PseudoPod 567: Passover

[Bdoomed]

PseudoPod 567: Passover

by Caspian Gray
Narrated by Elie Hirschman


One day there came a body that didn’t burn.  Tomek found her, because he was young, and because it was his job only to clean the ovens, not to fill them.  The body was covered in ash, streaked with it, but the hair wasn’t even singed.  Worse, it was a naked woman.  She would have been beautiful if he had found her anywhere else.

Tomek screamed.

The two men nearest him–friends of his father, both of them–came running.  No one from the pens ever escaped, but there was always that threat.  Even working in the rooms that held the ovens, you couldn’t forget the threat of them.

“I’m sorry,” said Tomek, when the men looked at him.  “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing,” Wac?aw repeated.  “So don’t scream about it.”

Tomek nodded, trying to block their view into the oven with his body.  The men paid him no attention.  They had work to do of a more difficult, complicated nature than merely cleaning up.



Listen to this week's PseudoPod.

[Katzentatzen]

Really great atypical vampire story!

[Ichneumon]

I didn't see her as a vampire, but maybe! The image of the boy eating his lunch with the ashes of murdered people under his nails was grisly, worse than the zombie part for me. The author created an interesting discussion of guilt and innocence.