Episode 96: Sides by Clay Dugger
The Dunesteef is heartily sorry to present the second of their Lost Episode Trilogy, since it is so long overdue.
Carl Stanley has survived the Zombie Apocalypse so far, but that’s not to say he’s escaped unscathed. As a matter of fact, he was bitten by a little girl zombie, and now, he’s starting to feel and act strangely…
Afterward, Big and Rish chat about zombies, and talk a bit about the then-new “Walking Dead” TV series.
outtakes
Special thanks R.E. Chambliss for producing today’s story and for lending her voice to the episode.
Right click HERE to download the episode, select Save Link As, and save the file to your hard drive.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/dunesteef/Dunesteef_96_Sides_by_Clay_Dugger.mp3%20Related Links:
Clay Dugger’s Site
R.E. Chambliss’s Site
New Fiction Writers
Photos by: mateus27_24-25 and aeviin
Some sound effects were provided by freesound.org.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine 
March 22, 2011 at 5:49 am
Thanks for getting this up, guys! Hope the listener enjoys it!
March 22, 2011 at 11:57 am
Well Clay, if it’s any consolation, I think it was worth the wait. I remember reading this story on that all zombie, all the time website (I can’t think of its name at this point.) I like it! I think the “then and now” interplay format works quite well.
I also think it serves the story well to have some distance from “CHEMO: The Condemned” just so that your take on zombie’s stands apart. See, Big and Rish are just trying to take care of you ;)
March 22, 2011 at 4:26 pm
I may be biased, but I enjoyed this one more than most. “Raising Archie” is still tops with me, but this one was just fun.
I think the job they all did was fantastic! They even let me cameo!
March 22, 2011 at 4:29 pm
And, I agree about separating similarly themed stories. It would only distract from the quality of each.
March 23, 2011 at 9:31 am
I’m so glad you liked it, Clay. Sorry you had to wait to so long to hear it.
I had a great time putting “Sides” together and thought it was a terrific story. I loved how we (the reader/listener) end up rooting for the zombies. Also, “The Voice” was a lot of fun to…uh…voice. ;o)
Thanks, Big and Rish, for letting me do another one of these!
March 24, 2011 at 4:55 pm
Quality stuff, gang. Great story well told. Love the idea of Zombie Lite.
Does this mean that raw hamburger should be considered a Gateway Food?
“Sure, it’s only beef today.” That’s what they’ll say. “That’s how it starts. Then one day you come home and your daughter – your sweet sixteen little darling who swears to you that she’s still a vegan – she’s crouched over a pile of goo that used to be your golden retriever trying to suck Rover’s brains out of the eye socket with a crazy straw. Don’t tell me about beef. That’s beef.”
Thanks to everyone for another great story. Keep ’em coming!
March 25, 2011 at 9:32 am
Firstly, thank you for the praise and love, but I really couldn’t do it without my oompa loompas. They do the hard work of slogging, whereas I get to skim & rant where appropriate. We now have 17 slush monkeys in our employ, and they are a frisky and opinionated bunch.
Turn around time varies. There are some that stay in the stew for a long time, and others that get a response within 3-4 weeks. It all depends on how swamped we all are.
We’ll do our best to keep up with your punishing schedule in future!
March 25, 2011 at 12:20 pm
Just listened to the outtakes. Renee, your kids ARE amazing at this.
March 25, 2011 at 6:41 pm
I was gonna say the same thing.
March 27, 2011 at 11:36 am
I just showed this to them, and they were so excited. Thanks, guys!
March 26, 2011 at 8:45 am
Ok first the show is great guys I’ve been listen to you two for awhile and you have gotten better I can even say that if I had to choose between all the podcast I listen to yours is the best even better than the drabal cast don’t get me wrong Norm sherman is great but the get my goats on each is what’s puts you at the top (and you post more often than metamor city I love that cast) two things to mr.outfield one you once made a comment that Detroit is something like a apocalyptic after math in one of your rants I’m from Detroit even thou there is waste land to span the great casim of emptieness which is you sex life I bet if you came here I could get you even you laid in a day also spider man never look like a wimp as Peter Parker only in his suit don’t forget all the heroes of old where made with some obtainable element but everyone has a opinion at this is mine ONE MORE THING PLEASE NOMORE STORIES BY THAT GUY FROM THE DOWN UNDER MAN I FELL ASLEEP ATLEAST TEN TIMES EACH STORY AND I DON’T WANT TO LOS MY JOB I will donate as soon as I get a credit card it is black Xmas
March 27, 2011 at 9:43 am
I don’t want to be a jerk to Clay, who did a great job producing my story, but this one didn’t really do it for me. It was definitely well-written, but I wasn’t able to connect to the main character. I just didn’t see the appeal of joining the zombies’ ‘side,’ no matter how desperate or presumptuous the humans got. Frankly, I wouldn’t have blamed the scientists for taking the samples they needed while he was unconscious.
Perhaps it’s me. Maybe it’s just that I’m a little (*gasp!*) sick of zombies. I don’t know… zombies don’t have a point of view in the same way other antagonists do. Most villains, even monstrous villains, have a vision of what they want. Werewolves represent savagery and brutality, but there’s something kind of neat about that. You think about running wild beneath the moon, feeling your heart beat like the drums at the end of the world, and that’s a little sexy. I barely need to mention the appeal of vampirism. Demons are old and terribly wise, and they back up their arguments with knowledge of the secret names of stars and voices that once sang a part in God’s symphony.
Zombies want to eat.
In my mind, zombies make good stage dressing. They’re force-of-nature villains, and what’s exciting them is the extremes they force humans into. But those extremes are only interesting to me when they involve humans descending into cruelty to humans, not cruelty to zombies. I have no sympathy for this particular devil – there’s not enough there to have sympathy for.
So, yeah. Mechanically great, thematically, didn’t do it for me. See you next week!
Oh, by the way: this is for Rish. There’s an online crit group over at the Escape Artists forums. You just need to PM one of the mods to join. I’m there and Nathan is there, and a couple of your other authors, too. I think you should join us. I know you already have an Escape Artists login.
And if you don’t, why, then we will all know that you are a weenie.
That’s right, sir, a weenie.
I’ll see you in the crit group.
March 27, 2011 at 11:09 am
First off, Mark, if you can’t relate to a zombie eating everything it sees . . . you’re obviously not a fat guy.
Yet.
Secondly, unless this is the first show you’ve listened to, you KNOW I’m a weenie. What, exactly, is a crit group?
March 28, 2011 at 12:08 am
I am so a fat guy. I was playing D&D and the DM was all like “the dragon uses Instinctive Devouring to bite your paladin” and I was all like “ah, yes, instinctive devouring… I have that problem, too.”
Anyway, a crit group is where we post stories, get feedback, read each others’ stories, and give feedback. It’s a great bunch of friendly, fun, non-judgmental people. You can learn a lot about your writing and how to improve it by. Seriously, having a crit group you can trust, people who will get to know you and whom you will get to know, is absolutely invaluable to any writer.
Also, it’s a place you can share your stuff without pressure. It’s good practice. Share it with us today, share it with Clarkesworld tomorrow.
March 29, 2011 at 11:33 pm
And get a rejection letter two days later!
(Clarkesworld is very fast.)
March 28, 2011 at 12:12 pm
The problem is finding a group WITHOUT the mean spirited person who pulls out some tome on “How to Write Properly”. They are the ones who think you have to follow some old, dead person’s rules, or your story is bad, regardless of any other value it might have. Beware those idiots. They don’t like anything new or original. Shakespeare, Olcott, Austen, and Hemingway are the only people who ever got it right to them. First time someone starts quoting a rulebook, run.
June 11, 2016 at 7:32 pm
Coming late to the party here (discovered Dunesteef six months ago and have been working my way through the back catalog).
Very much enjoyed this story right up until the end. I don’t normally go in for Zombie stories – nothing against them really, just not my thing – but I very much enjoyed the POV character and the way his situation and the world he was living in was built up. Some very good world building going on here which made for a world that I wanted to learn more about.
Then, the ending. *Way* too abrupt. Having set up a very interesting new take on zombies, we don’t get to find out how it pans out? What happens when the protagonist gets outside? Can he actually direct the zombies, and can get build a new world? Does he even get outside after munching up the voice lady? Why does he even do that? OK, I get that he’s hungry, but why doesn’t he take the opportunity to get out and explore his new role as potential zombie leader, without so comprehensively burning his bridges? It seemed a cheap shot after all the oh-so-well-crafted world building and character development which had gone before.