Author Topic: PseudoPod 464: Fear  (Read 3003 times)

Bdoomed

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on: November 14, 2015, 06:09:59 AM
PseudoPod 464: Fear

by Sandra Odell

“Who we are as a child defines who we will become as an adult, and never so much so as when we are afraid.”

“Fear” is a PseudoPod Original.

Sandra lives with her husband, sons, and cats in Washington state. Her work has appeared in such venues as Pseudopod, PodCastle, The Drabblecast, Crossed Genres, and Daily Science Fiction. She is currently hard at work plotting her second novel. Or world domination. Whichever comes first.

Your narrator – Patrick “The Voice” Bazile was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. Patrick has voiced everything from PSA’s to major product brand commercials and movie trailers to documentaries. With a deep, commanding voice often referred to as “The Voice of God” Patrick demands attention.



“I hear something downstairs. Denny, you go down the basement and check the door. Make sure it’s locked tight.”

Dennell Baker clutched the doorframe beneath the latch until he could feel his pulse in his fingertips. “Sorry. What?”

The realtor in her sensible blue pantsuit and blued hair, what his mother used to call “old white lady church hair”, paused. “I wondered if we could go downstairs and –”

That’s what he’d thought she’d said. “No.”




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Unblinking

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Reply #1 on: November 16, 2015, 04:02:30 PM
Quite good.  Sandra has written consistently engaging stories and this was no exception.  The childhood fear that clings into adulthood, borne of both real life events and superstition combining.

To me the story seemed like a final confrontation of that fear, now that the mother is dead and gone and the house is going to be sold, he is facing up against that fear head on that he's tried to forget for a while, and maybe with that house not being a physical place he'll have to visit anymore hopefully it will fade into memory instead of being something that preys on his mind.  But that fear is a fierce thing and would not let go of him without one last assault that, in this speculative story, did actual physical damage on him.  The fearful screams of his dead mother were the most chilling part.



TimWB

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Reply #2 on: November 19, 2015, 07:57:25 PM
Some great descriptions of physical reactions.
Loved the mood and suspense.
Assumed the conclusion was a repressed memory. A story this tangible needed an explanation at the end to preserve the tone.
Still  :D



Dwango

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Reply #3 on: November 19, 2015, 08:11:34 PM
I love this explanation of ghosts.  There really is a ghost here, and its that of past horrors haunting the protagonist.  The real horrors aren't just the terrible actions that occur in our lives, its the aftermath of the memories that won't die, that we desperately want to get rid of.  This is the true horror that we live with until they are exorcised in dealing with them.



TrishEM

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Reply #4 on: November 29, 2015, 08:32:50 PM
I felt a huge amount of tension as he was sneaking back into the house, groping through it, and finally heading down the stairs. Great buildup of suspense.
I also liked the phone conversations with his wife; they felt very natural and real, reflecting the history of their relationship without being weighed down by that.

It's a little odd that it's the basement was where his phobia was centered, since the trauma apparently occurred upstairs. But he was down there when he first heard the screams, and apparently he was always uneasy down there anyway, so it would probably be easier to displace the horror down there, and repress it, rather than having it centered on the upper levels where he'd have to deal with it while he was living there. It's pretty interesting how that worked out.