Pseudopod 242: The 7 Garages of Kevin Simpson

[Bdoomed]

Pseudopod 242: The 7 Garages of Kevin Simpson

By Alan Baxter

Read by Graeme Dunlop, the one and only, the slayer of gods and demons, Kibitzer

“‘Seven garages?’

‘Yes, Mrs Baker. Your father’s will identifies each one and dictates that they have all been left to you, along with the family home.’

Claire sat stunned for several seconds, staring across the solicitor’s desk. ‘Seven garages?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ The solicitor was smiling. ‘Mostly on industrial estates, commercial lock-up garages, in suburbs around northern and western Sydney, though there is one on a farm property just outside Burrawang on the Southern Highlands and one in North Bondi.’

Claire looked at Ben. Her husband shrugged. ‘You don’t think this is weird?’ Claire asked him.

‘Sure, it’s weird. But not really any weirder than anything else your old man ever did.’”



Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

[Tori]

That was good, creepy fun!

[Bdoomed]

Just started listening, had a laugh over the "neverending screams of people who you told the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes movie was good, and believed you" in Alasdair's intro.

[kibitzer]

... the "neverending screams of people who you told the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes movie was good, and believed you" ...

I'd just like to get this on the record: I NEVER!

[Bdoomed]

Pretty creepy story.  The sudden changes in perspective sort of threw me off a few times, but all in all I don't think that detracted from the story.  Oh those Aussies and their Occultism.

[Kaa]

I really liked this one, although I saw fairly quickly where it was headed. Still, I enjoyed the journey.

[Unblinking]

I enjoyed this one, a good classic feel.  Nothing particularly surprising in the story, but sometimes the sense of dread is enough.  And the story involving finding out hidden details of a deceased relative is a good way to build and keep my interest.

Also, since the word "garage" was used so often in the story, I found it interesting how much the pronunciation of a word can change from one dialect to another, different syllable emphasis makes the word sound exceedingly strange. 

[kibitzer]

Also, since the word "garage" was used so often in the story, I found it interesting how much the pronunciation of a word can change from one dialect to another, different syllable emphasis makes the word sound exceedingly strange. 

What, no mention of "al-yoo-min-ee-um"? 

[AlanBaxter]

Thanks for the kind words, all.

And kibitzer, great read, thanks. I was very pleased to hear "al-yoo-min-ee-um".

[Hedge Monk]

I loved the way this story brought an otherworldly sense of the unknown to the anonymous streets of Australia suburbia. The mystery unfurled coyly with each new garage. As each door creaked open I anticipated caged demons, Hellblazer style storage lock-ups and/or the discovery of a gruesome body count within. Needless to say my expectations were pleasantly thwarted by the Hammer House of Horror pay-off (I mean that in a good way). I enjoy this kind of crisp, clear storytelling immensely.

[Unblinking]

Also, since the word "garage" was used so often in the story, I found it interesting how much the pronunciation of a word can change from one dialect to another, different syllable emphasis makes the word sound exceedingly strange. 

What, no mention of "al-yoo-min-ee-um"? 

Actually I didn't notice that one! 

[Marguerite]

What, no mention of "al-yoo-min-ee-um"? 

*puts her hand up*  I love that about narrators from places other than my own, hearing their take on pronunciation.  Their better job of speaking slowly and leaving pauses between paragraphs. *coughs self consciously*

Excellent work, Kibitzer.  And a fun story.  I admit when there was a refrigerator, sink and "hob" - i.e. a kitchen - set up in the first garage I had a feeling I knew where this was heading, but the description was lovely and I wasn't expecting there to be FOUR of them at the climax. 

[ElectricPaladin]

I quite liked this one. The buildup was very well paced, up to a final, creepy reveal. This is exactly the sort of thing that will ferment in my head and eventually appear as part of some story or game I create in the future. The cyclical nature of the story, the idea of magic as this thing that traps the protagonist in the story of her ancestors, was very compelling.

[Sgarre1]

A link to the text of the story is now up on the story page.

[galacticus]

I really liked the story. Reminds me of the "old school" horror that you'd get from an episode of "tales from the darkside" (that's a compliment).

[AlanBaxter]

Thanks everyone.

[yaksox]

Looks like I get to be the bad guy this week.
This story didn't do it for me. Up til the end I'd nutshelled it as 'PMSing wife discovers dead dad's a demon-worshiper'.
Coming across hidden inheritances is a common and usually happy fantasy so I didn't understand why the woman was so niggly for the first three or four garages. It would've worked better if her attitude had started at neutral and grown more worried as they went along. I don't know if there needed to be seven (7) garages since several had nothing special to offer and (amirite?) weren't even described.
The ending was kind of okay, but only just kind of.
Re swearing: less is more.  Some of those lines could be swapped for something a bit more descriptive that helps to flesh out the characters.

Since pronunciation has already been broached, the c in scythe isn't pronounced.
Kibitzer, you mentioned you'd spent some time in England, it must've been Devon(?) because that's the only way I can account for your Rs sounding 'rrr' instead of the standard australian 'ahh'. (I'm australian.) 

[kibitzer]

Kibitzer, you mentioned you'd spent some time in England, it must've been Devon(?) because that's the only way I can account for your Rs sounding 'rrr' instead of the standard australian 'ahh'. (I'm australian.) 

Yarrr, seven years in England (one for each garage?) Loved it. Didn't want to come back. But Devon? No. Not really sure what has influenced my accent; folks these days guess me as Canadian or American. Or Birmingham. Or something. The UK stay is a definite influence, otherwise it's down to memorising Monty Python and other English comedy, and a steady diet of American TV whilst growing up.

[AlanBaxter]

Incidentally, on the subject of why 7 garages, it's because this story came about due to a passing comment at a con. The small and intimate Freecon that happens every year in Sydney, to be exact. A mention was made of an old SF fan who had seven garages full of stuff, that his family new nothing about until after his death. I thought that was a great premise for a story, so I changed the names and wrote it. You know that all stories on Pseudopod are true, right?

[iamafish]

Al promises us it's true, so yes, of course. Al's word is law. In Al we trust. He is the eternal king under the mountain, the lord of all that is dark and beautiful. Al is god, Al is king, Al is legion. And he promises us it's true. So it is. Everything else is a lie.

In any case, I enjoyed this story.

In terms of accents and the reading, the reading was, as always, excellent from Kibitzer, but I've always found your accent somewhat strange. It's Australian, but not like any Australian I've ever heard

[eytanz]

I liked the story for most of its length, it had a good build up of tension towards the inevitable ending. But, perhaps because I anticipated it, I had an issue with the ending. The whole story is about Claire's dread and discomfort and Ben was a side character. Then, at the end, the twist is that Claire is swapped for a pod person off-screen, and Ben is made out to be the victim.

But, well, he had the words "victim" written on him in glowing letters throughout. I was interested in Claire - what made her change from a loving, if damaged, mother and wife, to a murderer and cannibal who will inflict the same pain of her son that her father inflicted upon her? Apparently, it was just sudden personality-altering magic.

I think the ending belongs to a different story - it is the ending to a story told from Ben's perspective, where Claire is slowly becoming more and more distant until he discovers she changed way more than he thought. It's not the ending to the story we heard, where we were allowed into Claire's mind and no mystery remained for us there. It's a good ending, and a good buildup, but I don't think they entirely work together.

[Unblinking]

I liked the story for most of its length, it had a good build up of tension towards the inevitable ending. But, perhaps because I anticipated it, I had an issue with the ending. The whole story is about Claire's dread and discomfort and Ben was a side character. Then, at the end, the twist is that Claire is swapped for a pod person off-screen, and Ben is made out to be the victim.

But, well, he had the words "victim" written on him in glowing letters throughout. I was interested in Claire - what made her change from a loving, if damaged, mother and wife, to a murderer and cannibal who will inflict the same pain of her son that her father inflicted upon her? Apparently, it was just sudden personality-altering magic.

I think the ending belongs to a different story - it is the ending to a story told from Ben's perspective, where Claire is slowly becoming more and more distant until he discovers she changed way more than he thought. It's not the ending to the story we heard, where we were allowed into Claire's mind and no mystery remained for us there. It's a good ending, and a good buildup, but I don't think they entirely work together.

I think I agree with this.  I hadn't quite been able to put it to words, but the ending did seem a bit disconnected from the rest, and I think you described well why I thought that.

[childoftyranny]

I had mixed feelings about the story,the writing I felt was quite good and narration A+ as usual but brought too many expectations to the table, I guess. I was honestly surprised, pleasantly so, to not have one of the garages filled with hanging carcases, hands, hearts etc.. even if that intent was implied. It maintained a certain creepy miasma, part of that arising from the tendril Pseudopod so helpfully was sliding into my ear as well, oh thank you great Pseudopod. At the same I found myself giggling a bit at the fear. To some extent what caused this was the kind of eye-roll I imagine when a great deal of people think of occult and while I was expecting a darker turn for this I imagine finding a library like that and the "OH NOES" reaction from it, and in most cases just a collector of oddities. Hopefully that makes sense, it sure seems like a lot of these thoughts are personal impressions.

[kibitzer]

What made her change from a loving, if damaged, mother and wife, to a murderer and cannibal who will inflict the same pain of her son that her father inflicted upon her? Apparently, it was just sudden personality-altering magic.

I took it to be some property of the sigils, some kind of connecting and building force, probably augmented by being, it seems, hereditary. Blood will out?

[kibitzer]

Hopefully that makes sense, it sure seems like a lot of these thoughts are personal impressions.

That's pretty much the forum summed up ;-)

[eytanz]

What made her change from a loving, if damaged, mother and wife, to a murderer and cannibal who will inflict the same pain of her son that her father inflicted upon her? Apparently, it was just sudden personality-altering magic.

I took it to be some property of the sigils, some kind of connecting and building force, probably augmented by being, it seems, hereditary. Blood will out?

Well, yes, me too. But the thing is - we were presented with her internal thoughts. We know that at least until the perspective shift before they reached the last garage, that the sigils remained a vague, subconcious pull on her. We don't see them affecting her thoughts directly except to make her uneasy and the specific issue of not allowing her to talk about the sigils themselves.

I didn't get a feeling that the sigils were waking something inside her. I got the feeling that the sigils basically allowed her personality to get overwritten by something alien. That's my main issue. If the story were about how each sigil incrementally made her change her priorities, then the ending would have made sense. If, as I suggested above, the story was told from an external perspective to her, thus leaving the exact nature of the change ambiguous, that would have also worked. But as it is, we know that there was nothing tempting to her about the situation, because that was hammered into us. And it really feels like the change that came over her at the end wasn't a temptation or corruption but just a flipped switch - one moment she's a woman with a bad childhood whose top priority is making sure her kid doesn't have the same fate, the next moment she's an evil occultist who's repeating the actions of her father. It's the abruptness of the switch, not where she ended up, that is my concern.

[Marguerite]

Well, yes, me too. But the thing is - we were presented with her internal thoughts. We know that at least until the perspective shift before they reached the last garage, that the sigils remained a vague, subconcious pull on her. We don't see them affecting her thoughts directly except to make her uneasy and the specific issue of not allowing her to talk about the sigils themselves.

By the same token, we don't actually KNOW whether or not she went through with it.  Four generations of precedent reinforced by magic, sure.  A terrified husband seeing a very physical change come over his wife, yes.  Means, motive and opportunity are all there - but is there an act?  

That's MY favorite part of this story - the true ending is left up to us.  Does she carry through with what she's been sculpted to do since 4 years old?  Does she break the cycle?  Does the husband escape and go underground, joining a secret society of mage hunters?  All possibilities are equal.

[Scattercat]

Ehh, I'm solidly with Eytanz on this one.  The sudden POV shift to Ben felt particularly egregious and just made the change in Claire all the more unsatisfying.  A more gradual process would have been preferable, I think, rather than skipping four of the garages entirely.  I would also have enjoyed a story that employed Eytanz' suggestion of having Ben be the POV character the whole time.  Overall, this felt like a Call of Cthulhu game module more than a really good story to me.  It functioned, it wasn't bad or unreadable (unlistenable), but it didn't do much to fire me up.  Been here, done this, oh, so very many times, and nothing particularly new to see in this iteration.  The characters were rather flat, and the dialogue wasn't particularly evocative for me.  (That final scene just had some real clunkers in it, especially Ben.  Fear in dialogue is a potentially powerful tool, but this seemed like more of a placeholder, like, "Oh, Ben's got to say something here to break up the monologue.  Eh, it doesn't matter much.  He'll just babble a bit.")  Claire's memories of her childhood and the trauma of her mother's death felt pasted-on rather than an integral part of her character.  

I think the story would have been stronger if her father actually HAD been sculpting her from a very young age, if we could have seen glimpses of odd instructions and strange events that she'd dismissed as childish misunderstandings and poor recollection taking on new and more disturbing shapes as she progresses down the path, if we could have heard some echoes of the moral instruction he gave her and watched it gradually grow more and more perverted and excessive.  (Start with some normal warnings to a small child about being careful to always stay safe, even if others are in danger, because "you're so important to me," and then ratcheting that up and up until we get to something like, "No one has the right to stop you from taking what you want.  Be a wolf among men," etc.)  I dunno.  This one was just a total whiff for me.  An old idea executed with a businesslike and straightforward approach, no nonsense and no twists.  I can see the appeal, the nod to the stories of yore, but for me, I like a bit more meat to chew over.

[Kaa]

I actually went back and listened to this one again on the drive to work this morning. Several of you apparently got more out of it than I did. I DID pick up a lot more the second time around. And I liked it better. The first time, I listened to it in two pieces: most of it on the drive IN to work and the last part on my drive HOME from work. I therefore had forgotten/missed that they had a kid. I forgot/missed that Claire's mother had died when she was 4, about a year after her paternal grandfather.

I do wish Ben had "told us" what was in the fridge, though. What could it possibly be that's worse than what Claire's about to do to him?

Anyway, the second time, I got a lot more out of it.

[Fenrix]

I think in maps, so I saw the arc of the garages geograpically in the same shape as the same swooping sigil on a massive scale. I thought there were hints of her slowly growing more attracted to the sigils as they progressed, as she was tracing them with her journey.

This one pleasantly reminded me of the story "Residents" at the front of the World of Darkness _Mysterious Places_ sourcebook. I'd love to hear that one read here.

[justenjoying]

It is very much a Lovecraftian story. It is almost a cuthulhu game in it's own right except that they follow the specific path and don't reasearch anything. That being said, it was very well done. Not over zealous and vague enough with out pointing to the big bad evil thing and calling it by it's name. I really enjoyed every twist and turn, or should I say every door going up.