Part 2 of 3
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Tonight, Harm Carter tries his hand at grand theft auto.
The Skinner Co. Network
191 - The Murder Plague: Open Hours, Part 2 of 3
[ Music ] Welcome to FlashPulp, episode 191. Tonight, we present The Murder Plague, Open Hours, Part 2 of 3. This week's episodes are brought to you by The Shrinking Man Project. [ Music ] Doc? Laura, hi. Oh my God, I almost didn't recognize you. You've lost so much weight. Oh, thanks. I've been working on it. You look great. What's your secret? You know, everyone keeps asking me that. I'm just doing it with diet and exercise. The only real secret seems to be getting your head on straight before you get started. I actually started a podcast about it. About getting your head on straight. Sort of. It's about my weight loss and about the ways that people trip themselves up with the attitudes that they have going in. I do episodes every week talking about what I've had to deal with and every couple weeks I throw in some philosophy. The idea is to help someone else figure out what they need to do to make it work out for them. That sounds pretty cool. What's the podcast called? It's called The Shrinking Man Project. The URL is TheShrinkingManProject.com. I'm trying to keep it simple. Well, it certainly seems to be working for you. Flatter. More. More. (Laughter) 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, Harm Carter tries his hand at Grand Theft Auto. The Murder Plague. Open Hours. Part Two of Three. Written by J.R.D. Skinner. Art and narration by Opoponax. An audio produced by Jessica Met. (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) As we retreated to the relative safety of the trees, to try and find a reasonably comfortable patch of dirt to camp on before the light of the sun had fully abandoned us, I began to feel as if something was a miss. I thought it might be a wafting undertone on the breeze, or possibly just the aftershock of watching a fourteen-year-old stomp a grown man to death, but I was wrong on both counts. We slept fitfully and rose eager to claim a vehicle. The first car alarm we tripped was the tensest moment of the morning. We must have disturbed a dozen more during our search, but after the initial squawk, the lack of response gave us the confidence to quicken our pace, and, frankly, to begin to behave stupidly. Here's what it boils down to. You're facing the door of a Dodge Grand caravan. Is it locked? Well, smash the window with your trusty truncheon. I was using the butt of my unloaded pistol, which had largely only been an unpleasant souvenir up until that point. Is there a key under the floor mats? I went on top of the sunscreens. Now there's some snacks in the glove compartment, or candy in the cup holders. Great, search complete. Now choke down your sense of disappointment and move on to the next one. The only interruptions in the process came when occasional speeding travelers would enter from the west and exit to the east, never slowing in their progress along the highway. Given their consistency, following their lead seemed a safe bet once we finally found a conveyance. My theory was that it would be better to start near the meth-head's body and work our way towards the store. We wouldn't have to approach the corpse after a long day in the hot sun, and it would also give Minnie a chance to forget her recent ordeal by throwing herself into the hunt. It was probably, without thought in mind, that I kept myself from scolding Newton when he started to mess about, eventually setting the girl in one of the blue shopping carts and wheeling her in wide circles around the pavement. In truth, it was good to hear her laugh. By noon we'd run out of windows to smash, and had taken up seating on the Walmart's curb, with bagged fertilizer, outdoor furniture, and tacky lawn ornamentation to our left, and silent coke machines to our right. "Well, we may not have a ride yet, but there's got to still be plenty of heat on the shelves," said Newton. "Well, it's a daylight, too, so hopefully we'll be able to see all right." I called dibs on all the Pringles. I'd been surprised by how intact the storefront had remained, and it seemed to promise sugary riches within. I also had it in my head that we might locate a few bicycles. I was weighing the pros and cons of the idea, and didn't want to mention it yet. Instead, I said, "Before we consider any sort of junk food haze, we ought to finish searching the outside. Maybe some sort of employee parking around back." Newton licked his lips. "Great, but let's move it along, okay?" he replied, jumping up. His meaty hands wrapped about the steering bar of his cart of choice. "Your chariot awaits, madam," he said. Minnie smiled, and allowed herself to be lifted into the buggy. As he set her down, the man's thick arms made her appear even younger than she was. "You go towards the highway, and we'll take the side closer to the trees," he told me, and before I could respond, they were off. Figuring he was hankering for a meal, and with the betting department somewhat in my own mind, I returned to prowling. It was one of the few times I'd been alone since leaving my burning home. To my left was a fence, and on the far side, the ditch that ringed the property. Beyond that lay a stretch of yellow grass turf, and the gravel shoulder of the highway. I was anxious to be on that road, but less so to be seen by anyone who might happen to be passing down it while I was so plainly visible. My sense that something was off reached a peak while I crept along the grey wall, and as I came to the shop's rear, I realized exactly what the source of my agitation was. An engine sound, on the roof of the building, which had been largely muffled by its position beside a metallic stack of inert air-conditioning units. I immediately guessed it as a generator. Better yet, my new view gave me an idea on how the thing was being powered. A large transport truck was backed partially into one of the loading bays, and sealed in with a crust of Mad Max-style fortifications. Unconstructed entertainment units, computer desks, and flat panel televisions had all been salvaged for the task. The gaps were even sealed with repurposed plush animals. It didn't strike me as the work of a single person, and if it was, it seemed too ill-defended to be built by one of the paranoid infected. I would have expected barbed wire, or a limb-removing booby trap. A stuffed monkey grinned at me cheekily from the tallest portion of the barricade, and I in return is smirk. Excited to share my discovery with my travelling companions, I rounded the next con. There, lying beside his upturned cart, was Newton. His neck looked as if it had been assaulted by a pack of wild ferrets, the obvious work of an amateur butcher with a short, blunt blade. Stooping, I closed his dull eyes. I owed him that much, at least, for bringing the Greyhound to our rescue. Where was Minnie, snatched by an unknown assailant, or had she committed the act? Was she infected? I found myself afloat on a sea of questions, with no sign of hard answers to land upon. So I simply kept moving. Unsure of my objective, but feeling like I couldn't just abandon the girl to a terrible fate, I followed the dollops of blood that moved steadily away from the deceased strongmen. They marched directly to the building's main entrance. I made efforts at stealth as I attempted to peer through the glass at what might lie beyond, but as soon as I moved within range of the censor, the automatic portal swept wide, revealing Minnie within. She stood at the centre of the vestibule, with her right forearm bloody, and a pilfered knife still in her hand. Through her tears, she screamed at me. I... I had to! He tried... He... Her explanation was cut short by a hiss, as the interior door also slid open. 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 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. [♪♪♪] Sunday is gloomy, my hours are stumbled. Here is the shadows I live with are stumbled. [♪♪♪]