Welcome to Sudapod, the weekly horror podcast. What follows is horror fiction read in tooth and claw and not for the faint hearted. Consider yourself warned.

Sudapod, episode 754, April 23rd, 2021. This week's stories, flash on the boardlines 55, the easily digested hurt.

Welcome to flash on the boardlines 55. We actually have a subtitle quote for this one, a fantasy the way it could, a picture of us in a dream.

Hold on, let's do it. I'm Alistair, your host and this week's stories could safely be summed up by that quote, left carved with an elegant hand and a curiously sharp, to implement into the stone of Sudapod Towns by editorial.

As ever these stories are horror, please proceed with caution, because after all, they're all true.

Our first story this week is step down, step down by Alexandra Duncan. This is a Sudapod original. Alexandra is an author and librarian whose YASF novels salvage sounds and blight are available now and whose short fiction has appeared in countless markets.

We'll have more details of Alexandra's experience in the show notes.

The reader for this story is Tina Connolly, one of our regular hosts over at Escape Pod and a phenomenal horror author in her own right.

I kind of recommend her anthology, stories from the eyeball floor, enough. So, like I say, time for a true story.

Step Down, Step Down by Alexandra Duncan.

You've heard the ballads of young women murdered, drowned down by the river banks. I am one such maid.

He asked me once to be his love. He asked it to and three. I never knew my answer would be the death of me.

Sometimes we are killed by brigands, other times by a cruel sister, but most often by our lovers.

We are always rosy, cheap and demure. We die beautiful and tragic, and our murder sings as lament from the gallows. He regrets it, but he had no choice.

Fate drove his hand. Perhaps he even placed a pose in our cold grip as we lay among the long grass.

As for me, Step Down and I will tell you, was I murdered by a draft of poisoned wine, a rapier through my breast, a blow to the head as I stood gazing at the way the light of the late afternoon turned the river to molten gold.

What did I think of in those final moments? The sweet drop of honeysuckle as he pinched the bloom and touched the stamen to my tongue.

The way the leaves show their pale underbellies in a storm. My little sister slipping her small feet into my shoes. Step down among the reeds and I will tell you.

I always heard tell of angel bands and welcoming arms on the other side, but instead I find myself here.

In the winter ice clings to the rocks along the bank and the water is frigid. Its surface is gray as my skin. Gray is the sky and below my hair streams slick as the currents.

Not even the fish and frogs keep me company. They are rooted down in the mud waiting for a friendly air season.

But then summer comes and the polywags and minnows and young men such as yourself. The water never grows much warmer. Put your feet in.

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