Pseudopod 064: Connecting Door

[Bdoomed]

Pseudopod 064: Connecting Door

By Richard E. Dansky

Read by George Hrab

They weren’t even trying to be quiet now. The idea of keeping it down had become a joke, a sort of high-decibel sotto voce. Ian felt red rage bubbling up within him, and hammered on the door with the flat of his hand. “Come on, you assholes, cut it out! I need to get some sleep here.” More pounding, hard enough to hurt now. “Would you please just keep it down, or so help me God, I’m coming in there and I’m going to kick your asses!”

There was no laughter now. No noise. No profanity. Just silence. Ian hit the door once more, mainly out of momentum. His hand made a weak, wet noise, a soft slapping sound. He drew it back, suddenly unsure of what to do next. Keep pounding? Go back to bed? Wait?

A sound came from the other side of the door then, a quiet, rasping noise accompanied by whispers and titters. It took Ian a moment to realize that it was the sound of the chain being pulled off the door on the other side of the wall. The noise from the street seemed to vanish. The door in front of him loomed larger, brighter, and more threatening. Suddenly, he was acutely aware of the weakness of his situation, of why a middle-aged man in his underwear should not threaten multiple obnoxious drunks in the middle of the night.

Check back on Thanksgiving for a tasty treat.


Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

[gelee]

Fun show!  I really enjoyed the production on this one.  PP doesn't usually use a lot of sound effects, but I think they were well applied here, and George gave a great reading.  Did he do all the "other" voices as well?

I enjoyed the story.  I thought it was well written, and I can realy sympathize with Ian's situation, as I have spent plenty of time in hotel rooms, far from home.  There's something especially unpleasant about loud neighbors in a hotel, and that connecting door has always made me nervous.  I also enjoyed Mr. Dansky's very descriptive narrative.  I had a very clear image in my mind of what George was seeing and doing.

That said, I think the story might have benefited from a little forshadowing, maybe some comentary about how anonymous and alone one can feel when on the road in a strange city?  I'll probably listen to this one again, maybe the next time I go out of town on business...

[bolddeceiver]

Ahh, this reminded me of my dormitory my freshman year in university.  Right down to the insane logic your mind works when it's 3 am and you know you have to be up for a 7:00 but can't sleep because of the jerks next door.

[Chodon]

I have felt this same frustration both when traveling for work and also in college.  Nothing is quite as horrible as having something important to do the next day and not  being able to sleep because of some jerk next door getting high and drunk at 3:00am.  I never punched a door so hard I broke my hand, but Lord knows I wanted to...

Overall, great story and great reading.

[Listener]

Ermm... great acting (though the denouement not being read in the same voice as the rest of the narration was a little annoying).  The story, though?  The whole phone-being-unplugged thing was so blitheringly obvious that I'd be surprised anyone but the protagonist didn't notice.

I think a little TOO much was left to the imagination as to whether it was all in his head or was some kind of evil that was actively pursuing him.

[Loz]

I thought it was clearly the haunted room story, what with the coda at the end explaining how no-one ever stayed there. What wasn't clear was whether anyone ever stayed in the adjoining rooms and reported voices. I did enjoy this story, with the slow ramping up of tension and minor physical injuries.

[Russell Nash]

I swear I've stayed in room 406, but I liked listening to the couple.

[goatkeeper]

I swear I've stayed in room 406, but I liked listening to the couple.

I found that comment creepier than this weeks story. :-)

[Russell Nash]

I swear I've stayed in room 406, but I liked listening to the couple.

I found that comment creepier than this weeks story. :-)

That was my ultra flash piece.  What does PP pay for that $.25??

[CammoBlammo]

Every time I heard the voices next door I thought of the Ghostly Trio, the uncles of Casper the friendly ghost.

My mum would've freaked if they used that language, though.

[Chivalrybean]

The ending for me wasn't really anything special too me, but the part where they started banging back on the door, that was the real horror part for me. I've played paintball against two drunk guys and that wasn't scary until I saw em starting to drive home (I learned later it was just up the hill, but still), in fact is was rather hilarious, but imagining five drunk guys busting through the door and being just a pantsless guy all alone, that was scary. I think that was the high point for me. Horror can be completely free of supernatural and be scary.

[JoeFitz]

Every time I heard the voices next door I thought of the Ghostly Trio, the uncles of Casper the friendly ghost.

My mum would've freaked if they used that language, though.

One of the reasons it really wasn't that scary for me. Sounded like comedy, which made the anger understandable, but pathetic.

[Unblinking]

I think these guys lived next to me in my college dorm, playing deep bass music against the wall, or games with lots of machine guns.  MAN I wanted to kill those guys.  They didn't respond to me pointing out my having to work in the morning, and the useless RA didn't give a crap. 

In these diverse conditions, I was able to discover that I can become well rested even if I never really sleep.  I tried the flame and the void technique (robbed lovingly from The Wheel of Time), and it WORKED!  No joke.  I still knew that my neighbors were making me angry, but the anger was a distant thing, and I lay there, fully aware of my surroundings and the passage of time for over 3 hours until my alarm went off.  The weird thing is, I felt like I'd gotten a full night's sleep, and I was able to go to work without feeling fatigued.  I don't know if I can still do that (thank God I haven't had a reason to try), but I was surprised at how well it worked at the time.

So anyway, the realistic part of the story really spoke to me.  For me it would've been better served to just keep it as non-supernatural, once the supernatural elements became clear it lost all of its impact.  The disconnected phone, especially, was just plain silly. 

[Fenrix]

Not sure how I missed commenting on this story. This story is great. Great reading, great concept, and good use of effects. This is one of the stories I consistently recommend, and will probably remain high on my overall favorite PP stories of all time.

Part of the greatness of this story is the relatability - so many people have had the experience of the drunks in the next room partying all night when you're trying to sleep. The last one I had was in Vegas. Seriously, people, you are in Las F*cking Vegas party capital of the US. Can you REALLY not find a BETTER place to get tanked and yell at each other? Yeah. Murder is a viable solution.

[Unblinking]

Not sure how I missed commenting on this story. This story is great. Great reading, great concept, and good use of effects. This is one of the stories I consistently recommend, and will probably remain high on my overall favorite PP stories of all time.

Part of the greatness of this story is the relatability - so many people have had the experience of the drunks in the next room partying all night when you're trying to sleep. The last one I had was in Vegas. Seriously, people, you are in Las F*cking Vegas party capital of the US. Can you REALLY not find a BETTER place to get tanked and yell at each other? Yeah. Murder is a viable solution.

For me it was the college dorms.  Enough so that I too have written a story  about it. 

[Millenium_King]

I think I liked this one.  The voices came across as a little goofy sometimes, but I think they moved on into cruelly mocking as the story went along.  This story is a cut above the rest, but I would not call it great (just lacked that extra little punch - not a terribly original concept anyway - doesn't Stephen King have a story like this?  "Room 1408" or something?).

What I didn't like was the denoument.  I think having the security guards open the door to discover nothing was a sufficiently effective ending.

I actually was hoping they were real, legitimate human opponents he would have to face.  Banging on the door and yelling for your neighbors to shut up would be pretty damn scary if they turned out to be mafia guys who were busy rolling up a body in a carpet.

Great reading.

[Unblinking]

doesn't Stephen King have a story like this?  "Room 1408" or something?).

He does have a story by that name (or maybe it's just "1408"), but it's not particularly similar to this one, other than that it takes place in a hotel room and weird things ensue.  "The Shining" probably has about the same amount of similarity to this as "1408".