PseudoPod

• Author : Elliott O’Donnell
• Narrator : Alasdair Stuart
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

“The Haunted Spinney” First appeared in the November issue of THE IDLER in 1904.

The Haunted Spinney by Elliott O’Donnell

I

It was a cold night. Rain had been falling steadily not only for hours but days, the ground was saturated. As I walked along the country lane the slush splashed over’ my boots and trousers. To my left was a huge stone wall, behind which I could see the nodding heads of firs, and through them the wind was rushing, making a curious whistling sound, now loud, now soft, roaring and gently murmuring. The sound fascinated me. I fancied it might be the angry voice of a man and the plaintive pleading of a woman, and then a weird chorus of unearthly beings, of grotesque things that stalked along the moors, and crept from behind huge boulders.

Nothing but the wind was to be heard. I stood and listened to it. I could have listened for hours. for I felt in harmony with my surroundings, lonely. The moon showed itself at intervals from behind the scudding clouds, and lighted up the open landscape to my left.

A gaunt hill covered with rocks, some piled up pyramidically, others strewn here and there; a few trees with naked arms tossing about and looking distress-fully slim beside the more stalwart boulders; a sloping field or two, a couple of level ones, crossed by a tiny path, and the lane where I stood. The scenery was desolate. not actually wild, but sad and forlorn, and the spinney by my side lent an additional weird aspect to the place, which was pleasing to me.

Suddenly I heard a sound, a familiar sound enough at other times, but at this hour and in this place everything seemed different. A woman was coming along the road, a woman in a dark cloak with a basket under her arm, and the wind was blowing her skirts about her legs. I looked at the trees. One singularly gaunt and fantastic one appalled me. It had long, gnarled arms, and two of them ended in bunches of twigs like hands – huge, murderous-looking hands, with bony fingers. The moonlight played over and around me. I had no business to be on the earth; my poor place was in the moon; I no longer thought it. I knew it. The woman was close at hand. She stopped at a little wicket gate leading into the lane skirting the north walls of the spinney. I felt angry; what right had she to be there. interrupting my musings with the moon? The tree with the human hands appeared to agree. I saw anger in the movements of its branches, anger which soon blazed into fury, as they gave a mighty bend towards her as if longing to rend her to pieces.

I followed the woman, and the wind howled louder and louder through those rustling leaves. How long I scrambled on I do not know. As soon as the moonlight left me I fell into a kind of slumber, a delicious trance, broken by nothing save the murmurings of the wind and the sighing and groaning. of the wind, sweeter music I never heard. Then came a terrible change. The charm of my thought was broken. I woke from my reverie. A terrific roar broke on my ears, and a perfect hurricane of rain swept through the woods. I crept cold and shivering beneath the shelter of the trees.

To my surprise a hand fell on my shoulder; it was a man and. like myself, he shivered. ‘Who are you?’ he whispered, in a strangely hoarse voice. ‘Who are you? Why are you here?’

‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ I replied, shaking off his grasp.

‘Well, tell me, for God’s sake, sir.’ He was frightened, trembling with fright. Could it be the storm, or was it, was it those trees? I told him then and there why I had trespassed; I was fascinated, the wind and the trees had led me thither.

‘So am I,’ he whispered, ‘I am fascinated. It is a long word, but it describes my sentiments. What did the wind sound like?’

I told him. He was a poor, common man, and had no poetical ideas. The wildly romantic had never interested him. He was an ignorant labouring man.

‘Sounded like sighing, groaning, and so on?’ he asked, shifting uneasily from one foot to another. He was cold, horribly cold. ‘Was that all?’

‘Yes, of course! Why ask?’ I replied. Then I laughed. This stupid, sturdy son of toil had been scared; to him the sounds had been those of his Cornish bogies, things he had dreaded in his infancy. I told him so. He didn’t like to hear me make fun of him; he didn’t like my laugh, and he persisted ‘Was that all you heard?’

Then I grew impatient and asked him to explain what he meant.

‘Well’ he said, ‘I thought I heard a scream, a cry. Just as if someone had jumped out on someone else and taken them unawares. Maybe it was the wind, only the wind, but it had an eerie sound.’ This man was nervous. The storm had frightened away whatever wits he may have possessed.

‘Come, let us be going,’ I said, moving away in the direction of the wall. I wanted to find a new exit, I was tired of paths. The man kept close to me. I could hear his teeth chatter. Accidentally I felt his hand brush against mine; his flesh was icy cold. He gave a cry as if a snake had bitten him. Then the truth flashed through ‘me, the man was mad. His terror, his strange manner of showing it, and now his sudden shrinking from me, revealed it all. He was mad. The moon and the trees had done their work.

‘I’m not going that way,’ he said. ‘Come along with me; I want to see which of the trees it was that cried.’ His voice was changed, he seemed suddenly to have grown stronger. There was no insanity in his tone now, but I knew the cunning of the insane, and I feared to anger him. So I acquiesced. What an idea! One of the trees had cried; did he mean the wind? He grew sullen when I jeered at him. He led me to a little hollow in the ground, and I noticed the prints of several feet in the wet mud; then I saw something which sent the cold blood to my heart, a woman lay before me bathed in blood. Somehow she was familiar to me. I looked again, then again. Yes, there was the dark shawl, the basket, broken it was true, with the contents scattered, but it was the same basket; it was the woman I had seen coming down the road.

‘My God, whatever is this?’ the man~ by his side spoke. He swayed backwards and forwards on his feet, white and awful in the moonlight. He was sick with terror. ‘Oh, God, it is horrible, horrible!’ Then, with a sudden earnestness and a crafty look in his eyes, he bent over her. ‘Who is it?’ he cried. ‘Who is the poor wretch?’

I saw him peer into her face, but he didn’t touch her, he dreaded the blood, Then he started back. his eyes filled with such savage fury as I had never seen in any man’s before. He looked a devil, he was a devil. ‘It’s my wife!’ he shrieked. ‘My wife!’ His voice fell and turned into what sounded like a sob. ‘It’s Mary! She was coming back to St. Meave. It was her cry. There, see it, confound you. You have it on your arm, your coat, it is all over you! ‘ He raised his hand to strike me; the moonlight fell on it, a great, coarse hand, and I noticed with a thrill of horror a red splash on it. Blood! The man was a murderer! He had killed her, and with all the cunning of the madman was trying to throw the guilt on me.

I sprang at him with a cry of despair. He kicked, bit and tried to tear my arms from his neck; but somehow I seemed to have ten times my usual strength. And all the while we struggled a sea of faces waved to and’ fro, peering down at us from the gaunt trees above.

He gave in at length; I held him no longer with the iron grip, and help came in the shape of a policeman. The constable seemed to grasp the situation easily. There had been a murder, the man whom I secured was known to him. He was a labouring man, of unsteady habits; he had been drinking, had met and quarrelled with his wife. The rest was to be seen in the ghastly heap before us.

The wretch had no defence; he seemed bewildered, and eyed the bloodstains on his face and clothes in a dazed kind of way.

I slipped five shillings into the policeman’s hand when he parted. He thanked me and pocketed the money; he knew his position and mine.

I was a gentleman and a very plucky one at that. So I thought as I walked back to my rooms, yet I lay awake and shuddered as visions of the nodding heads of the trees rose before me, and from without, across the silent rows of houses, lanes and fields, there rose and fell again the wailing of a woman, of a woman in distress.

II

The murder in the spinney was an event in the neighbourhood; the people were unused to such tragedies, and it afforded them conversation for many weeks. The evidence against the husband was conclusive. He had been caught red-handed, he was an habitual drunkard; and he paid the penalty for his crime In the usual manner. I left Cornwall, I had seen enough of it and thirsted for life in London once more. Yet, often at night, the sighing of the Wind in the trees sounded in my ears and bid me visit them once more. One day, as I was sitting by my fire with a pile of magazines by my side, taking life easily, for I had nothing to do but kill time, my old friend, Frank Widmore, looked me up.

We had been at Sefton together, and he was the only friend of the old set of whom I had lost sight. He had not altered so much, in spite of a moustache and a fair sprinkling of white hairs: I should have known him had I met .him anywhere. He was wearing a new overcoat, and looked very spruce and smart. His face was red with healthy exercise. ‘How are you, old chap?’ he exclaimed, shaking hands in the hearty fashion of true friendship.

I winced, for he had strong hands. ‘Oh, fit enough,’ I said, ‘but a bit bored. But you, well. You look just the same, and fresh as a daisy.’ I gave him the easy chair.

‘Oh, I’m first-rate, plenty of work. I’m a journalist, you know. Plenty of grind, but I’m taking a bit’ of a holiday. You look pale. Your eyes are bad.’

I told him they got strained if I read much.

‘I daresay you will think me mad,’ he went on, ‘but I’m going to ask you a rather curious question. I remember you used to be fond of ghosts and all sorts of queer things.’

I nodded. We had many such discussions in my study at school.

‘Well. I’m a member of the New Occult Research Society.’

I smiled doubtfully ‘You can’t say they have discovered much,’ I sneered. ‘The name is high-sounding but nothing beyond.’

‘Never mind,’ he retorted, ‘some day, perhaps, we shall show the Public that at present Occult Research is only in the embryo stage.’

Widmore lit a cigarette, puffed away in silence for a few seconds, and then went on: ‘I am undertaking work for the Society now.’

‘Where?’ I asked.

‘In Cornwall. Ever been there?’

I nodded. Widmore was very much at his ease.

‘Been to St. Meave?’ he inquired.

I knew by instinct he would mention the place. He thought I looked ill, and’ told me I had been overdoing it.

‘It is merely a case of the ‘flu,’ I assured him. ‘I had it six weeks ago, and still feel the effects.’ The woman in the hollow was before me. I saw again her shabby shawl and the blood round her throat.

‘There was a murder down there a short time ago.’

‘I heard of it,’ I remarked casually. ‘It was a wife murder, I believe:

‘Yes, just a common wife murder, and the fellow was caught and hanged.’

‘Then. why the ghost?’ I commented.

‘Well, that is the odd part of it,’ Widmore said slowly, leaning back in his chair, his long legs stretched out. ‘I have heard from two St. Meave artists that screams have been heard in the spinney there just about twelve o’clock at night. Not the time for practical jokers, and the Cornish are too superstitious to try their pranks in unsavoury spots; And from what I heard the spot is singularly uncanny.’

‘They haven’t seen anything?’ I said.

Widmore shook his grey head. ‘No, ‘only heard the cries, and they are so appalling that no one cares to pass the place at night; indeed, it is utterly banned. I mentioned the case to old Potters, you may have heard of him. He is the author of When the Veil is Cleared Away, and he pressed me to go down to St. Meave and investigate. I agreed. Then I thought of you. Just the man to accompany me. Do you remember your pet aversion in the way of ghosts?’

I nodded. ‘Yes, and I still have the aversion. I think locality exercises strange influence over some minds. The peaceful meadow-scenery holds no lurking horrors in its bosom, but in the lonesome moorlands, full of curiously-moulded boulders, grotesque fancies must assail one there. Creatures seem to come, odd and ill-defined as their surroundings. As a child I had a peculiar horror of those tall, odd-shaped boulders, with seeming faces, featureless, it is true, but sometimes strangely resembling humans and animals. I believe the spinney may be haunted by something of this nature, terrible as the trees.”

‘You know the spinney?’

‘I do. And I know the trees.’ Again in my ears the wind rushed as it had on the night in question.

‘Will you come with me?’ Widmore eyed me eagerly. The same old affection he had once entertained for me was ripening in his eyes; indeed, it had always remained there. Should I go? An irresistible impulse seized me, a morbid craving to look once more at the blood-stained hollow. to hear once more the wind. I looked out of the window, the sky was cold and grey. There were rows and rows of chimneys everywhere, a sea of chimneys, an ocean of dull, uninviting smoke. I began to hate London and to long for the wide expanse of the Atlantic, and the fresh resin-laden air of the woods. I assented, when better judgment should have led me to refuse. ‘Yes, I will go,’ I said. ‘As for the ghost, it may be there, but it is not as you apparently think, it is not the apparition of a man or woman. It may be in part like a human, but it is one of those cursed nightmares I have always had. I shall see it, hear it, shriek, and if I drop dead from fright, you, old man, will be to blame.’

Widmore was an enthusiast, psychical adventure always allured him. and he would run the risk of my weak heart, and have me with him. A thousand times I prepared to go back on my word, a thousand tumultuous emotions of some impending disaster rushed through me. I felt on the border of an abyss, dark and hopeless. I was pushed on by invisible and unfriendly hands. I knew I must fall. knew that the black depths in front would engulf me eternally. I took the plunge. We talked over school-days and arranged our train to the West.

Widmore looked very boyish, I thought, as he rose to go, and stood smiling his good-bye in the doorway. He was all kindness, I liked him more than ever. I felt my heart go out to him, and yet, somehow, as we stood looking at one another, a grey shadow swept around him, and an icy pang shot through my heart.

III

It was night once more, and the moonlight poured in, floods from over the summit of the knoll where the uncanny boulders lay. Every obstacle was silhouetted against the dark background. A house with its white walls stood there grim and silent. and the paths running in various directions up and alongside the hill were made doubly clear in the whiteness of the beams that fell on them. There were no swift clouds. nothing to hide the brilliance of the stars. and it was nearly midnight. The air was cold. colder than was usual in St. Meave.

The lights of many boats twinkled in the bay and Godrevy stood out boldly away to the right. looking not more than a mile away. There were no lights to be seen in St. Meave itself. The town was absolutely still and dark; not a voice. not a sound. not even the baying of a dog. It was very ghostly. I shivered.

Widmore stood by my side. I glanced apprehensively at him. Why did he stand in the moonlight? What business had he there? I laughed. but I fear there was little mirth in the sound.

‘I wish you would stop that infernal noise,’ he said. ‘I am pretty nervous as it is.’

‘All right: I whispered. ‘I won’t do it again.’ But I did. and he edged sharply away from me. I looked over his head; there was the gaunt tree with the great hands. I fancied the branches were once again fingers. I told him so. ‘For God’s sake. man. keep quiet: he said. ‘you are enough to upset anyone’s nerves.’ He pulled out his watch for the hundredth time. ‘It’s close on the hour.’

I again looked at the trees and listened. Suddenly, although there had been absolute silence before. I heard a faint breathing sound. a very gentle murmur. It came from over the knoll. Very soft and low. but gradually louder and louder. and then. as it rushed past us into the spinney beyond. I saw once more the great trees rock beneath it, and again came those voices. those of the woman and the man. Widmore looked ill, I thought.

I touched him on the arm. ‘You are frightened,’ I said. ‘You a member of the New Occult Research Society, you afraid! ‘

‘Something is going to happen,’ he gasped. ‘I feel it, I know it, we shall see the murder. We shall know the secret of her death. What is that?’

Away in the distance the tapping of shoes came through the now still night air. Tap. tap, tap. down the path from the knoll. I clutched Widmore by the arm. ‘You think you will see the murder. do you? And the murderer?’ Widmore didn’t answer. his breath came in gasps. He looked about him like a man at bay.

‘And the murderer! Ha! It comes from there! See, it is looking at us from those trees. It is all arms and legs. It has no human face. It will drop to the ground, and then we shall see what happens.’

Tap. tap. tap. The steps grew louder. Nearer and nearer they came. The great shadows from the trees stole down one by one to meet them.

I looked at Widmore. He was fearfully expectant; so was I.

A woman came tripping along the white path, her black shadow keeping pace with her. I knew her in an instant; there was the shabby shawl, the basket on her arm.

It was the same person. She approached the wicket. I looked at Widmore. He was spellbound with fear. I touched his arm. I dragged him with me. ‘Come!’ I whispered. ‘We shall see which of us is right. You think the ghostly murderer will resemble some. man, some human. It won’t. Come! I dragged him forward. Had it not been for me, he would have fled. He, a member of the learned New Occult Research Society. I laughed. I could not help myself. It was so comical. Such fear! We passed through the gate. We followed the figure as it silently glided on. We turned to the left. The place grew very dark as the trees met overhead. I heard the trickling of water and knew we were close to the ditch.

I gazed intently at the trees. When would the horror drop from them? A sickly terror laid hold of me. I turned to fly.

To my surprise Widmore stopped me. He had recovered, pulled himself together, and he was all excitement now. ‘Wait: he hissed, ‘wait. It is you who are afraid. Hark! It is twelve o’clock.’

And as he spoke the clock of St. Meave Parish Church slowly boomed midnight. Then the end came. An awful scream rang out, so piercing ‘and so full of terror that I felt all the blood in my body turn to ice.

My heart stood still. But no figure dropped from the trees. Not from the trees. From behind the woman a form darted forward and seized her round the neck. It tore at her throat with its white. curved fingers. It dragged and hurried her into the moonlight, and then, oh God! I saw its face. It was my own!

The post PseudoPod 378: The Haunted Spinney appeared first on PseudoPod.

• Author : Ron Jon
• Narrator : Ron Jon
• Host : Shawn Garrett
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

Essay features short clips from Disney’s Thrilling Chilling Sounds From The Haunted House (1964), Terror Tales By The Old Sea Hag (1959 – date dubious), Scary Spooky Stories (1973), A Coven Of Witches’ Tales (1973), Nightmare!! (1962), Alfred Hitchcock’s Music To Be Murdered By (1958) and Silica Gel: 50) Noisy Children Party.

Showcase: The Dark Audio Tone Poems of The Spectre Collector by Ron Jon

“Barking Mad” “Shortcut” “From The Deep” “Quite Mad” “Christ, I Think It’s Death”

The post PseudoPod 377: Showcase: The Dark Audio Tone Poems of The Spectre Collector appeared first on PseudoPod.

• Author : Reggie Oliver
• Narrator : David Moore
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
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“Quieta Non Movere” first appeared in THE EIGHTH BLACK BOOK OF HORROR (Mortbury Press 2011) , then in his award-winning collection MRS. MIDNIGHT (2011), then MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR 23 (ed. Stephen Jones, Constable & Robinson 2012). “This story is one of a number I have written set in the fictional English cathedral city of Morchester. I have based it loosely on the lovely old city of Salisbury.”

Quieta Non Movere by Reggie Oliver

An architect was engaged and there needed only a decision to be made over the location of the chapel. The obvious place was an area closest to the crossing and facing east. This would’ entail the partial destruction of the eastern wall of the north transept, an exercise which would require the relocation of a number of funereal plaques and stones, the most significant of which was a sixteenth century memorial to a Canon of Morchester Cathedral, one Jeremiah Staveley. It was quite an elaborate affair in polished black basalt about seven foot in height overall, set into the wall some three feet above the ground. It consisted in a slab topped with scrollwork, crudely classical in feel with a niche in which was set a printed alabaster image of the Canon, standing upright in his clerical robes with his arms crossed over his chest. The figure was tall and narrow, the bearded face gaunt: a somewhat disconcerting image which looked as if it portrayed the corpse rather than the living being. Beneath this on the polished slab an inscription had been incised, the lettering picked out in white. It read:

JEREMIAH STAVELEY Canonus Morcastriensis, obiit anno 1595 aetat 52

It was followed by these verses in bold capital letters:

BEHINDE THESE SACRED STONES IN DEATH STAND I

FOR THAT IN LIFE MOST BASELY DID I LIE IN WORD AND SINNE FORSAKING GOD HIS LAWE

I DANCED MY SOULE IN SATANN’S VERIE MAWE WHEREFORE IN PENANCE I THIS VIGILL KEEPE

ENTOMBED UPRIGHT THUS WHERE I SHOULDE SLEEPE WHEN DEAD RISE UP I’LL READYE BE IN PLACE TO MEET MY JUDGE AND MAKER FACE TO FACE STRANGER, REST NOT MY CORSE UNTIL THAT DAYE

LEST I TORMENT THEE WITH MY SORE DISMAYE

The implication of these lines, that the body of Canon Staveley was actually entombed behind the slab, was borne out by the cathedral records and one of the old vergers whose family had been connected with the cathedral since time immemorial. Dean Coombe was disposed to be rather benevolent towards this worthy whose name was Wilby. The man was a repository of cathedral history and lore and the Dean was content to listen politely to Wilby’s ramblings, but he did not expect his condescension to be rewarded by opposition to his plans.

‘Mr Dean,’ said Wilby one afternoon, as they stood before the memorial in the north transept. ‘You don’t want to go a moving of that there stone, begging your pardon, sir.’

‘My dear man, why ever not?’

‘Don’t it say so plain as brass on that there ‘scription? ‘Tis ill luck to move the bones of the wicked. So said my granfer, and his before him.’

The post PseudoPod 376: Quieta Non Movere appeared first on PseudoPod.

• Author : Charles Dickens
• Narrator : Ian Stuart
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

“The Signal-Man” was first published as part of the Mugby Junction collection in the 1866 Christmas edition of ALL THE YEAR ROUND. It is The Doctor’s favorite Dickens story and has been adapted many times in many formats, including a radio drama version by Ye Olde Editor when he was in college.

Download “The Three Ghosts” from Gutenberg.

The Signal-Man by Charles Dickens

“Halloa!  Below there!”

When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole.  One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and looked down the Line.  There was something remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not have said for my life what.  But I know it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset, that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all.

“Halloa!  Below!”

From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and, raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him.

“Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?”

He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him without pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle question.  Just then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused me to start back, as though it had force to draw me down.  When such vapour as rose to my height from this rapid train had passed me, and was skimming away over the landscape, I looked down again, and saw him refurling the flag he had shown while the train went by.

I repeated my inquiry.  After a pause, during which he seemed to regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant.  I called down to him, “All right!” and made for that point.  There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough zigzag descending path notched out, which I followed.

The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate.  It was made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went down.  For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me time to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed out the path.

When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me to appear.  He had his left hand at his chin, and that left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast.  His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness that I stopped a moment, wondering at it.

I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level of the railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark, sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows.  His post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw.  On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air.  So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.

Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him.  Not even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one step, and lifted his hand.

This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my attention when I looked down from up yonder.  A visitor was a rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped?  In me, he merely saw a man who had been shut up within narrow limits all his life, and who, being at last set free, had a newly-awakened interest in these great works.  To such purpose I spoke to him; but I am far from sure of the terms I used; for, besides that I am not happy in opening any conversation, there was something in the man that daunted me.

He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the tunnel’s mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were missing from it, and then looked at me.

That light was part of his charge?  Was it not?

He answered in a low voice,—“Don’t you know it is?”

The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man.  I have speculated since, whether there may have been infection in his mind.

In my turn, I stepped back.  But in making the action, I detected in his eyes some latent fear of me.  This put the monstrous thought to flight.

“You look at me,” I said, forcing a smile, “as if you had a dread of me.”

“I was doubtful,” he returned, “whether I had seen you before.”

“Where?”

He pointed to the red light he had looked at.

“There?” I said.

Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), “Yes.”

“My good fellow, what should I do there?  However, be that as it may, I never was there, you may swear.”

“I think I may,” he rejoined.  “Yes; I am sure I may.”

His manner cleared, like my own.  He replied to my remarks with readiness, and in well-chosen words.  Had he much to do there?  Yes; that was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness and watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual work—manual labour—he had next to none.  To change that signal, to trim those lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then, was all he had to do under that head.  Regarding those many long and lonely hours of which I seemed to make so much, he could only say that the routine of his life had shaped itself into that form, and he had grown used to it.  He had taught himself a language down here,—if only to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of its pronunciation, could be called learning it.  He had also worked at fractions and decimals, and tried a little algebra; but he was, and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures.  Was it necessary for him when on duty always to remain in that channel of damp air, and could he never rise into the sunshine from between those high stone walls?  Why, that depended upon times and circumstances.  Under some conditions there would be less upon the Line than under others, and the same held good as to certain hours of the day and night.  In bright weather, he did choose occasions for getting a little above these lower shadows; but, being at all times liable to be called by his electric bell, and at such times listening for it with redoubled anxiety, the relief was less than I would suppose.

He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an official book in which he had to make certain entries, a telegraphic instrument with its dial, face, and needles, and the little bell of which he had spoken.  On my trusting that he would excuse the remark that he had been well educated, and (I hoped I might say without offence) perhaps educated above that station, he observed that instances of slight incongruity in such wise would rarely be found wanting among large bodies of men; that he had heard it was so in workhouses, in the police force, even in that last desperate resource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or less, in any great railway staff.  He had been, when young (if I could believe it, sitting in that hut,—he scarcely could), a student of natural philosophy, and had attended lectures; but he had run wild, misused his opportunities, gone down, and never risen again.  He had no complaint to offer about that.  He had made his bed, and he lay upon it.  It was far too late to make another.

All that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, with his grave, dark regards divided between me and the fire.  He threw in the word, “Sir,” from time to time, and especially when he referred to his youth,—as though to request me to understand that he claimed to be nothing but what I found him.  He was several times interrupted by the little bell, and had to read off messages, and send replies.  Once he had to stand without the door, and display a flag as a train passed, and make some verbal communication to the driver.  In the discharge of his duties, I observed him to be remarkably exact and vigilant, breaking off his discourse at a syllable, and remaining silent until what he had to do was done.

In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of men to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance that while he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen colour, turned his face towards the little bell when it did NOT ring, opened the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy damp), and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel.  On both of those occasions, he came back to the fire with the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, without being able to define, when we were so far asunder.

Said I, when I rose to leave him, “You almost make me think that I have met with a contented man.”

(I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.)

“I believe I used to be so,” he rejoined, in the low voice in which he had first spoken; “but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled.”

He would have recalled the words if he could.  He had said them, however, and I took them up quickly.

“With what?  What is your trouble?”

“It is very difficult to impart, sir.  It is very, very difficult to speak of.  If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell you.”

“But I expressly intend to make you another visit.  Say, when shall it be?”

“I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten to-morrow night, sir.”

“I will come at eleven.”

He thanked me, and went out at the door with me.  “I’ll show my white light, sir,” he said, in his peculiar low voice, “till you have found the way up.  When you have found it, don’t call out!  And when you are at the top, don’t call out!”

His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said no more than, “Very well.”

“And when you come down to-morrow night, don’t call out!  Let me ask you a parting question.  What made you cry, ‘Halloa!  Below there!’ to-night?”

“Heaven knows,” said I.  “I cried something to that effect—”

“Not to that effect, sir.  Those were the very words.  I know them well.”

“Admit those were the very words.  I said them, no doubt, because I saw you below.”

“For no other reason?”

“What other reason could I possibly have?”

“You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any supernatural way?”

“No.”

He wished me good-night, and held up his light.  I walked by the side of the down Line of rails (with a very disagreeable sensation of a train coming behind me) until I found the path.  It was easier to mount than to descend, and I got back to my inn without any adventure.

Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch of the zigzag next night, as the distant clocks were striking eleven.  He was waiting for me at the bottom, with his white light on.  “I have not called out,” I said, when we came close together; “may I speak now?”  “By all means, sir.”  “Good-night, then, and here’s my hand.”  “Good-night, sir, and here’s mine.”  With that we walked side by side to his box, entered it, closed the door, and sat down by the fire.

“I have made up my mind, sir,” he began, bending forward as soon as we were seated, and speaking in a tone but a little above a whisper, “that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me.  I took you for some one else yesterday evening.  That troubles me.”

“That mistake?”

“No.  That some one else.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Like me?”

“I don’t know.  I never saw the face.  The left arm is across the face, and the right arm is waved,—violently waved.  This way.”

I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm gesticulating, with the utmost passion and vehemence, “For God’s sake, clear the way!”

“One moonlight night,” said the man, “I was sitting here, when I heard a voice cry, ‘Halloa!  Below there!’  I started up, looked from that door, and saw this Some one else standing by the red light near the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you.  The voice seemed hoarse with shouting, and it cried, ‘Look out!  Look out!’  And then again, ‘Halloa!  Below there!  Look out!’  I caught up my lamp, turned it on red, and ran towards the figure, calling, ‘What’s wrong?  What has happened?  Where?’  It stood just outside the blackness of the tunnel.  I advanced so close upon it that I wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes.  I ran right up at it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away, when it was gone.”

“Into the tunnel?” said I.

“No.  I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards.  I stopped, and held my lamp above my head, and saw the figures of the measured distance, and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and trickling through the arch.  I ran out again faster than I had run in (for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and I looked all round the red light with my own red light, and I went up the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came down again, and ran back here.  I telegraphed both ways, ‘An alarm has been given.  Is anything wrong?’  The answer came back, both ways, ‘All well.’”

Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I showed him how that this figure must be a deception of his sense of sight; and how that figures, originating in disease of the delicate nerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to have often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experiments upon themselves.  “As to an imaginary cry,” said I, “do but listen for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so low, and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires.”

That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for a while, and he ought to know something of the wind and the wires,—he who so often passed long winter nights there, alone and watching.  But he would beg to remark that he had not finished.

I asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words, touching my arm,—

“Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident on this Line happened, and within ten hours the dead and wounded were brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure had stood.”

A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against it.  It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind.  But it was unquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually occur, and they must be taken into account in dealing with such a subject.  Though to be sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I saw that he was going to bring the objection to bear upon me), men of common sense did not allow much for coincidences in making the ordinary calculations of life.

He again begged to remark that he had not finished.

I again begged his pardon for being betrayed into interruptions.

“This,” he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and glancing over his shoulder with hollow eyes, “was just a year ago.  Six or seven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and shock, when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at the door, looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre again.”  He stopped, with a fixed look at me.

“Did it cry out?”

“No.  It was silent.”

“Did it wave its arm?”

“No.  It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands before the face.  Like this.”

Once more I followed his action with my eyes.  It was an action of mourning.  I have seen such an attitude in stone figures on tombs.

“Did you go up to it?”

“I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly because it had turned me faint.  When I went to the door again, daylight was above me, and the ghost was gone.”

“But nothing followed?  Nothing came of this?”

He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice giving a ghastly nod each time:—

“That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at a carriage window on my side, what looked like a confusion of hands and heads, and something waved.  I saw it just in time to signal the driver, Stop!  He shut off, and put his brake on, but the train drifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more.  I ran after it, and, as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries.  A beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of the compartments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor between us.”

Involuntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the boards at which he pointed to himself.

“True, sir.  True.  Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you.”

I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was very dry.  The wind and the wires took up the story with a long lamenting wail.

He resumed.  “Now, sir, mark this, and judge how my mind is troubled.  The spectre came back a week ago.  Ever since, it has been there, now and again, by fits and starts.”

“At the light?”

“At the Danger-light.”

“What does it seem to do?”

He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that former gesticulation of, “For God’s sake, clear the way!”

Then he went on.  “I have no peace or rest for it.  It calls to me, for many minutes together, in an agonised manner, ‘Below there!  Look out!  Look out!’  It stands waving to me.  It rings my little bell—”

I caught at that.  “Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when I was here, and you went to the door?”

“Twice.”

“Why, see,” said I, “how your imagination misleads you.  My eyes were on the bell, and my ears were open to the bell, and if I am a living man, it did NOT ring at those times.  No, nor at any other time, except when it was rung in the natural course of physical things by the station communicating with you.”

He shook his head. “I have never made a mistake as to that yet, sir.  I have never confused the spectre’s ring with the man’s.  The ghost’s ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives from nothing else, and I have not asserted that the bell stirs to the eye.  I don’t wonder that you failed to hear it.  But I heard it.”

“And did the spectre seem to be there, when you looked out?”

“It WAS there.”

“Both times?”

He repeated firmly: “Both times.”

“Will you come to the door with me, and look for it now?”

He bit his under lip as though he were somewhat unwilling, but arose.  I opened the door, and stood on the step, while he stood in the doorway.  There was the Danger-light.  There was the dismal mouth of the tunnel.  There were the high, wet stone walls of the cutting.  There were the stars above them.

“Do you see it?” I asked him, taking particular note of his face.  His eyes were prominent and strained, but not very much more so, perhaps, than my own had been when I had directed them earnestly towards the same spot.

“No,” he answered.  “It is not there.”

“Agreed,” said I.

We went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats.  I was thinking how best to improve this advantage, if it might be called one, when he took up the conversation in such a matter-of-course way, so assuming that there could be no serious question of fact between us, that I felt myself placed in the weakest of positions.

“By this time you will fully understand, sir,” he said, “that what troubles me so dreadfully is the question, What does the spectre mean?”

I was not sure, I told him, that I did fully understand.

“What is its warning against?” he said, ruminating, with his eyes on the fire, and only by times turning them on me.  “What is the danger?  Where is the danger?  There is danger overhanging somewhere on the Line.  Some dreadful calamity will happen.  It is not to be doubted this third time, after what has gone before.  But surely this is a cruel haunting of me.  What can I do?”

He pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the drops from his heated forehead.

“If I telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or on both, I can give no reason for it,” he went on, wiping the palms of his hands.  “I should get into trouble, and do no good.  They would think I was mad.  This is the way it would work,—Message: ‘Danger!  Take care!’  Answer: ‘What Danger?  Where?’  Message: ‘Don’t know.  But, for God’s sake, take care!’  They would displace me.  What else could they do?”

His pain of mind was most pitiable to see.  It was the mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an unintelligible responsibility involving life.

“When it first stood under the Danger-light,” he went on, putting his dark hair back from his head, and drawing his hands outward across and across his temples in an extremity of feverish distress, “why not tell me where that accident was to happen,—if it must happen?  Why not tell me how it could be averted,—if it could have been averted?  When on its second coming it hid its face, why not tell me, instead, ‘She is going to die.  Let them keep her at home’?  If it came, on those two occasions, only to show me that its warnings were true, and so to prepare me for the third, why not warn me plainly now?  And I, Lord help me!  A mere poor signal-man on this solitary station!  Why not go to somebody with credit to be believed, and power to act?”

When I saw him in this state, I saw that for the poor man’s sake, as well as for the public safety, what I had to do for the time was to compose his mind.  Therefore, setting aside all question of reality or unreality between us, I represented to him that whoever thoroughly discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it was his comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not understand these confounding Appearances.  In this effort I succeeded far better than in the attempt to reason him out of his conviction.  He became calm; the occupations incidental to his post as the night advanced began to make larger demands on his attention: and I left him at two in the morning.  I had offered to stay through the night, but he would not hear of it.

That I more than once looked back at the red light as I ascended the pathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I should have slept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see no reason to conceal.  Nor did I like the two sequences of the accident and the dead girl.  I see no reason to conceal that either.

But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how ought I to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure?  I had proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact; but how long might he remain so, in his state of mind?  Though in a subordinate position, still he held a most important trust, and would I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the chances of his continuing to execute it with precision?

Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be something treacherous in my communicating what he had told me to his superiors in the Company, without first being plain with himself and proposing a middle course to him, I ultimately resolved to offer to accompany him (otherwise keeping his secret for the present) to the wisest medical practitioner we could hear of in those parts, and to take his opinion.  A change in his time of duty would come round next night, he had apprised me, and he would be off an hour or two after sunrise, and on again soon after sunset.  I had appointed to return accordingly.

Next evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to enjoy it.  The sun was not yet quite down when I traversed the field-path near the top of the deep cutting.  I would extend my walk for an hour, I said to myself, half an hour on and half an hour back, and it would then be time to go to my signal-man’s box.

Before pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink, and mechanically looked down, from the point from which I had first seen him.  I cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at the mouth of the tunnel, I saw the appearance of a man, with his left sleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm.

The nameless horror that oppressed me passed in a moment, for in a moment I saw that this appearance of a man was a man indeed, and that there was a little group of other men, standing at a short distance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made.  The Danger-light was not yet lighted.  Against its shaft, a little low hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports and tarpaulin.  It looked no bigger than a bed.

With an irresistible sense that something was wrong,—with a flashing self-reproachful fear that fatal mischief had come of my leaving the man there, and causing no one to be sent to overlook or correct what he did,—I descended the notched path with all the speed I could make.

“What is the matter?” I asked the men.

“Signal-man killed this morning, sir.”

“Not the man belonging to that box?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Not the man I know?”

“You will recognise him, sir, if you knew him,” said the man who spoke for the others, solemnly uncovering his own head, and raising an end of the tarpaulin, “for his face is quite composed.”

“O, how did this happen, how did this happen?” I asked, turning from one to another as the hut closed in again.

“He was cut down by an engine, sir.  No man in England knew his work better.  But somehow he was not clear of the outer rail.  It was just at broad day.  He had struck the light, and had the lamp in his hand.  As the engine came out of the tunnel, his back was towards her, and she cut him down.  That man drove her, and was showing how it happened.  Show the gentleman, Tom.”

The man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped back to his former place at the mouth of the tunnel.

“Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir,” he said, “I saw him at the end, like as if I saw him down a perspective-glass.  There was no time to check speed, and I knew him to be very careful.  As he didn’t seem to take heed of the whistle, I shut it off when we were running down upon him, and called to him as loud as I could call.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘Below there!  Look out!  Look out!  For God’s sake, clear the way!’”

I started.

“Ah! it was a dreadful time, sir.  I never left off calling to him.  I put this arm before my eyes not to see, and I waved this arm to the last; but it was no use.”

Without prolonging the narrative to dwell on any one of its curious circumstances more than on any other, I may, in closing it, point out the coincidence that the warning of the Engine-Driver included, not only the words which the unfortunate Signal-man had repeated to me as haunting him, but also the words which I myself—not he—had attached, and that only in my own mind, to the gesticulation he had imitated.

The post PseudoPod 375: The Signalman appeared first on PseudoPod.

• Authors : Alfred Noyes, Mark Samuels and Kim Newman
• Narrators : Siobhan Gallichan, Paul S. Jenkins and Jörn Meyer
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

“Midnight Express” first appeared in This Week, November 3, 1935.

“Destination: Nihil by Edmund Bertrand” had its first appearance in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR #20 edited by Stephen Jones.

A slightly different version of “The Terminus” appeared in the fanzine Sheep Worrying in 1981; this version appeared in Fantasy Tales in 1985. “It’s pretty much the earliest story I sold professionally.”

Going nowhere… faster….

Interstitial music is “Fearless Bleeder” by Chimpy, available from Music Alley.

Train sounds are from SoundJay.com.

Cave drips are from FreeSound.org.

“Midnight Express” by Alfred Noyes

It was a battered old book, bound in read buckram. He found it, when he was twelve years old, on an upper shelf in his father’s library; and, against all the rules, he took it to his bedroom to read by candlelight, when the rest of the rambling old Elizabethan house was flooded with darkness. That was how young Mortimer always thought of it.

“Destination: Nihil by Edmund Bertrand” by Mark Samuels

There was no question now of keeping panic in check. Grey loped off along the aisle of the car in search of the conductor, or of the first person he encountered. A few rows further down he saw a man slouched in his seat, dressed in a rain mac and a wide-brimmed floppy hat that obscured his face. Grey hesitated before addressing the stranger, because he feared the face concealed in shadow. Would it be like that of the conductor? If it were, then he feared he would have reached a tipping point and might scream himself to death.

“The Terminus” by Kim Newman

‘Oh yes,’ Verdon told me, ‘disappearances from the underground are not uncommon. Every once in a while some unfortunate wanders off where he shouldn’t and meets with an accident. Sometimes our staff doesn’t come across the remains for years. Some people never do turn up. Those are the most interesting, I think. This pile.’

It was an impressive stack of manila folders. On the night of 9 October 1872 (which I like to think of as appropriately foggy) Mr Julian Selwyn-Pitt, a landscape painter, walked into Oxford Street station and was never seen again. Since 1872, fifteen thousand, eight hundred and twenty-four people had followed Mr Selwyn-Pitt into Verdon’s files. The figure was exclusive of all those whose disappearance was not reported and those, like Robert Webb, whose folders had not yet drifted down to settle in Verdon’s office.

‘So there are nearly sixteen thousand people lying around the tube somewhere?’

The post PseudoPod 374: FLASH ON THE BORDERLANDS XIX: Blood On The Tracks – Departure, Transit, Arrival appeared first on PseudoPod.

• Author : Tim W. Burke
• Narrator : Paul S. Jenkins
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

PseudoPod 373: The Metal And Its Mold is a PseudoPod original.

The audience should contemplate their loved ones, what makes their relationship work, and whether power is an aphrodisiac or a bondage dungeon. The complete collected saga of Alecsandri and Olivia will be available soon from NobleFusion Press in The Flesh Sutra.

Previously: In Fin de siècle Boston, The Guru Keresh – whose pursuit of arcane knowledge had led to his death and resurrection into a dwarfish, homunculus form – has joined with lover Olivia Spaulding in a commitment to advance humanity make the world over into their vision. But they themselves are still only human. Previous installments in the saga have appeared in Pseudopod 127: The Garden and the Mirror, Pseudopod 198: The Mother and the Worm and the available-by-donation-only TRIO OF TERROR: Nourished By Chaff, We Believe The Glamor (which will soon be made available again in the upcoming months). Now, listen on…

 

The Metal And Its Mold by Tim W. Burke

The men backed out the side entrance quietly. Tomorrow, they would tell their political party cadre that Olivia’s guidance was purely theatrical, and remain ignorant of the truth.

The hall was empty except for Olivia and Bostic, and a caretaker snoring in the front office. I stepped from under the table.

The smell of beef and cigars still clouded my nostrils. Before I had been murdered, before I created this body from a man’s tumor, I did not indulge in beef or tobacco. But I did miss having long, complete limbs. I missed wearing a man’s suits, instead of hand-stitched doll’s clothes. I missed lungs that did not ache so.

But then I would be dead, and away from Olivia, and our chance to change the world with a few enlightened leaders, and our chance to be together always.

I considered that Love has many emotions. I was becoming too familiar with Love’s ambivalence.

The post PseudoPod 373: The Metal And Its Mold appeared first on PseudoPod.

• Author : Nathaniel Lee
• Narrator : Dominick Rabrun
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

This story originally appeared in the COINS OF CHAOS anthology from EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, edited by Jennifer Brozek. The book came out in late 2013 and can be purchased from the publisher directly or from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. “It’s not what you’re buying; it’s what you’re willing to pay and how badly you want it. How hungry are you, really?”

Silver And Copper, Iron And Ash by Nathaniel Lee

Something was following him. He had enough woodcraft to know that, although he hadn’t been able to catch sight of it. A rogue wolf, perhaps, or a mountain lion; something solitary and hungry, cautious but lured by the smell of blood on him. He’d have to sit up with the rifle for a night or two and make sure the goats didn’t come to harm.

With a final glance at the darkened woods, James hefted his gunnysack and began the final climb down to the fragile safety of walls.

The post PseudoPod 372: Silver And Copper, Iron And Ash appeared first on PseudoPod.

• Author : Joshua Rex
• Narrator : Robert C. Eccles
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

PseudoPod 371: The Unfinished Room is a PseudoPod original.

Joshua says “I got the idea for this story after noticing an area along a wall in my rented house where there had once been a door or window. Inevitably, I began to think about sealed doorways – both physical and mental – and what we might see if we were to reopen them.”

The Unfinished Room by Joshua Rex

‘Do you hear that?’ Adele cut in.

‘What?’

‘That ticking sound.’

James glanced back at the bathroom. ‘Probably the tub dripping.’

‘No, it’s coming from in there…’ Adele stepped through the hole, zigzagged around the maze of unfinished walls and then stopped at one of the cross studs and picked something up. She stood there for a long time, staring down at the object in her palm, then slowly covered her mouth with her free hand.

‘Adele?’

No response. James stepped in, walked to one of the perimeter walls and looked through. The room seemed to float above the lawn without any visible support. Absently he brought the cigarette to his lips, took a pull but got no smoke. He looked at the lit end. The cherry now resembled fossilized bone. He tossed it through the wall and walked over to Adele, who was still staring at the thing in her hand. As he got closer he saw it was a pocket watch.

‘Where did you find that?’

‘Sitting on the wall.’

‘Looks antique. I bet it’s gold. Probably worth a nice chunk of change.’

Adele gave him a horrified look, then carefully set the watch back on the ledge. James went to grab it, but was distracted by something in his periphery. He turned and saw a beach ball, white with yellow stars, drift across the floor and settle gently into a far corner. Seeing it nearly brought him to his knees in terror. Without thinking, he took Adele’s hand and began leading her out of the room.

‘Jimmy -‘

‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’

Adele hesitated, looking back at the watch, then relented. James nailed a sheet of particle board over the hole and they didn’t speak of the room again for a month.

The post PseudoPod 371: The Unfinished Room appeared first on PseudoPod.

• Author : Krista Soli Foster
• Narrator : Joe Calarco
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

PseudoPod 370: Mary is a PseudoPod original.

Says Krista “I wrote this story during my first visit to the Salem/Danvers area, trying to sneak one last peek at the great Danver’s Asylum before it was torn down and made into condos. After hearing that the original location of the old witch hanging spot of Gallow’s Hill was lost to history and known only as ‘the highest hill in the town’ I decided for myself that the highest hill I could see was the one upon which the asylum stood, and wouldn’t that make it an extra nasty place to build anything.”

Mary by Krista Soli Foster

He could scarcely remember a time before there was Mary. His adoration for her grew with every visit, like a well-tended fruit tree. She was his one and only; there had never been anyone before Mary. Time itself was endless while he was gazing into her eyes. At night he would caress her face and she would gasp and moan, and he would thrill with delight at the warmth of her breath and the tears in her eyes. It was her sweet voice alone that controlled the beat of his heart, and it always had been. One day he snuck into her room and she cried out so gleefully that he was driven to dance across the very floor, spinning and spinning late into the night as the angry old man in the next room pounded on the wall, shouting curses to no one that cared.

Mary made him happy.

One day, he found Mary to be swollen and red, her skin stretched over her body like a thin sheet of wax. She cried only a little when he came to see her, because her mouth was held shut by the weight of bloated, cracking ruby lips. She was lovelier then than ever before. He delighted in pressing his cheek against her leg and watching the imprint slowly fade away. When the doctor came, he heard the man tell Mary that they were going to change her medication soon, but wouldn’t be able to for another week until they knew if the swelling would go away on its own. Mary cried a little more. The sound of her voice was like bells.

Mary was the essence of joy.

The post PseudoPod 370: Mary appeared first on PseudoPod.

• Author : Charlie Bookout
• Narrators : Laura Hobbs, Emily Smith and Matt Franklin
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

“Four Views Of The Big Cigar In Winter” placed in a contest held by a publisher called Zharmae and it was to be printed in an anthology due out in the spring of 2014. Zharmae’s editor, Travis Grundy, contacted me saying that he’d scrapped the anthology. A link to the Kindle edition of the story can be found at www.maxavalon.com.

Four Views of the Big Cigar in Winter by Charlie Bookout

She watched him tromp away and quickly disappear into the blizzard. Had he survived a little longer, she would have given him the big news he was dreading. But a madman with a hammer would find him that afternoon and mercifully spare him the trouble.

Her tears were starting to freeze on her cheeks. She yawned and looked to the east. Snowflakes swirled against the fragile glow like volcanic ash.

No one would see her. Everyone else was indoors: listening to the weather guy for closings, checking the cocoa supply, planning snow forts. She had observed that Arkansans, as a rule, did not prepare for snow—not like their neighbors to the north—and that the residents of Cedar Hill were particularly myopic. They would weave along slick streets like drunkards. They would entrust their children to the talents of school bus drivers who had established records of vehicular homicide. They would neither chain their tires nor salt their bridges. They would pretend that nothing had changed. But only to a point. When a storm like this one came around, even Cedar Hill gave up and stayed home. Bone-aching winter had assailed the Ozark Plateau like a nocturnal predator, and all the other rabbits were snug in their warrens. No one would see her.

No one but the crow on the branch above her.

The post PseudoPod 369: Four Views of the Big Cigar in Winter appeared first on PseudoPod.