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PseudoPod 428: When It Ends, He Catches Her

“When It Ends, He Catches Her” was originally published in Daily Science Fiction in September 2014.

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Show Notes

Many thanks to Matthew Foster for sharing this story with us and you.

Music in the outro is “Cylinder Nine” by Chris Zabriskie, from the Free Music Archive.

When It Ends, He Catches Her

by Eugie Foster

The dim shadows were kinder to the theater’s dilapidation. A single candle to aid the dirty sheen of the moon through the rent beams of the ancient roof, easier to overlook the worn and warped floorboards, the tattered curtains, the mildew-ridden walls. Easier as well to overlook the dingy skirt with its hem all ragged, once purest white and fine, and her shoes, almost fallen to pieces, the toes cracked and painstakingly re-wrapped with hoarded strips of linen. Once, not long ago, Aisa wouldn’t have given this place a first glance, would never have deigned to be seen here in this most ruinous of venues. But times changed. Everything changed.

Aisa pirouetted on one long leg, arms circling her body like gently folded wings. Her muscles gathered and uncoiled in a graceful leap, suspending her in the air with limbs outflung, until gravity summoned her back down. The stained, wooden boards creaked beneath her, but she didn’t hear them. She heard only the music in her head, the familiar stanzas from countless rehearsals and performances of Snowbird’s Lament. She could hum the complex orchestral score by rote, just as she knew every step by heart.

Act II, scene III: the finale. It was supposed to be a duet, her as Makira, the warlord’s cursed daughter, and Balege as Ono, her doomed lover, in a frenzied last dance of tragedy undone, hope restored, rebirth. But when the Magistrate had closed down the last theaters, Balege had disappeared in the resultant riots and protests.

PseudoPod 427: ARTEMIS RISING Women In Horror Showcase: Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose

“Carnation, Lily, Rose” first appeared in Fence, Vol. 1, No. 2 Fall/Winter in 1998.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:42 — 26.7MB)

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Show Notes

To find out more about Women In Horror month, please visit WomenInHorrorMonth.com.

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose

by Kelly Link

We were going to name the baby Beatrice. I just remembered that. We were going to name her after your aunt, the one that doesn’t like me. Didn’t like me. Did she come to the funeral?

I’ve been here for three days, and I’m trying to pretend that it’s just a vacation, like when we went to that island in that country. Santorini? Great Britain? The one with all the cliffs. The one with the hotel with the bunkbeds, and little squares of pink toilet paper, like handkerchiefs. It had seashells in the window too, didn’t it, that were transparent like bottle glass? They smelled like bleach? It was a very nice island. No trees. You said that when you died, you hoped heaven would be an island like that. And now I’m dead, and here I am.

This is an island too, I think. There is a beach, and down on the beach is a mailbox where I am going to post this letter. Other than the beach, the mailbox, there is the building in which I sit and write this letter. It seems to be a perfectly pleasant resort hotel with no other guests, no receptionist, no host, no events coordinator, no bellboy. Just me. There is a television set, very old-fashioned, in the hotel lobby. I fiddled the antenna for a long time, but never got a picture. Just static. I tried to make images, people out of the static. It looked like they were waving at me.

PseudoPod 426: ARTEMIS RISING Women In Horror Showcase: The Devil Inside

“The Devil Inside” first appeared in SOMEONE WICKED: A WRITTEN REMAINS ANTHOLOGY by Smart Rhino Publications.

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Show Notes

“I did actually have a baby this past summer, but she is not possessed or evil – so far as I know.”

To find out more about Women In Horror month, please visit WomenInHorrorMonth.com.

The Devil Inside

by Shannon Connor Winward

‘What do you mean by that, Rebecca?’ the doctor queried. ‘What did no one tell you?’

Becca studied the drops of rain on the window, little falling jewels of light.

She felt evil, just saying it. ‘I read all the books. They warn you about everything that can go wrong. Preeclampsia. Preemies. Feeding problems. But no one tells you what to do when you don’t love your baby. Like it’s … unthinkable.’

Her words hung for a time, as Dr. Marsh scribbled on his pad. ‘It’s quite common. Many women experience post-partum depression …’

‘I’m not depressed, I just don’t love him.’

‘Why is that, do you think?’

Why? Because he didn’t love her back? Because he cried? All the time, always, screeching until his little voice cracked. Because Becca couldn’t cry?

‘I just don’t feel it,’ she murmured.

PseudoPod 425: ARTEMIS RISING Women In Horror Showcase: Works Of Art

“Works Of Art” was originally published in Pulphouse in 1988, and reprinted in The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XVII.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:15 — 16.1MB)

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Works Of Art

by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Cerveza’s call came four days later.

‘Can we meet you for tea somewhere?’ Sally asked. I watched her face as she listened to his reply. Her blue eyes narrowed, then widened, tear-bright.

‘No, I—’ she said. A pause. She bit her lower lip. ‘You don’t understand. Your art cries out to be preserved.’

She waited. She squeezed her eyes shut and tears spilled out. When she opened her eyes, she stared at the ceiling, twisting the phone’s coiled cord around her wrist and pulled it tight. ‘Denial,’ she whispered. ‘Very well.’ She hung up the phone as though it were an egg and might crack if mishandled.

‘Oh, Lucy,’ she whispered.

I went to her and offered what comfort I could.

When her sobs slowed, she said, ‘He’s coming tomorrow morning, with an ax.’

PseudoPod 424: ARTEMIS RISING Women In Horror Showcase: The Godsmaid Clara and Her Many Smiles

PseudoPod 424: ARTEMIS RISING Women In Horror Showcase: The Godsmaid Clara and Her Many Smiles is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:07 — 19.4MB)

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Show Notes

To find out more about Women In Horror month, please visit WomenInHorrorMonth.com.

The Godsmaid Clara and Her Many Smiles

by Sharon Dodge

‘Godsmaid,’ I say, and the butler’s eyes immediately glaze over. That’s pretty much always the case. It’s remarkable how little attention they pay me, how consciously their eyes slide over me as soon as I’ve announced my profession. Too dirty and gross, too much something no one wants to think about. Not unless you have monsters crawling all over the floor, anyhow. Of all people, the butler should know me, should appreciate me, but he’s new; I haven’t been here often, but often enough to have known his previous incarnation.

‘We have no need of one at present,’ he said. ‘Thank you for your offer, madame.’

‘I have an appointment, sir. His Lordship requested me,’ I say, and this time he actually looks me in the eyes.

‘Does he need you now?’ he asks dumbly, and I just smile at him, my polite society smile that says I’ve said what I must, and after a minute he sort of nods at me and leads me in.

I could walk the way myself—there are servants’ stairs that I’ve used before, and they’re quicker besides—but truthfully I get tired of being dismissed to the servants’ entryway, and the gentleman who made the appointment assured me I could use the front. Nevermind I am a servant. Not many people can do what I do. Well, not many people would care to, but even so.

A few of the other servants raise their eyebrows as I pass down the hallways, but nothing more than that. At least one of them recognizes me, from the way he quickly looks away. I do murmur, “It’s not catching, you know,” and the butler turns around to me, frowning, but I just smile and he keeps walking. The man I was actually talking to swiftly trods away from us.

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PseudoPod 423: The Ana Log

“The Ana Log” first appeared in Vol. 2 of RICHMOND MACABRE, an anthology published in 2012 and edited by Beth Brown and Phil Ford.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:22 — 25.1MB)

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The Ana Log

by Michael Gray Baughan

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Nondescript and nearly swallowed by the general blight of Jefferson Davis Highway, Thornbill’s store gives no clue that it houses the largest extant VHS collection on the East Coast. And that’s just what’s on the shelves, available for rental to anyone willing to pay the $5 membership fee.

He locked his front door, turned his sign to closed, and escorted me down an impressive gauntlet of vintage porn, through a steel door and into a vast, climate-controlled storeroom in the back that housed a large quantity of unknowns. I was tempted to inquire about certain other rarities that had long eluded me, but in the end felt it best to focus on the task at hand.

Inside a framed and sheet-rocked subdivision of the storeroom, Thornbill had a HR-S8000U hooked up to a Sony Triniton CRT. The inner walls of this room were lined with soundproofing tiles to allow for the private screening of any manner of material. Thornbill excused himself for a moment and returned with an aluminum attaché case, which he placed on the table, unlocked, and opened. It contained eight VHS-C cassettes of the make and vintage I was expecting, plus a folder full of photos and police reports.

Thornbill powered on the VCR and the television, presented me with an adapter cassette, and then excused himself again. As he left the room I asked if he had seen the tapes. He said he had not and would like to keep it that way, but he had every confidence that they were genuine. He had acquired them directly from a retired Richmond P.D. captain. Thornbill said this in a way that made it clear from which direction my troubles would come if I was ever foolish enough to be indiscreet with this information. I asked him why his source had decided to sell them now, after all these years. Thornbill said the man had protected her for as long as he could and just needed someone else to shoulder the burden. It was a strange choice of words, overly metaphoric for a cop. I was eager to take possession of the tapes and be gone with them before Thornbill changed his mind, but I also wanted to be certain the material was genuine. I inserted the first five tapes in sequence and watched a few minutes of each. Immediately I knew that things would never be the same.

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PseudoPod 422: Necrosis

“Necrosis” first appeared in the May/June 2012 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 24.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:36 — 16.3MB)

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Necrosis

by Dale Bailey

In retrospect none of us could say with any precision when it began. Condon had never been part of our set. Grandfathered into the club by one of those old robber barons whose fortunes had declined, he was essentially nondescript—capable of maintaining a decent conversation, pleasant enough to be around, but not the kind of man with whom one formed deep and lasting relationships.

When we met him, we were friendly. When we didn’t — which was the norm, Condon not being ubiquitous in our circles — we didn’t think of him at all. So it was hard to say, as we thought the thing through among ourselves, when precisely it had begun — a task complicated by the fact that none of us had known anything had begun, until it was over.

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PseudoPod 421: The Three Chimes

PseudoPod 421: The Three Chimes is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:49 — 24.7MB)

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Show Notes

“Historical horror isn’t a new subgenre, but it does remain terra incognita for many of today’s horror and dark fiction writers. While it can be a challenging undertaking successfully melding historical tropes with contemporary horror themes, history itself has often provided plenty of gruesome inspiration for those writers who are willing to take on the task. As Louis XVI discovers in “The Three Chimes,” the trick is to remember that whether in ancient regime France or the 21st-century world, horror and terror and all that they inspire in human beings are universal constants, and omnipresent across all time.”

The Three Chimes

by David Longshore

On the 21st day of January in the last year of his life and reign, Louis awoke in his cold apartments in the Temple well before dawn. He was quickly assisted into his clothes by his valet, then sank to his knees beside his bed and prayed with his confessor until he heard a commotion from an adjoining room.

Almost crippled by fear and horror at the suddenness of the horrible day’s arrival, Louis nonetheless rose from his prayers and went to the door leading into the front room.