by Garrett Croker

“The Shopping Cart Apocalypse” is a Pseudopod Original, inspired by actual parking lots and actual injuries. Some details have been embellished.

GARRETT CROKER lives and writes in the San Francisco Bay Area. When he’s not a writer, he has at different times been a college English teacher, a copywriter, and a marketer. He received his MFA in creative writing from Mills College. His fiction has appeared previously in Mad Scientist Journal‘s anthology SELFIES FROM THE END OF THE WORLD. He can be found online at THE BALLPOINT APOCALYPSE, or follow him on twitter @garrettcroker.

Your reader – Alasdair Stuart – was just recently in the United States and is currently moving house (although not to the US, afaik). And I could not ask for a better boss.

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The beautiful Horror in Clay 01 – The Murders in the Rue Morgue mug Kickstarter can be accessed at the link! Check it out, for the love of God, Montressor!

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I wanted to bring your attention to a project from Orrin Grey and Strix Publishing. You already know and love Orrin Grey.

PSEUDOPOD 155: THE WORM THAT GNAWS

PSEUDOPOD 262: BLACK HILL

PSEUDOPOD 415: NIGHT’S FOUL BIRD

Strix Publishing has launched a Kickstarter to bring us a new and expanded hardcover edition of Orrin’s collection NEVER BET THE DEVIL AND OTHER WARNINGS. This new edition includes all ten stories from the original, as well as the heretofore hard-to-find “A Night for Mothing” and an all new story, “Goblins.” As of the time of this recording, it’s just passed the halfway mark with almost three weeks to go, so it’s time for the add-ons and additional goals to creep out of the corners.

So, please check it out: NEVER BET THE DEVIL AND OTHER WARNINGS Kickstarter. You’ll be glad you did!

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The CAST OF WONDERS Flash Fiction Contest info can be accessed at the link.

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Info on Anders Manga’s album (they do our theme music!) can be found here.

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“Eli had never seen so many scattered across the lot so early, their sleek plastic frames a startling red against the radiating blacktop. Some congregated in small packs, propped haphazardly onto planters two by two, or grouped into neat lines just outside the cart returns, or facing outward from each other in small, defensive circles that only had the appearance of random chance. Others hunted alone, hiding behind cars, or rolling slowly down the lot’s near imperceptible incline, or simply waiting patiently in plain sight, loose wheels spinning slowly in the breeze. There was no order to unify the disparate groups, as he might have hoped. This was a disaster.”