PseudoPod

by Michael Byrne.

“Jenny (A Fairytale)” has only been published on my own blog (Static Culture) and fewer people than I realised (when sent out to critique) are aware of the legend of ‘Jenny Greenteeth’ . I am unsure whether giving some intro into the legend will lessen the story or accentuate it but for reference ‘Jenny Greenteeth’ is a Lancashire legend of a river hag who would eat children. The below website offer a nice brief description: Fairyist: Jenny Greenteeth.

MICHAEL BYRNE a London based Writer/ Film Maker originally from Rochdale in Lancashire. He writes for his own blog, Static Culture and is currently seeking representation. He says he never truly sets out to write dark or subversive stories but for whatever reason they usually end up that way. His previous work, ‘Gast’, received wonderful reviews from readers of Scribble Magazine, coming second in their quarterly competition. ‘Gast’ can also be found at Static Culture. His film work people can be viewed at Cracked Films.

Your narrator – Donna Scott – remains an enigma wrapped in a reader…

Support our friends at 01 Publishing get Whispers from the Abyss 2 into print.

Preorder John C Foster’s upcoming novel at DoNotSpeakHisName.com

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In the past she had had many names, each one having evolved into legend and folklore, each a variation on a theme of children keeping away from the water’s edge. For the most part the stories’ graphic content seemed to work but there were always one or two younglings that would wander too far, out of bravado or curiosity, to the edge of their known world. Over the years she had noted how the bravery and stupidity of humans skated a fine line and that children seemed inherently prone to both attributes. Waltzing jovially into her watery embrace, unknowingly of course until the last moment. Never seeing her glide under the still waters without making a ripple. Black shark eyes absorbing every movement above the water until, in an explosion of sound she would berth, clasping her leathery reed-encumbered arms around her prey and pulling them effortlessly below. Families would search, siblings would scream, mothers would weep. So it was for centuries that the children of the upper world would become unwilling food for the preternatural. It was a gruesome system but a system none the less. Then the industrial revolution conquered the minds of man and development slowly began to leak its influence into the world. The pond became a functional device for a red keep of steam and smog, the inhabitants of the town growing in number and brood, encroaching ever closer to her domain. With five or six litters per homestead, it was expected that some could not return from their labour at the mill, their unwilling sacrifice keeping her belly full. These golden days were short lived however, a century of feasting slowing down to feeds twice or so a week. But her appetite was a patient one, being able to go weeks without food like a snake or a scorpion in torpor. Still they would come, alone or in cavorting pairs; the missing posters of yesterday littering the park with saturnine confetti that they failed to take heed of. So it was that times changed and thus she changed with them. The world adapted and she in turn adapted her hunt…

Author : Emma Osborne Narrator : Eve Upton Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop Discuss on Forums “The Box Wife” was first published in Shock Totem: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted issue 9, edited by K. Allen Wood. The Box Wife by Emma Osborne If you run your hands over […]

by Emma Osborne.

“The Box Wife” was first published in Shock Totem: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted issue 9, edited by K. Allen Wood.

Emma Osborne is a fiction writer and poet from Melbourne, Australia. Her short stories can be found in Aurealis, Bastion Science Fiction and Shock Totem. Her poetry has been featured in Star*Line and has appeared in Apex Magazine. Emma comes from a long line of dance floor starters and was once engaged in a bear hug so epic that both parties fell over. She can be found on Twitter as @redscribe and her website is A Practical Crown

Your narrator – Eve Upton – is huddled in the darkness of the cupboard…she appears to be scratching words into the floor… what does that say? “nolite the bastardes carborundorum”.

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If you run your hands over me you’ll be pulling splinters from your palms for days.

I am in a room bare and dark.

Author : Kathryn Allen Narrator : Elie Hirschman Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop Discuss on Forums “Unheil” was first published in Pantheon Magazine. It also appears in Typhon: A Monster Anthology which is currently available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Createspace. Unheil by Kathryn Allen South-West Africa. 1909. I came […]

by Kathryn Allen.

“Unheil” was first published in Pantheon Magazine. It also appears in Typhon: A Monster Anthology which is currently available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Createspace.

Kathryn Allen lives in Yorkshire and sometimes writes fiction about facts which make her angry.

Your narrator – Elie Hirschman: Following his whirlwind world tour for athelete’s foot awareness, Elie has returned to his native Zimbabwe to unwind, make his mind one with the cosmos and seek a cure for his lifelong struggle as a pathological liar. He’s currently still active in all EA podcasts (including Cast of Wonders) and also appearing semi-regularly in the Nosleep Podcast.

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South-West Africa. 1909.

I came south because I was hungry and the same-old-same-old of drought and famine, which generation after generation encourages young men to seek a different future, made hiring myself out to the Germans seem like a good thing. Everyone was doing it. If Father had been ten years younger… Or so he said to Mother when she complained about how far away I would be. As if I would not return home as soon as the rains came. As if I would not write. She shed a few tears the morning I left, but not as many as she would have if she’d believed I was never coming back.

To their great surprise, as they looked before and found nothing, the Germans had discovered diamonds in the deserts of the Skeleton Coast. Or rather a man from Cape Town, who’d dug for many years in the Kimberley mines, picked up a raw stone whilst working on the railway line to Lüderitz. I suspect he did not get to keep it, though, as he was black.

You see, I was not innocent of the ways of Europeans. I did not go south expecting to make myself a fortune but because the Germans were hiring labourers to make theirs. I knew I would have to work hard for only a modest reward. Even so, the men who came to the Owambo Kingdoms, promising bed-and-board, money to send home, and a few coins to spend, said nothing of chains or beatings. There was no mention of day upon day spent on hands and knees, crawling across every inch of every desert hill and valley, fingers cracked and bloody from combing through the burning sands, the overseers never content with either pace or productivity. I was not innocent, but I was too trusting.

Hunger drew me south and hunger killed me.

Author : Samuel Marzioli Narrator : Mae Zarris-Heaney Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop Discuss on Forums “Servant of the Aswang” was first published in Penumbra eMag Vol. 3, #6, March 2014 Servant Of The Aswang by Samuel Marzioli The Manila Times predicted March 30th would be a scorcher, the hottest so […]

by Samuel Marzioli.

“Servant of the Aswang” was first published in Penumbra eMag Vol. 3, #6, March 2014

Samuel Marzioli is an Italian-Filipino writer, currently living in Oregon with his family. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in various publications, including Apex Magazine, Intergalactic Medicine Show, Shock Totem, and Penumbra eMag. His blog, marzioli.blogspot.com, featuring updates on his current projects, releases and sales, and a complete list of publications.

Your narrator – Mae Heaney is originally from Manila, Philippines and currently lives in Melbourne, Australia with her Irish husband and 2 young children. She is an IT professional who once briefly dabbled in theater, loves to cook, bake and exercise! Her blog celticpinaymom.blogspot.com badly needs updating, she said she will try in between nappy changes while on maternity leave. And yes she still believes in the aswang!

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The Manila Times predicted March 30th would be a scorcher, the hottest so far this year. The aswang called it a perfect day to hunt and went to pack the cargo van.

As a rule, she never took us to the same site twice and always drove along the back roads and forgotten streets to every destination. It kept us unseen, she said, and put a bold stroke outline on any car that might follow. She was always fastidious about these things. That’s why she had lasted so long when all the rest of her kind had faded into folklore and rural superstition.

This time we traveled to Alabang Town Center, about fifty kilometers south and a two-hour drive by the route we took. We staked out a bench and waited for shoppers to pour in, acting like mother and daughter kicking up our feet. By noon, teenagers crammed inside, walking in noisy groups, still celebrating their newfound summer freedom.

Had they known the kind of eyes that watched them, they would have fled the mall and gone straight home, to huddle in their closets and wait for us to move on. But they never knew, never left, and I was forced to relive the same nightmare over and over.

“Pumili,” the aswang said.

“I can’t. I can’t choose,” I said, practiced words she’d heard a dozen times before.

“Do not act like you have forgotten our deal,” she said, a rare moment when she didn’t speak Tagalog. “Choose someone, or I will choose you.”

I did. Like the coward I am, of course I did.

Author : J. Lily Corbie Narrator : Kim Lakin-Smith Host : Marguerite Kenner Audio Producer : Chelsea Davis Artist : Galen Dara Discuss on Forums PseudoPod 479: ARTEMIS RISING Women In Horror Showcase: Like Dolls is a PseudoPod original. Like Dolls started as a meditation on the other side of the ‘wailing on your grave’ […]

by J Lily Corbie

Like Dolls started as a meditation on the other side of the ‘wailing on your grave’ subgenre of folk music, such as I Am Stretched on Your Grave and The Unquiet Grave. Not only is Like Dolls a Pseudopod original, but also the author’s first professional publication sale. PseudoPod couldn’t be prouder to introduce you to this author.

J Lily Corbie lives in Oklahoma with two dogs and two cats, where she’s a government lackey by day and a writer by night. She can be found on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, and she blogs erratically at girlserrant.wordpress.com including updates and news regarding her short stories looking for homes and a novel in the revision process.

Your narrator – Kim Lakin-Smith is a Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy author whose short stories feature in Interzone, Black Static, Behind the Sofa: Celebrity Memories of Doctor Who, Best British Fantasy 2013, Sharkpunk, The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk, and more. She is the author of gothic science fantasy, Tourniquet, and YA novels, Queen Rat and Autodrome. Her novel, Cyber Circus, was shortlisted for both the BSFA Best Novel and the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel 2012.

With a background in dance and performance, she has narrated stories for Dark Fiction Magazine, Word Punk, Tales to Terrify, PseudoPod, and PodCastle. You can follow her on Twitter at @thegifairy

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 – Marguerite Kenner is a native Californian who has forsaken sunny paradise to be with her true love and live in Merrye Olde England. She frequently wears so many hats that she needs two heads. When she’s not grappling with legal conundrums as a trainee solicitor or editing Cast of Wonders, she can be found narrating audio fiction, studying popular culture (i.e. going to movies and playing video games) with her partner Alasdair Stuart, or curling up with a really good book. You can follow her at her personal blog, Project Valkyrie, or on Twitter via @LegalValkyrie.

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I am awake. Through the trappings of a funeral and the clods of earth raining upon me, I am aware. When my father kneels at my headstone and calls me his willful girl, I hear him. When Meredith weeps and lays poppies on my grave, I know. When they are gone, I am at rest.

The dark is absolute. I know my eyes are open–curious fingers encounter the wet resistance of eye, feel the brush of eyelashes with each blink. I suffer neither thirst nor hunger, and though my chest still fills and empties, I want for nothing. I am somnolent, content with my eternity.

Only Bastian’s voice interrupts my peace.

At the service, he threw himself across my coffin and wailed. He wasn’t mourning–he was claiming my funeral with his grief. Now he lays himself along my grave. He weeps and he laments, and I feel his weight through earth and wood. I am reminded, time and again, that not even my death belongs to me.

Author : E. Lee Vicar Narrator : Joe Scalora Host : Julie Hoverson Audio Producer : Chelsea Davis Artist : Galen Dara Discuss on Forums PseudoPod 478: ARTEMIS RISING Women In Horror Showcase: Jay’s Place is a PseudoPod original. Not only is Jay’s Place a Pseudopod original, but also the author’s first professional publication sale. […]