Part 3 of 3
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In this, the final chapter of our current serial, Ruby sees off the last of her neighbours.
The Skinner Co. Network
075 - Ruby Departed: Neighbours, Part 3 of 3
[ Music ] Welcome to FlashPulp Episode 75. Tonight, we present Ruby Departed, Neighbors, Part 3 of 3. [ Music ] This week's episodes are brought to you by FlashPulp on iTunes. Every story comes with a free high five. Find a link to FlashPulp's iTunes feed at skinner.fm. Search for FlashPulp using the iTunes in program search. Or point your browser at http, bit.ly9z2eh0. [ Music ] One day through me, my hours are stumbled. Here is the shadows I live with are number left. [ Music ] FlashPulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age, three to ten minutes of fiction brought to Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. In this, the final chapter of our current serial, Ruby sees off the last of her neighbors. Ruby Departed, Neighbors, Part 3 of 3. Written by J.R.D. Skinner, Art and Narration Biopoponix, an audio produced by Jessica May. [ Music ] July 15th, afternoon. Jim has a plan, and I'm helping. We spent the night the same way we spent most of yesterday. He told me stories about Mildred, mixed with crazy plans for vengeance, and I stared at his arm while trying to pay attention. Sometime around dawn, he finally fell asleep. Unfortunately, he woke with a start about an hour later and started blabbering and blubbering at the same time. I tried my best, but words of consolation are a little tough to come by when you're mid-apocalypse. After a while, he kind of petered out and we sat there, silent under the blanket of moans. He seemed to get some strength back with the sun. I think part of it was that he'd stop just threatening and had actually come up with a plan that he was going to move forward with. I think he's kind of insane. He told me what he would need, and I knew most of it was in the grocery store still. I hopped down and collected some supplies, backpacks, freezer bags, plastic storage containers, and after a little hacking with Bethany's pointy end, a short length of hose. It's the first time I've really been tempted to go into the rest of them all. It's one of those plaza places full of senior citizen stores. There isn't much else in there, really, but the whole situation was leaving me feeling underprepared. Still, the real score was a pair of kids' walkie talkies, which I found by the grocery checkout. The kind was a big red Morse code button on the side. Jim seemed to know what he was talking about when he told me that newer cars can't be siphoned from, that your best bet is always the old clunkers. There was a VW bus in the lot, though, so it was just a matter of mine keeping the hungry crowd distracted by shouting and dancing while he emptied the grateful dead-stickered vehicle. Well, it started to. He kind of got the flow going, then ran a big circle, which eventually led back to the bucket. There was some comedy in it the first time, with me singing and dancing, and him looking like he was getting his exercise in while conducting a minor felony. But by the third go-around, I was getting pretty sick of the process. He got his gas, though. We filled the containers while I did my best to tie all the kids' backpacks together. They didn't have adult packs, just little brightly colored school bags, so I had to improvise. When the gas was finally in the containers and the containers in the bags and the bags strapped to Jim, I took a quick run of my own out to where Leatherhead had become a meal. Then Jim left. He was definitely moving slower with all that weight on his back, but it was the start of his journey, so he was still pretty spry. It's been a slow climb, and I keep expecting to see a guy in an ill-fitting business suit step out onto one of the balconies and start shooting. At the eighth floor, he stopped and used his walkie-talkie. Our conversation was something like, "Jim, "I'm at the eighth floor, me. "Yep, I can see you, so far so good. "Do you think you're still going to have the strength "to climb back down?" Jim, "It'll be much easier. "I'll take the stairs." Mildred was always saying I spent too much time on the climbing wall at the mall. She could never have guessed how useful it was gonna turn out to be. Still, I should've spent the time with her. She, me, Jim, what does it look like on the other side of the patio glass? Jim, oh, dark and empty, me. Why not just break in and start there, Jim? There might be innocent women and children on one of these floors. We've gotta give them a chance, me. Maybe you should just try the door and see if you can't sneak up the stairwell or something. Jim, I've tried every balcony so far. They're all locked. I guess no one realized the dead can't climb. After a while, he continued his Spider-Man act, but with each balcony, he pulls himself up onto. I can see him slowing down. Tea time, I think. Tea time was supposed to be mid-afternoon, right? I miss Google. Jim is a little more than halfway now, but he looks like he's getting really tired. He did stop for a break though. Me, listen, maybe you should just come down. Your eye might not make it all the way up. Jim, it's a shorter distance to just keep going. It'll be easier for me to finish upwards and climb down. Me, how so? The laws of gravity haven't changed. Jim, you sound a lot like Mildred when she would nag. Me. Wait, something is happening. A bit later. So he climbed another two more floors and made a discovery. A floor full of dead people. He said, they're all packed in there tight. So tight, they can't even really move. I don't know if it's just them pushing against the sliding door because I'm here, or if they're actually that stuffed in there. There's one guy against the glass, a college student by the looks of his shave, and he just keeps scraping his upper teeth against the window while not even noticing the pile of people crushing him from behind. Just biting, biting, biting. He seems to have picked up some speed again. Not long after. I think one of the bags popped. I don't think it's a big deal in the long run, although I bet Jim smells funny now. It was his reaction to the suddenness of it that was the real scare. He was just pulling his leg up onto the 18th floor balcony when it happened, and it startled him into nearly losing his grip. Almost there though. An hour later. He made it. His last message sounded like gibberish. Hard to tell if he's lost it, the radio's getting out of range, or if he's just rambling to himself to stay distracted. July 16th. Morning. Where do I begin? 10 minutes after I had heard the glass smashing and he disappeared from view, black clouds were starting to billow out of the apartment he'd entered. 20 minutes later, and the whole top of the building looked like a smoking crown. He must have found the stairwell. As moments later, the second floor down looked the same. Then there was gunfire. I don't think he ever actually intended on leaving. There wasn't much the suits could do though. They must have scrambled to their supplies and gotten together their bags pretty quick. It was only a few minutes later that they came bustling out of the building. They were laden with goods, but they didn't come out unarmed either. One of them had a shotgun. The other had a pistol in each hand. Worse still, they came out the back door and seemed to be heading right towards me. I cussed twice in thought of Jim and Mildred and Mike and Jean and the guy in the muscle shirt and of all the smoke plumes I've seen in these last few weeks. I raised leather heads assault rifle. I pointed it in their general direction. I closed my eyes. I pulled the trigger. Somehow I caught the guy of the shotgun and the big belly in the arm, but that was it. I was sure they were both gonna be cut in half when I finally looked, yet I'd barely winged him. It was enough though. It was the one guy screaming in pain and the other guy's yelling for him to shut up that brought the dogs. That, and I'm fairly sure they've been feeding the charred scraps of visitors to the muts for a long while. Like Pavlov's own pack, they came to the smell of smoke like it was a dinner bell. Spent the night watching the building burn down, floor by floor, like a massive candle. I'm going to start south. I'm sick of this town. (dramatic 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. (upbeat music) (machine whirring) (machine whirring) (machine whirring) (machine whirring)