Part 2 of 3
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Tonight, Harm Carter encounters a new obstacle to remaining alive in a world dominated by a homicidal epidemic.
The Skinner Co. Network
142 - The Murder Plague: Community, Part 2 of 3
[ Music ] Welcome to Flashpulp, episode 142. Tonight, we present The Murder Plague, Community, Part 2 of 3. This week's episodes are brought to you by the Lady's 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 stop. Ineffable eloquence. Degue, character development. And relevant examples. Say so, you can be dream record and Raven can be reality checker, and you even rhyme now. I shouldn't say, yeah, we need a theme song. Oh God, Scruffy, 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? All right, if we promise not to put it in the podcast, you'll tell us about it, right? Visit pendragonvariety.com to learn more. And try not to suck. Flashpulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age. 3 to 10 minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. Tonight, Harm Carter encounters a new obstacle to remaining alive in a world dominated by a homicidal epidemic. The Murder Plague. Community. Part 2 of 3. Written by JRD Skinner. Art and narration by Opopenex. An audio produced by Jessica May. [Music] The wall of heat that was following the five strangers down the road was oppressive. And yet, bless their foolish hearts, they stopped to help me. There was little time for discussion, but, for whatever it was worth, Jeremy took up the hose attached to the Hernandez's and started spraying the closest wall, while Johanna grabbed bullies and did the same for the other side. I was grinning, I must admit. Human kindness can be quite touching when the majority of your interactions with other people lead to a murder attempt. The remaining three looked up questioningly, having run out of reasonable water sources. There's some food inside. It would probably be a good idea to grab as much as you think as suitable to travel and relocate it to the trunk of the Escalade. To be fair, I wasn't entirely swept away by their good will. I knew the keys were safely in my pocket. To the group, many, no older than fourteen, and Alyssa, a blonde woman, just old enough to be mistaken as Mini's mother, began to transfer canned goods from my pantry to our escape method. Through the process of elimination, this left the laziest of the bunch, the old man, Tyrone, to make the introductions. After he provided a quick explanation of names, my throat was growing agitated from the heat and smoke, so I invited him up. Once he topped the latter, I asked the obvious. This may sound like an odd question, but, aren't you concerned I'm going to murder you? Well, he had time and opportunity for a better setup than getting us on your slick roof in hopes of an accident. And, really, no one locked in that whole murder or be murdered mindset, shouts hello. He had a point, but he pushed on with a grizzly detail. I was trying to save my place before it went up as well. You'll see, as the fire gets closer, a lot of these garage doors will burst open, and the last of our rats that have been hiding inside, instead of helping you, will abandon ship. It wasn't something I'd considered. Frankly, I thought boldly to be amongst the last. I noted, sloshing tepid water across the tiles. Where are those kind of paranoia at large? The Bates motel, I suppose. Continued Tyrone. He went on, but I don't really recall the dialogue. Despite the approaching crackle and the marching pop of backyard barbecues, he'd immediately fallen into a posture that I can only imagine was familiar to his normal life. Idle conversation while watching others work. He talked and we scurried about, and it all amounted to about the same anyhow. It was obvious, well before any flames touched my house, that it was a lost cause. Mini and Alyssa had joined us by then, helping share some of the brunt of Tyrone's unceasing prattling, and Alyssa specifically struck me as having a solid handle on how to direct his energies. "Shut up and do something useful," she'd said while clearing the final rung onto the roof. It wasn't an easy decision. It felt as if I was abandoning the memory of my wife to smolder with the rest of my possessions, and it stung to think that Rebecca, should she ever come looking, and find no home to return to. There was no real option, however, and I could almost hear Kate's voice, as it had been just before her death, calling me an ornery mule for having waited so long. He was the grinding of an automatic garage door, followed by the swift departure of a white, bloody windowed Lexus that finally sold me. If even the crazies knew it was time to go, I reasoned, so should I. "I believe we ought to be rambling on," I announced, making sure my volume would carry the words to the two still on the ground. We descended and began to take up our places within the stolen vehicle, I'd so quickly fallen to the mindset of calling my own. Jeremy was the last straggler, and his reply reminded me oddly of my daughter. "Screw that, man! We can totally do this!" A small explosion two doors down rained flaming debris across my back deck, and there was no need for further argument. Though he did find reason to complain when he finally arrived at the SUV, as all of the plush leather seats had been occupied. He'd opened the rear door where Mini and Lissa sat, side by side, and there was something in his weighing gaze that I did not enjoy. "You can sit on the old man's lap," I said, reaching across Tyrone, who'd presumptively taken the front passenger seat, and opening the door. I began rolling slowly away from the curb in encouragement. He hopped in, yanking the handle shut. As the pair exchanged awkward glances and their newfound intimacy, I pulled away from my doomed lawn, eager to be gone before I could consider what I was leaving behind. 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)