The Blood Garden

Short Story by Jesse Livingston
Read for Pseudopod by Chris Reynaga

Fed up with his college friends' pedantic semantic arguments about about symbolism, Matthew wanders away from an analysis of a fictional poem, and as he wanders the streets at night, he wanders into the poem itself.

I've had many frustrating conversations of this sort myself, where argument over a definition prevents us from ever getting to the substance of the debate. The discussion and the frustration with other people's pedantry rings particularly true, but it's nice that the story flashes to Matthew's friends after he leaves, and shows us that they aren't complete tools.

Matthew feels isolated, fed up with his friends and left alone to deal with the death of his mother. He's jealous of his friends and their presumably cushier lives, he's angry, sad, and isolated. The magical, poetic garden in which he finds comfort is dark and violent and the images will haunt me.

I've felt what Matthew feels, the isolation and powerlessness, frustration with your friends and loneliness and rage. Livingston evokes these emotions so well, and I'm in love with the image of the garden. I only wish the poem he referenced were real. It's compared to Kubla Khan and the poetic description contains a long section from the end of Coleridge's poem, with "She was alone when she died" presumably interjected by Matthew to make the poem more fitting, and more sinister.

4 animals in the trees out of 5.

The Cord

Short Story by Chris Lewis Carter

Read for Pseudopod by David Michel

Cordyceps fungus has gone from parasitizing ants to humans, and has spread throughout the world. People find themselves climbing to high places, and spreading spores to their communities as they die. This is the story of one such man, and the neighbor who runs out to try to get him down.

The central twist wasn't that hard to see coming, but it did take me a bit. What I liked most was that the infected man couldn't figure out what was going on, even when it should have been obvious. This was definitely creepy, and a great SF conceit for a horror story. I do have a weakness for fungus though...

That said, it isn't as good as William Hope Hodgson's Voice in the Night, which Pseudopod published earlier this month. Maybe an unfair comparison but it's hard not to make it. And my inner biologist got a bit annoyed with the philosophizing about nature regarding us as a big enough threat to give us a parasitic fungus. A) we have all sorts of fungal diseases already, including mind-altering ones, B) nature/evolution is not an intelligent force. These just take away from my enjoyment without adding any elements of horror. Maybe it's my Lovecraftian predilections, but an uncaring universe seems scarier than an intelligent one.

4 fruiting bodies out of 5.

Home Is Where the Heart Is (Flash on the Borderlands VIII)

Flash Fiction by Bint Arab
Narrated for Pseudopod by Marshal Latham

The third and final love-related flash fiction: this time it's familial. Starts just after 13 minutes in.

Mothers can be such a hassle. Teddy brings his back from beyond the grave, but like many mothers, she isn't easily satisfied. The ending is the best part of this story, so it's good that it doesn't waste any time getting there. A bit light, but a suitably creepy finish.

3 empty nests out of 5.

Pieces (Flash on the Borderlands VIII)

Flash Fiction by M.C. Funk
Narrated for Pseudopod by Donna Lynch

The second piece of love-themed flash fiction starts about 7 minutes into the podcast.

A brilliant analogy for an abusive relationship. Absolutely horrifying; I love the way the narrator still loves him, and the way he says he loves her as he takes our narrator apart. The genius here is that both the supernatural foreground story and the real-world relationships it represents are great horror stories in their own right, and they are combined into a tight little 5-minute story. I never knew "I love you" could be such a horrifying last line.

5 not-so-inner demons out of 5.

In Memoriam (Flash on the Borderlands VIII)

Flash Fiction by Matthew Chrulew
Narrated for Pseudopod by Philippa Ballantine

The first piece of love-themed flash this month, this is a mean little revenge fantasy about a widow's vengeful way of remembering her husband and his killer. It's almost too simplistic and straightforward. It is creepy, but not surprising or unusual. The woman's dedication is impressive, but seems a little over-the-top to me.

2.5 bad drivers out of 5.

Little Monster (Flash on the Borderlands VI)

Flash Fiction by LynnCee Faulk
Narrated for Pseudopod by Dani Cutler (Starts at about 11 minutes)

Text available on the Pseudopod Forums

The old Creepy Doll tale with an interesting, scarier, twist. The little girl is a fun character in this very short, very bleak horror story. It's my favorite of the three flash fictions in this Pseudopod episode.

3.5 pins out of 5.

Mother's Milk (Flash on the Borderlands VI)

Flash Fiction by Strahinja Acimovic
Narrated for Pseudopod by Jacquie Duckworth (Starts at about 6 minutes)

Text available on the Pseudopod forums

The second piece of flash fiction this month, and tied of second place in the Pseudopod Flash Contest.

A premature baby dies after an emergency C-section and his mother goes interestingly crazy. She comes up with a novel, rather horrible solution to the problem of her dead child.

I enjoyed this one more than Escape. It is still a gorey, gross form of madness, but for some reason this one worked better for me. Maybe it is that this woman has a better motivation for being crazy, or just that she is coming up with a more needlessly horrible solution, which still makes more sense, in an insane sort of way.

3.5 stitches out of 5.

Escape (Flash on the Borderlands VI)

Flash Fiction by M.E. Smith
Narrated for Pseudopod by Leann Mabry

Text available on the Pseudopod Forums

Pseudopod is back after their long hiatus! The first of these three flash pieces is the winner of their Flash Fiction contest.

A woman in a concrete cell is slowly escaping. It's a gross, neat form of madness. A gruesome plan, perhaps needlessly so. This is torture-horror of an unusual type, but still essentially torture horror. Gross, not amazingly interesting story, besides the idea at its heart.

3 bits out of 5.

Ankor Sabat

Short Story by C. Deskin Rink

Read for PseudoPod by Ben Phillips

This is Rink's first published story, and a PseudoPod Original. By my count, two more stories have since been published, both horror. This one is technically a Cthulhu mythos story centered on Tsathoggua, and in the style of his creator: Clark Ashton Smith. But honestly the only Tsathoggua we get is by way of a high priest and what a particular cyclopean temple was built in honor of. So you could sub in any dark god you want, really.

I saw a lot of hate for this story over on the PseudoPod forums, but I quite liked it. It was a bit slow getting started, and a tad confusing at first, but once we have our hero on his quest, it moves along pretty well. The meat of the story is Lord Galen's attempt to rescue his TrueLove™ from the evil priest, and to play the game the priest challenges him to. And this is absolutely the best thing about this story.

Although I've seen some criticizing this as generic horrific heroic fantasy, I beg to differ. There is an actual point, with themes and all that, rather than just some sap running off and having terrifying but meaningless adventures before dying or whatever the standard is. My favorite bit of resonance, is how we tend to put our loved ones "up on a pedestal" and imagine they are perfect. This story addresses that in two ways: both the tendency to remember the past fondly and forget all negatives of past romances, and in the present tense, to put a love up on a pedestal where they could never achieve that level of perfection if you were to look at them with unbiased eyes. Either way we can be sorely disappointed if we examine our past or present loves too closely while remembering only our ideal image, not what attracted us in the first place.

That said, although I liked the story at heart, want to defend it from attackers, and will certainly be looking out for more stories from Rink, I know I'm looking at my idealized version that ended about two minutes earlier. When I take this story down off the pedestal and inspect her, I remember that the end completely ruined it for me. A nice, thoughtful ending was all set up, and then we had to flash back to a long speech explaining everything to the point where it not only feels disrespectful to the intelligence of the reader, but actively detracts from the thematic internal dialogue I was having. It isn't just a case of Bondvillianitis, but the author going in to pound one last nail into the poor horse's coffin, missing, and smashing a hammer right through the rather pretty looking box. The story is shallower, and oddly less sinister, for the sinister, explanatory ending. (To be fair, Lovecraft and pals were often guilty of this, so it nailed the writing style...)

2.5 out of 5 of my carnal and gastronomical desires have been satisfied by this story.