black cows in a grassy field against the skyline.

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Cast of Wonder 652: Habitat

Cast of Wonder 652: Habitat is a Cast of Wonders original.

spider-like creatures

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:08 — 48.2MB)

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Habitat

by Juliette Beauchamp

The orb appeared on a Friday. Just popped up in the northeast corner of the horse pasture, out where the grass grew thin and the ground was spotted with gopher holes. It was black and not a bit shiny despite the heat shimmers dancing around it. From a distance, as Cole and I rode along the dry creek bed, it looked more like the absence of something. A blank spot in the air.

It wasn’t until we got closer that we realized there was something there after all: a giant, dull marble suspended about three feet off the ground. The horses didn’t like it, rolling their eyes and snorting, but they were ranch-bred and broke and used to doing things they didn’t like.

Cole slid out of his saddle and passed his reins to me. I held his mare as she pawed and swished her tail while Cole walked over to the thing.

“It feels funny,” he said as he got closer. I wasn’t surprised to hear it since the hair on his head had begun to float upwards. (Continue Reading…)

a close up of a burning purple candle

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Cast of Wonders 647: What Good Daughters Do

First published in Apex Magazine issue 146, October 2024

Image by Pashi from Pixabay

Violence, Cannibalism. Death of a parent. Death of a bystander. Terminal Illness/Dementia Allegory

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:03 — 56.4MB)

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What Good Daughters Do

by Tia Tashiro

I’m not expecting it when my mother eats the bus driver.

My surprise comes mostly because I thought I’d gotten her under control. The bus ride—two AM on a Tuesday, servicing the night shift paycheck-to-paycheck workers at the meat factory a few miles out of town, predictably empty between the Turnpike Mall and Cedar Park stops (its last of the route)—is about as isolated as you can get. I wasn’t taking any chances with tottering old grannies in the accessible seats or teens who think they’re too cool to grab a handhold. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 639: Window Boy

First published in Clarkesworld in August 2023

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:21 — 47.2MB)

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Window Boy

by Thomas Ha

The tenth time Jakey broke the rules, he put a sandwich in the mailbox where the window boy could get it. Mom had taken her sleep-quick pills and gone to bed after dinner, on account of her headaches. And Dad was dozing in front of the TV, chin on his chest and a half-empty glass clutched in his hand. It got still enough that the only sounds were Dad’s shows and the hum of the house filters, so Jakey slipped into the kitchen and put together a ham and cheddar on a plate, then placed it in the parcel chamber near the front door. He sat by the parlor window for a good long while after, curled up at the bench cushions, and his eyelids drooped now and again until he began to see the shadows move.

The window boy showed up, just like all the other times.

Out from behind the telephone pole across the street and then through the moonlit front yard. He crawled on his hands and knees across the wet grass to the edge of Mom’s miniature garden, careful to avoid the lawn sensors, then pulled himself to the window frame to peer through.

“Folks passed out?” (Continue Reading…)

suffering cyborg

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Cast of Wonders 514: The Whipping Bot

Cast of Wonders 514: The Whipping Bot is a Cast of Wonders original.

bullying, violence, injustice and abuse. One use of the f-word.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:09 — 37.6MB)

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The Whipping Bot

by Jasinta Jim Langer

The bot lay on the floor, quivering. Occasionally it made an attempt to lift its upper body, a first step to getting up, but before it could get very far, someone would kick it again. A shoe would connect with its shell with a thud and its head would hit the floor with a clunk. The kids didn’t hurt their feet, kicking it. All the metal and hard plastic was covered in rubbery resin so no toes were stubbed and no knuckles bruised. Even the skull was only a little bit harder.

Eventually, most of the children got bored and the group began to disperse down the corridor in twos and threes, some still laughing and joking about the robot’s reactions, some forgetting about it entirely as soon as their backs were turned, chatting about sports and grades and their unbearable homework loads instead. Beren and Cindy stayed back and hurled insults at it some more while it curled up into a fetal position. “Useless chunk of metal”, “weirdo”, “reject”, “victim”, the usual. Finally, the bell rang, Cindy spat at the robot’s back one last time, and they, too, hurried to get to class. The robot whimpered and banged its head against the floor in what looked like frustration. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Then it went about getting up in its gangly and inelegant way.

It would have been very, very easy to push it over again. Instead, Alej, who had been leaning against the wall, wordlessly watching the whole sorry spectacle, walked next to it as it made its way towards the room where it would sit among the people for whose mistreatment it was made for another two hours. (Continue Reading…)

gonered_banner

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Cast of Wonders 513: Gone Red

Cast of Wonders 513: Gone Red is a Cast of Wonders original.

Multiple expletives, primarily the f-word, right from the start. Violence and systemic racism & inequality.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:58 — 57.6MB)

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Gone Red

by Beverly Aarons

South Seattle — Sunday, August 4, 2080 — 3:00pm
Glimmer Robinson

We done gone Red and I don’t give a fuck. I mean, I give a fuck that me and Moms and Papa, and Lil’Bo is out here on the road to the “you’re for sure fucked zone” but I don’t give a fuck about going Red. Going Red means you still got a beating heart and you ain’t scared to let Zuk know that you’re pissed off, that you’re angry and sad and disappointed and feeling whatever feels they say you ain’t supposed to have under Zuk’s grey-ass skies. And so here we are—Red. Melting our soles on this hot ass concrete for a whole day already. Me and Moms and Papa and Lil’Bo and my neighbors, TJ, Kalli, Ms. Zena, Ray, and all of them I never did get a chance to know too much about, they on this road too. The whole district out here, about two hundred folks, gone Red and walking south on old Highway 5. (Continue Reading…)

quiet car

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Cast of Wonders 496: Excuse Me, this is the Quiet Car

Cast of Wonders 496: Excuse Me, this is the Quiet Car is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:20 — 21.1MB)

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Excuse me, this is the Quiet Car

by Cara Mast

The magic of the quiet car is best when everyone follows the rules.

I’m halfway through the math problem I’ve been mulling over when a sudden bleep-bleep-bring-a-ling in the quiet makes me jump, slamming my knees into the fold-down tray table. Ouch.

And then, as if the phone ringing wasn’t enough, the man across the aisle from me picks up. “This is Paul Whitford. Yeah, hey Jerry, what do you need?”

White- and grey-haired heads pop up from the seats ahead of our row, the usual crowd of over-65’s turning to look for the disturbance. I really just want to go back to my problem set. The train shakes audibly around us, more like a throat clearing than regular train rumbles, and I’m pretty sure that’s a warning at this point. I’d rather not find out. Much as I’d like to ignore this guy, he’s now made his business everyone’s business. (Continue Reading…)

silhouette of virtual human on circuit pattern 3d illustration , represent artificial technology.

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Cast of Wonders 381: The Lie Misses You

Cast of Wonders 381: The Lie Misses You is a Cast of Wonders original.

Content Warning: grief (death of family members)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:26 — 26.5MB)

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The Lie Misses You

by John Wiswell

The Lie can’t wait to see her sister again. Every night she draws another picture of the two of them together, sometimes in space, sometimes playing baseball, always in crayon, always looking shoddy like the work of her father’s left hand. But The Lie is recovering from the Contact Plague, and it affects motor functions in survivors. Her parents bring this up every time her sister calls.

She’s calling tonight, not that it’s night where her sister is stationed. The Mothership Nebraska is fighting in a place with three suns, so it’s probably always morning there. The Lie doodles a yellow crayon triple-morning while Mom and Dad squeeze together around the laptop. They try not to stare at it, pretending that cleaning their reading glasses and mending socks are just what they meant to be doing an hour after the time Vi was supposed to call.

To The Lie, that is what they meant to do. Her parents are so practical.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 241: Mr. Quacky in Space (Artemis Rising 3)

Cast of Wonders 241: Mr. Quacky in Space (Artemis Rising 3) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:05 — 35.2MB)

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Show Notes

Illustration by Mat Weller. Artemis Rising logo designed by Scott Pond.

Theme music is “Appeal to Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available from Promo DJ or his Facebook page.

Mr. Quacky in Space

by Amanda Helms

At least Mr. Quacky hadn’t maimed anyone. If Olivia went by her predecessor’s logs, it was only a matter of time.

She pulled her rabbit-ear hat over her head–It helps you blend with the scenery, Vivian, the ship’s entertainment director, had told her–and waited for the guests to evacuate Mr. Quacky’s Splash Zone, the collection of three kiddie pools located on the Space Farm Deck. A few hobby-horse-sized mini-steamducks–the Quacklings–bobbed in the farthest pool. The wall screens played loops of a marsh featuring cartoonish, wide-eyed birds, rabbits, and deer that gamboled and giggled and, worst of all, joined wing to paw to hoof to sing songs about the power of friendship.

Olivia had served as the steam-tronics engineer for Space Adventure! Centripetal Space Station (proud affiliate of Pulsar Integrated Media and Entertainment) for barely ten cycles, and already she had the damn songs memorized.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 190: Home Isn’t (Staff Pick 2015)

Originally published in Flash Fiction Online.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:28 — 14.2MB)

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Show Notes

Every year in January, Cast of Wonders takes the month off to recharge our batteries, plan the year ahead, and highlight some of our favourite episodes. As part of joining the Escape Artists family, this year we’re pulling out all the stops. We’re running 10 staff pick episodes over the month, each one hosted by a different member of the Cast of Wonders crew.

We hope you enjoy slush reader Katherine Inskip’s favorite story from 2015, Home Isn’t by Kelly Sandoval and narrated by Katherine Inskip. The story originally aired October 25, 2015 as Cast of Wonders 178.

Home Isn’t

by Kelly Sandoval

They tell him he’ll be happy when he gets there. It was wrong, what was done to you, they say. We’re making it right. You’re going home.

The kind ones, who call him Mark, are pleased. They have a party, with foods from his planet. He chews the edge of a gray leaf so bitter it closes his throat. He’s used to coke and animal crackers. You’re going home, they say. No more soda, no more sweets. No more rooms with white walls and bright toys. No more needles, treadmills, tests. Home.

They won’t tell him what home is, only what it isn’t. He pictures a toyless, colorless, cokeless expanse. He pictures fields of bitter gray leaves growing beside silver pools. He tries to picture others like himself, but he is the only one he knows. He populates his imaginings with mirror-reversed copies of his own face. Pale blue fur and liquid black eyes.

At night, he wraps his arms around his chest and makes low choking noises as he tries to cry. He’s never quite gotten the trick of it.
(Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 178: Home Isn’t

Originally published in Flash Fiction Online.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:37 — 12.3MB)

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Show Notes

Hungry for more horror flash fiction? Then head to the Pseudopod forums where this very moment yours could be the deciding vote in the “two stories enter, one story leaves” ritual that is the flash fiction contest. The three winners will be purchased and run in a special Flash on the Borderlands. For those who comment on the stories, Pseudopod will randomly select a few lucky winners to receive copies of the excellent Women Destroy Horror by Nightmare Magazine. Horror stories and the chance of even MORE horror stories and commentary by participating in a thriving horror fiction community? The only thing more sure is that somehow, some way, your trick or treat candy will contain at least one of those strange honey nougat things…

 

Home Isn’t

by Kelly Sandoval

They tell him he’ll be happy when he gets there. It was wrong, what was done to you, they say. We’re making it right. You’re going home.

The kind ones, who call him Mark, are pleased. They have a party, with foods from his planet. He chews the edge of a gray leaf so bitter it closes his throat. He’s used to coke and animal crackers. You’re going home, they say. No more soda, no more sweets. No more rooms with white walls and bright toys. No more needles, treadmills, tests. Home.

They won’t tell him what home is, only what it isn’t. He pictures a toyless, colorless, cokeless expanse. He pictures fields of bitter gray leaves growing beside silver pools. He tries to picture others like himself, but he is the only one he knows. He populates his imaginings with mirror-reversed copies of his own face. Pale blue fur and liquid black eyes.

At night, he wraps his arms around his chest and makes low choking noises as he tries to cry. He’s never quite gotten the trick of it.
(Continue Reading…)