Hoping for Red by Adam Knight Vixen had just one question for the doctor: “Can you do it?” Doctor Fizzwinkle smiled and patted the fur on Vixen’s neck. Outside of the office, the winds whipped furiously, as they did most of the time north of the Arctic Circle. In the office, though, the glow of …

Silkstrand, A Minute Of by Anton Stark Imperial Majesty, Lord-for-Countless-Years, Son of Heaven, Ruler of Industry and Wisdom; this your servant Cai Jing of the Ministry of Works greets you. As per your Imperial Decree, I have compiled the following report on the matter of Master Su’s Clock and its abnormal behaviour. The facts of […]

A Fine Night for Tea and Bludgeoning By Beth Cato Summer 1901 Upon my arrival at the Durham’s dance, it was quickly apparent to me that their daughter’s new purebred fiancé was not the evening’s star as gossip had foretold. Instead, a dashing green-skinned gentleman had garnered a pack of giggling admirers. I had never …

Earn Your Breath by Jaime O. Mayer Liith had fought the Snake Island raiders every summer since her fifteenth year and had yet to taste defeat. She had dueled the boat-men of the north with their fish-belly white skin and won the pair of metal knives envied by many a man in her village. Yet, […]

The Penelope Qingdom by Aidan Moher It was during the particularly frozen-solid Prince George winter of ’91, a few days after the new neighbours had arrived, that I first stumbled into the Penelope Qingdom. “What are their names?” I asked my moms as they bustled about the kitchen getting ready. They’d invited themselves next door […]

Widow Bones Makes Her Rounds by Gretchen Tessmer “Brom Bones too, who shortly after his rival’s disappearance conducted the blooming Katrina to the altar, was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin, which led some to suspect […]

The Raptor Snatchers by Rachael K. Jones Dad said you can’t buy friends, but that’s not always true, because I bought my best friend Zilla with my 10th birthday money. She didn’t cost much because velociraptors were pests, which meant there were too many of them in Absence, and nobody liked them. Rooster’s Rescue was […]

An American Refugee by Tiah Marie Beautement I first spot the surfer as I run down the path that cuts below the lighthouse. I can’t believe it. The Point is full of holiday campers, so motors are banned on the water until eight a.m. and it is only six-thirty. I run down the steps; reaching […]

Some Remarks on the Reproductive Strategy of the Common Octopus By Bogi Takács So let’s do it this way. I’ll show you whatever I want and you’ll believe me, because I’m an octopus. I might as well get some benefit out of it, not that we ever had much – especially not since you left. Humans, …

Radio Free Heartland by Corey Mallonee When the car was just a distant cloud of dust above the corn fields I turned to Smoke and told him, “You ought to know I shot someone.” “We all do things we regret,” he said, without looking up from the circle he was drawing in the dirt. His […]

Beatrix Released By Shaenon K. Garrity The lichen in the cupboard has at last begun to sing. It sings in two-part harmony, bel canto, essaying a faultless duet with itself. What a strange and lovely fairy! I am convinced more and more that my earlier theory was correct, that the lichen is a bipartite organism …

PodCastle 557: The Griffin and the Minor Canon

PodCastle 556: Shadow Boy

The Half Dark Promise by Malon Edwards The first thing Bobby Brightsmith told me when I moved to the South Side of Chicago from La Petite Haïti with Manmi was to run like a scalded dog if I ever saw zonbi la in the half dark on the way home from school. See, when Bobby …

PodCastle 555: Candied Sweets, Cornbread, and Black-Eyed Peas

For Your Consideration: PodCastle Award Eligibility 2018

PodCastle 554: Hosting the Solstice

PodCastle 553: Grounded Women Never Fly

AUTHOR: Beth Goder NARRATOR: Amy H. Sturgis HOST: Alasdair Stuart Murder or a Duck is an Escape Pod original. Discuss on our forums. For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our Wikia Thank you for visiting us on Facebook and Twitter about the author… Beth Goder worked as an archivist at Stanford before becoming a full-time mom […]

PodCastle 552: The Watchers

Every House, a Home By Evan Dicken “I guess nobody wants haunted houses, anymore.” Derek checked his reflection in one of the Cape Cod’s filmy windows, teasing his hair back to mussy perfection. He glanced back at me. “That was a joke, Natalie.” I gave him my best approximation of a smile. He blew out …

En Plein Air by J. T. Glover A gust of wind boiled off the James without warning, flattening cattails and clumps of spikerush as it swirled around the inlet where I was painting, and of course it caught my canvas. The morning’s work rushed away from me like a sailboat before a storm, taking my […]

Greener Pastures by Michael Wehunt “You ever can’t sleep?” the trucker said. Forsyth glanced up out of his thoughts. The man standing at his table was big and worn out, his eyes raw and heavy even in the shadow of his cap’s bill. He had a young face with an old beard matted on the […]

Ten Things I Didn’t Do By Maria Haskins I didn’t die. I promised you I wouldn’t, so I didn’t. I know you said the words in jest when you dropped me off at school, “Don’t die, honey!”, with that hoarse laugh and sideways wink you do, but I rolled my eyes and said “OK, mom, […]

The Blue Widow By J. P. Sullivan It was good tea, all things considered, and I really did admire his efforts at being a good host — but the fact was, I was there to kill him. This was, unfortunately, something of a trend in the profession. He spoke with the confidence of his kind. “You’ve …

Paradise Regained By Edward Lerner My head hurts. I expect it: this is winter. I want it to be spring. Paradise does not ask what I want. The winter is young, and I think the dogs are not yet so hungry as to attack me. Still, I hold tight to my spear. Dogs or no …

Oracle By Dominica Phetteplace The two biggest applications for predictive software are killing people and selling things. Rita was quite successful at the latter. She founded a nail-polish-of-the-month club that used an online personality quiz to determine customer preferences. Bold cremes for basics, chunky glitters for the outrageous, and dark, sparkly metallics for edgy, forward-thinking geniuses …

Disarm By Vylar Kaftan Excerpt We kept in touch through the war, when he messaged me about marching through upstate New York. He always started the same way: “Dear Ryan, Please come kick my commanding officer in the balls.” Then he’d tell me about the latest mess–cracks in their radiation suits, or toxic …

The Revolution, Brought to You by Nike by Andrea Phillips 1. THE BRIEF Corazon clicked to the slide she’d been dreading: long-term trends for brand engagement. It was dire. She focused on the smudgy mirror at the far end of the conference room, looking past her team to her own reflection. She pulled her shoulders …

The Revolution, Brought to You by Nike, Part 2 by Andrea Phillips 5. THE LAUNCH Launch day came on a bright Tuesday, amid a flurry of reports that the executive office had pushed through a series of contracts requiring the president’s own hotel properties be the preferred vendor for all federal travel going forward. Another …