Join us on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 10th, at a lit­tle after 12 noon or 4pm Pacif­ic time / 8pm or mid­night in the UK,  for the final episode in the land­mark radio dra­ma series The Black Mass, cre­at­ed by the late Erik Bauers­feld and his col­leagues at the Paci­fi­ca radio sta­tion KPFA in Berke­ley, Cal­i­for­nia, over fifty years ago. In 30 chill­ing tales of mys­tery, imag­i­na­tion and the human mind, The Black Mass has brought you some of literature’s most haunt­ing sto­ries, by mas­ters of the craft — many of whom are best-known in oth­er fields. Our thanks as always to John Whit­ing, pro­duc­er of many of these record­ings, and of course to Erik Bauers­feld him­self.

This land­mark radio dra­ma series draws to a close this week, with our final tale from The Black Mass. Next week at the same time, join us for an spe­cial intro­duc­tion to the radio dra­ma of ZBS Foun­da­tion, lead­ing off a sea­son of fab­u­lous, fan­tas­tic and mys­ti­cal radio dra­ma series from our friends at ZBS.

Note that the episode will not start until the track play­ing at the top of the hour has fin­ished, so the actu­al start time of the episode will be a few min­utes after the hour.

10 September: Flies by Anthony Vercoe

Adapt­ed and Per­formed by: Erik Bauersfeld
Sound Effects and Tech­ni­cal Pro­duc­tion by: Fred Seiden
Pro­duc­tion Assis­tant: Maria Gilardin

The flies from the time of the plague haunt­ed the old house. Now they feed on the new­com­ers: “From under the crack at the bot­tom of the door came an end­less wrig­gling stream of fat black bod­ies. For a moment there was a com­plete still­ness, then in a mass they rose and the room echoed to the shrill sav­age beat­ing of their wings”.

Starv­ing and exhaust­ed, a tramp believes he is saved when he stum­bles across a deli­cious meal in an emp­ty house in Hol­born. But the clang of a bell and the slam of a door locks him into a place that becomes hideous, with an inces­sant buzzing com­ing from somewhere …

Length: 28:40

The Black Mass art­work was cre­at­ed by Ter­ry Lightfoot.