, merry gentleman!’ I shouted in gay spirits, as I pounded on his front door. ‘Augustus? It is William! Come a’wassailing this December eve! Augustus?’

I felt something poking me in the midsection and directed my gaze downwards to behold the blade of a saber protruding from the mail slot and halfheartedly prodding me. It was sharpened to a murderous gleam, but as I was wrapped in many cloaks, and carpets, and coats, and shawls to protect myself against the Christmas chill, I felt only a gentle massaging about my tummy.

‘Augustus!’ I smiled, squatting down and peering through the mail slot. ‘Is stabbing any way to greet a visitor on this fifth night of Advent?’

Pseudopod Default

PseudoPod 521: The Moraine

“The Moraine” was first printed in The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 4 in 2012

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:00 — 38.5MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | TuneIn | RSS

The Moraine

by Simon Bestwick

“Hello?” I called into the mist. “Hello?”

“Anybody down there?” Diane called.

“Hello?” A voice called back.

“Thank god for that,” Diane whispered.

We started along the rattling path, into the mist. “Hello?” called the voice. “Hello?”

Pseudopod Default

PseudoPod 520: Dermot

“Dermot” was first printed in Black Static, Issue 24 August-September 2011.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:19 — 19.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | TuneIn | RSS

Dermot

by Simon Bestwick

The bus turns left off Langworthy Road and onto the approach to the A6.  Just before it goes under the overpass, past the old Jewish cemetery at the top of Brindleheath Road and on past Pendleton Church, it stops and Dermot gets on.

He gets a few funny looks, does Dermot, as he climbs aboard, but then he always does.  It’s hard for people to put their fingers on it.  Maybe it’s the way his bald head looks a bit too big.  Or the fishy largeness of his eyes behind the jar-thick spectacles.  The nervous quiver of his pale lips, perhaps.

Or perhaps it’s just how pale he is.  How smooth.  His skin- his face, his hands- are baby-smooth and baby-soft.  Like they’ve never known work, and hardly ever known light.  

All that and he’s in a suit, too.  Quite an old suit, and it’s not a perfect fit- maybe a size too large- but it’s neat and clean and well-maintained.  Pressed.  Smooth.

And of course, there’s the briefcase.

It’s old-fashioned, like something out of the ‘seventies, made out of plain brown leather.  He doesn’t carry it by the handle.  He hugs it close against his chest.  Like a child.

PseudoPod logo

PseudoPod 519: Perfect Reflection

PseudoPod 519: Perfect Reflection is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:18 — 21.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | TuneIn | RSS

Perfect Reflection

by Elizabeth Siedt

You hate mirrors.

You use them, sure, begrudgingly checking your hair and doing your makeup and smiling into them after you’ve finished brushing your teeth. But you’ve never liked them, how they throw back at you a world you take for granted is your own. Antique mirrors in particular unsettle you, like silent mercurial ancestors, hanging on your wall and looking right into your eyes. The worst are the oval ones, with the thin, gold frames. They look like enormous keyholes to a darker world.

Pseudopod Default

PseudoPod 518: The Tiger

“The Tiger” was first printed in Terror Tales Of London in May 2013. It was subsequently reprinted in Best Horror of the Year #6 and The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime #11.

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:37 — 33.5MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | TuneIn | RSS

Show Notes

“The Tiger” is one in a loose sequence of stories Nina is still in the process of writing, featuring some continuing characters and all set in and around Lewisham in south east London, where she lived for some years. Other stories in the sequence so far include “Wilkolak” which was published in the biannual British magazine Crimewave, and “The Nightingale”, which was published in the British horror magazine Black Static.

The Tiger

by Nina Allan

There is a bed, a wardrobe with a large oval mirror, a builtin cupboard to one side of the chimney breast. The boards are bare, stained black. There is a greyish cast to everything. Croft guesses the room has not been used in quite some time.

“It’s not much, I’m afraid,” the woman says. Her name is Sandra. Symes has told him everyone including her husband calls her Sandy, but Croft has decided already that he will never do this, that it is ugly, that he likes Sandra better. “I’ve been meaning to paint it, but there hasn’t been time.”

She is too thin, he thinks, with scrawny hips and narrow little birdy hands. Her mousy hair, pulled back in a ponytail, has started to come free of its elastic band. Croft cannot help noticing how tired she looks.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “If you can let me have the paint, I’ll do it myself.”

“Oh,” she says. She seems flustered. “I suppose we could take something off the rent money. In exchange, I mean.”

“There’s no need,” Croft says. “I’d like to do it. Something to keep me out of mischief.” He smiles, hoping to give her reassurance, but she takes a step backwards, just a small one, but still a step, and Croft sees he has made a mistake, already, that the word mischief isn’t funny, not from him, not now, not yet.

He will have to be more careful with what he says. He wonders if this is the way things will be for him from now on.

Pseudopod Default

EA Metacast – 48 Hours left on PP Kickstarter!!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.1KB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | TuneIn | RSS

What it says on the tin – 48 hours left on the PSEUDOPOD Kickstarter! We’ve just got $1000 left to push us over the top! Please consider pledging! Every bit helps! And if you’ve already pledged, consider upping your pledge for a special mystery bonus!

Pseudopod Default

PseudoPod 517: Into the Penny Arcade

“Into The Penny Arcade” was originally published as a chapbook by Nightjar Press in 2012 and reprinted in THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR: VOLUME FIVE.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:58 — 15.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | TuneIn | RSS

Into the Penny Arcade

by Claire Dean

She walked down the same street every day on her way home from school. There were no houses along there, just old warehouses with boarded-up windows and rubbish-plugged holes. Red brick dust crumbled from the walls and made patterns on the pavement. Greyish-green moss grew in all the cracks.

The lorry hadn’t ever been there before. It was dark blue with no writing on the side. She crossed away from it, walked faster. Her rucksack dug into her right shoulder, textbooks bounced against her spine, her heels snapped on the pavement. There were no other sounds. The street was like a tunnel; the wind sucked her along it.

She emerged into the real world at the other end: cars bombing past, chip shop smell, a mum with a buggy yelling at a kid who was lagging behind.

The lorry was there again the next day. She crossed over. There were girls who got snatched. Men who did things to girls. It would be dark inside that lorry. Was it always going to be there now? Had it moved during the day whilst she was at school, or at night after she’d passed it? And then come back.

Pseudopod Default

PseudoPod 516: The Fox

“The Fox” was first published March 1st 2013 as a chapbook by This Is Horror and reprinted in THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR: VOLUME SIX.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:17 — 34.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | TuneIn | RSS

The Fox

by Conrad Williams

Megan was trying to push past her mother and now I was able to breathe more easily. Kit was just trying to shield Lucy from what was inside the coop. Or rather, what wasn’t. The chicken-wire had been torn open. All four chickens were gone. No feathers, no signs of a fight whatsoever. Just one spot of blood on the ramp leading into what Megan had been referring to as the ‘chook-chook’s bunga-oh’.