The Skinner Co. Network
FP598 - The Haunting of Edward Bowie: Ghost Light, Part 3 of 3
Tonight: One good turn deserves another.
Some days, gloomy, my hours are slumberless. Dear is the shadows I live with by numbless. Little white flowers will never awaken you. Not where the brachochus all ends taking you. Angels have no fire of ever returning you. Oh, baby angry, if I sort of join in you. Welcome to Flashpulp, episode 598. This evening, we present the haunting of Edward Bowie. Ghostlight, part three of three. This week's episode is brought to you by the Skinner Code Research and Development Department. It is only through their rigorous testing protocols that we can ensure we mean it when the box says "not suitable for infants, children under 13, anyone currently pregnant, the operation of heavy motor vehicles, the French, and/or carbon-based entities purporting to be sentient." Learn more about their essential work at Skinner.fm. Flashpulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age. Three to ten minutes of fiction broadcast every time the building isn't on fire. Tonight, one good turn deserves another. The Haunting of Edward Bowie, Ghostlight, part three of three. Written by J.R.D. Skinner, Art and Narration Biopoponax, Legalese by J.Langjans, and Audio-produced by Jessica May. The only thing Edward Bowie was sure of anymore was that he was a practical man who would do anything necessary to keep on living. He'd avoided contracting Hitchcock's, or being murdered by any of the maniac suffering from the disease, and he'd learned the sort of tricks necessary to outwit the stumbling dead. His time surviving with Leanne had been proof enough of his methods. Yet being clever isn't the same as being invincible. One night, perhaps a month back, perhaps two, it was hard to know anymore. She had simply died in her sleep. He could guess it what the cause had been. Neither had been eating well. The local houses had run dry, and they'd both been foraging from the forest. He'd been a fair deer hunter in a different life, but what they'd been chewing hadn't provided many calories. At the time, it had been a long stretch since he'd downed any game, and they'd certainly both gone to bed hungry that entire week. No, he could guess. He could assume. But he couldn't know. He wasn't a doctor, and he highly doubted he'd ever meet another trained medical professional again. Yet, in the end, her cause of death didn't matter that much. She'd died, and the deer still hadn't come, and a man's gotta eat. So, his belly full, and his will to live restored, he'd made this deer blind his home. He'd picked the spot at the edge of the tree line carefully. Across the unplanted farmer's field that stood between his perch and the road, there was not a single obstruction, and he knew the ditch on the far side was bookended by a pair of tractor crossings, with flow pipes only six inches wide. There was no chance of crawling out of this line of sight. He'd hoped to ensure himself a meal before the strangers had scattered, or, at least, injure a friend that would draw out another friend, and so on, but the flash suppressor on his rifle must have messed with his aim. He hadn't had to use one of those back when it was just deer he stalked. Still, game was game. The road in front of him ran north and south. This meant that to the east, the direction he was facing, he could easily spot anyone else wandering down the lane, or undead stumbling along the distant fields on the far side. Less likely, would be that anyone, living or dead, would make their way through the thick bush at his back. But if they did approach from the west, his camouflage perch was high enough that he would be well above their island, or the reach of rotting hands. Yes, he was a practical man, even if these were impractical times, and his boyhood in the country had equipped him with all of the tools he needed for survival. Edward would have almost felt bad for the poor fools in the ditch, if it wasn't for the grumbling. "Patience," he whispered, patting his belly. An hour later, he flipped on the night vision goggles and smiled at the battery indicator, reporting 87% charge. He'd seen the scenario before, and he felt no nerves about how it might play out. These things always went the same way. A long stretch of boredom followed by everything unraveling at once. If they didn't try to run, before it got dark, they most certainly would when they thought they were safely hidden. Once he'd brought down one of them, however, the rest would either stay and die trying to help, or panic and die trying to make it to the tree line. The main thing was remaining focused, remaining practical. Boredom did funny things to the mind, doubly so when tag-teamed with hunger, but both of those would be remedied soon enough. The shadows began to lengthen, the jaw-like tree tops seeming to reach out across the field in front of him, looking to devour the people cowering in the ditch. Every now and then, one of them would move just a little too far. Some elbow or shoe briefly appearing over the lip, but never so long as to make it worth taking a shot. Rather than find these missed opportunities frustrating, Bowie found them rather reassuring. At least he could be certain they were still there, and growing increasingly uncomfortable if they're fussing as any indication. Despite these momentary distractions, the last heat of the day mixed with the increasing shade to summon the ever-present exhaustion that came from sleeping in a tree blind, and Edward found himself slipping into that middle ground between Boredom and unconsciousness. Suddenly he was awake. Had he heard a little girl humming? Wait, no, it wasn't humming, it was singing. He knew the song. His moment had it on vinyl. In a strange coincidence, so had pages. "Come out, come out wherever you are." "What?" said Bowie, louder than he intended, louder than certainly saying nothing at all. It was definitely below him now. "Oh," came a hushed sigh. If someone was out there, it was at least forty feet to the ground, and he'd pulled the rope ladder up. Yet Edward wrapped his fingers around his rifle and turned his gaze towards the closed trap door. One of the many things he did not know, however, was that Paige had also grown up in the country, and she would have had to have been dead a lot longer than a couple of weeks to have forgotten how to clamber up a tree. The teen did not come through the hatch. The girl didn't bother trying to open the door at all. "Boo!" shouted the head that suddenly reared through the floor. "What the?" answered Edward, but his instincts reacted as quickly as his tongue, and adrenaline pushed his legs to jump high enough to pass cleanly out the window in his attempt to escape the unexpected threat. Something happened, something he couldn't quite identify, and then he was standing in the shadow of the tree in which he had so long sat. What now? Risk stumbling into someone else's sights? Risk stumbling into the hands of the hungry dead risk? Above, the teen girl's head leaned into view, apparently respecting the boundary of the window more out of habit than out of necessity. Edward, being a practical man, did the only thing he thought he could. He bolted into the woods. "Hey!" shouted Paige. "You don't need to worry. You're dead now!" Yet, Edward Bowie did not pause. In his sprint away from the bent neck body, he'd left cooling in the evening air. Flashpulp was presented by Flashpulp.com and is released under the Creative Commons attribution non-commercial 3.0 unportant license. Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments at Flashpulp.com, but be aware they may appear in future flashcasts. We'd also like to thank the Freesound project found at freesound.org. For a full listing of effects used during the show, as well as credits for the users who provided them, check this episode's notes at flashpulp.com, and thanks to you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please tell your friends.