Part 1 of 1
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Tonight, Harm Carter attempts to make a difficult phone call, mid-apocalypse.
The Skinner Co. Network
108 - The Murder Plague: Emergency Response, Part 1 of 1
[music] Welcome to FlashPulp episode 108. Tonight, we present the Murder Plague, Emergency Response Part 1 of 1. This week's episodes are brought to you by the Bobberson Things podcast. Sort of like the dukes of hazard, but with more naughtiness and less jump in cars. Find them by searching for Bobberson Things on iTunes, or find everything you've ever wanted to be bothered by at bobbersonthings.com. [music] Sunday is gloomy, my hours are stumbled. Here is the shadows I live with are numbled. [music] [music] 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 attempts to make a difficult phone call mid-apocalypse. [music] The Murder Plague, Emergency Response Part 1 of 1. Written by JRD Skinner Art and Narration Biopoponax, an audio produced by Jessica May. [music] And sure of how to proceed, given that anyone I might encounter would be infected, and thus likely to make an attempt on my life, I opted to continue with my original plan for contacting the authorities. Reaching across the corpse of the doctor, I lifted his portable phone from its charging base. That's when I heard a low rumble. The roads have been very quiet since I'd found myself participating in the end of the world, so the sound of an approaching engine, a large one, was enough to draw me to the living room's bay window, even before I could dial. From around the corner of my curved suburban street came a fire truck, which roared to a halt in front of a lawn five houses down the row, on the opposite side of the pavement. It was a two-story home, as was frankly every residence in the cookie-cutter neighbourhood, and as the fire engine came to a stop, a blonde woman in a nightgown appeared at a second floor window. Her body language told me she was pleading for assistance from the new arrival, but I could hear little through the distance and thick glass. For a moment, I held out hope that a squad of hazmat-becuted professionals would begin piling out of the red truck, like clowns of a car, but instead, the vehicle seemed to carry only its driver, a fresh-faced young fellow in a black uniform adorned with a red emblem and a name tag. His thick arms and well-cropped hair were calendar material, certainly, and I can only assume that he meant well as he jogged to the front door in response to the calls. It was unlocked, and as he moved inside I lost sight of him. At the same moment, though, the woman came interview, once again at her dormer. She rushed the pain open and exited onto the roof, then, on hand and knee, she scrambled towards the peak. Although I did not recognise the female, I could readily identify the man that followed her. He was a road-tunned neighbour of mine, easily recognisable from his nightly habit of standing in his garage with the door up, a beer in his hand and an eager word on his lips for any who might share in his sudsy bounty. He would never exchange conversation beyond hellos, but he'd seemed friendly enough, at least until he'd appeared with a sizeable knife in his hand. He was nearly onto the roof when the fireman took the upper floor and began yanking bodily at the attacker's ankles. It was an ill-conceived plan, and within moments the aggression had been turned from the lady bestriding the house and onto the would-be rescuer. As the pursuit moved into the interior, I could not make out its particulars. I did, however, witness its conclusion. The younger of the pair either jumped, or was thrown, from the same window that the woman had earlier used in her escape. He fell flat onto the grass, lucky to have partially landed on a Missalia bush. Pulling himself to his feet, he'd picked up speed as he approached the truck and removed a fire axe from a side compartment. Still, the beer-lever was quick to return to his hunt. He was halfway onto the roof when the woman acted, slamming down the heavy window frame and pinning her assailant in place before he could bring his weapon around. The blade swung wildly, but the makeshift trap held. Noting the change in fortunes, the firefighters seemed to rethink his plan. He moved back to the truck and detached a ladder, which he set to the side of the house. With one eye on the ensnared, and his axe still in hand, he pulled himself up. The woman didn't seem to notice the approach until the climber neared, and she was only a few feet away as his head cleared the gutters. There was a quick exchange then, words I couldn't hear, and the axe was thrown some distance onto the roof, likely in an effort to prove good intention. With a lightning-fast shovel, she pressed her slippered foot hard against the topmost rung, and the ladder drifted out into space, paused briefly at its apex, then toppled backwards. The second fall was less lucky, as the arc of his platform carried him away from the grass and hedges, and instead hoisted him over the much firmer roadway. I think that must have been when the paranoid distrust that is the prime symptom of the plague conquered his underlying desire to help. To be fair, it's tough to call it paranoia when you're chased out a second story window by a three hundred pound man wielding a cleaver. He was raging loudly as he rose, a fist pumping the air towards the still-watching woman. With his axe on the roof, I suppose he went with the weapon closest at hand. The truck. The crash must have ruptured a gas pipe as the home, with only a foot or so of the red behemoth's tail still protruding, immediately began to smoke and flame. I dropped the phone and made for my car. 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]