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Pseudopod 456: Flash On The Borderlands XXVI: Official Reports

  • “Thumbwood” was originally published in September of 2007 in THE FIRST HUMDRUMMING BOOK OF HORROR STORIES, a UK print anthology of horror fiction edited by Ian Alexander Martin. The tale was reprinted in August of 2010 in ESTEBAN’S HOUSE OF BIZARRO, an online journal of bizarro fiction that folded some weeks later.
  • “Final Corrections, Pittsburgh Times-Dispatch” was first published by Daily Science Fiction on January 3, 2013. (about story)
  • “N0072-JK1: Study of Synaptic Response of the Organism to Spontaneous Stimulation of Vulnerability Zones. Photographic Analysis” was first published in the anthology Borderlands 5 from Borderlands Press. It was reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Seventeenth Annual Collection. Borderlands 5 was republished by Warner Books under the title From the Borderlands.

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Show Notes

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ”

George Orwell

Thumbwood: “While the tale itself is fictional, the structure and language of the document are lifted directly from a genuine British Ministry of Defence report I was able to get my hands on.”

Final Corrections, Pittsburgh Times-Dispatch: “I’m quite fond of Pittsburgh, and selected it as the scene of this story only for its interesting geography.”

Thumbwood

by Davin Ireland

c) The kitchen is surprisingly modern given the setting, and contains many of the domestic appliances one might expect from an equivalent family home. Dishwasher, microwave, fridge-freezer and designer espresso machine are all in evidence. In an alcove by the back door, Sisyphus struggles valiantly to push a large granite sphere up a craggy mountainside. Oblivious to our operative’s presence, the former Corinthian king puffs and strains in order to achieve his goal, jaw clenched, diminutive biceps popping beneath the fabric of his flimsy cotton tunic. The task is a thankless one. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 455: Turbulence

“Turbulence” was first published by Innsmouth Free Press in Innsmouth Magazine #14, November 2013

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Turbulence

by Scott R. Jones

They’re sealing the silo today and the cavern below it. One hundred fifty thousand tonnes of concrete poured down the wet, black throat of the thing. I hope it’s enough.

The facility is down to a skeleton staff now. Topside security and just enough eyes on the monitors to hit the red button if things change down there. I’m not really needed; my MSc is in Avionics Engineering, after all. I don’t even work here anymore, but I felt like paying my respects. I’m not alone in this. Declan made friends easily and there are a lot of project folks here that don’t need to be.

His official funeral was just so goddamned unsatisfying, for one thing. That eulogy! “Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth….” They ran that Magee poem into the ground, which was about as tasteless as you could get, considering the circumstances. Considering his resting place.

That’s just it though, isn’t it? Declan isn’t at rest. Declan will never be at rest. I know what they told everyone. That he died testing the DreadMoth. That’s only technically true. I know he’s not dead. Ask anyone who ever sat with him down there, in the cavern. They’ll tell you.

They talked about Icarus at the funeral, too, which is all mytho-poetic and sells the American hero line, sure, but it’s a flawed comparison. Icarus fell. That kid kissed the dirt.

Declan may be half a mile underground, but he hasn’t touched down, yet.

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PseudoPod 454: Eastern Promise

“Eastern Promise” originally appeared in Crowded Magazine issue 2, 2013.

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Eastern Promise

by Stewart Horn

‘In more western parts of Europe, incorrupt corpses were apt to induce almost the opposite response. A lack of decay was taken to be evidence that the individual had died in a state of perfect grace, immaculate and sinless. There are reputed to be whole, perfect bodies secreted among the other saintly relics in churches all over France, Spain, Italy and Prussia, and all those that remain intact have since been canonized. Many such corpses were said to emanate an ‘odour of sanctity’ for some time after death, described as akin to the smell of fresh flowers; it may be principally this olfactory phenomenon, coupled with geographical and religious incidence, that determined which corpses were worshipped as saints, and which destroyed as demons or vampires.’

M. Rhodes, Demonology and Vampirism in Europe, 1897

Artemis Rising 2: Hecate Strikes Back: Open for Submissions

Artemis Rising

In 2016, Escape Artists will again celebrate ARTEMIS RISING, a special month-long event across all three Escape Artists podcasts featuring stories by some of the best female and non-binary authors in genre fiction. Pseudopod will fill the entire month with female-authored horror fiction. Payment will be $.06 per word for original fiction, and $100 for reprints. Original fiction is preferred.

Pseudopod is now open for submissions for the entire month of September. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 452: Abandon All Flesh

“Abandon All Flesh” first appeared in Tales of Jack the Ripper, a 2013 anthology.

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Show Notes

Silvia remembers the wax museum in Mexico City burning down in 1992, which helped to inspire this story.

Abandon All Flesh

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The chamber of horrors. The cobwebs and the torture instruments and the lights. And Jack. She loves Jack most of all. He stands in a corner, past the mummies and the witches, in his cape and stylish top hat. Black satin. Gloves. Right hand raised, knife gleaming. He sports a wicked smile.

If you stand in front of Jack all you can see is the smile. The angle of the hat wraps the rest of his face in rich shadows. However, if you move to the side and step a bit forward, against the velvet ropes, you can look at him up close.

The quality of the wax sculptures varies. The older ones are good and the newer ones are less detailed. But Jack. Jack is not good, he is great. The one who crafted him did so with exquisite detail, labouring over the eyes and the skin, striving to approximate life as much as one can within the confines of a wax mold. The result is a face that seems alert, capable of speech, of drawing a breath. The fingers curl around the knife with true strength, the body tenses, ready to leap down from its dais.

Even the background of this exhibit is flawless. Behind Jack there is a bed, unmade, the sheets splattered with blood. The subdued lighting reveals a brick wall and a shuttered window.

Julia stands in front of Jack and touches the sleeve of his jacket. She is fourteen. During class she draws skulls and dragons in the margins of her notebooks. In the afternoons, she does her homework with more haste than effort. Twice a week she walks the wax museum, pausing before Jack and admiring him.

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Flash Fiction Contest 4: Bloodlines

The original paraphernalia for the Flash Fiction Contest had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Stuart, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Lieberman spoke frequently to the forum members about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here.

Mr. Garrett and his oldest son, Nick, hold the black box securely on the stool until Mr. Lieberman can stir the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Lieberman had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations. Chips of wood, Mr. Lieberman had argued, had been all very well when the village was tiny, but now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into the black box.

The fourth incarnation of the Escape Artists Flash Fiction Contest is coming. Pseudopod is leading the charge this time. Every author may submit up to two original stories of 500 words or less for consideration. Submissions are open now until September 15. Head to our special submittable portal for the flash fiction contest to exercise your civic duty in the lottery.

The competition will begin in October. The three winning stories will be purchased and run as an episode of Pseudopod. Payment will be $30 so this will be considered a pro sale. Stories will be published on a members-only section of the forums, so first publication rights will not be expended by participating in the contest. It’s easy to be become a member. Sign up for a forum account and make a single post so we know you’re not a bot. This is a good thread to start with. From there, all the pertinent details will be posted under “The Arcade”. Visit forum.escapeartists.net for rules and details.

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PseudoPod 451: The New Arrival

“The New Arrival” was first published in Electric Spec, Volume 5, Issue 4 November 2010

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The New Arrival

by Miranda Suri

I stood in line at the grocery store with my mother, ignoring Simon as he pawed through the carnival-bright offerings on the candy rack. Suzette, the check-stand girl who sometimes babysat for us on Friday nights, ran the items across the scanner.

“What great news, Mrs. Waverly,” Suzette said. “You must be so excited!”

Simon finally settled on a chocolate bar and held it up to our mom, his eyes eager. Watching my older brother, his ten-year-old body twice my size but his mind still years behind, I felt something between pity and disgust.

My mother took the candy bar and slid it onto the belt. Her other hand held mine.

“I know,” she responded. “We’re thrilled! We didn’t want to say anything until we were out of the first trimester.”

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PseudoPod 450: The Horse Lord

“The Horse Lord” was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in June 1977 and included in A NEST OF NIGHTMARES. This collection was first published in 1986 by Sphere Books and is now available as an e-book from Jo Fletcher Books; it is also included in STRANGER IN THE HOUSE, a collection of her early supernatural fiction published as a limited edition hardcover by Ash-Tree Press in 2010.

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The Horse Lord

by Lisa Tuttle

The double barn doors were secured by a length of stout, rust-encrusted chain, fastened with an old padlock.

Marilyn hefted the lock with one hand and tugged at the chain, which did not give. She looked up at the splintering grey wood of the doors and wondered how the children had got in.

Dusting red powder from her hands, Marilyn strolled around the side of the old barn. Dead leaves and dying grasses crunched beneath her sneakered feet, and she hunched her shoulders against the chill in the wind.

‘There’s plenty of room for horses,’ Kelly had said the night before at dinner. ‘There’s a perfect barn. You can’t say it would be impractical to keep a horse here.’ Kelly was Derek’s daughter, eleven years old and mad about horses.

This barn had been used as a stable, Marilyn thought, and could be again. Why not get Kelly a horse? And why not one for herself as well? As a girl, Marilyn had ridden in Central Park. She stared down the length of the barn: for some reason, the door to each stall had been tightly boarded shut.