Part 3 of 3
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Tonight, Harm Carter finds himself suddenly in a trust-building exercise, while attempting to avoid the homicidal urges of Hitchcock’s Disease.
The Skinner Co. Network
143 - The Murder Plague: Community, Part 3 of 3
[music] Welcome to FlashPulp episode 143. Tonight, we present The Murder Plague, Community, Part 3 of 3. This week's episodes are brought to you by the ladies' pen dragon. [music] A redneck midget with a baby and a shotgun. A farmville addict majored in psychology to make people worse. A disgruntled cosplayer with degrees in biochem English and shredding arguments. A velvet-throated herald of astrological deviants, whose grandmother offered to contact a rat from the beyond. A verbose in sea living in Japan was occasionally possessed by Gollum. And a single librarian with a cat named Darcy and a penchant for zombies and barbecue sandwiches. These are the unlikely writer heroines of pen dragon variety, an audio literary magazine and round table discussion podcast for genre fiction and poetry writers. Plug in your earbuds every Thursday for sage advice. I will give my sage advice to anyone that asks, and my advice is just don't suck. Ineffable eloquence. Degue, character development, yes. And relevant examples. So you can be dream record and Raven can be reality checker, and you even rhyme now. I want you to say, now we need a theme song. Oh God, Scrappy, promise me if we ever write a graphic novel. Those are going to be our superheroes. Have you seen the penis trap, because that one's scary. What? Alright, if we promise not to put it in the podcast, you'll tell us about it, right? Visit pen dragon variety dot com to learn more. And try not to suck. 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 finds himself suddenly in a trust building exercise, while attempting to avoid the homicidal urges of Hitchcock's disease. The Murder Plague. Community. Part three of three. Written by J.R.D. Skinner. Art and narration by Opoponax. An audio produced by Jessica May. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I drove the Escalade north, skirting the city, and pulled to a stop at Grant's Overlook. The spot was poorly maintained at the best of times, and park services had obviously been abandoned early in the ongoing cataclysm. The open cracked cement wore a crown of tall grass, and the picnic table, along with its adjoining trash barrel, stewed as lonely islands amongst the growth. Jeremy, the first out, was eager to exit the vehicle and hunker down on the peeling bench. Alyssa, the blonde woman, who died originally thought was Minnie's mother, was the last to leave. She seemed to be lost in thought while scrutinizing my face, and it was only once she realized that teenage girl was already on the pavement that she also slid across the leather seats and dropped her slender legs to the ground. I must admit, there was a temptation to simply roll up my window, wave a merry goodbye, and depart the area. We'd gotten this far without anyone making an effort to impale another with some makeshift weapon, and I was hesitant to risk breaking the streak. Still, I let the engine die, then tuck the keys into my pocket. The doctor had attached a thin Swiss Army knife to the chain, and I fumbled with it while I strolled the group. I wasn't eager to see if its tiny blade, and quite a bit of gumption, would be enough to overcome the strangers I had found myself surrounded by. We conducted a second round of introductions, more formally this time, then spent a moment in silence, watching the east end of the city as it was eaten by fire. I couldn't process that the distance smoke was the cast off of the flame below. It felt as if I was watching my existence drifting high into the blue, where it was blown away and stringy wisps. It was Johanna who broke the silence with her jeepers. I hadn't had much opportunity to talk to the old girl at that point, and I didn't know what to make of her floral print dress and utilitarian haircut. I hadn't learned of her hidden flask yet. "Well, we have a ride, just like you wanted," Jeremy said, turning to Tyrone. I wasn't sure if it was a threat, or an assumption. "The cajar harumphed." "You've been wanting to take a drive to this forgotten make-out spot?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at the orb, pairing. "What?" "No, I mean..." "It was Minnie, the teenager, who cut Jeremy short." "Can we get a lift?" The girl used her interjection into the conversation as an excuse to get away from the slathering hugs that Alyssa had made repeated attempts to wrap her in. Honestly, I wasn't sure I could say no. To buy time, I mentioned that it didn't strike me as likely that any specific corner of the apocalypse would be less exciting than the others. "We want to head to the Army Roadblock at the state line," she replied. Now, you have to understand that the concept of a military blockade held a lot of implications in my mind. I'd spent no few hours walking the perimeters of such outposts, often while the starving folk I was on hand to protect, moaned at the gate. As I stared down at the angry red patch creeping over the city, though, I was nothing but welcoming to the news that somewhere the old uniform still held some starch. Before I had a chance to grow misty-eyed with patriotism, Alyssa broke in. She'd positioned herself by the now-opened trunk, and I couldn't see what she might be holding in her fist. "I don't think we should go with him," she spot, attempting to lock her free-hand's fingers around Minnie's elbow. "He just wants to take her away from us!" Her traveling companions exchanged a glance that told me they'd come to the same conclusion I had. The high tone she was using brought to mind the sort of squeaking self-assurance that child gets when they think their own command of information unknown to anyone else. Alyssa caught the pity in her friend's eyes. That's when she beamed me with my own can of starkest tuna. It hurt, certainly, but I was glad that the puck-like container was what she'd come up with, and not, say, a hand-gun. As I cradled my bleeding temple, Alyssa snatched up a bottle of ragu. Raised it in a two-fisted grip, and rushed me. It was Minnie who tripped her. We had no rope, but the dock had left a varied collection of cell-phone charges in his glove compartment, and, as Jeremy and I used their retractable cords to create restraints, the others held her in place. It was while watching her shrink in my rear-view mirror, writhing and screaming atop the picnic table, that I realised I was stuck with them. Not because I liked them, but because I needed people around me willing to do the same. If and when I, too, went over the edge. [Music] Flashpulp is presented by http colon slash slash Skinner dot FM. The audio and text formats of Flashpulp are released under the Canadian Creative Commons attribution non-commercial 2.5 license. [Music] (upbeat music)