Posts Tagged ‘Matthew Claxton’

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Escape Pod 821: Payday Weather

Escape Pod 821: Payday Weather is an Escape Pod original.

Cursing and peril.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:32 — 60.2MB)

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Payday Weather

By Matthew Claxton

We wound our way up the curving canyon roads in overloaded pickups and hatchbacks, corners taken too fast, sagging bumpers kissing asphalt, engines redlining from effort and heat. Our procession passed an exodus going the other way — sleek luxury EVs and fat-tired cargo haulers — heading for safety, away from the hills and the scrub and the smell of smoke on the wind. We were happy, arms hanging out of windows, slapping time to the songs on the speakers. From behind the wrought-iron gates of a mansion, a sleek couple looked up from overseeing their packing and stared.

“Could fucking smile,” Kerry said. “We’re here to save their shit.”

I leaned out the window of Kerry’s ancient Nissan and took in a lungful of dry air. There was the familiar SoCal hydrocarbon and ozone reek, but underneath that was the taste of dust scoured from high mountain passes, of charred pine and scorched chaparral.

The Santa Ana winds were dancing out of the desert. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 635: After Midnight at the ZapStop

Escape Pod 635: After Midnight at the ZapStop is an Escape Pod original.

Swearing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:21 — 58.3MB)

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Show Notes

This story references a concept called “mirror neurons,” that’s subject to some controversy in the scientific community. Escape Pod’s current Assistant Editor happens to be a neuroscientist who shared some thoughts on the topic: http://benjaminckinney.com/mirror-neurons/

After Midnight at the Zap Stop

By Matthew Claxton

When the guy with the horns came in, I knew it wouldn’t be a good shift.

He scowled when the ZapStop’s doors refused to slide open for him. Ignoring the late-hours doorbell, he pounded one meaty fist on the shatterproof polycarbonate. The young woman beside him, hands tucked into the pouch of her hoodie, shifted uncomfortably.

I considered leaving them standing in the parking lot, but much as I’d like to have the ten p.m.-to-six a.m. shifts uninterrupted by customers, they were kind of the point. I hit the door release and let them in.

Under the bright store LEDs, I could see the forehead ornaments were new. Big, curling ram’s horns, straight out of a Rocky Mountain wildlife doc, joined across his forehead to give him a perpetual frown. Faint pink lines traced the graft below his hairline and just above his eyebrows where the whole mess had been slapped into place.

Typical frat boy, in other words. At least horns were less awkward than last year’s fashion for antlers. We’d lost a few ceiling tiles to those.

“Help you with anything?” I said.
(Continue Reading…)

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