Lunatics Radio Hour
The history of horror and the horror of history.
Lunatics Radio Hour
Episode 162 - Campfire Tales #6
Abby and Alex are so thrilled to present three haunting and spooky tales.
The Summoning was written by Joseph Hare, and narrated by Denali Bartell. Check out Joseph on Instagram @josephhareifyoucare and on Substack josephhare.substack.
The Bark was written by Glenn Dugan and Narrated by Mike Macera. Check out Glenn's website here, whereisglennnow.com and follow him on Instagram @whereisglennnow.
Poltergeists on Presidents Street was written by LindaAnn Lo Schiavo and narrated by Alex Goleman. Follow LindaAnn on bluesky @ghostlyverse.bsky.social and on Twitter: @Mae_Westside.
Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
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Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the lunatics radio, our podcast. I am Abby Branker sitting here with alex goldman hello, hello, hello it's actually so hard for me not to say alan kudet, because I'm so used to finishing the phrase that way. We have had a really good year for campfire tales episodes on this podcast, and I am very excited for a fall. You know when the veil is thin.
Speaker 2:Oh, spooky season for sure.
Speaker 1:Edition of Campfire Tales. Exactly A spooky season edition of Campfire Tales. So this season right, the fire that we are metaphorically gathering around is probably in some kind of deep wooded place. There's a brisk chill in the air, there's crunchy leaves, there's noises of cracking branches and animals lurking about in the darkness around us.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, darkness, Very dark. Still s'mores Of course, that is the consistent throughout all of these.
Speaker 1:Otherwise, what are we doing here?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm so honored to feature some really amazing, incredible stories on this episode by very talented writers and also some really really talented narrators who helped us pull this one together. So thank you in advance to everybody. Again, this is just like the most fun I have on this podcast, because it's such a community-driven type of episode and that's the part that's the most fun for all of us All right. So, alex, I think the vibe is set. I think the s'mores are being passed around. Shall we play the first story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Okay, here we go.
Speaker 3:The Seven Eighth Read by Joseph Hare. Read by Denali Bortel.
Speaker 4:It's like a ghost town around here. I sighed Irritably. I rubbed the fogged-up taxi window with the sleeve of my parka jacket, but nothing I did seemed to clear the misted glass. No one on the streets at all. They're not very social in this part of Scotland, are they? My driver did not offer a response. There was a distant look in his hazel eyes as he carried us through the country roads into the village outskirts Beautiful countryside though I offered, beginning to worry that I'd offended him. I'm here to visit my mother. She lives in that old house on the coast, mrs Barrow's Perhaps you've met her, fifty years old, sometimes wears glasses. She's always in lots of jewelry.
Speaker 4:Again, I was met with the sound of silence. It was beginning to make me uncomfortable Giving up. I slumped over in my seat and watched the green ocean rising in the windshield as we approached the cliffside. I hope she's okay. I spoke aloud more to myself than anyone else. She stopped contacting me these last few weeks, stopped answering her phone. I'm worried stiff. She's been so angry with me since I decided to marry Michael Instinctively. My hand went to the bruise beneath my ribcage. Michael had been furious when I told him about this trip. He hated my mother almost as much as she hated him. I took a deep breath. It could be that she doesn't want to speak to me any longer. Could be that she doesn't even answer the door. That would be fine, I suppose. As long as I know she's all right.
Speaker 4:Climbing steadily up the cliffside road, we soon pulled up to the old house on the edge of the coast. I couldn't see any lights on through the windows, but it was a bright evening and the gray glimmer of dusk carried steadily over the ocean waves. Thank you. I emptied the driver's fare into a cup holder between the front seats before stepping out into the winter's chill. The sound of the encroaching sea seemed to surround me from all directions, crashing violently against the rocks below like the beat of some ancient drum.
Speaker 4:The taxi man lit a cigarette, staring through me to the house on the coast, that old place. He spoke distastefully, a snarl growing on the corner of his lips. He shook his head. Someone ought to burn it down. Nothing but a bunch of ghosts in that house. I'm sorry. I asked him, not quite believing my ears. Something about the faraway tone in his voice made me shiver. I huddled into my jacket, pretending it was the cold. I don't know what you mean. I Do you know my mother, or the harsh screech of the vehicle's accelerator cut me off as the taxi sped down the road.
Speaker 4:Swallowing my nerves, I stepped through the open gate into the neglected front yard, treading carefully through the tall, wet grass until I reached the doorstep. My heart pounded in my chest as I knocked on the wood. Mom, I called out, my voice being swallowed up by the wind. Mom, it's me, let me in, please. There was no response, but the sound of a gentle thunderclap in the distance and raindrops began to trickle from the cracked tiles of the archway above. Mom, mom, it's raining. I knocked again more forcefully. This time it's raining, please let me there's a loud click as the door, pulled away from my fist, creaking open to reveal a dark, shadowy entrance hall.
Speaker 4:I squinted through the darkness as I stepped inside. The light switch by the entrance was working, but the bare bull which hung beside the stairs was dim and flickering, despite the rain behind me. I kept the door open for the sake of the light. Mom, I called out, anger creeping into my voice. I'm here, come downstairs.
Speaker 4:Another thunderclap echoed in the distance. She could be having a shower, I thought, and the idea was soothing to me. You can't hear you've got visitors when you're in the shower, yet for all the noise of the storm outside, I couldn't hear any running water from inside the house. I could smell something, though Something foul and odorous. A fat cockroach skittered across the toe of my shoe, leading me into the kitchen, which carried the stench. The light switch in this room didn't work at all, but by the dull gloom of the bay window I could make out piles of dirty pots stacked on top of one another, fuzzy clouds of black flies hovering above an overloaded kitchen sink. In the center of the room was the rotting, headless carcass of an animal I could not recognize. A gaping wound in the poor creature's neck was festering, with pulsating maggots which dripped from the table and onto the floor below. I held my nose to keep from retching.
Speaker 4:Mom, I called out, getting desperate. Mom, where are you? Something heavy thumped in the ceiling above I froze, feeling a terrible chill rush up my spine. I couldn't help but think of what the driver had said about this house when he pulled up to the gate. Nothing but ghosts, I said to myself, watching my breath turn to mist before my eyes, hearing myself actually say the word ghosts drew an exasperated laugh from my shivering lips. Nothing but ghosts, indeed. Listen to yourself, maria. I shook my head, stomping my way towards the battered staircase. In the hall, mom, I yelled loudly, as if to prove that I wasn't afraid. I couldn't think why there would be an animal corpse in my mother's kitchen, but there had to be a reasonable explanation for what I had seen. Come down this instant. It's your daughter. You can't ignore me like this. Come down or I'll. I'll come up and get you.
Speaker 4:The storm was quieting outside and everything around me fell into hushed silence. I stared up at the hazy darkness atop the stairs, listening to the sound of my own heart pounding in my temples. There was no response. Right, I took a deep breath and held onto the wooden banister, slowly beginning to climb the stairs. There was a loud, terrifying crack as the rotten wood of the banister fell apart under my grip. But, swallowing my scream, I continued the ascent on two shaking legs. The landing was almost pitch black, but a slither of warm candlelight was glowing through a gap in the left-hand doorway. I tried to call for her again, but my voice died in my throat as I reached for the handle. She couldn't be dead.
Speaker 4:I tried to assure myself Something had made that noise in the kitchen and it could only have been her. Gathering every bit of courage, I flung open the door with all my might. There, kneeling in the center of the room and surrounded by a glimmering circle of dripping wax candles, was a dark robed figure eagerly prostrating itself before a decapitated goat's head strung up on the wall. The figure rocked back and forth, yululating some otherworldly chant as it clasped its vascular hands in prayer. Suddenly the figure a woman who looked older than death itself spun her neck to meet my terrified gaze with her own toothless, hungry smile. I screamed, turning to run.
Speaker 4:I found that all the strength had abandoned my legs as I fell, crashing into the floorboards below. Hopelessly, I tried to pull myself out of the doorway by my arm, screaming all the while. I felt the monster's long, brittle nails scrape sickeningly against the backs of my legs as she pulled me into the room. No, I pleaded, finally finding my voice once more. No, tears ran hot down my face as I struggled. I thought I was about to be killed, to be eaten my head torn off like the head of that poor animal in the kitchen eaten.
Speaker 4:My head torn off like the head of that poor animal in the kitchen. But instead of attacking me, the ghastly old woman held me tightly in a sickening embrace, even as I convulsed on the floor in terror. My daughter, she said, my beautiful daughter. I could feel her cold body pressed against mine and when I found the courage to lift my gaze, I saw that I was now laying in the middle of the circle of candles. Among these candles, staring at me with lifeless faces, were a strange assortment of stuffed animals, my stuffed animals, I realized from when I was a girl, mom.
Speaker 4:I looked into her face, her wretched, ancient face, with deep dark fissures and throbbing white pustules under her eyes. Yet her eyes were filled with a mother's love, and the resemblance could not be mistaken. But how? My mother was a woman of fifty, a vibrant, soulful woman with kind eyes and a beautiful smile. "'but how? "'my mother was a woman of fifty, "'a vibrant, soulful woman with kind eyes and a beautiful smile. "'you've come back to me', the woman croaked. "'after all these years' "'I reached out to touch her hair "'thin and greasy and stuck to her oily scalp "'My fingers seemed to fade?
Speaker 4:into a heavy mist, where my mother's head ought to be. Mom, I cried. What's happening? Are you a ghost or-.
Speaker 4:I looked at my surroundings one last time. The blood from the goat's head dripped onto the floor beneath me, where it had been smeared into the shape of a pentagram. At every point of the demon's symbol, one of my childhood objects had been placed. This was a ritual to summon a ghost, A ritual to summon me. How long had I been gone? My wedding to Michael seemed like just a few months ago, and the day he first hit me was soon after that, but by the sight of my mother's aged face, it had all happened many decades ago.
Speaker 4:I felt myself sobbing, weeping for the life I had lost to the hands of that man. Why did you bring me back, I asked bitterly. I was overcome with grief, overcome with anger that I had been forced back into this world, only to learn that I had no place in it any longer. The walls around me seemed to fall away and I could see the endless ocean rage tempestuously in every direction. The water was rising, closing in on me, ready to take me away once more.
Speaker 4:Don't go, my daughter. Mother begged trying to hold on to me, even as my spirit began to fade. Stay a little longer, please, oh please. Frustrating herself once more, she chanted as loud as she could, bargaining with the devil to keep my shade alive. But her voice was drowned out by the sound of the encroaching sea. The crashing of the waves boomed louder and louder in my head until I could hear nothing else. And soon the ocean Forget me. I whispered, praying that she could still hear my voice. My only response was the relentless pull of the ocean, waves dragging me once more into their cold watery depths. Me once more into their cold watery depths.
Speaker 2:Wow, first of all, a PSA really listen to how your partner treats your mother. Oh, I think that is very telling, just to begin with.
Speaker 1:A good point, a very good point.
Speaker 2:Besides that, I thought the tone of this story was really, really strong. Right from the get-go. You felt a sort of uneasiness about it and you know it just sort of grew and grew as the episode went along.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's absolutely correct and it also starts as something again we've talked about on this series this year. I feel like a lot, but it starts with something so normal and human and relatable and then, just like, explodes into something monstrous and otherworldly and I love that.
Speaker 2:I love like grounding us and then like fucking us up you know, oh, totally, I mean, you really felt. You really felt for the mother at the end there you just totally uh could see what was happening. When at first, when she was first introduced, you were just like who is this? You know crazy old woman, yeah. But then all of a sudden you're like, oh man, what, what she could have gone through devastation. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this story was written by Joseph Hare. Joseph lives in the picturesque English town of Barnard Castle with his gorgeous rescue dog, jackie Jackie, and while he's not writing amateur fiction, you can find him working at the Auckland Project Foundation to improve the welfare of people experiencing homelessness.
Speaker 2:Bravo, 10 out of 10.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's mostly steered clear of social media, but he does have a Blue Sky account, which we will link to below, of course, so that you can stay tuned to any new projects. As well as horror, he also writes fantasy and satire fiction, and this is a really cool fun fact that I think is fascinating. He actually worked on a student film with Stephen Fry when he was 19.
Speaker 2:Whoa.
Speaker 1:And as such, he wrote words that Stephen Fry has said, I mean pretty cool, pretty cool.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. What a resume.
Speaker 1:He says, not that he's bragging, but listen, brag all you want. That's the coolest thing I've ever heard. And he's also working on a dark fantasy book called the Pillars of Damnation, so we will anxiously await the publication of that. And, as always, our friend Denali Bartel did a haunting, a hauntingly good job with this one.
Speaker 2:Another slam dunk.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love their narration style and I feel again like there's just so much emotion that bleeds through, despite their very even and calm approach to narration. Like you could still sort of feel the undertones of it, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, they could do any type of story, really, yeah yeah, absolutely okay.
Speaker 1:So we still have two stories that await our eager ears. Shall we roll the tape, let's do it and just a quick content warning before we play this next story. It's a bit graphic. I don't even quite know how to content warn this one, but it's a little bit graphic and just keep that in mind. If it's not something you're you're interested in hearing the bork ridden by glenn duncan, bred by moik you do not recognize the bodies in the forest.
Speaker 5:I implore you to listen to me, just listen. No one knows when the bodies started appearing, hanging from the gnarled branches of Cog Hollow. Little Janine says she sees the body of her grandmother hanging like a broken chicken wing at the edge of the school. Postman Milton swears he sees the checkered house dress of his sister flapping in the wind like laundry out to dry. They say there is a rule of threes for examples, but I think you get it.
Speaker 5:You do not recognize the bodies in the woods. Sometimes they appear out of the corner of your eye like a little light flash. Other times they appear in the middle of errands, trips around town, staring directly at you with vacant, lifeless eyes. The time does not matter. People have seen them over their morning eggs and coffee outside the window of Pat's diner. Dusk makes only the ones wearing darker clothing more difficult to see. But no one usually dies wearing flashy clothing. Most of the bodies wearing lighter clothing are children or little siblings. I've always seen them too. Without pattern or prompt. You do not recognize the bodies in the forest. The bodies always hang, always sway. No one knows why the bodies appear. No one knows why two people can see the same body and robert, from the corner of bleaker, and rye, sees his estranged sister. And why? Hannah? The bartender at jacob's tavern sees her father who died of cancer 10 years ago. The bartender at Jacob's Tavern sees her father who died of cancer ten years ago. Even more the bodies will be of loved ones, strangled by a rope and hanging like a limp scarecrow. Always regardless of how they died and you will want to save them. The bodies only sway in the branches, leticed by gnarled, dying leaves. They do not come into town and everyone from Adam knows not to go into the forest. They won't hurt you, we tell the children, and they don't. Last autumn, same time around now actually, paul McCoy was taking a walk down the fields, keeping very clear of the forest. Paul had seen the bodies. He has gotten used to seeing Mama McCoy dangling from the rafters, coarse ropes cinching her liver-spotted neck. He is used to seeing his brothers and sisters bent at odd geometries, sunspots of blood splattered on the clothes they died in, not the ones they were buried in. Paul understands this of the forest, knows this is just a trick, knows its ruses. His constitution is strong, as is everyone's in Cog Hollow. But once he hears the voices of his estranged son who ran away from home at 16 and missed every Christmas since, Paul came a-running into that dark forest, past the dangling bodies, past the tattered remains of those he recognized but knows isn't real. Can you imagine that, ducking underneath boots of your brother scuffed with grime and fish flecks from the docks, running in between the heels of the semolina-dusted shoes of his cake-loving mother, fat but weightless, held up by a thin reed of a branch, paul goes into the forest, into its stomach, finds his boy stuck in time, still at 16. The next morning we all see Paul in the middle of Main Street, his body snapped at all joints, spleen ballooned out of him, entrails underneath the crisp air, no teeth, no tongue. It is little Janine and her school friends who find him on their way to morning classes. This is not a coincidence. I'm trying to help this make sense for you. You do not recognize the bodies in the forest.
Speaker 5:The FBI came and visited our little town for Mr McCoy's murder, because even our local law enforcement could not lie about the bodies in the forest. The first wave was simple, protocol, invasive because they existed Black vans parked along the side of the main road, suits and sunglasses, taking residents in the Clarence Inn right on McGowan. They interviewed everyone, myself included. It was the forest, we said. The forest took Paul McCoy. The forest, they said, as if we were crazy. The forest, not the bodies. The FBI directed their attention to the forest. Their back turned to us. We watched them from our forest, not the bodies. The FBI directed their attention to the forest. Their back turned to us. We watched them from our windows, watched the sun set as they waded through the long browning grass, step over the plants, getting ready for the great resurrection of next year. We saw them nudge one another point at bodies that we all recognized. I saw an agent point a shaking finger to my grandfather who died in 82, and claim that she was his little sister, samantha. We saw minds begin to break and it was both fascinating and sad. Pistols drawn, as if this could dispel the illusion Into the brush. They went, pulled by the need to save their siblings, their parents, their lovers. Those that remained were shattered afterwards and, yes, it was heartbreaking.
Speaker 5:The second wave consisted of chemists, botanists, all the eggheads. They shut down poor Rosie's Pub and Pat's Diner for a place to hold their beakers and test tubes. They set up a perimeter around town, long barriers with 24-hour surveillance Riflemen posted at the corners of all junctions aimed at the forest. They worked in shifts of two hours, consistently moving up and down the rickety ladders. I get it Enough. Exposure to seeing your mama or little sister all twisted and hanging limp is enough to break you emotionally, even though you know it's fake. When they went into the forest they wore quarantine outfits. I saw some of the agents returning to town with tears in their eyes, some with splotches of blood from suicides of their colleagues. Occasionally one of the hazmat at FBI agents will appear like a crumpled candy wrapper in the middle of Main Street, tossed aside like trash. No teeth, no tongue.
Speaker 5:The third wave overlapped with the second. They brought psychologists to talk to us before they pricked at us with needles and little rods. They thought we were causing the bodies in the forest that we were playing a giant trick on the FBI, why we are plagued with it as much as they. We've just learned to live with it. Me, bill Montgomery and Annie Beth all think this is what makes them so suspicious of our little town, that we have just learned to live with it. We have no other choice. You do not recognize the bodies in the forest. The fourth wave was seances. Shamans, people with Ouija boards and funny incense made our little town look like a gypsy carnival. Who knew the FBI had this division, this paranormal sector? It was all so silly.
Speaker 5:Here's a list of theories that the FBI revealed to us during one of the mandatory town hall meetings, when they locked the doors from the outside. Number one spores in the forest inhibited a neurochemical response that evokes the emotional effect of seeing a loved one hanging from the trees. 2. The townsfolk have all been infected with some invasive bacteria in the water or crops which make us perceptive to illusions. 3. Communism, just that Communism.
Speaker 5:It goes without saying that after all these months the FBI has determined nothing. Perhaps it is the separation of church and state. They did not bring in any priests, any holy men of any kind. In all their knowledge, no one noticed that our little town of Cog Hollow has no church, no pews of worship, no sacred spaces. We have our little diners, our watering holes, our corner stores, but no church. We had churches, but they caught flames and you do not recognize the bodies in the forest. And not once did they ask us if we are religious we are. We believe in the bark because we must. We believe in the bark because we have no option not to. We do not know where the bark comes from or how long it has resided in the forest. All we know is that the bark needs to feed.
Speaker 5:I've seen the bark once. I was at the edge of the forest on a crisp autumn morning, much like this one, much like the one which took Paul McCoy, much like today. I was a boy then, fascinated with the impending doom that I could allow myself if I just stepped forward. I was fascinated with the impending doom that I could allow myself, died by the bludge into the head, the busted cervix. I stood at the edge of the forest, the toes of my sneakers pressing upon the cold and shadowed earth, the leaves moving like little tendrils, wind whistled through, the trees moving in the empty spaces of the darkness. The lifeless eyes of my loved ones looked down on me from their bondages, their faces blistered and purple from asphyxiation, eyes bulged. I wanted to save them. I did. It is human nature and the bark preys on this. I told myself that I did not recognize the bodies in the forest. I just wanted to stare at the abyss, like a sort of game, a controlled dance with death, a tug-of-war of wills.
Speaker 5:The bark appeared in the thresh of the woodland, a figure looming behind the trees, a juggernaut of cosmic insult. I swear the trees parted like curtains for it, or else reality warped and twisted and broke as I gazed upon it, waiting, salivating, to mangle my body and take my teeth and tongue. Smells of rotted vegetables and moss bombarded the forest and I swear all the trees were in on it. The bark is tall and looming and bends at odd angles. A dry and dusty cloak, like a moth's wing, wraps around a hollowed skeletal torso. Gnarled fingers look like roots. It wears a crown that has sprouted naturally from its head and its skin is a white bark, both petrified and flaky.
Speaker 5:No eyes. It stands with its arms folded behind its back, guarded by the bodies. It wants you to see, the bodies you want to see, and it waits. The bark waits, clicking and clacking, the distant sound of twigs breaking, the knotty creaking of wood bending Without moving. I could tell it was beckoning me into the forest, a gravitational pull that blackened out my peripheries. I ran faster than I could that day and still I woke up with splinters. I've seen the bark, yes, and I hope I never see it again. Now all I see are the bodies, some new, some old, lately well, lately they look a little bit like you.
Speaker 1:I mean, what an intense, horrifying, moving, visceral story.
Speaker 2:Whoa, this, the premise of this one, really, really spoke to me, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It felt like a Stephen King novel in some ways, but totally. I mean just the idea of what the story was about is terrifying.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you're on Appalachian horror TikTok the way that I am.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately I'm not.
Speaker 1:But there is this like repeating. There's I think it was one creator and I wish I knew their name, but there was one creator, I think, who kind of started this trend of talking about what's in the woods in Appalachia, but in a way where he just kept repeating multiple times in the videos you don't look into the trees or something like that. Like you don't make eye contact with the trees, you don't look into the forest, you don't acknowledge what's happening in the forest.
Speaker 1:And there's just something about that repeated sort of mantra that Glenn also uses in this story, which is obviously different, but it's kind of just that like the mechanic of repeating that phrase over and over again is very chilling, I think, and effective.
Speaker 2:I feel like humans being afraid of what lies within the forest is sort of a tale as old as time too. You know just you know Brothers know brothers, grim, just truly dark, dense woods that really represent the unknown.
Speaker 1:I feel like this is a very interesting take on that, which not necessarily one that we hear all the time I also love how it sort of shifts the tone a little bit part way through when we start talking about like the fbi and oh yeah, and I think that and to me that felt like it was like stephen king meets an X-Files episode.
Speaker 2:Right, which was fun.
Speaker 1:So this story is by Glenn Duggan, who is currently based in Brooklyn, new York City. He exists within a Venn diagram of urban design, sociology and good stories. When not obsessing about one of those three, he can be found at a park drinking black coffee and listening to podcasts about murder. For more of his work, you can visit his website, whereisglennowcom, which, of course, we will link in the description of this podcast. Yeah, and mike macera, our friend mike macera, read this story. So mike has been featured on this podcast many times. He is part of the band beach therapy and definitely go listen to beach therapy. Anywhere you listen to music Spotify is where I listen to them. But he's very, very talented, as I think everyone knows at this point, and I thought he did a really good job with this story. And again, that like sort of cadence of this repetitive frame within you know, I think he did a really great job executing that. All right, alex, so we have a final story.
Speaker 2:All right, let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Here we go.
Speaker 3:Poltergeists on President Street. Written by Linda A Loschiavo. Read by Alex Goldman.
Speaker 2:The memory knocks insistently, rattles its chain. The story retold, summoned, shared, like leftovers from a phantom feast. My uncle's voice, an incantation that wiped the table clean of holiday food, poured the chill down the backs of our collars, goose-fleshed our arms as he explained how most ghosts are a disappearing act, but poltergeists engineer noisy return engagements, vaudevillians of the void greedy for a live audience. A lifetime ago, his weekly poker game was dinner theater for restless spirits. Stuck in a haunted house, he carried his gut.
Speaker 2:Hunger, boxed inside the Great Depression, festering impatience, unquiet cravings. Nicotine nursed him daily, except when he donned altar boy drag cassock. In surplice, the priest would elevate the host to an invisible god, his thurible filling the air with holy smoke. Saints have no opportunity to stay dead, he thought, cupping a fist to the flame, inhaling an unfiltered lucky strike behind the rectory. As his eyes scanned his surroundings and a room for rent drifted into view. Complaints had carved an abyss between himself and his parents. They were inhospitable to the stink of stogies and cigarettes that fueled rounds of poker, angling their eyes like a crucified Christ imploring the card players to quit. He needed a new venue and offering rent money was his ace. He ran enthusiastically up the stoop as a Wayne housewife ghosted into view, her face wreathed by a French inhale. A deal was struck for two games during weeknights, eight in a month, paid in advance.
Speaker 2:From an inner sanctum, a room he could not see, an unearthly falsetto shrieked, dimming the sunshine, roaring into his ears. We have ghosts, she explained. No extra charge. Now, those long ago, scares rose like a steam. In the same way, a flayed turkey breast releases its heat to the carving knife. Then came, not the rapping, tapping Poe heard on his chamber door, but the crashing smashing of crockery shelved in china cabinets, glassware thrown at the stove, forcing the players to their feet, hunting for the source of the commotion, only to find nothing. To my uncle's eye, though, there were no cabinets, at least not anymore. There had been at one time, but the furious being continued, smashing them in their absence decades later. On other evenings, spooks would overturn the table, sending hearts and clubs airborne, alarming.
Speaker 2:All Haunting memories must have gnawed at the apparition's loneliness, continuing a ferocious domestic drama echoing long ago chaos. Priests came and went, their blessings, novenas, incense, prayers brittle as glass. Nothing lived in these invocations no exorcism, no catharsis. Collectively, our blood forgets to surge and flow as we shiver on the brink of climax, my uncle's closing act.
Speaker 2:Ventriloquy fills the room with unhinged cackling, a poltergeist, maniacally gleeful, proud of its performance. As our soup pot boils dry and our percolator shrieks years after, I dream of what must have happened to wind a spirit so angrily to that house. A slow cooked rage, the sowing wind taunting the drawn shades, tattered scullery, wallpaper scuffed by body slams, a furious spouse abuse accumulated, stoking a fire in the belly. Well-oiled revenge readying seething, sharpening a six-inch boning knife, a marital ragout splattered across the wall. Now a dirge lullabies her ears as she swoons around the house searching for a shovel, lozenging the word burial under her tongue, she begins her maniacal laughter. Tomorrow's empty jar of mourning fills with men in white coats and a restraining garment nearly split open by wild whoops of merriment. Freedom from her husband's rage. At last there's a sense of the future humming. Except it would not end there. Emotions drowned in this bloody kitchen would resurface, be regurgitated. Have the last laugh surface. Be regurgitated. Have the last laugh well.
Speaker 1:First of all, alex, you did such a lovely job reading that poem. I thought you did really really well and it was so beautifully narrated oh, thank you know.
Speaker 2:it really felt good to be able to narrate one of our stories, especially especially here on the last campfire episode of the year. And what a story that was. I mean a beautiful poem and we were just talking about it, but what beautiful language it was.
Speaker 1:Oh, my gosh, very beautiful language. I really love like the lozenging under her tongue, the word you know, just like. Oh, I really felt it.
Speaker 2:The choice of words was awesome.
Speaker 1:Was really awesome and surprising, and I love that in poetry. I also think it's so cool that this is a poem that's a nonfiction poem, even though it's so ethereal and poetic based on like a real paranormal experience.
Speaker 2:Right, totally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so cool. So this poem was written by Lindainda ann loschiavo, who is a native new yorker and award winner. Linda ann is a member of the british fantasy society hwa, sfpa and the dramatist guild. Just titles alone, just titles that were published in 2024 alone include always haunted halloween poems by Apprentice to the Night with Universal Press and I, of course. I will leave all of the different ways you can follow Linda Ann on social media in the description below so that you can stay attuned to new work she has coming out. Well, alex, as we are, I kind of think we're bringing home this series for the year now, unless there's some kind of plot twist. But thank you so much for joining us and it's been so very fun, and I don't know again, one of my favorite parts of this podcast is the community that is being built around it, and so thank you for being part of that.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. You know what a what a cool way to celebrate um all types of horror is by asking all of our listeners to contribute.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:This has been a really cool series.
Speaker 1:Yes, amazing. Okay, well, everybody, stay well, stay safe, stay spooky, and we will talk to you very soon. Bye.
Speaker 2:Bye you.
