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Tonight we get a glimpse into Ruby’s social life, after the zombie apocalypse.
The Skinner Co. Network
049 - Ruby Departed: Rolling On, Part 1 of 1
[ Music ] Welcome to FlashPulp episode 49. Tonight, Ruby departed, rolling on, part one of one. This week's stories are brought to you by Opoponaxfeathers.wordpress.com. It's a sketchy place full of shaded characters. That's Opoponaxfeathers.wordpress.com. [ Music ] [ Music ] [ Music ] [ 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, we get a glimpse into Ruby's social life, after the zombie apocalypse. Ruby departed, rolling on, part one of one. Written by J.R.D. Skinner, Art and Narration by Opoponax, an audio produced by Jessica Mann. [ Music ] July 3rd, afternoonish. Was that a car I just heard? A car? I'd cry to see an over-souped Honda Civic come around the corner. Dinner. Collected goods, ten boxes craft dinner, five cans, Chef Boyardee ravioli, and a case of water. A case of water. 56 was a tall guy, slightly balding, with a Thundercat's T-shirt on. He'd become trapped behind the deli counter somehow. I'm not sure if he had been bitten and tried to hide, or if he somehow shuffled back there and accidentally locked himself in. Either way, he'd eaten all the meat and left all the cheese. After having to thrust up under his goatee to get out his brain, I wasn't really in the mood to be checking for mold. I used to love tall men. 57 was a fat lady who'd caught hold of some poor corpse's hair through the security gate blocking the store from the interior of the plaza. By the looks of the damage to her arms, she must have been there a while. I mostly did it out of mercy. She'd lost her pants somewhere, and her raccoon and a vending machine act, combined with her naked bottom, was enough to break my heart. At least she was short enough for a decent downward thrust. July 4th. Lunch. I'm still on top of the mom and pop grocery store. Except for that 15 minutes yesterday, I haven't heard any more engine noises. The smoke call on my spot before getting stuck has been coming and going, though. I'm fairly sure its source is actually just a couple of apartment buildings away, but I'd rather not head back over the fence into the general's territory. All this catch-up is really just so I can tell you something odd that happened earlier. I had a conversation. It started after I'd completed my third raid on the store for the day. I was busy stepping into a slim gym when I heard a grinding noise across the parking lot, and out on the road. There's a coffee place right in the middle of the pavement, though, and it blocked my view from the northeast. Still, I definitely knew something was coming. She was at least six foot five, and I'd take odds she could have outarm-rassled Clint in his best every which way but loose days. From that distance, I could tell she had some sort of weapon on her back, and two neon pink and black fanny packs over her shorts and tank top. The fanny packs made me less worried about her somehow. Of course, none of this is what I first noticed. She was in a giant metal hamster ball. As she got closer, I could see she had a backpack strapped to one side of the rig. It was empty, but I suspect she wasn't long into her day when I encountered her. She saw me waving from the rooftop and swung into the lot, coming to a stop by a white cargo van that was well within talking range. This is basically how I remember it. Me. Hi. Her. Hi. Me. This is kind of a weird place to meet. Her. Yeah, I was actually coming out here to loot this store. Me. Uh, well, I have, uh, kind of emptied it out. This was not entirely true, and I feel a bit bad for fibbing, but I wasn't really prepared to give up my find. Her. Huh. That's too bad. Awkward pause. Me. Hey, happened to know what the smoke to the north is all about? Her. Nope. Me. You live around here? Her. Maybe. Me. Huh. Then there was another weird pause. We both obviously wanted conversation, but there's not much new on TV you can bring up. And beyond roller derby, I'm not much of a sports fan. Horror. By that point, though, the debtors in the parking lot had started to stumble around her ball. So that gave me an opening. Me. Aren't you concerned about losing momentum and getting stuck in a mob? Her. Well, I wear these gloves. They're actually those cut-proof ones for chefs. Saves me from risking my fingertips in their mouths. But it also keeps the goo off my hands when I go over one of them. If I get crowded like this, I just start rocking a bit. Usually I can push them over, and then I just gotta get up to speed over top of that guy, and I'm on my way. If it's really crowded, she let the weapon slip from her shoulder. I use this. She held up a shotgun, but it had a bayonet welded to the bottom. It didn't look like what I remember of Grandpa Smith's bayonet. It wasn't a knife that hooked on. It was more like a big bent nail that projected out past the barrel. Me. Wow. So, uh, where'd you manage to find the American gladiator ball? Were there any more lying around? Her. My husband built it, actually. We used to work the summer fests with them. Me. Oh, yeah? Where's he? She holds up the gun again, as if that explains everything. These days? It kinda does. Again, the conversation dies. I wasn't about to invite her to go spelunking amongst the shelves, and she obviously couldn't invite me into the do-mo sphere. I offered her one of my bottles of water. She looked at Bethany. She looked at the hatch of her ball. She looked at the group of rotters around her. "No thanks," she said. "Even though it had pained me to offer, I didn't take any offense." "Well, I better get going," she said, starting out by pushing over a ten-year-old boy with a massive skull print on his t-shirt, and a bearded hobo-looking guy in an orange sweater. As we said our goodbyes, I tried to ignore the difference of the sound of rolling over pavement versus rolling over meat. An hour or so before dusk. I just saw her heading back down the road. She waved, and so did I. She didn't stop to chat. 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 contribution non-commercial 2.5 license. [MUSIC] (upbeat music) (upbeat music)