The Dark Verse (Horror and Fantasy Fiction Podcast)

[Sharkchild]

Episode 26, The Something Beyond Silence, is out! This is the completing episode of a full year's worth of The Dark Verse, and there is much more to come!

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Excerpt:

The sound of a heartbeat is distinct. It is a ticking of time—a lifeline encroaching upon an end. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast, this ever-sustaining frequency pulsates towards the boundaries of the unknown. It represents knowledge—whether of reality or sleep it does not matter—but when it stops, the mystery begins. That mystery, which hinges on the brink of death, depicts the apex of existence. What I was, what I am, and what I will be are all erased by the ceasing of this simple cadence. But even now as I breathe, that mystery reveals itself from time to time. It suffocates the noises that surround me and blocks out the impacts and interactions of the world. It takes the beat of a heart, the sound of silence itself, and steals it away. And when silence is gone, something else has replaced it.

The warm crackling of the fire was enough to keep me content for a long while on the most still and cold of winter evenings. I had my wife in my arms and my two girls snuggled at my feet. My thoughts danced with the harpy-like flames while their sounds caressed my imagination. No one spoke, and no one wanted to. The tongues of light satisfied every gaze, licking upon the air with infinite delight and heat.

As I stared at the fire over time, my senses began to numb. Surrounding interferences drifted away from my attention, and even the sound of the flames themselves began to slowly evaporate from my ears. I looked at my wife and then at my two children—they were all in the same stupor. Eventually, that which was real became very surreal and faded into the sights of my thoughts.

[Sharkchild]

Episode 27, The Clock's Many Hands, is out! A new year begins for The Dark Verse.

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Excerpt:

My hands were always true. I relied on their dexterity for manipulation, their sturdiness for strength, and their gentleness for care. With hands, I led myself forward through the galaxies of all things. Just as an insect’s wings are its salvation from danger and guide to survival, my hands were the guardians and practitioners of my life. They were simple tools, but they held the capacity for feats far greater than that what was seemingly possible.

I used to stare at my hands, as delicate and worn as they were, and wonder about the future’s brethren. Every line—every wrinkle—depicted a trail and experience that cut deeply into the meat on my bones. Ravines, ridges, hills, bruises, scratches—they formed the map of my past. For such a medieval being, I was burdened with a horrible novelty of self-reflection. Garnering understanding should never have been an attribute of my very trivial existence, let alone the curse of my accompanying emotional flaws. There was always a certain nostalgia that lingered with me, though I did nothing differently than I always had.

Mechanical clocks were my occupation and gears were my expertise, although I did not work on them so much as I lived within them. I was very small—small enough to slide through cracks—but I thought nothing of it; it was all I ever knew. When my energy was with me, I would clean and align. When I grew wearisome, I would rest and think. Of my kind, I found none other than the rare glimpses I caught of myself upon the freshly cleaned glass covering the elderly faces and bodies of ageless clocks. The sight of myself was not pleasing and it took several days for the wearing affect it had on me to fade. I was content with being the hidden repairman of time: the plain, tangible, ticking relic kind of time.

[Sharkchild]

Check out the newest episode of The Dark Verse, Episode 28, Playgrounds Never Wondered About!

Listen to it or download it at TheDarkVerse.com

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Excerpt:

I awoke in a strange place—a land of repulsive architecture and grim colors. All I had with me were the clothes on my back and my cracked, fragmented mind.

When I first opened my eyes, they rested upon a structure similar to that of a monument. The building towered above me with enormous pillars and high ceilings. Very detailed intricacies laced the surfaces of each wall, including sculptures of desperate creatures reaching outward, deep carvings of symbols and characters, and varying textures of stone ranging from smooth patches to jagged arrangements. Leading away from this building’s large entrance was a great descension of stairs. The stairs fanned out as they progressed lower and ended at a small plaza. In the middle of this plaza, a dull, gray-colored flag fell straight and motionless upon a pole erected in a ring of ashes surrounded by burnt coals.

Spreading out towards the horizon, away from the monument-like building, were other smaller structures with the same artistic augmentations, but without pillars. In between these other buildings were several paved roads. The roads spanned until I could see them no more in the distances. Blanketing over the landscape was a bland sky that held a consistent murky green throughout its expanse. There was no wind or movement, or sounds for that matter.

These things were the trivial items of the scene, but not all that there was to see.

[Sharkchild]

My Halloween Greeting 2008 is live! Listen for your chance to win a $20 or less DVD of your choice from Amazon.com. The odds are very good for you to win, trust me.

Listen to it or download it at TheDarkVerse.com

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[Sharkchild]

Episode 29 of The Dark Verse, The Fragmented, is now available for your listening enjoyment!

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Excerpt:

Pieces here, pieces there—it was one sick, twisted mess. I had never before seen such an awful and visually tormenting way to die. It looked like some almighty hand of gargantuan size had grabbed the poor man along with the ground, the chair he was sitting on, and the desk he was sitting at, and mixed it all together in a contraption of Picasso-death. Nothing was as it should have been, and yet, the pieces of it all actually formed a cohesive thing: the chair protruded from the man’s lower torso; desk drawers were rammed through the man’s abs and chest; hands, arms, legs, and feet were flattened like scrapbook material and hastened to several floorboards that were fanned out like the feathers of a peacock from the man’s back; and the remnants of the desk were everywhere in between. The man’s head was equally as appalling. There was no trace of his face, and that, most unsettlingly, was because it had been completely removed from his skull. There were no fluids, muscle, tissue, blood, brain, or any other matter that should have been there on or in that head; there was only bone, only skull.

I lost the contents of my stomach when I first saw the poor soul. I did not know the man—I was absolutely relieved that I did not know the man—but that did not in any way lessen the perpetual rot beginning to erode within my mind, haunting each image and thought with the residue of coagulated perversion. Looking away was easy, but what remained could never be erased.

[Sharkchild]

Episode 30 of The Dark Verse is a new installment of The Changing Feyth series! You may want to re-listen to the first two parts before checking out this one.

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Excerpt:

My greatest ally and most infernal enemy is time. It can change history and efface memories. It can create life and it can take it away. And to the immortal, time is the ultimate instrument of both plague—the uncanny curse of centuries of wisdom and knowledge and experience and pain—and revision—the gift of the possibility of perfection, relative, of course, to the individual who controls its direction. There are many rewards and follies of time, but it is these two that, existing as nemeses to each other, destroy any hope of blamelessness. Though I may strive for redemption, my guilt of acts past will always rest beside my heart. Each and every decision, whether selfless or selfish, shall hang above my head in a halo of eternal flames.

If I had lungs to scream beyond limitation, I would beg for the forgiveness of ages passed. If I had hands to number the devils of my years, I would sacrifice them to the lives I took and fiendishly displaced. My suffering can only end in death, but I cannot allow it to comfort me—I am undeserving; and if it came now, it would only be failure. I can only find redemption at the end of one path, and that is with the extinction of my race.

I will be victorious. I will finish what I have set out to accomplish. And though the odds of success have been unforgiving, I have marched forward effortlessly. There is something with me, something that has always been with me, and it is fighting for me, making my triumphs as easy as cleaning the blade-end of my whip. Perhaps this companion was that which changed me, or perhaps it has seen my mission and longed for nothing less than the very same outcome. And, perhaps I am its catalyst. If I am, I will be loyal unto the very end.

[Sharkchild]

Episode 31 of The Dark Verse, Mantis, Malevolent, is ready for your listening ears!

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Excerpt:

I vividly remember those things I did on the day of the coming of the Purpose Giver. I was chopping wood in the back of my cabin, preparing ahead of time for the oncoming winter. My arms felt strong as they led the ax through the wood with single strokes. Perspiration beneath my thick clothing created pockets of moisture that irritated me but could not hinder me. And, all the while, thoughts of companionship led me through the heartache of miserable solitude.

When suppertime came around, I had chopped more than enough wood, so I stopped gladly, despite the grand rhythm of my toils.

I created a fire in the fireplace and, once its flames became worthy of heat, I began stripping out of my many layers. Winter had not yet come, but the bite of the cold had.

Preparations for supper were effortless and I quickly had a pot of stew cooking above the fire. Aromas of beef, carrots, and onions permeated the warm air of my cabin, teasing my hunger with unavoidable allure.

After I had devoured my food and grown content within my dwelling, I pulled a book from my small collection and started drifting into the words there contained. The Secret Apparatus by Arel Terriblar spoke to me with eons of restless, inhabitable imagery; I found myself crawling within the words rather than reading them.

[Sharkchild]

Listen to Episode 32 of The Dark Verse, Pathway For The Dead, now!

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Excerpt:

There was a path that led to all places, but it grew weak. As a canyon of only slight width, spreading through the horizons of the universe, it fought to exist between the gargantuan pressures of surrounding landscapes. These landscapes, formed of all things malice and chaos, fought to bring about the end of division, while the canyon, the path—the journey of organized direction and linear decision—was the last component of perpetuality for the furnace of ongoing creation.

Through this path, the dead marched, uncountable, unending. Spirits imprisoned and appearances unrecognizable, these soldiers of the afterlife trekked to the reaches of all there was to know. Like mechanics, the dead acted as the gears to which things continued. They never slowed or stopped; they never spoke or resisted. It was they who carried the energies of life and connected all existence.

One moment the path was as it should have been, and the next, it was gone. The brutish landscapes pushed their way to victory, collapsing the canyon that had bred since the beginning of time. There were no more dead to be seen; there was no balance left to divide. All of the dead had been crushed, vanquished—all blended together.

And when this occurred, I came to life.

[Sharkchild]

Close out 2008 and start 2009 with the new episode from The Dark Verse entitled The Road Show!

Listen to it or download it at TheDarkVerse.com

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Excerpt:

“Step right up. Come see what ya’ve been waiting for—things ya could never dream of!”

The man who spoke these words with such easy excitement was a haggard looking, traveling salesman. His brown, greasy hair was parted to the right and his pants sagged with a loosely fitted belt. His name was Mick Driggler, but the people in my town called him Mr. Wonder—not for his talented speaking or illustrious products, but because of the very mysterious entertainment value he had been endowed with. He traveled with and sold unusual merchandise—things never seen or heard of—but the generous length of his temporary stay in my town was rather strangely due to a token of theatrics.

Once a day, Mr. Wonder would halt his business ventures, set up a curtain in front of his truck and trailer, and enact a marionette show of grand humor and applaud-worthy satisfaction. For this show, people gathered over and over again, never growing bored of the odd man’s amusing endeavors. People loved it so much so that they gave money to the man, giving him the incentive he needed to remain.

It was three weeks after Mr. Wonder arrived before I became uncontrollably curious about him and his enterprise.

[Zero]

are there any monkeys in this story??