PseudoPod 585: ARTEMIS RISING 4: Cinereous

[Bdoomed]

PseudoPod 585: ARTEMIS RISING 4: Cinereous

by Livia Llewellyn
Narrated by Ibba Armancas
Alternate narration by Lucy A. Snyder
Hosted by Lucy A. Snyder

“Cinereous” was originally published in Zombies: Shambling Through the Ages in 2013.


Paris

October, 1799

The nails on the heels of Olympe Léon’s boots are the only sounds in the silence of night’s chilly end. Click click click through indigo air, like the metallic beat of a metronome’s righteous heart. As always, when she sees her destination at the end of rue St. Martin, rising black and monolithic against the encroaching country and graying sky, her heart and feet skip beats. She thinks of each single drop of blood, spurting and squirting from the bright flat mouths of the necks, and her small calloused hands and wide bowls to catch them all. Olympe, like all the assistants, is very proud of her training, and very afraid of losing her place, very afraid of sinking back into the city’s bowels, never to return. She never misses a drop.



Listen to this week's PseudoPod.


Listen to the alternate narration.

[Katzentatzen]

I love zombies and I’m happy to hear a tale of them in less-modern circumstances, which is the only reason I can think of that the lab let her go after being bitten instead of trying to contain the infection. Delightfully creepy.