By Maria Alexander

The text of this story is available at Gothic.net. You can also seek out her poetry collection, AT LOUCHE ENDS: Poetry for the Decadent, the Damned & the Abinsthe-Minded published by Burning Effigy Press in Toronto and her anthology of stories by award-winning authors: LEFT HANGING: 9 Tales of Suspense and Thrills. Get it on Kindle and Nook today!

“My mouth is sour with whiskey and the loaded shotgun lays heavily across my lap in my sofa chair. This is my Christmas Eve ritual.”

AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT….

By Robert Mammone.

You can get the Kindle version of his new short story, “Shivers”, in the collection The Big Book of New Short Horror from Pill Hill Press. And check out his earlier Pseudopod story, The Copse.

Read by Frank Key. Click his name to visit The Hooting Yard! Also, check out his previous reading for ESCAPE POD, Hesperia and Glory!

“His dreams were disturbed. He saw the moon emerge from behind a bank of racing clouds, the surface yellowed and cracked like old bone. He stood in a clearing, surrounded by outcroppings of rock and trees whose branches were lashed by the breeze. He thought he heard indistinct muttering which, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make out. Gradually, though, the muttering grew clearer, until, with a jolt, he understood.

‘Widdershins start my hair, widdershins start my hair.‘

There was a sudden blurring and the clearing vanished replaced for a brief moment with an image of Hendricks, face rigid with intent, looming over him, a wad of stinking cotton clutched in one hand. Powerless, he felt the material pressed over his mouth and nose, the fumes filling his nostrils and then he was falling…”

By D.K. Thompson.

I believe he has something to do with Podcastle, I think… You can listen to his previous Pseudopod story Last Respects at the link.

Read by Marie Brennan. Click her name to visit The Swan Tower! Also, check out her new book on Amazon, With Fate Conspire, the fourth volume in the Onyx Court series!

“Saint Nicholas looked just like he did in the picture stories: tall and thin, with a grand white beard that flowed to his waist. He wore a red-fur trimmed coat, a tall bishop’s hat, and clutched a gold staff. He smiled and said something, but Greta wasn’t listening. She hid behind her elder sister Heike and stared at the saint’s demonic assistant, Krampus.

A wooden mask covered the demon’s face, a wicked smile carved into it that did not shift. Krampus tilted his horned head, his black pupils focused on Greta through the eye slits. His dark coat of damp furs smelled of decay, and he was wrapped in chains that he shook at the children.

They’d come every year to her house, the saint and his assistant, but back then Greta’s father had been there to protect her.

Krampus brandished a long, thin switch and hissed.

Heike put a hand on Greta’s shoulder and whispered, “Don’t be scared. You’ve been good, right?””

Now available to all subscribers - check your email boxes for an early Christmas gift from Pseudopod - links to three new stories in our ongoing series. It’s the TRIO OF TERROR and it is yours if you’re a subscriber to any Escape Artists podcast OR have made a one-time donation of $50 dollars or more since January 1, 2011 (or if you choose to do so in the immediate future - hint, hint….)

Offer WILL expire at a future date, just like all of us… or some of us…

What are you getting for your hard-earned dollars, you ask? I’m glad you did! How about…

***

“The Yellow Curse” by Grady Hendrix, in which our (self) esteemed and elitist occult investigating Gentleman’s club, The White Street Society (only pedigrees need apply) delve into the heathen underbelly of Chinatown and uproot madness. Horrific comedy satire with a serrated edge! Click his name to visit his website and check out Amazon and other digital book spots for his ebook SATAN LOVES YOU.

“”Chinatown suffers,’ he declared. ‘Rumors of war. A mysterious artifact. Something stolen in the night. Adventure calls. And I answer with a merry cry on my lips and my cane in my hand. Come, William! Prepare yourself for sights beyond the ken of mortal man! For we go now to solve…. THE YELLOW CURSE!‘”

Read by our own Alasdair Stuart

***

“The Shooting Way” by Jim Bihyeh, featuring a further exploration into the horrors of Native American mythology and the schemes of the legendary trickster god, Coyote. His memoir, NAVAJOS WEAR NIKES, about life on the Navajo Reservation, was released in spring 2011 and was praised for its “wit and keen observation” by the Arizona Daily Sun and for its “consummate storytelling” by New Mexico Magazine. It was recently released in paperback and is a New Mexico Book Award finalist this year. Look for it at Amazon.com, Alibris.com and check out the Facebook page for the book and the NAVAJOS WEAR NIKES group . “The green eyes had belonged to an owl. Skinwalkers – yee naaldloshíí – were shape-shifters, and traveled as night animals to keep their business secret. And it had been bad business for auntie Bonita since August. Four cows had died in the last two weeks, bucking and groaning while they foamed at the mouth, as though they’d eaten the purple-flowering locoweed that grew in the flat stretches of desert. But Bonita swore they’d never grazed over it. Something must have fed it to them.”

Read by Cayenne Chris Conroy!

***

“Nourished By Chaff, We Believe The Glamor” by Tim W. Burke, wherein an associate of the eternally ambitious Guru Keresh must deal with an old plaything and an even older playmate! Click his name to check out Tim’s blog. His novel THE MAD EARL’S HOMECOMING is available on Amazon, as is my short story collection PENSIVE CREATURES.

“Then I remembered something I had told the ladies: good spirits want to nurture love for all; selfish ones want to divide us all.

Show-Show’s eyes had a dark gleam I hadn’t remembered before.

Grasping at Alecsandri’s questions, I asked, ‘Those boys…in Mobile…at the warehouse. What did you do with them?’

‘They didn’t want to go away to the military academy. They wanted to be pirates. So I took them to their pirate ship.’

‘Show-Show, what have you become?’”

Read by Veronica Giguere

***

If you’re new to Pseudopod, or have missed any of the previous stories in these series, rest assured each of these tales is free-standing… and if they pique your interest, please check out these download links to the previous installments!

THE COYOTE TALES by Jim Bihyeh

• Pseudopod 159: Reservation Monsters
• Pseudopod 167: Love Like Thunder
• Pseudopod 182: The Dreaming Way

THE WHITE STREET SOCIETY by Grady Hendrix

• Pseudopod 76: Tales of the White Street Society
• Pseudopod 131: Tales of the White Street Society - The Corpse Army of Khartoum

THE SAGA OF GURU KERESH by Tim W. Burke

• Pseudopod 127: The Garden and the Mirror
• Pseudopod 198: The Mother and the Worm

Merry Christmas from Pseudopod… we’ll keep the lights off for ya!

By Larry C. Kay.

His blog, Scribbleninja, is you know where. Also, check out STEAMPUNK TALES for more of his work.

Read by Stephanie Morris. Click her name to hear more from her at the Scribbleomania blog!

“A figure obscured the flames of the fireplace: a man. Bettia sat up quickly, blinking away sleep, thinking it was her father. But this man was shorter, rounder, and part of her groggy mind considered Santa Claus, and that she must have slept for days.

Her eyes adjusted and she could see that the man indeed wore a red shirt. Not like a dumb mall Santa, but a working man’s shirt: rough and stained darker red on top of the red. And not any fire engine red, but crimson; just like his Converse All-Stars. His jeans were black or maybe just covered in soot. His face was dirty like a coal miner’s, but Bettia thought he was a white man.

He carried a black bag slung over one shoulder, an empty bag, but Bettia knew this man was no burglar. This shaggy buffalo of a man smiled when he noticed Bettia, and showed his sharp fighting-dog teeth. Bettia heard a whimper, and shame crinkled her face as she realized it was she that sounded like a whipped mutt.”