by Lisa M. Bradley

read by Roberto Suarez

“Who’s that buenona?” Maz lowered his plastic cup to get an unobstructed view of the scowler.

No way she could’ve heard us over the Mexican electronica blaring from someone’s trunk speakers, or the laughter and conversations spiking the lot behind the Hinojosa house. Still, she lowered her cigarette and turned in our direction, exhaling like she wished secondhand smoke killed faster. Despite skin sun-baked brown, her eyes were blue, and eerie as cat-shine.

“Never seen her before,” I said. Redundantly, because Maz and I went near-everywhere together—sometimes he followed me into the bathroom; dude had no sense of boundaries—so of course if he didn’t recognize the girl, neither would I.

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It was first published in Lisa’s first short fiction and poetry collection, The Haunted Girl, available on Amazon or direct from the publisher, Aqueduct Press.

Rated R.

Forged in the scalding heat of South Texas, Lisa M. Bradley now lives in Iowa with her spouse, child, and two cats. More of her imaginings, always inflected by her Latina heritage, are forthcoming in Solarpunk Press, Strange Horizons, and the Sunvault anthology. Her collection of short fiction and poetry is The Haunted Girl (Aqueduct Press). For more, follow her on Twitter (@cafenowhere) or visit her website: www.lisambradley.com.

Roberto Suarez is a monthly supporter of all Escape Artist Productions and has had the privilege of narrating stories for PodCastle, PseudoPod, and Escape Pod. He is the co-host and producer of “A Pod of Casts: The Game of Thrones Podcast” and the upcoming “Radio Westworld,” a podcast dedicated to HBO’s latest sci-fi series. You can find Roberto on the web at robertosuarez.me, or on Twitter @PuertoGeekan.

Bilingual, or Mouth to Mouth Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

by Kate Lechler

read by Stephanie Morris

My husband has hired Grace to come each morning, bringing food, medicine, and, as she puts it, “comp’ny.” She isn’t truly a witch—my father taught me that a belief in augury is the sign of an untutored mind—but I loathe her just the same. Each day, she drags the rocking chair from the adjacent room and sits knitting in it, her heavy breathing filling the space. At the end of the day, she scrapes the chair back through the door.

Who knows what trouble I might get up to with unfettered access to a rocking chair?

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A PodCastle original!

Rated R for adult content, disturbing imagery.

Kate Lechler teaches British Literature at the University of Mississippi and writes science-fiction and fantasy from her home in in Oxford, MS, where she lives with her husband, a dog, a cat, and seven fish. Her work has been previously published in the NonBinary Review, Dear Robot: An Anthology of Epistolary Science Fiction, and Illumen, and she reviews fantasy and science fiction for FantasyLiterature.com. She loves gardening, singing jazz, and watching bad (and good!) TV. You can find her online at http://www.therediscoveredcountry.blogspot.com/ and on Twitter @katelechler.

Stephanie Morris is a professional fangirl by day and the lone library assistant staffing a college circulation desk at night. She has narrated short stories for PseudoPod, PodCastle, EscapePod, Cast of Wonders, and StarShipSofa, guest-blogged on subjects ranging from book recommendations to zombie turkeys, and performed Shakespeare in a handful of weird churches. Until she suppresses her inner perfectionist enough to create a website, you can find her on Twitter at @smaliamorris.

The Beautiful Bird Sits No Longer Singing in the Nest Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

by Effie Seiberg

It took three days, but he disconnected his entire condo from the grid. He smashed holes in the plasterboard walls and yanked out wire after wire—brute force was as good a method as any. Then, in a tangle of metal and plastic, he reconnected everything to the battery, which now sat in the middle of his beige living room instead of the shitty coffee table. The apartment was transformed. Once a beige box of sadness, it was now a rat’s nest of blue and red wire casings which covered the walls (and part of the beige carpet) like ivy with a faint snow of plaster dust.

He sat on his fake leather sofa, put a finger on each of the hulking thing’s contact points and shoved lightning in. The battery’s gauge on the side lit up red, then yellow, then green.

Originally published in Galaxy’s Edge, Jan 1, 2016.

Rated R (for language).

Effie Seiberg is a fantasy and science fiction writer. Her stories can be found in the “Women Destroy Science Fiction!” special edition of Lightspeed Magazine, Galaxy’s Edge, Analog, and Fireside Fiction, amongst others. This is her second appearance in PodCastle.

Effie lives in San Francisco, recently and upcoming (but not presently) near a giant sculpture of a pink bunny head with a skull in its mouth. She likes to make sculpted cakes and bad puns. You can follow her on twitter at @effies, or read more of her work at effieseiberg.com.

Thundergod in Therapy Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

by Erin Roberts

Tonight, me and Lee gonna kill the wolf. Been digging a pit out in the woods all summer, filling it up with wolfsbane and sharp rocks big as our heads, covering it up with leaves so wolfy eyes can’t tell it’s there. Lee even snatched a whole chicken outta his Pa’s coop, snapped its neck and threw it on the pile like some kinda wolf Christmas come early. Wolf just has to go sniffing over by the edge and we give a good push and we’ll be Nicky and Lee, honest-to-God wolf-killers.

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A PodCastle original!

Rated R.

Erin Roberts writes in New York City under the watchful eye of her cat Crumbsnatcher. She is an MFA student at Stonecoast, a graduate of the 2015 Odyssey Writing Workshop, and a workshop leader for the New York Writers Coalition. When not writing, she can most often be found singing karaoke, lifting heavy objects, or trying to take over change the world. You can check out her latest exploits at @nirele or on writingwonder.com.

Your narrator this week was born in the swamps of South Georgia where he was orphaned as a child by a pack of wild dawgs. He was adopted by a family of gators who named him Maui Threv which in their language means “mechanical frog music.” He was taught the ways of swamp music and the Moog synthesizer by a razorback and a panther. His music has been featured in episodes of Pseudopod. He has expanded his sonic territory across all 100,000 watts of WREK in Atlanta where you can listen to The Mobius every Wednesday night. It is available to stream via the Internet as well.

Wolfy Things Play Now | Play in Popup | Download