Strange Stories, By Strange Authors, for Strange Listeners
The first ‘Go to Hell!’
The Angels did say
To certain poor bastards
On Valentine’s Day;
‘Go to Hell!
We do our job well!
It ain’t who you are
It’s what you can sell…’
On Valentine’s Day,
The World demands Love
With a milk-chocolate fist
In a red tin-foil glove.
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The six of them meet for the first time in front of the sagging clapboard house where Everett Montrose was born. All are tired, with hollows under their eyes from driving or riding buses for days. Even so, they greet each other with shy, relieved smiles. Few words are said; most seem unsure of how to speak to each other. There are some handshakes, even a quick hug or two, but these interactions are awkward and all soon turn their attention to their reason for coming here. They all carry with them small pieces of Everett Montrose, and all instinctively touch the fragments as they look to the house.
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“You don’t have to talk like that to us, mister,” I said. “We know town-speak just fine.”
The man with the hat put it back on his head and smiled with a hint of embarrassment. “Sorry, folks. Sometimes it helps, you know, smooth the way.”
That man with the computer was lurking by the corner of our porch, holding it up and aiming some kind of camera at the eaves. He steered a pair of laser beams from one end to the other. I figured I’d let him do what he was doing if I didn’t see any harm.
“Smooth the way for what?” I asked. I knew what was coming next, what was always coming: talk of imminent domain, of making way for progress.
“Something exciting,” he said, lifting up a foot onto the lowest step. “Opportunity of a lifetime…”
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James Kennedy had stared at his sock drawer for a good ten minutes that first morning, dumbfounded. He’d never seen it so neat, and he didn’t remember doing it. But there they were: threadbare, but tidy and folded…
Another Drabblecast doubleheader special, featuring two stories from from author John P. Murphy.
Help support Norm’s New CD: The Esoteric Order of Sherman. Pre-order the Order.
Episode Sponsor: The Flash Pulp Podcast, thrice weekly pulp stories for the modern age.
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Now if we, like those characters in recent movies, discovered specific clues in the world around us suggesting that we do in fact live in a simulation, we would of course consider those clues carefully to see what they say about how we should live our lives. — Robin Hanson
Norm begins this episode of the Drabblecast with an introduction to the new and improved Drabblecast.org, and thanks the many contributors who made this possible. The Drabble by John Murphy remembers a simpler time in video games, though a time not free of consequence. The feature by Aubrey Hirsch provides, as described in the title, a didactic set of rules for living in a simulation (a universe constructed especially for us).
Episode Sponsor: You Shall Never Know Security by J.R. Hamantaschen.
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Another of the Drabblecast’s vaunted Trifecta series. Three short stories, each with a unique twist. The episode begins with an interview of author J.R. Hamantaschen, Norm runs fingers through his troubled mind, learning of the seeds from which his horrors spring. The theme of this Trifecta: getting the boot – stories of rejection and alienation. First up, Richard Weems’s Bad Habit, in which a nun and a naked pervert do battle (no, really). Next, author Andrew Gudgel (featured on fellow podcasts such as Escapepod) appears with Tags, as read by Kimi Alexander, a story of teenage dares in a technologically submerged world. Lastly, A Happy Family, by author, novelist Nathaniel Tower, read by Abner Senires, in which a family receives a very unexpected bundle of joy (and puzzlement).
Episode Sponsor: You Shall Never Know Security by J.R. Hamantaschen.
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“The Nandi… a magical bear… a brain-eating bear…”
Oddly-accented cryptozoologist Connor Choadsworth once again embarks on a quest to find mythical beasts, this time in the deep jungles of Kenya.
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She came wandering down the sidewalk like any other corpse, her herky-jerky walk unmistakable among the fluid strides of the living. She was six or seven, Southeast Asian, maybe Indian, her ragged clothes caked in dried mud. Pedestrians cut a wide berth around her without noticing her at all…
On this episode of the Drabblecast, Norm ponders the nature of the undead. He concludes the In Search of the Brain-Eating Nandi Bear serial. Following that is feature story Followed by Will McIntosh, author of Soft Apocalypse and the upcoming Hitchers.
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Okay, no one expects eldritch horror in LA. Not that I know what eldritch horror really is. My old boyfriend (about fifteen boyfriends back) called anything that inspired dread “eldritch horror.” I guess that would describe my entire job, really…
Another story from Lovecraft month – elder horror in LA. Dread Unlocks is on the job!
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Another in the Drabblecast trifecta series. This time, we dip in to the Alphabet Quartet collection.
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