Part 1 of 3
Read the full text, as well as the show notes, at http://flashpulp.com
Tonight, Harm Carter and his traveling companions find hope, as well as a stranger.
The Skinner Co. Network
190 - The Murder Plague: Open Hours, Part 1 of 3
[Music] Welcome to FlashPulp, episode 190. Tonight, we present The Murder Plague. Open Hours, Part 1 of 3. [Music] 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. FlashPulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age. Three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesdays and Friday evenings. Tonight, Harm Carter and his traveling companions find hope as well as a stranger. The Murder Plague. Open Hours. Part one of three. Written by JRD Skinner. Art and narration by Opoponax. An audio produced by Jessica May. The Shrinking Man Project. The Shrinking Man Project. The Shrinking Man Project. The Shrinking Man Project. The Shrinking Man Project. The Shrinking Man Project. It seemed to me as I marched through the forest alongside my pair of companions, I'd somehow become the odd man out. Worse yet, my misgivings regarding the age gap, Mini being fourteen, and Newton at a guest thirty, were stunning by a duo of unavoidable facts. One, that it was a free apocalypse, and having seen her friends murdered, as well as attempt to murder her, that the girl could do what she wanted. Two, that I was probably only so riled up about it as she was of such an age and a fiery disposition, as to remind me greatly of my own wayward daughter Rebecca. There's a great temptation, when those around you are on the constant lookout for a virus whose primary symptom is homicidal paranoia, to keep all unpleasant thoughts to oneself. But, by avoiding showing my annoyance, I came off feeling like someone's uncle, trying too hard to demonstrate his youthful vigour to a younger generation. Anyhow, there we strolled, Newton gownsly taking the brunt of our passage through the brush, Mini laughing over hardly at his flat jokes, and I trailing in the rear. Sticking to the woods may have saved us a head-on collision with wandering maniacs, but it also made progress tediously slow. Still, better to be bitten by insects than men men, I suppose. To pass the time, I'd been counting the number of flattened mosquitoes I'd left in my wake, but my tally was lost when, an hour before dusk, we suddenly came to a broad expanse of pavement. I believe it to be the largest Walmart I've ever encountered, but my memory may be coloured by what lay on the far side. We'd finally come across our major highway. Between road-weary travellers and the local, if die-fuse population, that particular patch of nowhere was deemed a profitable enough stretch to commercially colonise, and I silently thank the profitees for their craving decision. Spanning the parking area with dozens of potential rides laid out in rows like I used car lot. "What do you think?" Mini asked Newton. "Hmm," said the big man, hunkering at the edge of an oak's shade. "I took a demean, hurrah for transportation, but wear all the drivers, and I had to agree." Stoking my chin I said, "My feeling is that we wait for nightfall, and locate a vehicle old enough that I might manage hot-wiring it. Oh, better yet, what abandoned with the keys in the ignition?" Then we all nodded, and considered ourselves pretty clever, until the car just started yelling. "You bunch by the trees! Stop garking and give a fell a hand!" It's unnerving to have an invisible stranger address you from afar at the best of times, but, given our recent experience with a persistent sniper, I was especially enthusiastic in my search for the source of the demand. Atop the wild grass, some distance further along the edge of the cement, was a bobbing red and white baseball cap. "Hurry, I'm pretty messed up over here!" said the hat. It was my feeling that the speaker had had a gun and poor intentions. He would have been considerably less conversational, so I opted to break away from our cover and into the trench. Mini, and then Newton, were quick to follow. The altered position made it clear that the exit lanes had been barricaded, by minivans positioned to form a wall, then smashed to ensure their immobility. Given the massive ditch that otherwise surrounded the place, I began to wonder if we might have to make our getaway in the style of Steve McQueen and the Great Escape. But my considerations were quickly knocked aside by that talking shamble that lay before me. Oh, actually, nearly before me. I came to a stop ten feet away from he who'd summoned us, but I can't claim it was a forethought. The snail's trail of blood is what did it? He'd come from somewhere across the road, likely the shuttered Dunkin' Donuts, which stood as the only other building of note in sight. Whatever the case, I was hard-pressed to immediately explain his missing left foot. "It hurts real bad," he said. "What happened?" I asked. A few yards behind me, Newton had halted, rooting Mini at a safe distance. The moustachioid man wiggled the red bill of his cap, then set the whole thing back on his head, as if he were a small-town mechanic, back to explain the cost of a particularly severe repair. "Well, I was across the way with Summer, and we were thinking we'd try and see if we might find food and smokes. Or that maybe there was information left over from when the Wally world was an evacuation point. We saw that Summer set up those wrecks to keep folks out, but we figured there was coffee left at the Donut Place, and she...she..." His explanation became lost amongst his tears, and it was finally too much for Mini. He broke free and rushed to the injured. Frankly, I was surprised he was so coherent, considering his apparently relatively fresh amputation. Continuing to cry, Summer's bow took Mini's hand in his own. Newton and I were rapidly closing the distance, even as he continued. "She was gonna murder me. Her thoughts were whispering it for days, but I reckon that was just here in the meth." Then she cuffed my leg to a booth, and abandoned me with only a dozen goddamn stale croissants to snack on. I showed her. From beneath his mucking-crusted plaid shirt, the storyteller brought up a gory folding knife, miming his escape while maintaining his grip on the teen. He smiled. "Staggering on for a while, but I don't know how long I've lied out. Must have slept here last night, though." Somehow, he managed to turn and kept the wound with a green and white bungee cable. Maybe it was my and Newton's approach, or perhaps it was Mini trying to pry his self from his grasp. But his face sharpened. In a flat voice, he said. "You too, huh?" His first stabbing swing was a miss, but before he could probably bring his weapon around, his captive began to stomp wildly. We were immediately decided, but as we endeavored to intervene, a simple white sneaker had a shattering confrontation with her silent neck. It was a snap, followed by a brief silence. While Mini wept and Newton cooed, I searched the body for keys. I found nothing more than a half-eaten puff pastry, but in my distraction, I missed the girl pocketing the dead man's blade. 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. [Music]