Author Topic: Pseudopod 272: The Dark And What It Said  (Read 7612 times)

Bdoomed

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on: March 10, 2012, 05:42:27 AM
Pseudopod 272: The Dark And What It Said

By Rick Kennett.
This story was originally printed in Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine #28, 2007, and has since been reprinted in Year’s Best Australian SF & Fantasy #4 (MirrorDanse Books, 2008); The Writing Show “Ghast Fest”, October 2008, Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror #3 (Brimstone Press, 2009) and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine Best Of Horror Volume 2, 2010 (whew!). won the 2008 Ditmar Award for Best Short Story.

Rick, whose website can be reached by the link under his name, lives in Melbourne, Australia, where he works in the transport industry. His stories have appeared in Aurealis, Weird Tales, Dunesteef Audio Magazine and several anthologies.



Read for us by our own Graeme Dunlop!


“The light touched on a bulky, indefinite shape, hard by a tree, obscured by a low branch across the top of it.

‘What’s that?’ whispered Andrew.

‘That old car body I told you about,’ Rudy whispered back. He moved the light along, then swept it all around to catch whatever might be creeping up from behind. Nothing was creeping up from behind.

‘Maybe it was a night bird like you said before,’ said Andrew, not at all sounding like he believed it. ‘I’ve sometimes heard a bird call that sounds like ‘Whatcha reading.’ Maybe there’s something out here that hoots ‘Hey you there’ at night.’”




Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Unblinking

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Reply #1 on: March 12, 2012, 01:53:25 PM
I enjoyed this story.  It had a very weird nightmarish vibe.  I tend to like unreliable narrator stories anyway, and in this one the only on-screen bizarre happenings happened after he took a snakebite.  The other things could be explained in some manner or another, most likely by the radio picking up stray signals and making them sound kind of like words.  I liked the bizarre happenings, and the out-of-place little details, such as when the car was moving past him the wheels were not turning and he could not make out the face and it wasn't moving fast but somehow was out of sight in only moments--To me this story was very effective at reproducing the odd immediacy of a dream where nothing quite makes sense in retrospect but all seems so very important nonetheless.



kibitzer

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Reply #2 on: March 13, 2012, 10:40:54 AM
For me, this story captures the desolate loneliness and utter creepiness of the stillness of the deep Australian bush.

(shivers)

Very nicely done, Mr Kennett.


DKT

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Reply #3 on: March 13, 2012, 08:16:38 PM
Once this story got going, HOLY CRAP, it got going. I agree with Listener Unblinking - the nightmarish vibe was fantastic.

Really enjoyed this one - so much so I'll probably give it another listen soon (because, you know, I can never listen to Graeme enough). Not sure if I'll listen to it in the dark, though...
« Last Edit: March 15, 2012, 04:31:31 PM by DKT »



yaksox

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Reply #4 on: March 15, 2012, 01:52:06 PM
I kind of liked this one. In some ways it really hit it with the description, like the use of smell but it wasn't quite as well matched with the visual vividness of the Aus. bush.
Great narration too. Maybe it's just because I'm australian too, (so no extra processing needed, minor as it may be) or maybe it was just the pacing, but I found it really easy to mentally dissect the story into its parts as it was coming out.



Unblinking

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Reply #5 on: March 15, 2012, 04:25:00 PM
I agree with Listener - the nightmarish vibe was fantastic.

I'm pretty sure I was the one who said that.  :)



DKT

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Reply #6 on: March 15, 2012, 04:30:47 PM
I agree with Listener - the nightmarish vibe was fantastic.

I'm pretty sure I was the one who said that.  :)

D'oh! Edited!


The Far Stairs

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Reply #7 on: March 16, 2012, 06:26:24 AM
Utter genius!! This was my favorite Pseudopod story in quite a while. It was perfectly balanced with tension and dread.

Plus, we got an extra mini-story inside the main one—the one about the figure creeping across the doorway. I love when horror stories mention something mind-blowingly creepy in an offhand way. It gives the impression of a universe filled with unknown terrors.

Plus, we got people coming unstuck in time for unexplained reasons. To me, that's one of the creepiest ideas there is.

I wish I could visit the Outback tomorrow.
« Last Edit: March 16, 2012, 06:28:18 AM by JesseLivingston »

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Scattercat

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Reply #8 on: March 16, 2012, 12:48:26 PM
I really enjoyed this piece, though I liked the first part more than the second.  I dug the odds'n'ends vibe and the nightmare/chaotic feeling, but the ending fell a little flat for me, just because it was so specific.  (All I could see was this.)

Overall, good times.



chickenfog

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Reply #9 on: March 16, 2012, 06:07:05 PM
Listened at 3a. During a rainstorm. In the countryside. Ooooooo.

This bastard creeped me out to where I had to take a break in the middle.So nightmare viby, as said. 

It's great when there is a fantastic reader and no music/sound effects. Let the story do the heavy lifting.



The Far Stairs

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Reply #10 on: March 16, 2012, 11:08:22 PM
That's great when something creeps you out so bad you have to stop. That doesn't happen to me often anymore (I've read/seen too many horror stories), but it did happen, very unexpectedly, with a film called The Skeptic:

http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/The_Skeptic/70115875?trkid=2361637

Highly recommended, although the ending may be problematic for some.

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yaksox

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Reply #11 on: March 18, 2012, 11:37:18 PM
Where is the thread starting tiger?



Bdoomed

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Reply #12 on: March 19, 2012, 12:41:34 AM
I have NO idea what you're talking about.  (oops)
Funny thing though, I realized I hadn't posted the episode, went to the forum to do it, and saw your post.  :D

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


eytanz

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Reply #13 on: March 27, 2012, 12:42:05 PM
Mixed feeling about this one. I felt that the creepy, unsettling atmosphere was brilliantly created, and Graeme's reading was superb, but the I never really figured out what made this night, and this place, special. And I guess I didn't quite get the significance of the car, either. It was some sort of supernatural taxi? Taking people away? Why was it in that particular spot, why did it take the form it did, and why did Rudy, who was neither bit by a snake nor particularly scared, seem happy to go into it?



Unblinking

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Reply #14 on: March 27, 2012, 01:48:20 PM
Mixed feeling about this one. I felt that the creepy, unsettling atmosphere was brilliantly created, and Graeme's reading was superb, but the I never really figured out what made this night, and this place, special. And I guess I didn't quite get the significance of the car, either. It was some sort of supernatural taxi? Taking people away? Why was it in that particular spot, why did it take the form it did, and why did Rudy, who was neither bit by a snake nor particularly scared, seem happy to go into it?

To me those unanswered questions contributed to the dreamlike feel of it all, so I don't think their lack of answers felt out of place.  I saw the cab driver as acting like Charon, ferrying souls to the other side, only maybe it doesn't always wait til you're dead.  I'd guess it took that particular form because an actual taxi driver had died here before and a cab driver fits the metaphor of its existence pretty well.  As for why it took Rudy, I don't think there's an answer for that, and I don't think there's supposed to be.  I think it's sort of a "Why do bad things happen to good people?" kind of question.  There doesn't have to be a better answer than "They just do."



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Reply #15 on: March 27, 2012, 02:42:11 PM
I know - I'm not saying it's a bad story. Just that it didn't quite work for me. Maybe if I wasn't listening to it in the early afternoon while walking around the streets of Abu Dhabi - about as far a setting from a dark wood at night as I can imagine - it would have worked better for me.



The Far Stairs

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Reply #16 on: March 27, 2012, 10:03:06 PM
Mixed feeling about this one. I felt that the creepy, unsettling atmosphere was brilliantly created, and Graeme's reading was superb, but the I never really figured out what made this night, and this place, special. And I guess I didn't quite get the significance of the car, either. It was some sort of supernatural taxi? Taking people away? Why was it in that particular spot, why did it take the form it did, and why did Rudy, who was neither bit by a snake nor particularly scared, seem happy to go into it?

To me those unanswered questions contributed to the dreamlike feel of it all, so I don't think their lack of answers felt out of place.  I saw the cab driver as acting like Charon, ferrying souls to the other side, only maybe it doesn't always wait til you're dead.  I'd guess it took that particular form because an actual taxi driver had died here before and a cab driver fits the metaphor of its existence pretty well.  As for why it took Rudy, I don't think there's an answer for that, and I don't think there's supposed to be.  I think it's sort of a "Why do bad things happen to good people?" kind of question.  There doesn't have to be a better answer than "They just do."


Agreed. I liked how everything didn't make rational sense. It was implied that they had run across some kind of wormhole that linked to the past, but this was never fully explained. If it had been, it would probably have been a sci-fi story rather than horror. I really like tales of paranormal weirdness where people and objects disappear into surreal zones of the unexplained.

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Umbrageofsnow

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Reply #17 on: April 05, 2012, 07:05:11 PM
Agreed. I liked how everything didn't make rational sense. It was implied that they had run across some kind of wormhole that linked to the past, but this was never fully explained. If it had been, it would probably have been a sci-fi story rather than horror. I really like tales of paranormal weirdness where people and objects disappear into surreal zones of the unexplained.

Wow, that is way more of an explanation than my subconscious demanded I make up for myself.  I think I've always sort of conceptualized ghosts as inherently unstuck in time or something.  I mean, they appear in the same place at random times for centuries and in most stories they never seem to change.  Ghosts have an inherent air of antiquity.

Okay, I realize the whole classification of ghosts with agendas (see Carnaki stories, etc.) contradicts this, but I think of those as a whole different sub-branch of folklore from these creepy understated style of ghost story.  When the ghost doesn't have a motive, it always seems to me like the ghost may not be particularly attached to a particular time in the first place, and why should it be?

All that said, this was a creepy enough story that it kept me from going to sleep the night I listened to it but on later reflection, it seems very... average.  It certainly isn't bad, I love the dreamlike quality of the writing and particularly how the hallucinatory stuff post-snakebite is done.  But I'm sure I've heard stories about haunted taxis before and the whole thing had the feel of retelling a classic urban legend.  Skillfully, but without much originality.  The funny thing is, I can't place a source on where I've heard stories like this (I'm pretty sure there wasn't hiking involved, and probably an American setting), but it seems like a well-worn trope to me.

I wish there was more to it.  I'm not sure going into a full time-warp scenario would have fit well with the length and style of the story, but something bigger or more different along that line (or some other line) would have added something to make the story seem a bit less mundane and a bit more unique.

Overall, I'm right in the middle with this one, I think it's a solid 3 out of 5.



kibitzer

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Reply #18 on: April 07, 2012, 05:27:35 AM
FWIW, I felt that the taxi driver was coerced out there (reason unknown) and shot in the head.

I further wondered whether the snake manifested because of Andrew's fear.


Fenrix

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Reply #19 on: June 17, 2012, 07:18:40 PM
I further wondered whether the snake manifested because of Andrew's fear.

I think I'm going to hang with this interpretation. This was the thing that worked the least effectively for me, but if his fear pulled it to that place...

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


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Reply #20 on: August 10, 2012, 04:10:05 AM
I think if this story were shot on film, in a "found footage" sort of style, it would be scary as hell. When they first hear the voice in the tent and when Rudy disappears have the feel of real jump scares in a film setting. Maybe Trick R Treat 2? Not that the reader didn't knock it out of the park, which he did, one of my favorite reads for sure.