The Drabblecast – Page 4 – Strange Stories, By Strange Authors, for Strange Listeners

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Drabblecast 447 – Echoes

On June 25, 2021

In Drabblecast, Drama, Mystery

The Drabblecast is on the scene this week, with an original story by Gail Ann Gibbs, read by Starla Hutchton, that reminds us that it’s ok to be a little weird. Or maybe even, SUPER weird…

I like the way Richard smells. The next time a psychiatrist asks me what makes me happy, I’ll say it’s the way Richard smells when he’s on the job.

Karen tilted her head down so Richard wouldn’t see her smile, which would be inappropriate here. He was standing next to her, rummaging through her tool kit.

“I could have sworn I brought the small sieve.” He pulled one out and waved it. “Thanks, don’t let me forget it’s yours.” He headed back to the crime scene in the kitchen, and Karen turned back to her own dead body, here in the dining room…

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Drabblecast 446 – The Wichita Drive

On June 17, 2021

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror

Weird things are afoot in the west this week on the Drabblecast! Enjoy an original, previously unpublished story about snails of the plains gone awry by Joshua Bush called “The Witchita Drive.” Yeehaw!

They were down in a gully watering the cattle when Billy came thundering down the ridgeline on his sorrel mare, waving his hat and hollering like he just seen the whole Comanche nation bearing down on them.

“Mr. Lee!” he cried. “Mr. Lee!”

Harry Lee — the top hand on the drive — trotted up to meet him, keeping his palomino well in hand so as not to disturb the herd any further. The younger cowboy was good in the saddle, but he was greener than spring horse pucky, and had half as much sense…

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Drabblecast 445 – Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death

On May 21, 2021

In Drabblecast, Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi

Drabblecast wraps up Women & Aliens month with a gritty and intense story by James Tiptree Jr., aka Alice B. Sheldon. Hope you’re hungry!

Remembering—

Do you hear, my little red? Hold me softly. The cold grows.

I remember:

—I am hugely black and hopeful, I bounce on six legs along the mountains in the new warm! . . . Sing the changer, Sing the stranger! Will the changes change forever? . . . All my hums have words now. Another change!

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Drabblecast 444 – The Hands of Heroes

On April 27, 2021

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi

What makes a hero? The Drabbecast brings you an original commissioned story by Cat Rambo this week called “The Hands of Heroes.”

The thing is, I was never a hero. The first wave of aliens taught me that. The war with them – my older brothers became heroes there, one died in the stand-off at Ucer-25, and we never did discover what happened to the other. My parents celebrated them both, burned scarlet and gold candles that made the house smell like flaming trees and sulphur, every weekend without fail…

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Drabblecast 443 – The Day I Didn’t Get A Pet Nebula

On April 16, 2021

In Comedy, Drabblecast, Sci-Fi, Strange

Who says Drabblecast doesn’t do Young Adult Fiction?

This week we launch Women & Aliens Month with a fresh, original Drabblecast commission by Effie Seiberg.

We’re grateful to be able to bring you this story this week!

On the day I turned nine I didn’t get a pet nebula.

I’d really really wanted one, just like the one Shelly had. And I’d been talking about it FOR-EVER, so Mom could have the time to save up for the one in the pawn shop. I’m not usually patient, but this was important…

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Drabblecast 442 – The Secret of Theta Pi

On March 26, 2021

In Drabblecast, Drama, Fantasy, Horror

Sea creatures and sorority sisters on this week’s Drabblecast! We bring you an original tale by Stephanie Gray called, “The Secret of Theta Pi.” Enjoy!

We travel back to Tandy’s Cove in a caravan of three, Cindy Q’s Miata leading, followed by the rented van, dirty white with the windows rolled up, and Beneeta G’s little blue hatchback bringing up the rear. Twelve hours on the road would be stressful in the best of times, yet in these days of turmoil there is an easy peace between us…

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Drabblecast 441 – Trifecta: Strange Futures

On March 4, 2021

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi, Trifecta

This week on the Drabblecast– three stories about Strange Futures. We bring you Drabblecast originals, “Department of Invention” by R.L. Thull, “The One’s Who Won’t Be” by Martin Munks, and “Cannabilism in the Inhuman Age” by Jaye Viner.

Closing Music by 19 Action News

Saul broke down in an unusual way for a robot. Saul ‘died,’ is the more apt term, but I hate to put a human descriptor to a machine. They already get enough of those…

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Drabblecast 440 – The Earth-Brain

On February 19, 2021

In Drabblecast, Horror, Sci-Fi

On this week’s show, every day is Earth Day when you’re living on an Elder God! We bring you a hidden gem from the 1930’s pulp science fiction era, written by Pulp Master General Edmond Hamilton!

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Drabblecast 439 – Rocket Surgery

On February 6, 2021

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi

We’d tested plenty of missiles before, but Teeny was the only one that convulsed when we cut him open.

Oh, your listeners need more background? OK, I’ll back up a bit. Lemme tell ya, kids today don’t know their history. Even locked up in here for the past ten years, I can tell. No education. Good thing you’re getting the real story out…

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Drabblecast 438 – Midnight Clear, or, How Santa Claus Killed the Sun

On January 8, 2021

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Holiday

Norm brings in the New Year with an original Drabblecast story by author Tim Pratt! This story is a sequel to last year’s Holiday Special story, “Comfort and Joy,” check that one out here!

She was a blonde — the kind of blonde to make a bishop bite through his altar cloth. I used to be a bishop, but that was about seventeen-hundred years ago, so I swiveled away on my stool, took a handful of peanuts from the bowl on the bar, and went back to checking my list…

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Drabbleclassics- Dirty Santa

On December 30, 2020

In Action, Drabbleclassics, Holiday

A classic Drabblecast Tim Pratt story, presented to you by Guest Host, Avery Alexander!

The apartment was a bustle of twenty other people more extroverted and festive than himself, all dressed in the requisite hideous holiday sweaters, drinking bourbon punch and rum punch and some sort of strange vegan eggnog, flirting and joking and ranting and, in one case, openly making out against a wall underneath a dangling branch of mistletoe…

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Drabblecast B-Sides 86 – The Yellow Sign

On December 22, 2020

In Drabblecast B-Sides, Horror, Lovecraft Month

The classic story by Robert W. Chambers, this week on Drabblecast Bsides!

There are so many things which are impossible to explain! Why should certain chords in music make me think of the brown and golden tints of autumn foliage? Why should the Mass of Sainte Cecile send my thoughts wandering among caverns whose walls blaze with ragged masses of virgin silver? What was it in the roar and turmoil of Broadway at six o’clock that flashed before my eyes the picture of a still Breton forest where sunlight filtered through spring foliage and Sylvia bent, half curiously, half tenderly, over a small green lizard, murmuring: “To think that this is also a little ward of God!”

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Drabblecast 437 – The Shallow One

On December 12, 2020

In Comedy, Lovecraft Month, Romance

The Drabblecast wraps up HP Lovecraft Month this year with a mythos story unlike any variety you’ve likely heard before! We bring you “The Shallow One,” an original Drabblecast story by Matthew Sanborn Smith.

Norm closes out with a song about awkward romance called “There’s a Fetus in Your Kitchen.”

I first met Madeline at the local drug store, IBS, in the digestive aids aisle. We were both buying constipation products when our hands touched. Electricity passed between us, though it may have been the carpeting. My drone quivered on my shoulder, begging permission to snap a pic…

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Drabblecast 436- The Wallpaper Out of Space

On November 20, 2020

In Drabblecast, Lovecraft Month, Strange

Our next original Drabblecast-commissioned story for HP Lovecraft month installment, “The Wallpaper Out of Space!” by Adam-Troy Castro read by Jacob Boris.

All right, so it’s Cheryl’s kid, okay? I didn’t know she had a kid until we were two months in and already deeply involved, and then she tells me she has a sixteen year old from a prior marriage, and that he was what you’re what always supposed to say kids are, a great kid, even if they’re just hostile presences who respond to everything you say with a nod and a blank, “Okay…”

Closing Music: “Juzt Mizunderstood” by Norm Sherman

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Drabblecast 435 – Maternal Instinct

On November 13, 2020

In Drabblecast, Horror, Lovecraft Month

Lovecraft and love life mix on this week’s Drabblecast! As our first offering HP Lovecraft month, we present “Maternal Instinct,” by Chris Lester.

They say you can find absolutely anything on the Internet. The authenticity and good condition of said “anything,” however, is by no means guaranteed. This caveat applies to rare movies, import CDs, collectible knickknacks of all kinds … but most especially to men.

Online dating is to romance what bottom trawling is to fishing. A woman in search of a prospective mate can sift through hundreds of messages a week, only to find that her “catch” consists mostly of trash, filth, and a few sickly and hideous specimens that no sane woman would allow within a hundred yards of the dinner table. Oh, occasionally you might find a worthy candidate, but the strong, healthy and good-looking ones are usually the first to wriggle out of the nets.

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Drabblecast 434 – The Shadow Over Innsmouth Pt. 2

On October 31, 2020

In Drabblecast, Horror, Lovecraft Month

Part two of a Drabblecast production of H.P. Lovecraft’s classic The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

The reality of what I had been through was highly uncertain in my mind, but I felt that something hideous lay in the background. I must get away from evil-shadowed Innsmouth—and accordingly I began to test my cramped, wearied powers of locomotion. Despite weakness, hunger, horror, and bewilderment I found myself after a long time able to walk; so started slowly along the muddy road to Rowley…

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Drabblecast 433 – The Shadow Over Innsmouth Pt. 1

On October 18, 2020

In Drabblecast, Horror, Lovecraft Month, Strange

The Drabblecast Annual Halloween Special kicks off this year simultaneously with HP Lovecraft month on the show, a full month of original Drabblecast-commissioned stories playing around with elements of Lovecraft’s style and mythos.

We kick things off this year with a fullcast adaptation of one of Lovecraft’s most popular stories– The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Do enjoy!

During the winter of 1927–28 officials of the Federal government made a strange and secret investigation of certain conditions in the ancient Massachusetts seaport of Innsmouth. The public first learned of it in February, when a vast series of raids and arrests occurred, followed by the deliberate burning and dynamiting—under suitable precautions—of an enormous number of crumbling, worm-eaten, and supposedly empty houses along the abandoned waterfront. Uninquiring souls let this occurrence pass as one of the major clashes in a spasmodic war on liquor.

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Drabblecast B-Sides 85- Nothing Changes

On October 18, 2020

In Drabblecast, Drabblecast B-Sides, Horror, Sci-Fi

A sadistic tale from a sadistic future on the Drabblecast this week; we bring you a Drabblecast original from People’s Choice Award winning author Robert Reed. Brought to you by the ever-sexy and captivating voice of the internet’s one and only Word Whore.

For Drabblecast Bsides subscribers only!

A work colleague suffers a stroke and gets whisked to Intensive Care, where an experimental neurostimulant is pumped into the blood. The drug can be therapeutic, and he recovers. Sort of…

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Drabblecast 432 – Housebound

On October 4, 2020

In Drabblecast, Drama, Horror, Mystery

Weirdness is in the air at Drabblecast as we bring you an original story about spousal life and home ownership by author Ao-Hui Lin.

“Hey babe, where did the closet go?”

The Hubby, Victor, gives me a blank look, like the word “closet” is Swahili for “bratwurst”. He neither understands the question nor the purpose of the question.

“The closet. It used to be here, through this door, under the stairs. Now there’s just a pit and bite marks on the door jamb.”

More silent incomprehension.

I let the subject drop. After all, who uses the under-the-stairs closet anyway? I don’t even remember if I ever put anything in there, and if I did, it would have been stuff I’d never planned on seeing again. High school journals, SAT study guides and shoeboxes full of bad poetry to that guy I had a crush on during junior year – Tony? Toby? Tory? I’ll find someplace else to put the vacuum cleaner.

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Drabblecast 431 – A Promise

On September 2, 2020

In Drabblecast, Drama, Fantasy

This week’s Drabblecast features a poignant story about patience, perspective, parenthood and the paranormal. We bring you “A Promise,” by Jennifer Hudak. Enjoy!

I reach out nonexistent fingers to catch your arm, the hem of your shirt. You, there. Sitting on the edge of the bed, head bowed, dripping with sorrow. Your hair is thinning, shiny scalp peeking through the gray-streaked brown at the top of your head, and I wonder if you even know. You flick your fingers near your temples, a self-soothing behavior that, by now, you’ve mostly learned to control…

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