PodCastle

PodCastle is the world’s first audio fantasy magazine. Weekly, we broadcast the best in fantasy short stories, running the gammut from heart-pounding sword and sorcery, to strange surrealist tales, to gritty urban fantasy, to the psychological depth of magical realism. Our podcast features authors including N.K. Jemisin, Peter S. Beagle, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Jim C. Hines, and Cat Rambo, among others. Terry Pratchett once wrote, “Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can.” Tune in to PodCastle each Tuesday for our weekly tale, and spend the length of a morning commute giving your imagination a work out.

https://podcastle.org/

subscribe
share






PodCastle 651: At First Glance







* Author : Shannon Peavey
* Narrator : Avi Silver
* Host : Summer Fletcher
* Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh
*
Discuss on Forums



Originally published in Daily Science Fiction.


Rated R for strong language.
At First Glance
By Shannon Peavey
On a narrow highway in western Texas, an old Ford pickup hurtles through a curve at eighty-five miles per hour. It slips a little on bald tires, but recovers and swings out to the straightaway, accelerating.
Two girls sit in the cab — one in the driver’s seat, one behind her in the back. The driver chews her lip until it bleeds. Her younger sister has a pair of dark glasses pushed up onto her forehead and her face pressed up to the glass until her nose squashes flat like a bulldog’s. She’s careful not to look up at her sister.
Somewhere behind them, there are posters with their names and faces, policemen canvassing neighborhoods. But they are miles, miles away.
“What the hell’s with all these armadillos,” Brynn says. “I mean, look at this road. It’s a goddamned slaughterhouse.”
Sam glances back in the rearview mirror. Just a quick look, and then back to the road. The air stings her split lip. “Get your greasy face off my windows.”
“You think they’d learn,” Brynn says, without peeling her face from the glass. “Isn’t there some sort of instinct? Species memory?”
“Their mamas didn’t teach ‘em right.”
“Maybe they think you’re gonna stop for them. Maybe they think you’re a merciful lady.”
“Nobody thinks that,” Sam says, and eases off the gas.
They don’t see any live armadillos for the rest of the drive. Only dead ones, splayed carelessly along the fog line. Sam’s mercy isn’t tested.
When they stop for gas, Brynn stays in the truck and drops her sunglasses back over her eyes. She stares at her knees and imagines the scene — the long-haul truckers in their cabs, maybe a family with kids on a road trip, harried mother telling them to be quiet while she fills up the car. Though really she can’t see a thing. The lenses of her glasses are smoked and neatly coated with black paint.
Sam gasses up and then heads inside to buy corn nuts and Mountain Dew. She watches the cashier carefully as he rings her up, carefully enough that he stops smiling and ducks his head to hide his eyes behind the brim of his cap.
Too late to save you, honey, Sam thinks with something like pity — but all she says is thanks, and she takes the green bottles and the corn nuts back out to the truck and knocks on the window before she gets in.
“Cashier was cute enough,” she says as she does up her seatbelt. In the backseat, Brynn uncaps her Mountain Dew with a carbonated wheeze. “One of those sensitive artist types. Married, though.”
“Never stopped you from looking,” Brynn says, and she laughs. It’s an ugly sound.
“Never has.”
Sam starts the truck and they pull out into the evening dim. A whisper of a breeze blows grit across the windshield.
They drive until it’s full dark, and then stop in some little shithole town with a motel right by the highway. Sam goes and gets the key, begs a lower rate off some girl wearing too much makeup and a bunch of jewelry in shiny red plastic. Even her shoes are red. Sam sees them because she kicks her feet under the desk like a child.
Their room is on the second floor at the corner.


fyyd: Podcast Search Engine
share








 November 4, 2020  30m