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Tonight, Ruby, our zombie-slaying heroine, finds herself reading a harrowing tale of silent survival amongst the roaming corpses.
The Skinner Co. Network
FP326 - Ruby Departed: What Happened at the Super 8, Part 1 of 1
Some days, gloomy, my hours are slumberless Dearest, the shadows I live with find nonetheless Little white flowers will never awaken you Not where the bright coach of sorrow is taking you Angels have no fire ever returning you Or they'll be angry if I sort of join in you Ooooh, Sunday Welcome to FlashPulp, episode 326 This evening we present Ruby Departed What Happened at the Super 8 Part 1 of 1 This week's episodes are brought to you by Abort the Night Bus Welcome to Abort the Night Bus What do you get when you mix two Hufflepuffs? Gah, I want to go to Hogwarts so bad A Ravenclaw? Oh, come on, a Slytherin Like I like my Hufflepuffs, leave them alone You want me to beat up Hagrid for you guys? And a guest host Allavander kind of creep me out Well, I don't want to just say magic as the answer That is a good question though Actually, it's aboard the night bus The new chapter by chapter Harry Potter podcast Dedicated to taking a light-hearted and fun look at all things Harry Potter I'd wear my Slytherin kit every day From chapter reviews to character analysis We're taking a not-so-indeck look at all the things that really matter The trout To the bokeh to the trout It's a fish Join us each week for good discussion It's not scary that like every conversation they have from now on Is they have Peter Pettigrew their listening I'm going to argue otherwise but you'll have to wait till I do chapter eight In our next episode to find out why A few games Chocolate frogs Pumpkin pasties Every flavour beans And a bit of light-hearted banter Does anyone get anything to add to that? But no Not that I feel like adding at the moment Oh, okay Upload the night bus Subscribe on iTunes Flash Pope is an experiment in broadcasting fresh Pope's stories in the modern age Three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings Tonight, Ruby, our zombie-slaying heroine, finds herself reading a harrowing tale of silent survival Amongst the roaming corpses Ruby departed What happened at the super eight Written by J.R.D. Skinner Art and narration by Poponex An audio produced by Jessica Muth Night I'm actually using battery-powered to write this But I won't have time to transcribe things tomorrow The kids I found earlier, Clayton and Ivan, told us their story Well, they can't actually speak They've both been deaf since they were born But they wrote it out for us on little white pads With super-rate motel logos across the top Sometimes Ivan, the ten-year-old, would ask for the pen to add a detail But it was the fourteen-year-old Clayton who did most of the scribbling I'm recording it all here because I feel like what happened at the super eight needs to be remembered Even once those passed-around sheets are lost in the wind Everyone wants to read them, but they've all got to wait their turn It's like having a novel published one sheet at a time Alright, I'm holding up the line I've fixed some of the grammar, but mostly this is just how it was written There were sixteen kids when we stopped, there was also my teacher, Mrs Baker, the bus driver, Cheryl And two parents who were helping supervise, Miss Yadav and Mr. Whitmore We went to Montreal for a science fair, who was only supposed to last one day Go there early in the morning, head home late in the evening We were all tired on the way back, but we were only a couple of hours away when we needed to stop for gas Mrs. Baker and the parents were busy making a bunch of phone calls at the front of the bus as we got off the highway, none of us knew what they were talking about The adults had started acting weird near the end of the fair But we figured it was probably just because it was such a long day No one thought twice about the fact that none of us seemed to be able to send any text messages We assumed it was because we were in the sticks When we got to the station, it was closed Cheryl seemed to get really mad about that She tried to just take the gas anyway, but couldn't That's when we really knew something was wrong We drove across to the food court, but it had been closed down and locked up The superate was still open, but the automatic doors were turned off And Mrs. Baker had to bang on the glass to be let in After a while, we all got off and followed Inside, there was a traveling salesman, the lady working the front desk, and two cleaners I think they were husband and wife They were all in the lobby, I think they were probably trying to decide what to do when we showed up But the adults basically just told us to sit down on the chairs and couches The clerk eventually brought out a tray of stale muffins and passed it around It all seemed kind of like an adventure After a while, they told us they were waiting for the police So we all got to pick out our own rooms We were told people were sick, that we were not to let anyone in under any circumstances The adults started taking turns sitting in the lobby and babysitting us We read and had races in the hallways We would bet packets of nuts Eventually the electricity went out, which basically meant we had to hang out by the windows Every now and then we would see someone walking by I remember trying to get their attention and wishing that I could talk to them One day the cleaners left, there was a big fight that we weren't supposed to know about And the adults spent the afternoon staring out at the road Nothing happened till the next morning There was a rumble in the floor like we hadn't felt in a long time And just for a second, I thought maybe the army had come to help us It was actually a transport truck though, and the husband and wife I don't know exactly what he said when he came to the door But I could tell he didn't like what he found outside I think he basically traded the Del Monte truck full of cans to come back inside We didn't know why he was so desperate at the time The lady had brown hair with just a bit of gray And her face had always seemed round and smiling to me When she'd been the one watching us make paper airplanes or whatever She'd always been really good at coming up with suggestions for things to do She taught me how to fold a paper into a swan She was sick, like the rest I guess she'd been hurt while they were out She'd eaten most of her husband's throat out by the time Marissa found her And Marissa didn't make it either Marissa was, she was a friend of mine The older people heard something first I know because they all looked towards the stairwell before Marissa actually came in There was blood all over her braided pigtails and she was holding her hand It seemed like she had maybe caught them in a door or something Until I saw how much she was leaking I ran then up the other stairwell even though it was pitch black at the time We were supposed to go in groups with a flashlight And just for a second I was worried I would get in trouble When I got to the upper floor I found Ivan standing by a whole window day dreaming I pulled him into my room and we put the little clasp thing across to lock it We sat with our backs to the door to feel if anyone was knocking Then we waited and waited It got too dark to see and we must have both fallen asleep I woke up with Ivan pushing at me He was pointing at the peephole He was too short to be able to see out of it I looked out and there was Marissa walking by She looked like she was still hurt but I was happy to see her I opened the door and touched her shoulder to get her attention When she turned to me her cheeks were ripped open and her eyes were empty I ran Ivan saw me coming and tried to help shut the entrance But she just sort of popped through like a frizzy pushed from the bottom Except that one of her braids got stuck between the door and the wall We spent another day staring at her trying to pull herself free She would constantly be walking forward tugging And I was sure she was going to rip the hair from her head At first I was scared for me But for some reason the hungrier I got The more worried I got for Ivan It was like I could understand how badly she wanted to eat us When it started getting dark again I freaked out The idea of waiting in the blackness Unable to tell if she'd gotten free was too much I ripped the lamp from the wall and pulled off the shade I unscrewed the light bulb and set it gently on my bed Then I ran at Marissa and hit her till she stopped moving We cried a bunch then we shoved her outside We'd all been instructed to fill our bath tubs with water So there was plenty to drink but it wasn't helping anymore By the next morning I knew we had to leave We started learning to work as a team Being eyes behind the other's head The top floor was the worst There were three others including Mrs. Baker She was the hardest mostly because she was so tall I had to get Ivan to lead her into the room Then I clubbed her while standing on top of a chair The lobby was a mess We could see through the windows that there were maybe a half dozen people still stumbling around inside including most of the adults They didn't seem to know how to get out And we weren't about to go in Things might have been okay from there if it wasn't for Cheryl's room I guess she tried to gather everyone together in one safe place But she hadn't understood what was going on well enough Some of them must have been bitten None of them got out at least not live We didn't know that at the time though We didn't know where anyone was We tried knocking at all the rooms but no one answered We tried all the handles that would open But no one was inside Eventually I gave Ivan my lamp and broke open a panel for a fire axe in a maintenance closet That got things open including Cheryl's room There were a lot of them all kids except for the bus driver She must have tried barricading them in but it trapped them The dead people they'd just been walking around and eating and chewing And mushing those who hadn't come back Into a goo that made a ring around the wall as tall as the students could reach We couldn't do anything about keeping them in We ran back upstairs We'd thought to block off one of the stairwells just in case And since the entrance we were using had a tiny window and one of those little deadbolt things at the bottom We were really easily able to control how many people could come through at once You gotta understand The only way out was through We'd wait till there was a single person waiting Then we'd let them in again and again We couldn't use the same trick for the lobby But we managed to find some fishing line in the salesman's luggage And that helped When they tripped it was a lot easier to get at their heads Once everything was done Well we cleaned the best we could Then we ate and made more swans Sometimes we slept Sometimes we went looking for food that didn't require a can opener You guys are the first living people we've seen since That's the last Clayton wrote And both kids recovered in snot and tears by the time they were finished their story They're both exhausted and on their way to bed But the pages are still snaking their way through the group What's that old saying? I wept because I had no shoes Until I met a man who had no feet Well I complained about the moans Until I met a pair of kids who couldn't hear them I'm done with today Sing me to sleep Actually dead Kennedys FlashPulp is presented by flashpulp.com And is released under the Creative Commons attribution non-commercial 3.0 unported license Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com But be aware that they may appear in a future flashcast 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 [Music]