S0202 The Twisted Wood by Tony Walker

The Classic Ghost Stories Podcast

Tony Walker

Science Fiction, Fiction, Drama

4.9 • 835 Ratings

🗓️ 13 September 2020

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

https://tonywalker.substack.com/ (Subscribe here, support The Classic Ghost Stories Podcast and obtain exclusive content.)The Twisted WoodWell, it's the anniversary of the Podcast! The first episode The Yellow Wallpaper went up a year ago, and what a year it has been. The Podcast has succeeded far more than I ever thought. When I started I just wanted to read the stories I enjoyed. It seems that others enjoy them too.We have also done some stories by living writers, so here's another. It's mine! This is the first story I've ever put up on the Podcast, and I'm doing it because it's the Podcast's first birthday. Happy Birthday, my friend!The Twisted Wood is in my new collection https://amzn.to/2RknlgY (Horror Stories for Halloween) Originally, it was going to be a story about the Mothman, but though it contains moths it got rather twisted and turned into a dark fairytale about a conceited community arts manager who is tempted to do a little stealing. We all know you shouldn't steal from the fairies, and we know even better than you must never ever take anything from fairyland. It ends with a bit of cannibalism, and I am struck that a number of the stories in Horror Stories for Halloween have a cannibalistic turn. What does that say about me?The setting is drawn o n an actual wood and the floods are those floods which hit my home area over the past decade and flooded me out of house and home not once but twice. I was once flooded out in Wales, so that's three times. And the third time is the charm, as they say.I was fired by a community arts manager when I was struggling to feed my small children on the basis I didn't "think like we do" which I swear was the reason they fired me. They know who they are. That's over fifteen years ago now, but I've paid him back in a story.This is one of my favourite stories. I allowed myself to go overboard with ornate language because I thought someone as pompous as his would use overblown language. The truth is I like it too. I've just read a Ray Russell story for the Podcast after all.So, if you liked my dark fairytale of someone getting their come uppence, check out my Newcastle Fairies which is somewhere around.I hope you liked my story. I enjoyed writing it, and reading it out!See you next week.Music by https://theheartwoodinstitute.bandcamp.com/music (The Heartwood Institute!) They rock.Download Charles Dickens The Signalman Free Mp3 https://bit.ly/dickenssignalman (Subscribe to our list and keep in touch with the podcast. Learn of new episodes and bonus Content. )Support our work PLUS you get a free story right now!(The Story Link is in the Thank You Email)Show Your Support With A Coffee!https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (Buy the thirsty podcaster a coffee...)Final Request: The SurveyI want to know what you want. If you have three minutes, I'd be grateful to know what you think of The Classic Ghost Stories Podcast.https://my.captivate.fm/Click%20here%20to%20go%20to%20the%20Survey (Click here to go to the Survey)Support the showVisit us here: www.ghostpod.orgBuy me a coffee if you're glad I do this: https://ko-fi.com/tonywalkerIf you really want to help me, become a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/barcudMusic by The Heartwood Institute: https://bit.ly/somecomeback Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The TRIES
0:07.0	Don't they?
0:10.0	Everybody come back.
0:12.0	Isn't that so?
0:14.0	You tried to get into the locked drawer today, didn't you?
0:17.0	How do the dead come back, mother?
0:20.0	What's the secret?
0:21.3	The twisted wood.
0:24.8	It had rained for days, endless biblical days of downpour that came relentlessly as the wind.
0:31.9	The deluge that threatened to break all banks and rise all rivers had arrived while I was at work, shuffling between meetings
0:39.6	and managers from Newcastle to Barrow, all the time in my car listening to Marla and Sibelius
0:46.3	and Iggy Pop, driving, driving, windscreen wet, drenched by torrents, becks in spate, overflowing the road.
0:56.4	You may know the road.
0:58.0	It runs straight to an extended cut of pines, not far from Solby.
1:03.3	No matter if you don't, I hardly know it.
1:06.2	The motorway had been flooded and foolish as I was,
1:09.1	I thought maybe this was a way through, back home to
1:12.3	Barrow or Baradice, as the wits have it, actually, Erzwick. Great. There wasn't much traffic
1:21.4	on it that night, as the darkness blossomed in from the east like a cancerous flower,
1:26.7	and soon enveloped the world.
1:29.5	The water sheet shone in the headlights. It stretched right across the road,
1:33.3	illuminated in my yellow beams as I slowed.
	...

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