The Love Talker · Alien Ghost Robot / Celebrity Tumour

Episode 10 - The Love Talker

February 28, 2024·47 min·3 clips

Sister Ginevra reveals that the mountain community has for generations used ritual sacrifices to keep the Love Talker confined to the mountain — if he stays, the cities at Blacklog, Dogwood, Kinkibney, Roanoke, and Saltville are spared.

He stands handsome, and he stands false. At first the body nearly passes for human, red hair and bare skin, until the shape behind him gives itself away with dragonfly wings. Names will not hold. The gentleman, the jarfly, each title feels less like an answer than bait. Then the confession slips out. Tyler and Frankie would not leave them alone anymore. Fear is only a face, the speaker says. It has worn Colt, Yvette Brown, Frankie, and Tyler before the speaker did what they wanted. Monster is the word they refuse. The truth they offer is meaner and sadder: no one taught kindness, so anger became the only language that made sense. The mountain answers with torchlight. Flames rise near the clearing while masked hunters gather, painted as animals, spirits, straw, herbs, feathers, and deer horns. The weapons almost come second. Heartbeats turn into signals. The creature teaches listening as a way to hunt, tracking bodies by rhythm and saying prey weakens with time nearby. No pity comes. If the masked people carry murder in their hearts, the question goes, why give them mercy? Then comes the lure. A hesitant person is told to whisper, charm, and make a searching man obey.

As heard by us

Torchlit folk horror where masks, heartbeats, and predatory charm close in.

The Love Talker settles its dread into a few hard, physical details: a handsome red-haired figure, a huge insect-like shape behind him, and masked people moving in with torches, rifles, shotguns, machetes, and pitchforks.

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Why you'd press play

When you want a folk-horror audio fiction crawl where whispers, masks, and torchlight turn a clearing into a trap.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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