by E. Lee McVicar

Not only is Jay’s Place a Pseudopod original, but also the author’s first professional publication sale. PseudoPod couldn’t be prouder to introduce you to this author.

E. Lee McVicar grew up in West Virginia and now lives in Western Massachusetts, where she works at a small publishing company. When she’s not working, painting, or watching birds, she’s hiding under the covers reading ghost stories. When she was writing this story, she was thinking about the frustration and terror of being unable to understand something angry, and how we just want things to make sense, both around us and inside of us.

Your narrator – Joe Scalora is a senior marketing manager at Del Rey Books and Del Rey Star Wars. He is a curator of Geek pursuits and has narrated for Pseudopod and The Double Shadow, the Clark Ashton Smith podcast. Follow him on twitter @JoeScalora

Your guest audio producer – Chelsea Davis is a scholar of Gothic fiction. She’s currently at work on a dissertation about supernatural war literature. In her spare time, she produces radio, & gets a huge kick out of reading killer Pseudopod submissions as an Associate Editor.

Your guest host – Julie Hoverson is the writer and producer of such audio dramas as 19 Nocturne Boulevard and Fatal Girl (both available at 19 Nocturne Boulevard), has now turned her hand to audiobooks and can be found on audible.com narrating such diverse pieces as Jake Bible’s Dead Mech / Apex Trilogy and several novellas that are part of Brian MacLellan’s Powder Mage series, most recently the short story collection In The Field Marshal’s Shadow.

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The road looked like it was there by accident. Turnoff so steep it felt like driving straight into the trees. Houses set far apart, hiding suspiciously at end of long dirt driveways, husks of cars crouched on their lawns. These were not the kind of people who made friends with their neighbors, but that was all right for now.

His place was second from the end of the street, a rocky oval where lost souls could pull a three-point turn and get back to the interstate. The house looked like it was built more recently than its neighbors. It was a little too narrow for its two stories, but the siding was all attached and the roof hadn’t yet shed any asphalt tiles. Jay examined it critically from the end of the unpaved driveway. Even this late in the evening, he had to shield his eyes against the fierce glare of the sun.

“No one’s been in there for a while,” said his brother, “but I just got it inspected and the inside’s actually all right. Hot water works, electricity’s not gonna kill you.” He leaned against his truck, boots crunching in the gravel.

“What’s it need done?” Jay asked.

“Well, once the yard is cleared out, I figure we’ll fix up the porch. Windows are okay but the screen door needs replacing. The rest is for you to figure out. Once they demo that dump next door, I think we may have a chance of selling.” He gestured to the neighboring property, barely visible behind a tangle of underdeveloped trees.