Untold Podcast

​The Bitter Souls team tracks down a Rougarou in the Louisiana bayous. But is it a man to rescue, or a monster to slay?

untold_podcast_111_-_the_wolf_of_acadiana.mp3 File Size: 66710 kb File Type: mp3 Download File (Right Click to Save)

The legends say the Rougarou has plagued the New Orleans bayous for centuries. With the body of a man and the head of a wolf, it has the appetite of a monster: human flesh. One version of the legend says a Rougarou is born when a cursed man consumes the flesh of another man. Another says the creature manifests around the time of Lent to hunt down any Catholics who violate the holy time. Still another says the Rougarou is a creature that has passed its curse from one man to another since the very founding of New Orleans. It is said the curse of the Rougarou is transferred when the creature bites a man without killing him . . .

​At the end of World War II, a group of German dissidents await their execution for speaking against the Nazi regime.

untold_podcast_110_-_the_iron_gate.mp3 File Size: 41304 kb File Type: mp3 Download File (Right Click to Save)

Spring had come again to Germany that April in 1945, after a hard winter of the hell of war. 

​In the remote town of Alte Kirchenstadt, rumors were swirling like fluffs of pollen from the wild flowers gaily dotting the nearby hills. The Nazi regime was near collapse and the nation was in ruins. 

The rumors reached even through the medieval stone walls of Eiderisernes Tor Krankenhaus on the ridge overlooking the town center. The Tor, a long abandoned hospital for the insane, had been seized by the Nazi soldiers and converted to a prison for dissidents and other local nuisances. 

​Two astronauts almost become the first people to explore interstellar space.

untold_podcast_109_-_the_extent.mp3 File Size: 25997 kb File Type: mp3 Download File (Right Click to Save)

The Diamond hurtled through the ether. Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn passed without notice. Neptune and Uranus soon followed.

Next came tiny Pluto and the other denizens of the Kuiper belt—MakeMake, Haumea, and thousands of cold rocks with only letters and numbers for names. Twisted, broken, misshapen bodies. Known for their uniqueness, scale, and remoteness.

Then came the scattered disk, with its eccentric bodies. Small, icy denizens that, led by tiny Eris, seemed lost in their way. Lonely wanderers.
​
Finally, the ship passed the Oort Cloud, resting place of comets. The only boundary that remained was the heliopause. The extent of the sun’s influence. The start of interstellar space. 

​When John accidentally knocks over a cross on a mausoleum, it unleashes . . . something.

untold_podcast_108_-_the_sound_outside_the_church.mp3 File Size: 32373 kb File Type: mp3 Download File (Right Click to Save)

​John walked towards the church, passing through the cemetery among the gravestones, squeezing a rock in his hand. He looked at his white knuckles and saw his tears falling on them. His mouth twisted into an anguished snarl, and he threw the rock as hard as he could. It flew into the dark and hit something. He heard the sound of something falling then breaking. John sighed and stared at the moon for a while, then went to inspect the damage.
 
A strange mausoleum he didn't remember seeing before loomed in shadow. What appeared to have been a stone cross affixed above the door now lay shattered on the ground. John gathered up the pieces and put them into his jacket pocket. He promised himself to tell the pastor when he saw him next and pay for it somehow.

​There are more things in Heaven and Earth. . . One of them must kill tonight.

107_-_an_elven_eve.mp3 File Size: 46413 kb File Type: mp3 Download File (Right Click to Save)

I must kill tonight.

I know this from the moment I enter the vehicle. The knowledge weighs upon my shoulders as the driver takes us through the streets of Reykjavik. It remains as we stop. It is still there as Hekla climbs into the seat beside me

“Hello, Uncle!”

​Sweet, innocent little Hekla. For a moment, I share her smile and forget. 

​When young Pierre loses his sight in an explosion, he discovers a deeper way of seeing the village around him.

untold_podcast_106_-_listen_listen_listen_mcdonnell.mp3 File Size: 81182 kb File Type: mp3 Download File (Right Click to Save)

It had been two weeks since the accident at school. Pierre’s frail schoolboy body had recovered; his arm and chest no longer ached. But he was now blind. The bandages had been removed from his eyes and now life was a puzzle he had to sort through.

Weeping, hovering over his hospital cot, his parents and the doctors had told him to expect blackness, nothingness, confusion. However, those had not come. For, instead of dark static nothingness, there was sound, vibrations, and waves -- the emanations of living things.

​The future is gone. A nightmare has come-- and it's all her fault.

untold_podcast_105_-_the_final_line.mp3 File Size: 44936 kb File Type: mp3 Download File (Right Click to Save)

When the nightmare began, I was blind. My eyes are open now—and it’s too late.
 
Drone motors whine far above, the noise vibrating into my bones. I count three from the sound, maybe four. Even if I could risk line of sight, the sun’s going down fast. I can only pray the pillar behind me masks my heat signature.
           
The whine gets closer. I close my eyes, breathe, force my heartbeat into regularity. The pistol feels slick in my hands. I need the rifle, but it’s strapped across my back, and there’s no chance to reach it. I was never born to be a soldier—let alone playing G.I. Jane this side of Doomsday.
 
I wish you were with me, Alan. I wish… everything.

A demonic force oppresses a successful man.  ​

untold_podcast_104_-_severing_shadow.mp3 File Size: 40705 kb File Type: mp3 Download File (Right Click to Save)

A chilled shudder raced up my spine. Every muscle tensed, paralyzed by fear. Terror’s icy grip latched onto my throat, robbing my lungs of breath. I tried to clench my eyes shut, terrified by the looming darkness that lurked by my bedside, but they were pried open by a supernatural force.

A vile entity cloaked in shadow drew close to me, whispering hateful blasphemy. Chilled breath blew against my face. Goosebumps rippled across my skin. Dead, yellowed eyes peered through to me and into the deepest reaches of my soul.

​ ​Cassidie is part of the third generation of children to be born into Vibrant Village, a nursing home turned sanctuary, which protects her and its inhabitants from the dangers of the outside world.

untold_podcast_103_-_vibrant_village.mp3 File Size: 28360 kb File Type: mp3 Download File (Right Click to Save)

My great-grandmother died last week. She was the only window I had to a world outside of Vibrant Village. The walls seemed to thicken with each day of her passing. 
​
When Nonna Lola was young, she was hired as a nurse and hairstylist for Vibrant Village, a self-sustaining nursing home complex. My Nonna told me it had been built in a deserted shopping mall. The nursing home was designed to look and function like a small town to help residents, particularly those with dementia, feel more at ease. As a child, I would go into her room, lie down in the bed next to her, and listen to her stories. Stories about the beginning of the village, the moon, space travel, the Great Pandemic, and butterflies. 

​Eralys waits for the village council's verdict while wearing her ethereal ring.

untold_podcast_102_-_hide_fox_and_all_after.mp3 File Size: 16577 kb File Type: mp3 Download File (Right Click to Save)

Eralys twisted her ring, one visible to no one but her, as she waited for the village council's verdict. The bezel head held a smooth, green stone, but the foreign silver burned cold against her skin. A mysterious jongleur from a far-off land had given her the ring, whispering its secrets and admonishing her to use it well.