Part 2 of 3
Read the full text, as well as the show notes, at http://flashpulp.com
Tonight, Ruby finds herself caught between mysterious horsemen and the ravenous mouths of the rotting undead.
The Skinner Co. Network
FP290 - Ruby Departed: Contact, Part 2 of 3
[music] Sunday's gloomy, my hours are slumberless. Dear is the shadows I live with by numberless. Little white flowers will never be making you. Not where the brach ultra-sol is taking you. Welcome to Flashpulp, episode 290. This evening we present, Ruby Departed. Contact part 203. This week's episodes are brought to you by the Ice and Fire Convention. Consider your plans for next April well, or pay the iron price. Find out more about the con running from April 26th to 28th 2013 in Ohio at iceandfireconvention.webs.com. [music] Flashpulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age, three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. Tonight, Ruby finds herself caught between mysterious horsemen and the ravenous mouths of the rotting undead. Ruby Departed. Contact part two of three. Written by J.R.D. Skinner, Art and Narration Biopulpit X, and Audio produced by Jessica. [music] 9 p.m. what a miserable day. This place smells like cold and grease. In the end, we realized we'd never outrun the horses. So, unless we were willing to leave the group entirely and leave the cowboys on a chase across the countryside, it wasn't anything we could do. We tried shouting a few more times at them. Then we simply stopped and let the rest of our people arrive. Really, I was hoping that the size of the crowd would shake the cowboys a bit. I mean, if they weren't willing to approach ten people, they'd hopefully bugger off at the site of over a hundred. Not so much. Once we melded into one big bicycle column, it almost became worse. I couldn't keep my eye on them all the time, but they kept pace. Sometimes they'd inspect us from the middle of a wilted soybean field. Sometimes they'd fall behind, spooking the stragglers. Most of the wanderers seemed to want to ignore the problem and just keep going. Whereas the farmers seemed to want to collect together all the rifles and shotguns, which, honestly, isn't many, and send out a negotiating party. After another mile of slow pedaling and a lot of arguing, the chief stepped up again. We'd made a southward turn from our proposed route, the single thing we'd been able to agree on, but it had done nothing to lose our stalkers. It did, however, lead to a change of scenery. It was as if we'd loop back to where we'd started, but the blaze must have happened weeks ago. Trees and houses and everything else flammable within a two-mile radius had been scorched, but there were still stumps everywhere that looked oddly like blackened pillars. They were really the only cover. No place for us to hide, but also none for the dead folks. Again, without prompting, the chief calmly but firmly demanded everyone stop. We did, so did the horsemen. All the time they'd been trotting a little closer, mostly to be inside the treeline but still alongside, and it provided a chance to get a decent peak at their mounts. From further, it feels like you're being run down by something gandalf, my ride. But there's really a mess of breeds in their little herd. Spotted ponies, and long-limbed show-horses, and even a massive black glide-style. The chief set his kickstand, stood with his hands raised to make clear that they were empty, then walked half the distance to our naying shadows. After some animated discussion, a guy on a grey and brown nag gave the universal "fuck it, all go" shrug and dismounted. Despite the chief's show of trust, the cowboy's double-barreled shotgun went with him. Crap. Something's happening at the door. 9.20 pm. Bloody hell. A couple of jumpy 30-somethings got stacking stuff by side entrance to prevent, I guess, ninjas from sneaking in or something, and the door swung wide under the weight. Through everyone inside into an uproar, but I'm not even sure if the Pony Express Boys noticed. Things seemed to calm down when I demonstrated the manual locking bolts at the top and bottom of the frame. Admittedly, I was patting myself on the back of bed after pointing out the obvious, but snowball started clapping and hollering like it was the funniest thing you'd ever seen, and it basically robbed me of my moment. I should mention, I suppose, that we're sheltering in a steel pipe factory near the edge of the crispiness, and the loading bay was gaping. There was a ramp leading right into the place. It was almost as if we were invited. There weren't even any stumblers to clear out, just the bones and rod of someone who must have been picked clean weeks ago. Our Bronco busting friends weren't so happy to see our expedient exit, though, and they came at us. We were pretty low on ammo by them. Fortunately, so were they. We did our best to move quickly, but they still had baseball bats and machetes. They managed to upturn a couple of stragglers and give them a thrashing. Few angry farmers rushed in with their pointy sticks and managed to drag in the injured, but it sounds like they won't make it through the night. Tomorrow morning is going to be problematic. Anyhow, I'm getting sidetracked. Back to the burnt-out field. The chief walked to the middle of the stumps and so did Frumpyface with the shotgun. He looked like the kind of guy who used to manage a pizza place. I keep calling them cowboys, but he wasn't wearing spurs or chaps or anything, just blue jeans and a shirt that probably seemed overdressed for the apocalypse when it was first put on a few months ago. They chatted briefly until while everyone was straining to hear a whisper on the wind, the chief's wife broke from the crowd. Marion. Her name was Marion. She was shrieking and pleading. I've given her a hard time that I can understand how, maybe between her dead son, the shuffling cadavers, and the fire, the apocalypse blues got on top of her and she never made it back. I guess it's easier to be patient when the problem has ended. She still shouldn't have been running after him. 10 feet from the pair with her husband trying to shout her off and the suburban cowboys eyes getting increasingly wide, there was a blast of smoke. Marion collapsed. The chief gave a knuckly underhand motion as if he'd pulled a coin from his pocket that he wanted to show the gunman, and a blade handle suddenly appeared in the pizzeria manager's belly. Before turning to stumble back to his companions, the stabbing victim used his spare barrel to remove most of the old man's shoulder. For maybe 60 seconds, it was quiet as the injured staggered to their corners. I was with the ones who tried to help. He said, "They want women! 20!" 19 now, I suppose. Then he fell over, gave two rattling breaths and relaxed. Damn it. Number 85 was the chief. Just a clean, straight thrust with Bethany. It would have wanted someone to make sure. It's too dark. I can't see what I'm writing. I'll finish tomorrow. Hopefully. Flashpulp is presented by flashpulp.com and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons attribution non-commercial 2.5 license. Text and audio commentaries can be sent to skier@skinner.fm or the voicemail line at 206-338-2792. 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, please check this episode's notes at flashpulp.com. And thanks to you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please tell your friends. [Music]