Pseudopod 521: The Moraine

[Bdoomed]

Pseudopod 521: The Moraine

by Simon Bestwick.

“The Moraine” was first printed in The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 4 in 2012

‘Simon Bestwick is brilliant,’ the Guardian says; he thinks they’re probably wrong, but being British, also thinks it would be very impolite to disagree with them. Originally from Manchester, he now lives on the Wirral with his long-suffering wife, the author Cate Gardner. By now he’s responsible for five novels, four short story collections, and a chapbook, Angels Of The Silences. A new collection is in the works.

He has two new novels out in December: The Feast Of All Souls, a supernatural/urban fantasy novel from Solaris Books, and Devil’s Highway, the second book in the post-apocalyptic Black Road quartet. It and the first book, Hell’s Ditch, are both available from Snowbooks.

Visit his Website, follow his Facebook Author Page or on Twitter @GevaudanShoal

Your narrator – Lewis Davies – is a history teacher who lives in the South West of Britain. This is his 2nd reading for Pseudopod. you can follow him @Lewiskernow on twitter.


Info on Anders Manga’s album (they do our theme music!) can be found here.


““Hello?” I called into the mist. “Hello?”

“Anybody down there?” Diane called.

“Hello?” A voice called back.

“Thank god for that,” Diane whispered.

We started along the rattling path, into the mist. “Hello?” called the voice. “Hello?””



Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

[adrianh]

That was excellent.

Also, in my head cannon, this totally happens in the same universe as Tremors.

"The talus-graboid, native to North-West England, supplements the ambush predation typical of the genus with auditory lures. Enticing prey into their hunting grounds with their remarkable imitation skills."

[Maxilu]

Moral of the story: never go hiking without a compass. Especially when visibly could disappear in an instant.



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[Observer]

Somewhere in California Samuel L. Jackson is listening to this story and screaming "Say 'click' again, motherfucker. I DARE YOU."

[dagny]

Do NOT listen to this story driving through rural Mississippi in the midst of a dense fog.

Well done. I hope the fog burns off soon...

[Rhio2k]

Now THIS is my favorite flavor of horror: stories about encounters with things that should not be.

[Lisa3737]

Excellent narration for an excellent story.  When the creature was calling out in the different voices, the baby hairs on the back of my neck went up.  Very effective!

[Unblinking]

Ooh, creepy scary fun, I liked it, especially when the creature was calling out in each voice in turn punctuated by clicks.

[TrishEM]

Oh yeah, just being lost in a fog in a mountain is uneasy-making, and I loved how the couple was getting on each others' nerves and trying not to escalate to open quarreling. I thought for a while that it was going to be a story about one of them pushing the other off the mountain.
And then adding the voices that didn't directly answer questions made it creepy, and it kept ratcheting up until AAAAAAAAAAH!
A classic style of horror and very, very nicely done.

[Ichneumon]

All of the monster/hiking/horror parts I loved, but the couple bickering was difficult to listen to. The man's closing thought that, in the end, they did work as a couple seemed silly to me. I think any two people in that situation together would become emotionally attached to each other, but that doesn't mean they would have a good marriage.

[Fenrix]

All of the monster/hiking/horror parts I loved, but the couple bickering was difficult to listen to. The man's closing thought that, in the end, they did work as a couple seemed silly to me. I think any two people in that situation together would become emotionally attached to each other, but that doesn't mean they would have a good marriage.

It may be silly (I'd go with "foolish"), but not unbelievable. He still had hope the relationship would be repairable, but she was ready to move on. His response at the end is pretty classic denial/hope behavior. Considering the POV is tight to the character and not omniscient, our narrator is unreliable at least about his relationship.

[JoeFitz]

A great episode.

[Marlboro]

Pseudopod 521: The Moraine aka How a Chance Meeting with the Rich Little of Graboids Saved My Marriage.


I think this is a very good episode. I read a Stephen King story called The Raft recently and it shares a couple of elements with this story. I have to say that I greatly prefer this one. The couple seemed all too realistic; in fact at times they remind me a bit of the couple in James Thurber's "A Couple of Hamburgers".   More positives: the monster was also pretty cool, and the reading was excellent.

P.S.

click click click