Liars' League

An Odd Fish by Lisa Farrell

Read by Josie Charles (podcast here, first story)

My man went with the rest, down to the sea. To mended nets and patched boats, and stories of the night before. The sun was bright, so they strode bare to the waist, muscles flexing as they pushed their crafts into the foam, laughing at each other’s jokes.

The children went too, clambering sure-footed and long-legged over the rocks towards the cliffs, to see what treasures the waves had deposited in the rockpools. The braver ones might climb those cliffs or dive into the sea for pearls, their mothers scolding and praising those that returned with a prize.

I retreated into the cool shade of the trees, while the other women set to their work at the river, gossiping as they scrubbed the scales from yesterday’s catch, leaving flesh raw. I cradled useless hands inside long sleeves, and hung my head as I passed the others, their gazes slipping over me. Pity is a terrible mercy, so easily it gives way to something worse. My husband’s sisters bore the brunt of my work, when my wrists swelled and fingers stiffened.

Never Goes Out by Sophie Bloom

Read by Patsy Prince (final story in podcast, here)

How to put this?

I was looking for a flat, and then I found a flat and Heaven knows … that didn’t go so well. 2019 hadn’t been a great year anyway. First I lost my job, then my dog died, then my boyfriend left me for a woman who was literally called Jolene. I know it sounds like a country song, but that was the actual order of events. And the worst thing was that our shared flat in Vauxhall actually belonged to my now-ex, Johnny, so I had to move out. Except I couldn’t afford to live in London any more because I’d lost my zero-hours contract at HMV.

I had six months’ worth of savings and no interest in living, so I decided to move back to Manchester to make the misery last. I slept too much, ate too little, took up smoking and made endless cups of tea which went cold while I stared emptily at the grey Moss Side rain. Apart from that, I pretty much wasted my time. The dodgy-looking middle-aged guy I sublet the flat from turned up to take the deposit and give me the keys, then instantly ghosted me. Which was ironic, given what followed.

The Burning Boys by Jon Hayes

Read by Zach Harrison (fourth story in podcast, here)

There’s a small town buried in the Californian desert where boredom can be fatal. Maybe ten thousand people total live there, battling the constant enemies of hundred degree heat, dust that clogs and chokes everything in sight, and a landscape that runs from rust coloured to burnt umber with nothing much in between. The locals refer to it as ‘shit-town’ and I can’t say they’re wrong. There’s not much you can do about the heat or dust, but the local kids do have a unique cure for the boredom.

During the week it’s quiet because there’s nothing much to do but get in each other’s business in a half-hearted sort of way and work on your car. But as Friday night approaches the teenagers start to get jittery and ornery like a junkie itching for a fix, and arguments spark over nothing at all. No one talks about it, but what they’re all feeling is that loose, liquid sensation you get the in the pit of your stomach when you get too close to the edge of a canyon, and dare yourself to peek.

An Esteemed Family Business by Sarah McDermott

Read by Rich Keeble (third story in podcast, here)

Memorandum from the desk of James Andrews, junior filing clerk at Mitchell, Sons and Candy, solicitors. Dated 25 September, 1896.

Dear Mr. Candy,

As I was reviewing the quarterly files, I couldn’t help but notice that one of our clients — a Mr Dracula — has bought five or six crumbling old houses in and around London.

Some of these properties have been on our books since Mitchell, Sons and Candy was merely Mitchell and Sons. They must be in a dreadful state of disrepair. Surely we could have found him a more suitable range of properties to invest in! Are the firm’s partners aware of this curious transaction?

Your humble servant,

James Andrews

New Tongues by Cassidy Phillips

Read by Peter Kenny (second story in podcast, here)

It is not true to say that the dead have come back. That it has been said – and shall no doubt continue to be said among the “panicking classes” – is regrettable, but also rather inevitable. Such pronouncements have a certain romantic appeal, after all, and that is the cornerstone of any good naive theory. However, these claims are founded on a series of culture-bound misunderstandings which necessarily distort our perception of the matter at hand. Cultural baggage cannot help us here: this is not an occurrence which can be understood by appealing to our knowledge of lurid comics, holy books or late-night movies. It is nothing so easy to digest.

The first and most common misapprehension is the assumption that we are discussing some kind of new and heretofore undocumented condition. We are not. The fact of the matter is that said condition has been known of for some time, but it is so slight a thing that most members of society shall not have encountered it.

Those whose work brings them into contact with cadavers, however – cadavers in their natural, non-sanitised state – have been reporting this phenomenon since the early 1960s. It is something which is to some extent familiar to paramedics, morticians, hospital orderlies, care home workers, police officers, even end-of-life counsellors, but which taboo and common courtesy dictate is not discussed outside of these professions.

 

Wetico by Jennifer Gaboury

Read by Katy Darby (fifth story in podcast, here)

“In our language we have this word ‘wetico’ which means cannibal: one who eats not literally the flesh and blood of another, but who eats the life of another”

– Jack Davis, Professor of Native American Studies, University of California.

The wire quivers, the wrists and ankles flick, the head jerks upright, the arms rise, the legs dance. The string winds round the world, conducting ten billion bodies and me. Black holes open in our palms; a thin blue line manifests where our mouths used to be. We no longer speak. We reach, we eat. Consumption consumes us. But didn’t it always?

She doesn’t look at me when she groans through stitched lips. Her ghosted eyes rove over racks of clothes as she pulls down ten articles at a time, the tongues of her palms slavering over the fabrics, the teeth in her hands cribbing the hangers. When I rub my hands down my jumper and jeans, the drool forms a hoarfrost-sort of lacquer, like a dry hound-lick. I’ve spotted designer boots. I leave her swimming in a pile of cashmere cardies.

Hallowe'en event: TOIL & TROUBLE, Tue 8th October

Double double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble ...

We grave-robbed six terrifying tales for our TOIL & TROUBLE pre-Hallowe'en special on Tuesday 8th October at The Phoenix. These brand-new short stories, read by our professional actors, featured spiritual cannibalism, lovelorn witches, talking corpses, ghosts on fire, Dracula's estate agent, and the shade of a post-punk icon ...

WINNING STORIES for TOIL & TROUBLE

Wetico by Jennifer Gaboury, read by Keleigh Wolf

New Tongues by Cassidy Phillips, read by Peter Kenny

An Esteemed Family Business by Sarah McDermott, read by Rich Keeble

The Burning Boys by Jon Hayes, read by Zach Harrison 

An Odd Fish by Lisa Farrell, read by Josie Charles

Never Goes Out by Sophie Bloom, read by Patsy Prince 

Doors open at 7pm for a 7.30 start and tickets are £5 on the door (currently cash only, sorry, but there's a cashpoint 2 minutes away). Entry includes a programme, participation in our infamous book quiz where terrific horror fiction can be won, and of course all the sweets and candy you can eat. Drinks and food are available at the bar throughout. There's no pre-booking, but tables for four or more can be reserved by calling 07808 939535.

The venue is the downstairs bar at: The Phoenix Pub, 37 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0PP

Accessibility note: Access to the basement is via stairs: there's no lift, sadly. The Phoenix is 5 minutes' walk from Oxford Circus tube station, which is on the Victoria, Bakerloo and Central lines

Kind, Intelligent, Generous by Georgie Melrose

Kind Intelligent Generous MP3

Read by Annalie Wilson

I knew Adam wasn’t The One when I found out that he didn’t think I was funny. It’s not something people usually just come out and say – I guess that’s how I dated the man for three years without realising. When he told me, which I’ll get to, it hit me that in life we all operate in our own siloed-off worlds; connection occurs as much within our heads as it does in reality. I blundered around for years laughing at Adam’s jokes, thinking that the kind, intelligent and generous man I was with also had a sense of humour. The realisation he didn’t was like glass of cold water to the face, followed quickly by another, when I realised he had never understood my sparkling wit. So, I left him.

The Man in the End Terrace by Catherine Edmunds

The Man in the End Terrace MP3

Read by Gloria Sanders

South Cleatlam is more street than village - two rows of mean terraces facing each other, built a hundred years ago for the men at the pit that closed as soon as it opened. Out back there's the netty[i], and then the farmer's fields. Cheryl’s dog got lost in the fields one time. Her brother said the tractor ran it over; it got sliced up in the machinery and spattered all over the place. Cheryl’s brother found this very funny, so she told him the owl that sat on the fencepost would peck his eyes out, and Cheryl’s brother said fuck off and took a Stella out the fridge, but ever since then he looks warily at the fencepost whenever he passes it.

Ray by Sadie Nott

Read by Miranda Harrison

The hood of Jessie’s parka was pulled forward so it was not until she was nearly home that she caught her first glimpse of him. A huge ginger Tom, stretched out in their window box. He was squashing the purple crocuses her mum, Dawn, had planted there. A bit of nature to counteract all the car fumes, Dawn had said.

When Jessie opened the gate, she realised with a start it was not a cat at all. The fox opened one eye. Jessie took off her rucksack and held it protectively across her chest. You could tell from the size of him that it was a male fox. The jangle of Jessie’s keys didn’t seem to faze him. She wanted to shoo him away but something about him made her hesitate. Brazen, that’s what Nan would have called him, if she was still around.

Not Like Other Girls by Lizzie Milton

Not Like Other Girls MP3

Read by Arden Fitzroy

Dad was a bit surprised when mum gave birth to one million spiders. Everyone was. I mean they would be - giving birth to one million spiders is not typical. The thing about giving birth to one million spiders, the reason spiders give birth to one million spiders, is that most of them will die. Sometimes they crawl off to seek their fame and fortune in foreign lands, but usually they just die.

This was exactly what happened with mum and dad which, as you can imagine, for them was a bloody relief. What do you do with one million spiders? Granted, on a one-to-one ratio one spider is much lower maintenance than one baby, but one million ... that’s a lot of spiders.

Dwarfs Don't Die by Doro Boehme

Dwarfs Don't Die MP3

Read by Sophie Cartman

I smear a slug of Nutella onto a halved Granny Smith. She scatters the animals: the octopus in a sweater, the disemboweled lion, a furry white blood cell holding hands with a glassy-eyed botulism tube – plush-toy microbes scaled up from seven zeros and a decimal point to fist-size velvet. They’ll populate seven hills and a forest, threaten Snow White but won’t harm her. Bear went missing last week in the park but remains present in spirit; we talk about him a lot. There’s a unicorn, just in case, but realistically, it’s too small to corner miracles, not in Chicago. Mostly it gets kicked under the bed when she flees from the hunter. And we prop up a creature with appendages so unproportioned and facial features so ill-defined, we call it Ms. Speass because we don't know anyone else by that name.

Ink by Aileen O'Farrell

Read by Carrie Cohen

I may be the last typesetter in England. And like the last speaker of a tribal language I am increasingly in a world of my own. I speak of ink levels and typefaces, margins and frames, and the young activists nod at me but they cannot really grasp it. They have seen printed works of course – exquisite books in libraries and newspapers in museums. Artefacts from a more beautiful and a more primitive age. Metal. Ink. Paper. To think we once had to cut down forests to share our stories. The clamour of presses, the stink of chemicals.

LATEST EVENT: Women & Girls, Tuesday 13th August

NEXT EVENT: TOIL & TROUBLE (pre-Hallowe'en show) on Tuesday 8th October.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Sunday 1st September

Our annual Women & Girls special, where all the writers, protagonists and readers are female, featured six authors, from the US, Ireland, Australia and UK - and six excellent actresses too, of course. Together they gave us tales of witty bankers, hyper-connected dystopias, vulpine lovers, lonely Durham teens, Snow White gone wrong, and dating dilemmas of the giant spider.

WINNING STORIES FOR WOMEN & GIRLS
Dwarfs Don't Die by Doro Boehme NEW AUTHOR - read by Sophie Cartman
Not Like Other Girls by Lizzie Milton NEW AUTHOR - read by Arden Fitzroy
Ray by Sadie Nott NEW AUTHOR - read by Miranda Harrison
Kind, Intelligent, Generous by Georgie Melrose NEW AUTHOR - read by Annalie Wilson
The Man in the End Terrace by Catherine Edmunds NEW AUTHOR - read by Gloria Sanders
Ink by Aileen O'Farrell - read by Carrie Cohen

Doors open at 7pm for a 7.30 start and tickets are £5 on the door (currently cash only, sorry, but there's a cashpoint 2 minutes away). Entry includes a programme, participation in our infamous book quiz where fantastic books by women can be won, and of course all the sweeties you can eat. Drinks and food are available at the bar throughout. There's no pre-booking, but tables for four or more can be reserved by calling 07808 939535.

The venue is the downstairs bar at: The Phoenix Pub, 37 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0PP

Accessibility note: Access to the basement is via stairs: there's no lift, sadly. The Phoenix is 5 minutes' walk from Oxford Circus tube station, which is on the Victoria, Bakerloo and Central lines

Frozen Futures by Rhys Timson

Frozen Futures MP3

Read by Tony Bell

Shortly after he turns thirty-five, Tony decides to have his head frozen after he dies. Frozen isn’t the right word. Vitrified is the word, but he’s not really sure what that means. His whole body would have been preferable, but it is too expensive. Besides, he is confident the future scientists will be able to regrow his body using the cells from his head, like a seed grows a tree, or else he will be granted a robotic body with titanium bones and wiry sinews, like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator, the T-800, but with a human brain.

He doesn’t tell his wife, partly because he knows she will think he is crazy and partly because when he thinks about the future he doesn’t really see her. He sees hoverboards and flying cars and underwater cities and 3D video billboards showing Japanese women applying cherry-red lipstick. What he doesn’t see is his wife or his two children or a semi-detached house in Guildford with black mould on the bathroom ceiling and a dishwasher that gets clogged up with pieces of pasta every few weeks. And besides, his marriage vows said ‘till death us do part’.

How to be an Astronaut by Alice Franklin

How to be an Astronaut MP3

Read by Gloria Sanders

1. Read

You are young when you start reading books about space. Event horizons, the Oort Cloud and the Kuiper Belt enter your lexicon long before you learn to spell the word egg-zill-er-ate-ing, acc-sell-er-ate or happy-ness. Your school doesn’t allow you to write in pen. They’re not even teaching physics. “My Very Easy Method Just Shows Us Nine Planets” was something you learnt when you were three, and when you were four, your learnt it was false.

By seven: “Pluto is not a planet, Miss,” you say.

“Yes, it is,” the teacher says. “Pluto is most definitely a planet. It says so in your textbook.”

The textbook is twenty years old, which means it’s thirteen years older than you, which means it is shit.

London 2025 by Wan Shinfah

London 2025 MP3

Read by Cliff Chapman

Others might remember things differently, but if you ask me, something changed after he started time-travelling. That's not to say there was a clean break between before and after. I think he took it up because he needed something new in his life, something to give him a bit of a jolt, to broaden his horizons – a lot of us need that these days – but I reckon that's when things started to get worse.

I remember the first time, he didn't even tell me. He said he was going to China, but not the Yangtze Valley in 1931. Maybe he wasn't going to say anything at all – he was always a very private person – but when he returned, he couldn't contain it.

"The crazy thing is how similar it is," he said, drumming his long fingers across the crumbs on our shared kitchen table. "Like, I know this sounds kind of dumb, but the past doesn't feel like it's the past. You expect it's going to be, I dunno, black and white or it'll somehow feel far away and faded and ... historical! ... but it just feels like this. Like you and me here."

Proxima Centauri by Oliver Parkes

Proxima Centauri MP3

Read by Greg Page

The toolbox clattered as Jim flung himself down the hallway. He had to fix the hole in the roof or else he’d run out of oxygen and die. Again.

‘Oxygen levels depleting. Please report to the impact site immediately.’ It was good to hear the computer again, Jim thought. When the debris struck the ship, the whole system had gone quiet.

He placed the sheet of metal over the hole and, gloveless, used the blowtorch to weld the two together. He only had a little training from Daniels, who seemed to have a toolbox permanently attached to the end of his arm. Jim had been a surgeon on Earth, so at least he had a steady hand. The pull of the vacuum wasn’t quite enough to drag him out into space as the ship’s gravity well had increased to keep him on board, but his hair still fluttered in the escaping air.

His concentration lapsed for a moment - he was thinking of the next step, whether to stop the fire himself or let the ship’s suppression system handle it - and he cut through his finger.

The Martlet by Abigail Lee

The Martlet MP3

Read by Lois Tucker

They all went for a walk on Ramsgate beach before lunch and found a dozen washed-up dogfish, dull-grey in death, with down-slit, gurning mouths like sad baby sharks, scattered over the otherwise unblemished, sunny sand. It took the gleam off the morning, and they retreated up the zigzagging sea-stairs where chalk fell from the paperwhite cliffs and people wrote their names on the concrete. Ceri’s work-friend Lo, exhaustingly playful, grabbed a piece and scrawled their names, the date and HAPPY 30th CERI! 

At the rundown clifftop café they all bought cheap icecream and chips: nobody wanted fish now. Gulls and pigeons, sensing bounty, attacked in waves, and Rachel noticed one scruffy pigeon lingering longer, more exhausted than the others. It had an angry pink bubblegum blob where one of its feet should be, and hobbled about with a theatricality which in a human would imply faking.

Latest event: INFINITY & BEYOND on Tuesday 11th June

WE HAVE LIFT-OFF! Our sci-fi-flavoured special to commemorate 50 years since the moon landings featured five forward-looking stories exploring the ultimate theme. Our lit-loving audience teleported into The Phoenix, Cavendish Square on Tuesday 11th June to experience deep space, time-travel tourism, cryogenics gone wrong, vanishing clones, astronautical ambitions and a terrifying game of Murder in the Dark ... You can find the YouTube video playlist here, the podcast here, and the texts of all the stories here (along with individual videos and MP3s). 

INFINITY & BEYOND WINNING STORIES
London 2025 by Wan Shinfah NEW AUTHOR, read by Cliff Chapman
Proxima Centauri by Oliver Parkes NEW AUTHOR, read by Greg Page
How to be an Astronaut by Alice Franklin, read by Gloria Sanders
The Martlet by Abigail Lee, read by Lois Tucker
Frozen Futures by Rhys Timson, read by Tony Bell

Usual NASA rules apply: doors open at 7pm for a 7.30 start and tickets are £5 on the door (currently cash only, sorry, but there's a cashpoint 2 minutes away). Entry includes a programme, participation in our infamous book quiz where fantastic science fiction can be won, and of course all the Flying Saucers you can eat. Drinks and food are available at the bar throughout. There's no pre-booking, but tables for four or more can be reserved by calling 07808 939535.

The venue is the downstairs bar at: The Phoenix Pub, 37 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0PP

Accessibility note: Access to the basement is via stairs: there's no lift, sadly. The Phoenix is 5 minutes' walk from Oxford Circus tube station, which is on the Victoria, Bakerloo and Central lines

Last Rites by Jess Worsdale

Last Rites MP3

Read by David Mildon

We were bowling down a bóithrín with Springsteen on the radio when we hit the cow. It was me and Cian and Rob in the back, Aidan driving and no-one in the front because he’d said it would be a distraction and besides, he needed space for the suits. We’d always relied on Eoin to protest this kind of behaviour and when no one said anything I abruptly realised how coltish our friendship now was, and wondered whether we’d ever be able to rebalance it. Still, it was cosy, the three of us sharing warm elbows and nips of whisky like auld ones on a park bench. Aidan drank nothing except peppermint tea, which he’d brought in a monogrammed flask with a self-conscious and challenging air about him that none of us rose to. A pink winter afternoon and the smudged grass and hedgerows whipped by as we rolled west into the cowboy sunset.

It had been Aidan’s idea to drive. This time of year and the coaches were full of Midlands shoppers on pilgrimage to the sales both ways along the M6. At this short notice it’d be cheaper and anyway it wasn’t often that all of us were back together so we might as well make the best of it.