Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The following is the story I narrated for the Auditory
Anthology podcast a few months ago. If you'd like to
hear the fully produced version with music and sound effects,
I've pleased a link to the full version in the
episode description. And if you're a fan of classic sci
fi stories from the fifties and sixties or quirky, short,
creepy stories, you'll want to subscribe to Auditory Anthology, which
you can do at auditoryanthology dot com. Escape by Lou Evans.
(00:35):
Four criminals hurried along the prisons corridors on Titan, the
largest moon orbiting Saturn. They didn't care about the loud
alarm announcing the escape. A siren and a group of
guards with sonic blasters would never scare them. The plan
had already been implemented and they simply needed to follow
it through to the end and be free. At that
(00:58):
very moment, the guards should be going in the opposite direction,
believing they would try to reach the spaceport and steal
one of the ships. However, the criminals headed for the
back of the prison. No one would imagine they sought
such an escape route, because the terrain on that side
was uneven and dangerous bordering an abyss, but a ship
(01:18):
waited for them not too far, and the idea of
freedom overcame any fear or caution. In the middle of
the corridor, they met one of the jailers, but he
was in fact an accomplice who had infiltrated the prison
to help in the escape. For that, he replaced a
recently hired employee who never made it to his new job.
(01:40):
The poor guy was probably lying at the bottom of
one of the craters. Armand the impostor guided them to
where he had hidden the space suits. They got ready
in seconds and proceeded to the back passage, which Armand
opened with his magnetic card. Then they walked out of
prison with broad smiles and excited roar. But the joy
(02:01):
gave way to sudden disorientation because of a thick orange
haze natural to that satellite. One of the men took
a few steps forward and suddenly disappeared. The communicators built
into their helmets picked up a high pitched scream that
lasted a few seconds, then silence. Ah, don't tell me,
(02:22):
you guys didn't know about the abyss. Better stay close
to the wall or you'll fall too. Armand casually commented,
making a sign of the cross. Carlo, the youngest, no
older than twenty, glued himself to the wall, for he
suffered from vertigo. The others, no less fearful of the
hole about a half meter from their feet, did the
(02:43):
same thing. Then, with great attention, they moved along, feeling
the oxygen tubes in the back of their suits, scratching
the rough wall, and only when the wall changed its
angle they moved away from the cliff's edge. They walked
briskly in single file behind Armand, who was the only
one to know the location of the small ship. They
(03:05):
laughed excited when they saw it up ahead. Titan's dense
atmosphere was composed mainly of nitrogen. There were rivers and
lakes not of water, but liquid methane and ethane. It
would not be pleasant to fall into them, so the
men doubled their attention and did not relax until they
crossed the terrain and stopped in front of the ship.
(03:27):
Only then did they look up to where Armand was pointing,
and saw saturn, ringed in different yellow hues, hovering superbly
above them. It was a stunning sight, but they felt
overwhelmed by the sense of proximity to the storm vortex
at the north pole of the great pale planet. The
vortex looked like the unblinking eye of a monster watching them.
(03:50):
But since they could not stay there gazing into the
gaseous eye, they got into the spacecraft that flew away
from Titan without wasting time. Celebrated their freedom with drinks,
and it wasn't long before all five were giggling and slobbering.
With the ship on autopilot, they went to sleep. The
snoring took over the space vehicle in a matter of minutes. Carlo, however,
(04:14):
could not rest. He squeezed his ears, molding the pillow
around his head, and he cursed the endless cavernous sounds
coming from his companions. He gritted his teeth, remembering every
sleepless night in prison because of the insistent fanfare of bagpipes.
Now in the middle of space, the same out of
tune symphony haunted him.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Bang bang, bang.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
The metallic sound stood out from the uninterrupted puffs. Was
it inside his head or outside? Still half dizzy from drinking,
he stood and walked out of his cubicle. The snoring
of his companions made him realize that he was the
only one awake. Carlo gritted his teeth and clenched his fists,
(05:00):
once again affected by the pig grunts that brought out
his most destructive tendencies. He took a deep breath and
tried to calm himself. He walked around the ship to
identify the source of the strange noise. He checked each
resting chamber, the restroom, the common area where they ate
their meals, the small cargo area where they kept their
(05:21):
weapons and tools, and the adjoining chamber with the circuits
and the engine. From there, he went to the pilot's
cabin and the decompression and decontamination chamber that preceded the hatch.
And in all these places he found nothing out of
the ordinary. So what the hell had caused the banging?
Had he dreamed it? He decided to drop the subject.
(05:45):
He scratched his head, yawned, turned around, and went to
bed with a sensation of needles poking his forehead. He
was not used to drinking and needed to rest, but
was again annoyed by the beastial snoring. Bang bang, bang shit.
He cursed softly. Had something collided with the ship's hull.
(06:08):
Had they reached the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.
Perhaps a space pebble struck the ship, but now the
deflector shield was activated. Bang bang bang. The young criminal
was surprised. The noise was the same as the one
he had heard the first time, with the same rhythm
at a short interval between each beat, bang bang bang.
(06:33):
It had to be his imagination, otherwise there would be
someone outside, which was impossible, he muttered. Bewildered by the
inexplicable phenomenon. Carlo went to the little round window of
his cubicle and watched the space. His heart raised, His
face and hands grew cold, as if his blood had
fled from the extremities of his body and concentrated in
(06:54):
his stomach. His eyes dilated. Shit, shit, double shit. A woman.
She was tall and slender, with shiny skin and long, dark,
lustrous hair. She looked at him, curving the corners of
her red lips in a seductive smile. Who the heck
was she? And how could she be alive on the
(07:16):
outside if she wasn't even wearing a spacesuit. The martian
didn't know what to think. Gasping, he tried, before anything else,
to take a deep breath, but he didn't dare close
his eyes. On the contrary, his attention was fixed on
the woman, who still smiled and waved for him. Carlo
wanted to call his companions, but he was stunned and
(07:39):
his voice didn't reach his mouth. It stuck in his throat.
He trembled so much that he thought his bones would
crack and crumble at any moment. Shivering at what he
thought was a ghost, Carlo dragged his feet to the
nearest cubicle where the pilot slept and shook his shoulder
in an attempt to wake him up. But the man
was the one who had been drinking the most and
(08:00):
did not react even to being kicked. On the contrary,
his snoring increased so much that Carlo's knees buckled. In
response to the endless snoring, he attacked the sleeper with
even greater violence. Next door armand opened his eyes and
got up to check what the problem was. What a
surprise he had when he witnessed the boy beating the
(08:22):
pilot in his sleep. Carlo felt a strong arm around
his neck and was dragged out of the cubicle armand
had a struggle to get the young criminal to the
common area of the ship, for he was out of
control and only calmed down when thrown aside, hitting his
face on the wall and breaking his nose, which began
to bleed. The pain made him stop struggling, although he
(08:43):
was still cussing you bastard at that moment. His greatest
desire was to skin armand alive. Heat was his biggest
issue and his most constant companion. Carlo had every imaginable
and unimaginable tendency to violence, and he had to put
lease himself all the time not to attack whoever was
by his side, be it an enemy, an ally, or
(09:06):
someone who was simply passing by. Are you crazy?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Boy?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Did you keep drinking after we went to bed? Armand barked,
running his hands through his disheveled hair and trying to
normalize his breathing after the effort of having towed him there.
I think so you think what that I'm crazy? I
must be delirious imagining things. He rubbed his face insistently,
sparing his cheeks with the blood that ran from his nose,
(09:30):
which hurt to the point of bringing tears to his eyes.
And what on earth could you possibly think of to
beat an unconscious man. He looks like he's in an
alcoholic coma. What came to your head for you to
attack the pilot?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
She did.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
He pointed to the window where the woman was spying,
but when Armand turned his head in that direction, she hid.
There's no one here but the two of us. What
do you even mean? I wish there were a woman
here I wouldn't even mind. And if she was ugly,
not in here, out there, Carlo said, with a crazed expression.
(10:07):
Armand exhaled impatiently and rolled his eyes to the top
of his head. You drank too much. How could there
be a woman outside? You aren't making sense. I know
I'm not making sense, but she is out there for real.
Armand grabbed him by the elbow and lifted him with
a violent jerk. Come on, you're talking crazy. I'll take
(10:28):
you to your cabin, wash your bloody face and go
to sleep. And I want to sleep too. No more
clowning around, understand. Carlo wanted to say something to convince him.
I couldn't find the right words. Anger full of teeth
chewed at his thoughts. Armand pushed him into the cubicle
and closed the door. Then he returned to his cabin
(10:48):
and threw himself on the bed, grumbling about the inconvenience.
Gradually the grumbling ceased and gave way to the shallow,
labored breathing typical of the dying of the drunk. Carlow
could feel his teeth scraping against each other. He laid
down and closed his eyes, but the sound filled his
ear canal and made his ear drums vibrate. In a
(11:11):
last attempt to stay sane, he turned his thoughts to
the beautiful space woman. Was she real or a fantasy?
After reflecting on this for long minutes without coming to
any rational conclusion, he felt his eyelids heavy and that instant.
The woman seemed to him only a sliver of his
(11:31):
unbridled imagination, and even the turbulent snorting of his companions
was distant.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Bang bang bang.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
He opened his eyes with a wild expression, his heart
raised again, the cold sensation on his face, hands, and feet,
as it always happened when he was startled, He slid
off the bed and dropped to his knees on the floor.
He put his hands together palmed to palm. Oh, Lord,
help me give me a sign of what I need
to do. He begged to the supernatural being his ancestors loved,
(12:02):
Bang Bang Bang. Turning his head to the side, he
saw her at his cubicle window again and was moved
by her pleading expression that he thought was a divine sign.
It was the answer to his question. He now knew
what to do. Surely, his mind was still working under
(12:23):
the influence of the alcohol and the sleep deprivation. Otherwise
he would have thought there was at the very least
something strange about it all. But struck by amazement, he
could only see the phenomenon as a miracle. After gesturing
to the woman so that she understood his intention, Carlo
left the cramped chamber on tiptoes, paying attention to his
(12:44):
companion's snores. He knew that he couldn't bring her aboard
if someone woke up, and thinking a little more about
the case, he concluded that even after giving her entrance,
he would have no way to keep the woman because
the others would force him to send her back out
into the cold and dark warkness of infinite space. He
stopped in front of the armory room. He felt his
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hands sweating, his forehead throbbing, and blood still dripped from
his smashed nose. His thoughts became a blur. The images
sometimes sped by, sometimes in slow motion, and all were
stained red. In such images, the pilot was decapitated, Armand's
limbs were severed from his chest, and each of the
(13:26):
others was part of a morbid picture, a macabre work
of art painted by extreme violence. In the end, his
companions no longer bothered him, no longer snoring. There was
only a supulchral silence.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Bang bang bang.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
She wanted him was calling him. Carlow hurried to the
hatch's antechamber, giving the necessary commands on the panel on
the wall. He opened the passage for the woman, and
the last thing his blurred vision registered was the entity
floating toward him with an angelic smile.