EscapePod, episode 1024.to-date voyage. This last I'm Alistair, your host, and this week's story is the last of our year-long tour of some

of the big numbers from EscapeBod's 20-year-to-date voyage.

This last one comes to us from Laura Pillman.

Laura's short fiction has appeared in Nature, Shimmer, Flash Fiction Online, and a handful

of other places.

Her lolcat captions have appeared in McSweeney's.

She has a tragically neglected blog called Unlikely Explanations, can be found on Blue Sky

at Laura's Bad Ideas and is the editor of our fifth show, Catscast.

This story was recorded live at Wilcon in 2018, so you should maybe know upfront the audience

response audio does sound a little bit crunchy,

but don't worry about it.

Because here's Laura, and here are some things we all need to know, because it's storytime. Some things I probably should have mentioned earlier by Laura Pearlman.

Dear Kevin, I'm sorry I waited so long to tell you this, but I really hate your vacation cabin.

Everything about it creeps me out. The sound of crickets at night makes my skin crawl. They sound like

impending doom, like a critical piece of equipment being worn down by friction, or a thousand

tiny voices hoarse from screaming reduced to a raspy warning chant in some ancient language.

The crickets aren't the only problem.

The smell of so much wood in one place makes my eyes burn.

And is it really necessary to throw pine cones into the fireplace?

Are the burnt wood fumes not overpowering enough?

I used to lie awake at night, fantasizing about finding whoever came up with

that idea, grinding them up, feeding them to the crickets, and then gathering up the crickets,

...