PseudoPod

• Author : Jeff Hewitt
• Narrator : Anson Mount
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

PseudoPod 359: Face Change is a PseudoPod original.

“The main adage of therapy is that the patient must want to change, but we all know change isn’t easy. How far would you go to make the change that you want?”

‘I’m going. Thank you for trying as hard as you could, all the same.’ Dr. Adler looked at John’s hand, and something flashed in his eyes.

‘Just a minute! Just a moment! Let me get something for you.’ John watched the doctor stand up and run to his office closet. After digging for a moment, he came back with a DVD in a cardboard sleeve and a slick, black case.

‘These go together. I’ve heard good things, and when I got one in the mail as a sample I knew I had to save it for someone special. I think you’re that person, John.’ Dr. Adler handed John the items. The solid-looking case weighed very little, surprising John.

‘”The Face-Changing System for Success in Life and Business,”‘ read John aloud. He cocked an eyebrow at Adler.

‘I know how it sounds. Most of these systems are a bunch of malarkey, but I really have heard good things from colleagues. It’s not for everyone, but I think you’re just the man for it.’ John tried to hand it back, but Adler refused.

‘Try it out. If you don’t like it, bring it back to me, or give it to a friend. Good luck, John.’

The post PseudoPod 359: Face Change appeared first on PseudoPod.

• Author : Darren O. Godfrey
• Narrator : Bill Ruhsam 
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

“Apathetic Flesh” was first published in the anthology BORDERLANDS 2 (1991, edited by Thomas Monteleone), and was later reprinted in THE BEST OF BORDERLANDS (2005).

If you were to stop and think about it, you wouldn’t really be able to say why it is you watch these films; though, as a child, you enjoyed being frightened, and some of the movies did that; and as a teenager you enjoyed being shocked (and perhaps a little revolted) and the “splatter” films fit that bill nicely. But now, at an ancient and creaking twenty-seven years of age, the movies – horror, splatter, or otherwise – no longer seem to have any effect on you. Nil.

But still you watch them.

And think about it is something you never do anyway, so, tonight, you merely chew stale popcorn and gawk at the silver screen where the lead zombie (nicknamed Harley) effortlessly tears a young woman’s head from her quivering white shoulders, delicately tongues one of her eyeballs, sucks it from its socket. Harley chews it, apparently savoring the taste, and the only discomfort you feel is the rock-hard lump against the small of your back, a special feature of all the seats in the Chief Theater. No point in moving. So you don’t.

Until it’s over (completely over; every last credit read and recorded in your junkshop mind), at which time you stand and brush salt and popcorn bits from your jeans.

‘Well, that was fun,’ you say to no one as you step into the aisle and make for the glowing green EXIT.

The post PseudoPod 358: Apathetic Flesh appeared first on PseudoPod.

• Author : Paul Lorello
• Narrator : Steve Anderson 
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

PseudoPod 357: Growth Spurt is a PseudoPod original.

Day 1 – UPS delivered them today in an envelope and inside that was a pouch like Pop Rocks. I closed the blinds and the curtains and it was real dark and I couldn’t hardly read the instructions. I tore open the pouch and poured this stuff like sand into the tank. I’d made a cool cover for it taking the box it came in and cutting off the top and painting inside it like black. It’s cool. They said to just put them in the dark but if you have a cover that’s better. I fed them with one of the freeze dried blood caps that was included but I think I added too much water. I hate it that I screwed stuff up right at the beginning. I’ll know by tomorrow night I guess.

Mom and Dad are yelling at each other. They think I can’t hear them.

Day 2 – I guess I didn’t add too much water after all. There are only seven caps included in the kit. After a week I start them on real food. Grace’s hamster is preggers. Good snacks for my guys coming soon.

I got made fun of for writing everything down. Grace and Mom ganged up on me. And they laughed when I told them every scientist writes stuff down. Then Grace said I wasn’t a scientist. Then Dad came home and everyone stopped laughing.

I want my guys to grow already. Under “Gestation Period” it says you should see results in about two weeks. Two weeks is waaayyyyyy too long!

The post PseudoPod 357: Growth Spurt appeared first on PseudoPod.

HELLO ALL!

Craig Mackie is holding a fund-raiser for ESCAPE ARTISTS in Montreal this Friday, October 25, 2013.

There will be live readings of weird fiction by Eric Lis, Marta Barnes, Gregg Chamberlin, Dean Garlick and Rob Kimsey. By Donation. A fund-raiser for three fantastic sister podcasts: Pseudopod, Podcastle and Escape Pod.

https://www.facebook.com/events/255534427929123/?ref_dashboard_filter=calendar

Please check it out if you can!

Shawn Garrett Editor, Pseudopod

The post EA Fundraiser – Montreal appeared first on PseudoPod.

• Author : Henry Ferris Arnold
• Narrator : Eric Luke
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

“The Night Wire” first appeared in the September, 1926 issue of Weird Tales.

There is something ungodly about these night wire jobs. You sit up here on the top floor of a skyscraper and listen in to the whispers of a civilization. New York, London, Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore — they’re your next-door neighbors after the streetlights go dim and the world has gone to sleep.

Alone in the quiet hours between two and four, the receiving operators doze over their sounders and the news comes in. Fires and disasters and suicides. Murders, crowds, catastrophes. Sometimes an earthquake with a casualty list as long as your arm. The night wire man takes it down almost in his sleep, picking it off on his typewriter with one finger.

Once in a long time you prick up your ears and listen. You’ve heard of some one you knew in Singapore, Halifax or Paris, long ago. Maybe they’ve been promoted, but more probably they’ve been murdered or drowned. Perhaps they just decided to quit and took some bizarre way out. Made it interesting enough to get in the news.

But that doesn’t happen often. Most of the time you sit and doze and tap, tap on your typewriter and wish you were home in bed.

Sometimes, though, queer things happen. One did the other night, and I haven’t got over it yet. I wish I could.

You see, I handle the night manager’s desk in a western seaport town; what the name is, doesn’t matter.

There is, or rather was, only one night operator on my staff, a fellow named John Morgan, about forty years of age, I should say, and a sober, hard-working sort.

He was one of the best operators I ever knew, what is known as a “double” man. That means he could handle two instruments at once and type the stories on different typewriters at the same time. He was one of the three men I ever knew who could do it consistently, hour after hour, and never make a mistake.

Generally, we used only one wire at night, but sometimes, when it was late and the news was coming fast, the Chicago and Denver stations would open a second wire, and then Morgan would do his stuff. He was a wizard, a mechanical automatic wizard which functioned marvelously but was without imagination.

On the night of the sixteenth he complained of feeling tired. It was the first and last time I had ever heard him say a word about himself, and I had known him for three years.

It was just three o’clock and we were running only one wire. I was nodding over the reports at my desk and not paying much attention to him, when he spoke.

“Jim,” he said, “does it feel close in here to you?”

“Why, no, John,” I answered, “but I’ll open a window if you like.”

“Never mind,” he said. “I reckon I’m just a little tired.”

That was all that was said, and I went on working. Every ten minutes or so I would walk over and take a pile of copy that had stacked up neatly beside the typewriter as the messages were printed out in triplicate.

It must have been twenty minutes after he spoke that I noticed he had opened up the other wire and was using both typewriters. I thought it was a little unusual, as there was nothing very “hot” coming in. On my next trip I picked up the copy from both machines and took it back to my desk to sort out the duplicates.

The first wire was running out the usual sort of stuff and I just looked over it hurriedly. Then I turned to the second pile of copy. I remembered it particularly because the story was from a town I had never heard of: “Xebico.” Here is the dispatch. I saved a duplicate of it from our files:

“Xebico, Sept 16 CP BULLETIN

“The heaviest mist in the history of the city settled over the town at 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon. All traffic has stopped and the mist hangs like a pall over everything. Lights of ordinary intensity fail to pierce the fog, which is constantly growing heavier.

“Scientists here are unable to agree as to the cause, and the local weather bureau states that the like has never occurred before in the history of the city.

“At 7 P.M. last night the municipal authorities…

(more)

That was all there was. Nothing out of the ordinary at a bureau headquarters, but, as I say, I noticed the story because of the name of the town.

It must have been fifteen minutes later that I went over for another batch of copy. Morgan was slumped down in his chair and had switched his green electric light shade so that the gleam missed his eyes and hit only the top of the two typewriters.

Only the usual stuff was in the righthand pile, but the lefthand batch carried another story from Xebico. All press dispatches come in “takes,” meaning that parts of many different stories are strung along together, perhaps with but a few paragraphs of each coming through at a time. This second story was marked “add fog.” Here is the copy:

“At 7 P.M. the fog had increased noticeably. All lights were now invisible and the town was shrouded in pitch darkness.

“As a peculiarity of the phenomenon, the fog is accompanied by a sickly odor, comparable to nothing yet experienced here.”

Below that in customary press fashion was the hour, 3:27, and the initials of the operator, JM.

There was only one other story in the pile from the second wire. Here it is:

“2nd add Xebico Fog.

“Accounts as to the origin of the mist differ greatly. Among the most unusual is that of the sexton of the local church, who groped his way to headquarters in a hysterical condition and declared that the fog originated in the village churchyard.

“‘It was first visible as a soft gray blanket clinging to the earth above the graves,’ he stated. ‘Then it began to rise, higher and higher. A subterranean breeze seemed to blow it in billows, which split up and then joined together again.

“‘Fog phantoms, writhing in anguish, twisted the mist into queer forms and figures. And then, in the very thick midst of the mass, something moved.

“‘I turned and ran from the accursed spot. Behind me I heard screams coming from the houses bordering on the graveyard.’

“Although the sexton’s story is generally discredited, a party has left to investigate. Immediately after telling his story, the sexton collapsed and is now in a local hospital, unconscious.”

Queer story, wasn’t it. Not that we aren’t used to it, for a lot of unusual stories come in over the wire. But for some reason or other, perhaps because it was so quiet that night, the report of the fog made a great impression on me.

It was almost with dread that I went over to the waiting piles of copy. Morgan did not move, and the only sound in the room was the tap-tap of the sounders. It was ominous, nerve- racking.

There was another story from Xebico in the pile of copy. I seized on it anxiously.

“New Lead Xebico Fog CP

“The rescue party which went out at 11 P.M. to investigate a weird story of the origin of a fog which, since late yesterday, has shrouded the city in darkness has failed to return. Another and larger party has been dispatched.

“Meanwhile, the fog has, if possible, grown heavier. It seeps through the cracks in the doors and fills the atmosphere with a depressing odor of decay. It is oppressive, terrifying, bearing with it a subtle impression of things long dead.

“Residents of the city have left their homes and gathered in the local church, where the priests are holding services of prayer. The scene is beyond description. Grown folk and children are alike terrified and many are almost beside themselves with fear.

“Amid the whisps of vapor which partly veil the church auditorium, an old priest is praying for the welfare of his flock. They alternately wail and cross themselves.

“From the outskirts of the city may be heard cries of unknown voices. They echo through the fog in queer uncadenced minor keys. The sounds resemble nothing so much as wind whistling through a gigantic tunnel. But the night is calm and there is no wind. The second rescue party… (more)”

I am a calm man and never in a dozen years spent with the wires, have I been known to become excited, but despite myself I rose from my chair and walked to the window.

Could I be mistaken, or far down in the canyons of the city beneath me did I see a faint trace of fog? Pshaw! It was all imagination.

In the pressroom the click of the sounders seemed to have raised the tempo of their tune. Morgan alone had not stirred from his chair. His head sunk between his shoulders, he tapped the dispatches out on the typewriters with one finger of each hand.

He looked asleep, but no; endlessly, efficiently, the two machines rattled off line after line, as relentlessly and effortlessly as death itself. There was something about the monotonous movement of the typewriter keys that fascinated me. I walked over and stood behind his chair, reading over his shoulder the type as it came into being, word by word.

Ah, here was another:

“Flash Xebico CP

“There will be no more bulletins from this office. The impossible has happened. No messages have come into this room for twenty minutes. We are cut off from the outside and even the streets below us.

“I will stay with the wire until the end.

“It is the end, indeed. Since 4 P.M. yesterday the fog has hung over the city. Following reports from the sexton of the local church, two rescue parties were sent out to investigate conditions on the outskirts of the city. Neither party has ever returned nor was any word received from them. It is quite certain now that they will never return.

“From my instrument I can gaze down on the city beneath me. From the position of this room on the thirteenth floor, nearly the entire city can be seen. Now I can see only a thick blanket of blackness where customarily are lights and life.

“I fear greatly that the wailing cries heard constantly from the outskirts of the city are the death cries of the inhabitants. They are constantly increasing in volume and are approaching the center of the city.

“The fog yet hangs over everything. If possible, it is even heavier than before, but the conditions have changed. Instead of an opaque, impenetrable wall of odorous vapor, there now swirls and writhes a shapeless mass in contortions of almost human agony. Now and again the mass parts and I catch a brief glimpse of the streets below.

“People are running to and fro, screaming in despair. A vast bedlam of sound flies up to my window, and above all is the immense whistling of unseen and unfelt winds.

“The fog has again swept over the city and the whistling is coming closer and closer.

“It is now directly beneath me.

“God! An instant ago the mist opened and I caught a glimpse of the streets below.

“The fog is not simply vapor — it lives! By the side of each moaning and weeping human is a companion figure, an aura of strange and vari-colored hues. How the shapes cling! Each to a living thing!

“The men and women are down. Flat on their faces. The fog figures caress them lovingly. They are kneeling beside them. They are — but I dare not tell it.

“The prone and writhing bodies have been stripped of their clothing. They are being consumed — piecemeal.

“A merciful wall of hot, steaming vapor has swept over the whole scene. I can see no more.

“Beneath me the wall of vapor is changing colors. It seems to be lighted by internal fires. No, it isn’t. I have made a mistake. The colors are from above, reflections from the sky.

“Look up! Look up! The whole sky is in flames. Colors as yet unseen by man or demon. The flames are moving; they have started to intermix; the colors are rearranging themselves. They are so brilliant that my eyes burn, they are a long way off.

“Now they have begun to swirl, to circle in and out, twisting in intricate designs and patterns. The lights are racing each with each, a kaleidoscope of unearthly brilliance.

“I have made a discovery. There is nothing harmful in the lights. They radiate force and friendliness, almost cheeriness. But by their very strength, they hurt.

“As I look, they are swinging closer and closer, a million miles at each jump. Millions of miles with the speed of light. Aye, it is light of quintessence of all light. Beneath it the fog melts into a jeweled mist radiant, rainbow-colored of a thousand varied spectra.

“I can see the streets. Why, they are filled with people! The lights are coming closer. They are all around me. I am enveloped. I…”

The message stopped abruptly. The wire to Xebico was dead. Beneath my eyes in the narrow circle of light from under the green lamp-shade, the black printing no longer spun itself, letter by letter, across the page.

The room seemed filled with a solemn quiet, a silence vaguely impressive, powerful.

I looked down at Morgan. His hands had dropped nervelessly at his sides, while his body had hunched over peculiarly. I turned the lamp-shade back, throwing light squarely in his face. His eyes were staring, fixed.

Filled with a sudden foreboding, I stepped beside him and called Chicago on the wire. After a second the sounder clicked its answer.

Why? But there was something wrong. Chicago was reporting that Wire Two had not been used throughout the evening.

“Morgan!” I shouted. “Morgan! Wake up, it isn’t true. Some one has been hoaxing us. Why…” In my eagerness I grasped him by the shoulder.

His body was quite cold. Morgan had been dead for hours. Could it be that his sensitized brain and automatic fingers had continued to record impressions even after the end?

I shall never know, for I shall never again handle the night shift. Search in a world atlas discloses no town of Xebico. Whatever it was that killed John Morgan will forever remain a mystery.

The post PseudoPod 356: The Night Wire appeared first on PseudoPod.

An urgent update on the status of Escape Artists, its three podcasts, our plans for the future and why we desperately need your help getting there.

Escape Artists, Inc. P.O. Box 83 Woodstock, GA 30188

Additional music provided by D-Form – http://www.reverbnation.com/dform Sound effects provided by users kasa90 (http://freesound.org/people/kasa90/) and TasmanianPower (http://freesound.org/people/TasmanianPower/) of FreeSound.org

The post EA Metacast, October 2013 appeared first on PseudoPod.

• Author : Leah Thomas
• Narrator : Justin Riestra
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

PseudoPod 355: The Chair is a PseudoPod original.

Gus accidentally crushed his wife’s cochlea during breakfast.

The spiraling piece of inner ear was almost the exact same shade of beige as the tablecloth his Great Aunt had given them at their wedding; Gwen couldn’t have expected him to spot it when he set down the jar of marmalade. She should have left the cochlea in her earhole where it belonged, but she had taken to removing it while she slept and only jamming it back into the side of her skull again moments before stumbling out the door on her way to the unemployment office.

The dislocated eardrum emitted the strangest sound as it was flattened, like the squeaking of fingertips against dry teeth.

The naked bones of Gwen’s knuckles clicked when she lifted the jar. Although neither of her eyesockets — one an echoing black hole, the other occupied by a myopic, amber-irised eyeball — were framed by brows or lids, and although she could not afford a crinkled forehead, Gus could read the expression on her skull as easily as he could any face with a complete set of features. Had her tear glands not been on layaway, she might have wept. Had her nose been more than a few strips of cartilage, she may have sniffled.

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• Author : Niccolo Skill
• Narrator : Rich C. Girardi
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

PseudoPod 354: The Eulogy Of Darien Meek is a PseudoPod original.

Music under Shawn’s message is “Happy Birthday Chopin Ballade” by Mario Ajero, from Music Alley.

“Thank you for coming,” the usher said and held the door for the latest guest. Tom nodded and mouthed a ‘thank you’ but didn’t feel it in him to say the actual words. A time and place for everything, after all.

Twin dark wood doors opened up to a high-ceiling-ed main room. The windows were stained half the colors of the rainbow. The room was awash in vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows. A splash of green dotted the refreshment table and the faintest lines of blue hung over the altar. A faint musky smell, not quite strong enough to be offensive, wafted out the door.

Clusters of relatives milled about, exchanging the usual family gossip. Tom tucked himself into the corner by the restrooms.

The post PseudoPod 354: The Eulogy Of Darien Meek appeared first on PseudoPod.

• Authors : Joe R. Lansdale, Keith McCleary and Jaki Idler
• Narrators : Julia Rios , Corson Bremer and Kevin M. Hayes
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

PseudoPod 353: FLASH ON THE BORDERLANDS XVII: Keeping Up Appearances is a PseudoPod original.

Things are not always as they seem…

Help Gail Carriger get CRUDRAT up and running by checking out: CRUDRAT!

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

“Down By The Sea Near The Great Big Rock” first appeared in MASQUES (1984).

“The Demon Fields” has been performed in San Diego, and can be found at Gchatus, but Pseudopod is its first published appearance.

A shorter version of “Pawn” was a Semifinalist in the 2010 Escape Pod flash contest, where it was titled “Queen.”

“Down By The Sea Near The Great Big Rock” by Joe R. Lansdale

Down by the sea near the great big rock, they made their camp and toasted marshmallows over a small, fine fire. The night was pleasantly chill and the sea spray cold. Laughing, talking, eating the gooey marshmallows, they had one swell time; just them, the sand, the sea and the sky, and the great big rock. 

“The Demon Fields” by Keith McCleary

One day, one of the farmhands mustered the courage to ask him what the barn was all about. Ben squinted at the structure in the distance, picked a reed to chew on and crossed his burly arms across his barrel chest. ‘Well boys,’ he said. ‘That barn’s gonna hold my demons. Ev’ry man’s got ’em. Gotta get ‘em stored away if I ever want to share this farm with someone. Can’t have ‘em runnin’ loose, now can I?’ and he smiled.

“Pawn” by Jaki Idler

The pain of pushing the larva through the very flesh of my transgression should be punishment enough. But mating was the Queen’s privilege, not the bait’s, and she’d ensure I’d rather die than overstep again. She called the lair witness, lest my lesson bear repeating. I squatted and bore down, slave to more primeval powers. My lair sisters ringed the cavern, tall and smug, every stiff spine saying they knew better. I’d known better.

The post PseudoPod 353: FLASH ON THE BORDERLANDS XVII: Keeping Up Appearances appeared first on PseudoPod.

• Author : Cameron Suey
• Narrator : Gabriel Diani
• Host : Alasdair Stuart
• Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop
• Discuss on Forums

PseudoPod 351: The Blues is a PseudoPod original.

“The Blues” was my attempt at confronting and ruminating on the limits of our adaptability, something not often addressed in apocalyptic literature.

Slusher music is “Green Olives” by Barbacoa from Music Alley

The brick edifices lean over me, red canyons of abandoned history. Despite the lingering warmth of the late valley summer, dried leaves are already piling in the gutters. Without a human hand to clean them I imagine them heaping up, year after year, burying the small town in an endless leaf pile, patiently waiting in vain for a child to leap into them.

Spun off on this chain of images and ideas, I drift away from Alex and lean against the boarded windows of a storefront. The leaves are swirling now with the blues in my mind, the cool colors crackling through the warm autumn refuse. Somewhere in the middle of the conceptual whirlwind, I get sick, the bile rising from the back of my throat bringing an unpleasant fungal taste. I spit as my mouth floods with thin and bitter saliva.

‘Tell me if I can help, man.’

Alex is across the street, leaning against a bike rack, watching me. I try to shake my head, to raise an arm, but I am trapped inside the whirlwind, not sure of its boundaries and borders, not sure if I am enjoying this anymore. Leif and King’s distant, muffled voices blend into the spinning vortex.

‘Nope,’ I manage with great effort. Alex nods and looks away.

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