Part 3 of 3
Read the full text, as well as the show notes, at http://flashpulp.com
Tonight, Ruby’s upturned standoff, with the reanimated corpses of the once living, comes to a savage end.
The Skinner Co. Network
204 - Ruby Departed: Snowball, Part 3 of 3
[Music] Welcome to FlashPulp, episode 204. Tonight, we present Ruby Departed, Snowball, part 3 of 3. This week's episodes are brought to you by the After Movie Dinner podcast and blog. I'd like a podcast, all about film, I think, but it has to be a conversation, something I can get involved with. Nice, with a nice healthy dollop of comedy on the side, I think, and it does say want fries with that dick, yes, and ketchup. Oh, and Charlie, yes, it brings me a wheel of cheese, and there's a finin' it for you. Very good, sir. This is the After Movie Dinner podcast, only 100 calories, kids, free cone, fed, and perfectly you'll get it, it's everything you want in a film show, plus condiments, wait, okay, just go to the AMD podcast dot vlogspot dot com website, or iTunes today. 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's upturned standoff with the reanimated corpses of the once-living comes to a savage end. Ruby departed, snowball, part 3 of 3. Written by Jaredie Skinner, art and narration by Opoponax, an audio produced by Jessica May. August 2nd, Afternoonish. I awoke to two surprises, first that I'd fall in the sleep, second that I was still alive. It was dark, but the truck rocking brought me out of my nap. I guess a few dead folk had gotten onto the bottom slash top, and were strolling around. I think the lack of light left them wondering where I was a bit, otherwise there would have likely been issues. The noise alone made it obvious, though, that Moore had arrived since I'd last had the ability to count. My honking apparently attracted stragglers from far and wide. It felt like there were hundreds, but it was really dozens when Dawn finally arrived. As the sun rose, however, so did the shufflers' tempers. One of them spotted me through the glass, and started slapping their three-fingered hand against the passenger side door's window. That got others joining in, and soon I was back to being sure the end was inevitable. I couldn't get a view past my groupies, but I discovered later that the light had also left my treed compatriots in a similar situation. They'd picked up a number of nude myers, which Olivia described as "twenty or so mutteries standing round as if they were trying to catch a rock concert crowdsurfer". Unable to see a way out of the truck, my imagination began to play tricks on me then. Fear and time are terrible friends. I started hearing cracking sounds. Any second now, I kept telling myself, it wouldn't happen. Again and again, the creak, but nothing. After a while I became familiar with the fellow on his knees, whacking his sad hand uselessly on the body-fluid finger-painting that the glass was slowly becoming. I didn't believe the rat-a-tat when I first heard it. I thought it was another weird thing my brain was throwing at me. Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, then someone commenced strangling a cow. My honking had brought more than decomposing pedestrians. Never got the bagpipes, I've seen them in parades, but they all seemed gangly and screechy. You understand an instrument that sounds like a gutted police siren only when you hear it on the cusp of combat. Drumming though, rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, and I could tell it wasn't a mirage because all the sudden my fan club was lurching away. Then the drunken goose found its voice. A line of armed men and women crept from the tree-line with multi-colored shields in one hand and cutters in the other. Their weapons were a motley assortment, machetes, wood axes, and scavenged steel shaped into swords. The catter-walling drew every stumbling corpse for miles. Our saviors were beautiful, ugly buggers, with their hair a mess in the cleanliness standards of a community who consider running water a valuable commodity. Maybe, as they say, they've returned to some cultural warrior spirit. But I do wonder if they're actually only normal people pissed off that they lost Starbucks, hot showers, and cell phones. Whatever the case, that cried as they walked out, looking like the meanest motherfuckers from Braveheart, come to collect their overdue royalty checks. I'm so used to group chaos. I'd forgotten what coordinated living people can do. I mean, it almost didn't seem fair. It was like watching drunks staggering into farm machinery. The troop were all kilted, but they were only properly visible on what they call the "thresher" side. They travel in a square, three sides holding repurposed car hoods like riot shields, and the open face moving steadily as the lead. They chop, make sure the dead are dead, then step forward and raise their weapons again. Chop, chop, chop, rat-a-tat. By knowing which direction the underfoot cadavers will be coming from, they can keep a decent pace even in a large rabble. I'm told it's tiring work, but inside the box is another cluster in the same formation, so that they can quickly switch to fresh reinforcements. At the center of the second line is the drummer, the bagpiper, and the man calling the directions. The chief. "Right!" he shouts, and down go ten members of the dearly departed. "Forward!" and a dozen more open their noggins to the sky and fall over permanently. Rat-a-tat. Twenty minutes later, the path to the tree was cleared. My own pest had long ago joined the party, so half thinking it was a dream, I just sort of wandered over to our rescuers. We were asked if we were infected, and we said no. They didn't believe us, but they weren't rude about it. Instead, we were invited to snug up with the musicians, and we all left. They did in a few decaying toddlers on the way, but the drums and pipes were quiet to avoid drawing attention. Our good Samaritans had even opted to carry McKinley, who, I was pleased to learn, had managed to continue breathing throughout the fiasco. We marched along the countryside for a while, but it was hard to see much of the landscape between the surrounding shoulders. Eventually, we passed a well-built gate, and found ourselves in a farmyard. I thought we were headed towards the mass of Barn, but we were eventually stuffed in an outbuilding, a hundred feet away, but well inside the fence. The shack, the quarantine, as they call it, has a hole in the roof, and they lower in a little crate full of water or food down them. I don't get the impression they mean as harm. At the moment, they actually seem to be treating us a little like a found puppy. Excited, but wary of nipping teeth. They didn't even take Bethany. The grey mustache piper told me I might need it, if any of my friends had a hidden bite. I talked to the guard through the door for quite a while. A kid of seventeen who'd been a back-up in the square. He's got a blade at his hip that he calls a cutlass, and although it appears to be the side of a stove cut to the rough shape of a sword, it's a close-ish replica, if you squint. Ronnie's been pretty quiet since being saved by his supposed cultists, but the parkers have found no end of topics to argue about. McKinley apparently had a sizable chunk of his leg amputated. They've got an actual doctor here, and he says he's conducted four similar operations in the last month, with just one loss patient. I'll take that as a 75% chance of survival, which, frankly, is better than I give myself most mornings. The food's good, and the place feels alive. The air is full of clucking chickens and cowsh*t, and I'd be glad to breathe both for a while. Maybe I'll take a short break before heading home. Only a couple of days, I promise, if they offer. This cult 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 skinner@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 Free Sound 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]