Part 1 of 3
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Tonight we present the first entry in another arc straight from the pages of Ruby’s travel log. In this chapter, our heroine attempts to track down the source of the mysterious smoke she has repeatedly witnessed during her post-apocalyptic journey.
[music] Welcome to Flashpulp Episode 73. Tonight we present Ruby Departed Neighbors, Part 1 of 3. This week's episodes are brought to you by Flashpulp on iTunes. Subscribe today, or Steve Jobs may hurling in just our at you. Find the link at skinner.fm, search for Flashpulp using the in-program search, or point your browser at httpbit.ly9z2eh0. Sunday through me, my hours are stumbled, give it the shadows I live with are number left. Flashpulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age, 3-10 minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. Tonight we present the first entry in another arc straight from the pages of Ruby's travel log. In this chapter, our heroine attempts to track down the source of the mysterious smoke she has repeatedly witnessed during her post-apocalyptic journey. Ruby Departed Neighbors, Part 1 of 3 Written by JRD Skitter, Art and narration by Opoponax, an audio produced by Jessica Me. July 10th, Lunchish, I woke up feeling like the world had collapsed on me, again. It was all shuffling jerks from horizon to horizon, and I'd had a dream about Leatherhead and Linda. We gathered around the kitchen table talking and laughing, but the whole time they were both eating sushi that they delicately plucked with chopsticks from a slit in Linda's abdomen. I'd planned on heading over to check out where the smoke column comes from, but I just can't get up the juice. I had a stash of little white and red mint candies, a lot like my grandma used to keep in a crystal dish on her TV, and I spent most of the mornings sucking them down to about half-size than crunching them between my teeth. I'm going to stare at the sun for a bit, then think about doing something useful tomorrow. July 11th, Mid-Morning saw a kid, he was maybe 14, although it's hard to know because my view was so distant. He came rolling down the road on a skateboard, wearing a long-sleeve shirt and a baggy pair of pants, like he was late for homeroom, but he couldn't care less. Every now and then one of the stumblers would make a grab for him, but the kid weeble-wappled like a wet noodle. He was nearly out of sight before I shouted at him, basically just, "Hey, hey kid!" He heard me, he just didn't care. He seemed to be chuckling while he gave me the double dukes. "Screw it," I thought. If that little punk is laughing it all off, why shouldn't I? I grabbed my stuff and started over the chain-link fence. Circling around took a long while. Open cement can start to feel really cramped with shambles all around, but it's usually the weird cases that catch you by surprise. Between all those legs, it can be hard to see a deader crawling at you with gnashing teeth. Number fifty-nine was slithering along on his belly. He had a light blue jacket on, sort of shiny, and jeans that were worn away and in tatters from his travels. He startled me, so I overcompensated with Bethany, and the tip of her blade ended up coming out of one of his eye sockets. It took a second to wiggle it free, and by then it was a game of chase me. I made a flat-out run for a convenience store bar restaurant all crammed into a single building. That's basically where I'm at now, on top of the Chinese place, ducked behind the air-conditioning unit. There's an apartment building behind me, 23 stories high, with a semi-circle barricade by the door made out of cars from the parking lot, tipped on their side. It seems pretty solid. The whole area smells kind of like burnt ham, though, which is making me hungry. I wonder if it's coming from the Asia Garden below me. I could really go for some hot lontons right now. The thing is, I'm fairly sure there are still real live people inside the apartment building. I haven't seen any of them yet, but I've heard talking. I'm feeling a little shy, however, and I don't really want to give away where I'm at just yet, still thinking about leatherhead, I guess. Will we ever trust each other again? Even if we do somehow out-survive all these dead folks? Dusk. I know what the smoke is. I half fell asleep waiting. I was thinking I'd let night come and make my decision then. If it was dark enough that I could shout at the building without giving away my location, I was going to see if I could have a conversation. If it was bright enough that I could move around without ending up a snack, I thought I might climb up to the first level of balconies and see what there was to see. I didn't have to wait that long though. I noticed the big guy wearing a wife beater and army pants just as he was going over the top of the car arcade. He had a backpack on, and he was carrying a pink piece of paper in one hand, and a baseball bat in the other. "Hello!" he shouted. He seemed excited. It took a minute, but the balcony door in the first floor slid open, and a man in a business suit walked out. The suit was immaculate, like it had just come from the cleaners, but it didn't seem to fit very well. It was slightly too big around the shoulders, and I could see the pant legs were riding over his shoes. "Hello!" the guy in the suit said. "I got your notice," ground-level replied, holding up the piece of paper. "Fantastic! Welcome to Utopia. Before you can enter, we're going to need to check you for weapons. Could you please drop your bag into the mail slot in front of you?" I heard a metallic scraping as one of those deposit hatches you see at post offices, or sometimes at an apartment rental place, was pulled open. "Thanks," the suit said. From behind his back, he pulled out a brightly colored super-soaker. I hadn't seen one of those things since I was a kid, but this one was huge. He started spraying the guy in the wife-beater down, giggling the whole time, like it was a hot summer day, and they were both twelve-year-olds. The victim down below didn't find it so funny. He was cussing up a racket when a second businessman appeared on the balcony, although his suit was too small to fit around his gut. He had a bucket. The guy in the army pants had made it halfway over the hood of an old boxy Buick before a flaming sock went sailing past his head. The thing hit the pavement with a squishy sound and kept on burning. The suit with the water gun kept up his spraying, while his partner kept dunking folded socks into his bucket of gas, then lighting them with a zipper and checking them. Just his muscle shirt pulled a leg onto the Buick's upper end, a pair of white sport socks caught him in the lower back. He was drenched by them, and there was a little "foom" sound as he lit up. The unfortunate guest fell back within the ring of cars, and the screaming kept up until they eventually just dumped the rest of the fuel bucket onto him. By then the dogs had come. My old acquaintance, the general, was in the lead, his floppy lips bouncing along with his stately walk, and behind him, at least fifty more of his pack. They started prowling back and forth outside the car wall, moving just fast enough to stay out of the hands of the grabby dead. After it was quiet, the suits went back in, probably to check out what loop they just had delivered. Now I've got to wait through this sweet and horrible burnt ham smell until it's dark enough to get out of here. I think I'm going to take the time to weep silently. 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] . (music)
