Flash Pulp

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and nineteen.

Tonight we present The Cost of Living: Part 1 of 3 – Mistaken Natures: a Blackhall Chronicle

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(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Nutty Bites

Flash Pulp 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, Thomas Blackhall, master frontiersman and student of the occult, comes to the aid of a young boy caught up in a nightmare.

The Cost of Living: Part 1 of 3 – Mistaken Natures: a Blackhall Chronicle

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

He was at the cusp of civilization when the priest rode him down.

“Thomas Blackhall?” asked the red-faced youth from his shabby saddle.

To Thomas’ eyes the cleric seemed nearly as winded as his nag.

Despite being but two day’s travel from his destination – an appointment in the wildwood with a creature that, should he encounter it, would have likely made the lad doubt this collar – the frontiersman felt such a laboured trip deserved an honest answer.

“Yes?” he replied.

The rider opened his jacket wide to make his already-noted position all the more obvious. “I am Father Stanton. The Willards were kind enough to set me on your path. I have come far and must confess, I would have been truly heartbroken to have lost you amongst the pines.

“I – we – need your help.”

Blackhall’s boot drifted from the hunting trail he’d nearly escaped before the interruption, but he inquired, “who is we?”

“Father Sterling and myself. Well, no, I should really say a lad of twelve. He lies now in a small cabin – or, more truly, a small hell – to the east. If the wind is friendly and my mare holds out we can be there by dawn.”

“Damnation,” Thomas muttered as he turned back towards the muddy rut.

* * *

There was plentiful time for conversation as the horse huffed along its course.

“Sterling is a man operating under God’s grace, but still a man,” Stanton had finally confessed. “He made certain late night claims over surplus donations of altar wine. I was, er, taken with his tales of vigorous defenses of faith, and I must admit that perhaps my gusto involved us more deeply in this affair than either of us now would have liked.

“When we arrived, there was but the boy and his mother – the Soons are well known as the only Chinese family in the territory, and no doubt the other five have fled to a neighbouring home for the duration. It was such a helpful acquaintance that brought the news to our small parish, and it was as the frightened-face woman implored me that my interest in the world beyond men’s senses, and my enthusiasm for Father Sterling’s stories of spiritual warfare, overwhelmed my humility. When I agreed to help I did not realize how sorely prepared I was for the undertaking.

“It was also my interest in the world beyond men’s senses that likely carried your name from a penitent’s lips to my ears.

“The child shakes, I was told – shakes and weeps and begs to be released from Lucifer’s thrashing. How could I have denied such a summons?

“We departed that afternoon and unmounted well after the moon had risen. My companion believes the stripling’s Oriental nature may be at fault for our failures. I do not hold that any sinner should have the barbarism of their upbringing held against them, however.

“Sterling was not receptive when, three days and no sleep into our undertaking, I suggested we consult you before you were past our reach.

“He will not be pleased to see my success.”

From there the conversation shifted into a recital of Sterling’s apparent history of exorcisms which did nothing to impress Thomas.

It was a relief to Blackhall when they tied off outside a thick timbered cottage – at least, until they entered.

The priest’s minced words had given him no inkling of what truly lay inside.

A stout table had been upended at the center of the room, and young Soon’s limbs wound with rawhide. The leather bucked with his convulsions, and the too-warm air stank of sweat and human excrement – obviously originating with the naked child, the floor was covered in the same, as were the shoes and pant legs of Father Sterling.

In the corner sat a woman in flowing red robes of a cut Thomas did not recognize. Over one shoulder and across her chest she wore a white sling, in which he surmised a newborn currently slept. She appeared to pay no heed to the proceedings as she pursed her neat lips and played a lilting counterpoint to the scene’s brutality on a slender flute.

Her hems rested just clear of the slick of waste, and the bairn made no noise at the sound of its brother’s tumult.

The heat of the stove did little to ease the oppressive closeness of the stink and the looming character of the poorly lit walls. Blackhall’s thoughts seemed to catch on the notes of the low-toned tune, and his mind grew heavy with the troubling tableau before him.

Gray-haired Sterling, after a brief outburst at their arrival, knelt to press a cross firmly against Soon’s birdcage chest and continue his ecclesiastical chanting.

With but ten minutes of observation, Thomas needed to see no more. He turned on the pair of clergy.

“This is no supernatural incursion,” he told them, “this is St. Vitus’ Dance, a disorder known to modern science for its spasms and uncontrolled moods. I have read on the condition, for you are not the first to make such occult presumptions, and have even encountered it while touring the London infirmary with another preacher – a selfless fellow who actually understood how to do some good in the world – though, in truth, there was naught for it but to soothe the suffering girl’s jerking and allow her rest.

“You, however, have starved and frightened a confused child for days, leaving him in the reek of his own feces and shouting Latin at him like Babylonians speaking in tongues. You assume a barbaric imperfection, yet it is you who has left a youth requiring medical treatment in circumstances more appropriate to an ancient torture chamber than a sick room.

“I will leave your horse with the Willards and send word from the adjoining neighbours’ that you will require transport. Retrieve your beast when you have cleaned up your mess and put about a collection for this convalescence. Otherwise, keep your victim fed and clothed – if you can manage it – and he will be fine.”

With a hard, if confused, glance to the still-performing woman, he departed.

Despite his correct diagnosis, Thomas did not know to look for the signs that gave away the swaying musician’s ruse, and he could not save the boy from the pain that lay in store once the remorse-filled men of the cloth retreated.

It was not long after a carriage came to collect the churchmen that the song ceased, and the horror revealed its true nature to the last of the Soons.

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

- and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and eighteen.

Tonight we present Pinch: a Blackhall Chronicle, Part 1 of 1

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This week’s episodes are brought to you by Shadow Publications

Flash Pulp 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, Thomas Blackhall, master frontiersman and student of the occult, is confronted by a one-handed man with a tale of loss.

Pinch: a Blackhall Chronicle

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

Thomas had risen before dawn, eager to see an old friend and return to his hunt, to discover that a visitor awaited him in the great room of the inn at which he’d taken up temporary lodging.

As the stranger flagged Blackhall over, the woman who ran the establishment – a mother of four who’d been left too soon by a soldiering husband – stood sleepy eyed at the fireplace, trying to will the embers into a greater flame. Thomas briefly considered ignoring the newcomer’s summons and to instead wander hastily out of the sleepy scene, but the handless stump with which the man signaled was difficult to overlook.

Working off the straps he’d just finished arranging and then setting down his baggage and rifle, Blackhall sat.

Sensing the frontiersman’s aggravation at the delay, the round-faced caller raised his early cup of hops and said, “oh, I assure you, this digression is worthy of your time, Mr. Blackhall.”

“Name’s Meriwether Tristram. My cousin in Perth wrote to tell me of you once he’d caught wind of my – situation.

“You see, one Sunday I’d arisen to breakfast only to realize my meager cupboard was empty. Worse still, I’d spent the last of my coin on quenching Friday night’s thirst, and, though I laboured greatly at the Mill in New Branston, there was no hope of fresh pay till the Wednesday following – anyhow, hunger and a long sleep drove me from bed that morn, but I still had plenty of shot for my musket. It was my search for venison, north of the cluster of shanties that make up the so-called town, that lead me to a stretch of spruce that I did not recognize from previous expeditions.

“I could hear a stream on the far side of the stand and I was considering spending a period amongst the foliage to see what passed when I noticed a set of white stones arranged in a strange pattern upon the ground nearby. A closer examination, of course, presented the fact that they were not rocks at all, but the skeletal remains of a foot. There was no sign of the rest of the body, but I did spot a trinket resting in close proximity to the detached ankle.

“I assumed it to be silver, though I now highly doubt it. Its surface is engraved with curious care, an arrangement of loops and strokes that seems to deepen as you look them over, and its sizing – well, you shall see.

“Now, let me make it plain: Other than the scrollwork, the dimensions were not outside of the ordinary for a thick ring – that is why I kept it. For my distant girl.

“Well, I mean, I may have attempted to sell it first, but even then the proceeds were to be obtained with my intended in mind. The few I inquired with, however, had little interest, and I knew that there were others nearby who would be quick to call for the bauble against debts owed – unfortunate pinches about the dice table have left me with more creditors than friends. As such, I dispatched it to my wife.

“Or, truly, my would-be wife; even previous to our betrothal I worked the camps in hopes of collecting adequate funds to purchase a plot large enough for a cow and a field of corn, and so my intentions continued though my empty-pocketed status kept us apart.

“Anyhow, I parceled it up and sent it, by trusted courier, homeward.”

Thomas cleared his throat while Meriwether took a moment to wet his own.

“For what period have you been in search of your fortune?” asked Blackhall.

“Well, at this and at that for the last dozen months.”

“- and how much have you garnered for your farm?”

“You must understand, I’ve yet to find the gambit that will truly make my name. Currently, sir, my possessions extend only to the small traveling case of clothes that resides in my room, and the willingness to put my back into future labours.”

“Seems a shame to expend such effort without a result to show for it. Perhaps the dice are not your friend.”

“I have had some bad luck, it’s true – though it hardly matters now. She called the wedding off. A month after my missive I received a note, with my love token returned. I thought at first that the issue was impatience or another fellow, for the attached explanation made little sense to me at the time. It spoke of a curse – both on the ring, and on our love. Half was true, at least.

“My sole consolation was that the news came on a Friday. As it happened, I’d changed occupation from miller to lumberman, and, as my new position came with a week-ending payday, I was flush enough to hold the head of my sorrows below a steady flow of ale.

“It was a night of singing and weeping. It was the sort of occasion on which friendships are made and broken, sweeping oaths are professed then forgotten, and many mugs are broken by accident or design.

“The ring remained in my pocket throughout those hours of lament, but, on my stumbling route back to my bunk, my fingers came upon the accursed thing.

“My memory is piecemeal at best, but I recall noting with some amusement that the metal seemed to stretch about my stocky fingers. It was with some amazement, then, that I found myself able to expand it so wide that it might act as a bangle around my wrist, but my experiments were cut short by the attentions necessary to capture a few hours sleep in a company bed after having ditched a scheduled day’s labour.

“Despite my circumstances the foreman had no pity for me – admittedly, it may not have been my first such sabbatical, although it was certainly my most justified. Whatever the case, my call to rise was an unpleasant one. It did not help, I suppose, that I appeared more attentive to the sting in my arm than the bull-mouthed man’s words. Still, there was no time to investigate the source of my affliction before I was tossed up on a wagon bound for town.

“I am not unfamiliar with slumbering through an unexplained ache, and the rocking of the wheels quickly pulled me back under. Besides, although persistent it had not yet grown so painful as to be all encompassing.

“Not, that is, until I awoke in a heap on the ground, with the cart trailing away in the distance. Stevenson, the driver, had gathered a dislike for me after a misunderstanding, on an earlier occasion, regarding the number of aces in a certain deck of cards we’d been, er, inspecting.

“‘You were howling in your sleep, it was scaring the horses,’ he shouted back, but he was gone before I could collect myself enough to make a reply.

“At least he had the decency to drop me at a signpost that indicated my position in relation to town. I wasn’t within sight of the local pub, but I was in the proper county.

“Realizing my recent gin soaking would hardly win me friends amongst any decent folk with functioning noses, and feeling as if I’d perhaps injured my arm in my tumble, I crept into a nearby barn with the intention of continuing to nap away the last of my wobbling remorse.

“Now, understand: Come into town looking rough and smelling of cow dung, they’ll assume you’ve been hard at work, but, come in looking rough and smelling of the lower shelves, they’ll assume you’re a roustabout who’s never held a shovel in his life.

“Anyhow, I could not rest. In attempting to reach the upper loft I came to realize that my right hand was not just numb from the fall or the spirits, as I’d assumed. I had no control of my fingers, and no sense that there was anything attached beyond my elbow.

“Working back my jacket and shirt sleeve, I found the ring, just as thick but now approximately the size of a malnourished crab apple. I note this because, as you can see, I carry the weight of my drinking habits with me, and my arm is considerably meatier than an apple’s width.

“You see, the damned thing had contracted while I was sleeping. It’s ever tightening circumference had cinched my flesh like a corset, then worse, and I’d accidentally anesthetized myself against the procedure.

“There was no blood, but the agony increased with my sobriety. In short order I was weeping in the corner of a swept pig pen, with only the sound of snapping bone and grinding metal to keep me company.

“I pawed at the ever-tightening band, but I could not even rise to take up the woodpile axe at the edge of my vision – and a good thing too, as, in my state, I would’ve just as likely displaced the entirety of my arm.

“I was come upon the following day by a maid come to milk their Bess. I’d become senseless in my uncomfortable position, and the family’s sheepdog had taken to gnawing on my now detached extremity – a fact that was discovered as the gal’s father carried me house-ward.

“It was the same fellow who located the blasted ring, again the size at which I’d originally discovered it, and slipped it in my pocket for safekeeping.

“Since then I’ve dared to touch it only to bind it more securely.”

Having concluded his tale, Tristram’s remaining fingers went to his jacket front to retrieve a small bundle wrapped in a well-used handkerchief.

Blackhall raised a brow at the parcel, but said nothing.

Tristram did not let the silence hang long.

“I was hoping,” he said, “ that you could perhaps return my hand – for surely, if there is magic enough in this world to remove it, there is also ample to form another?”

Thomas exhaled, considering his words. Finally he replied, “many things are possible, but what you ask is not one of them.”

Without pause, as if he had already guessed at the answer, Meriwether pressed on. “Then mayhaps it would be worth some coin to you?”

Pulling apart the hasty knot, Blackhall exposed the charm in question to the still morning air.

“I recognize this piece,” he said, “It was constructed for – er – softer meats. Not to pass through bone.

“At some point in the distant past it no doubt amassed a hefty purse for a medicine man wandering about sod-hut farms, but, though it cost you much to carry, I’m afraid it will earn you little. I, for one, will give you nothing worth more than a freshly filled stein and the safety of not having to deal with it further.”

Tristram frowned, saying, “I do not understand.”

“In the days before this enlightened age – well, let us simply say that not all bulls are meant to breed.”

There was a silence between the men, then a nod from the one-handed visitor. At the sign, Thomas collected the ring, laid payment across the bar, and made note to the proprietress that there was enough extra to make it worth tapping a keg for his peer.

Even as Blackhall moved towards the exit, the next of the day’s patrons stumbled across the threshold.

“Too my future fortune then,” smiled Meriweather, as he waved down the newcomer and reached for an empty cup in which to set his dice.

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

- and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and fourteen.

Tonight we present The Long Haul: a Blackhall Chronicle, Part 3 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Glow-in-the-Dark Radio

Flash Pulp 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, Thomas Blackhall, master frontiersman and student of the occult, confronts another ending in his journey.

The Long Haul: a Blackhall Chronicle, Part 3 of 3

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

Blackhall did not recall his first two attempts at waking.

The world gathered some substance in the third, however, even if it was of a spidery sort and prone to throwing snow flakes into his eyes.

He was surprised to find he was already speaking.

“…while I was wandering the Austrian mountains,” he mumbled to completion.

From somewhere beyond the shards that slid across the night sky, James Bell said, “fully understandable, given the circumstances. How could you have known?”

Thomas did not know.

As such, he asked, “apologies, what was I saying?”

It was Clara who replied. “You were telling us of the disappearance of Mairi.”

Blackhall tried hard to lift his arms, suddenly convinced that if he did not manage the task he and his companions would tumble to the earth below.

Despite his lack of success, his ears picked up the familiar drumbeat and he relaxed.

“Yes – yes,” he said. “When word of my missing wife reached me, I relented my arcane studies and made immediately for home. It was an anxious trip, and I’m certain the horses that carried me were little impressed with my passage – though they were likely thoroughly grateful to see me aboard a ship and away from their backs.

“Hmm – have I explained the circumstances of the discovery?”

“No, sir,” replied James. Thomas noted concern in his voice, and spared a thought in hope that the man was not too cold in his journey.

Surely they would encounter civilization soon?

Attempting to soothe his passenger, Blackhall continued, “of course not, of course not, for in those first moments none understood the depth of what had happened.

“When Jessamine Cooper’s grave was opened, the eyes of accusation turned towards her husband, Leander. The people of the community would trust him to sharpen their blades and mend their barrel hoops, but not with a debt over ten pence. The man had a knack for converting his family funds into wine, and Jessamine’s death was almost seen as a release for the poor woman.

“She was buried with the single item of worth she’d been able to retain, and her children – grown, broad shouldered, and with no more faith in their father than a stranger might have had – stood vigil at her burial to ensure the engraved silver cross about her neck was laid into the ground with her.

“You can understand the confusion then, when, some eight months later, the relic was found amongst the churchyard hedges.

“An abrupt exhumation took place, with Leander on hand and flanked by the local sheriff, but the results simply deepened the trouble.

“Not only was Jessamine’s jewelry disturbed, her grave was empty.

“Concerns regarding theft turned to fear of a more sinister perversion. Rumours flew that the estranged husband had wandered off with his wife’s corpse, but those close enough to see the man’s reaction had little doubt that he was just as surprised as the rest gathered around the gulf.

“That’s when my former playmate, Dewhurst, set fly his missive. He knew of my interest in the occult, and assumed it might be an instance in which my assistance was required.

“He could not have understood how pressing the summons truly was.”

Thomas’ sigh brought in what he hoped was a whiff of smoke. Perhaps it was an end to his journey? Somehow the ache in his arms had transferred to his ribs and skull, yet he pressed on.

“I was months late to discovering the whole yard opened by the townsfolk, and not a grave still full. They hadn’t bothered to fill the open pits that marked the missing dead. Not a corpse with meat on it was left to lie.

“I knew all too well the reason.

“Her name was lost well before we walked the earth; her years have been extended by artifice. I encountered her by accident, earlier in the year, having come to test a ritual I would later find was useless. We were in the cemetery of a hamlet, a town only notable for a spate of cholera deaths that had laid low a sizable portion of its population.

“It was raining. I’d chosen the storm to cloak my rite, assuming that my business would not be welcome if discovered, but, when I arrived, it seemed as if the place were alive with manic gardeners. They paid me no mind as I passed between them, and, though covered in mud from their planted knees to their blank-eyed faces, the crowd of mayhaps five hundred moved in near silence and with careful precision. It was while watching this process that I realized most were in a state of decay, and some were moving despite missing limbs and maggot-ridden wounds.

“They used just bare hands and their lack of pain for their tools, but with that many labourers what matter was it? They extracted the sod carefully, digging below the wormy dirt with wriggling fingers, then shifting the grass in wide patches. Once the soil beneath was exposed, however, their restraint was lost. With flailing arms they attacked the muck, pulling away great heaps in an effort to release their fellow corpses.

“Stumbling into the hag was an accident – striking her, doubly so. I had expected another slack jaw as I approached her back, but, when she turned about, not a foot from myself, and opened her mouth to release the beginning of an incantation better forgotten, I reacted – er – with force.

“Panicked, I ran.

“I had not considered the ramifications of the incident until my summons and return.

“Maybe it was simple pride that propelled her – I have no doubt, though, that most who’d encountered her in the past had moved to swell her ranks, so perhaps it was a desire to maintain the secrecy of her march.

“How she transported her legion across the channel I can not say, but I knew what I would find upon returning to my father’s estate – for it is there that the Blackhalls have long buried their dead. The hag would not be content to rob the local boneyard and miss her prize: My wife.

“I did the work myself, every stroke seeming to pound as does the drum. Would it have been worse to find Mairi still there, with rot having set in to those so fine features?

“Each shovel-full carried tears with it to the surface, and the further my boots sank beneath the turf the surer I became.

“The coffin remained, its lid shattered, but within there was naught but loose dirt.

“My Mairi had not waited – could not wait – for my return, so now I follow.”

It was only then, with his tale told, that he realized the drumming he was hearing was in fact the passage of horses, and the creak of the Green Ship really that of a sleigh.

Clara seemed to read the surprise on his face. She said, “it was a fierce job, hauling you through the woods as you babbled, but your navigation had held true, and we were lucky to come across a lumberman along the route you’d traced. He claims we’re not far, and that there’s a doctor in camp who will either fix you or give you whiskey enough to ignore the pain.”

She leaned close before continuing.

“We collected your drum and travel goods – they act as your pillow. I have but an inkling of what makes your baggage so heavy, but I do not wish to know more than that.”

Scooting back, she placed her hand over James’, and the travellers fell to silence.

Despite the physician’s prognosis of a six week recovery, Blackhall returned to his chase in one.

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

- and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and thirteen.

Tonight we present The Long Haul: a Blackhall Chronicle, Part 2 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Glow-in-the-Dark Radio

Flash Pulp 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, Thomas Blackhall, master frontiersman and student of the occult, finds himself at the edge of exhaustion while attempting to navigate his companions through the frosty wilderness.

The Long Haul: a Blackhall Chronicle, Part 2 of 3

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

The distraction of Blackhall’s words did not last long against the increasingly insistent wind.

Despite the Bells’ best efforts, the gusting air seemed to find every shirt seam and push aside every mislaid blanket corner. Worse yet, the greater the speed at which Thomas attempted to carry them to safety, the greater the rolling of The Green Ship, and the more it was necessary to expose tender fingers and bluing hands to steady themselves.

Blackhall’s scrutiny swept the horizon with the persistence of a lighthouse beacon, but there remained no sign of a smokey column nor a civilized break in the brackish sea of timber upon which they rode.

After some four hours of unfaltering drumming, Thomas’ arms cramped at the continued exertion. If it were not for the simple fact that any change-up would likely send them tumbling through the bristling limbs and to the unwelcoming earth below, he would have gladly shared the labour – even with the malnourished and gaunt-eyed Bells.

Supposing they did survive such a fall with minimal wounds, however, Blackhall doubted his belligerent shoulders and aching forearms would stand the climb to begin the journey anew.

There was nothing for it but to continue, and to hope.

Clara’s concerns were largely for James, and James’ largely for Clara. Given the arcane resources he’d demonstrated in their rescue, Thomas had begun to suspect that the couple thought him somehow indeFATigable, and, in truth, the frontiersman wished he had one more trick to pull from his collection that might assist them.

It only made his cadence heavier to know he did not.

As they sailed over a rising cluster of spruce, James spoke of the plans they would enact at their return to populated turf, but a particularly abrupt roll of the bow left him with a smile of reminiscence on his lips.

“I do believe this is as harrowing a ride as the one we enjoyed on our wedding eve,” he told his bride.

Clara blushed briefly before her memory summoned the incident in question.

“Ah, yes,” she said, turning to Thomas as if an explanation was suddenly necessary. “We’d been lent the doctor’s nimble buggy for the occasion of our ride from chapel to threshold, and Father insisted we be lead by Praetorian, a stallion of his land that was little use for work but paid its way in Saturday night betting at the local public house.

“We were not half-way home when the brute caught sight of a lynx on the trail – then there was naught for it but to hold each other tightly and hope that our first evening of matrimony would not be our last.”

More interested in somehow loosening the knot in his shoulder than the conversation, Thomas absentmindedly replied, “a harrowing enough day at the best of times, as I recall.”

“Ah,” said Clara, “so you ARE married then?”

Shaken from his painful preoccupation, Blackhall again allowed his pace to slow. The slackened meter did nothing to ease his aches, yet he cleared his throat and said, “I knew a man who was asked the same question once.

“I heard the tale when consulted as to if I could help his wife.

“Did your grandmother ever whisper against a scoundrel with the notion that he had hold of some dead man’s coins? “

The Bell’s shook their heads as they blew meager warmth into their cupped hands.

Thomas continued.

“This fellow, Bartholomew, stood over six feet and had the sort of smile that made you feel his friend however long you’d known him. He’d married young after a passionate romance, but his handsome features lead him oft into temptation. There was not a lonely maid or unhappy housewife in the county who did not look him over fondly, and he did bask in their attentions.

“His work as a carpenter regularly called him far from home to lay crossbeams or repair rooves, and it was in these times that his will was at its weakest, for the maidens of the surrounding climes saw only the thickness of his arms and none of the invisible bindings of his union.

“It was during one such job, some repair work on a listing barn, that he finally surrendered himself. His paranoia, however, was immediate, for it soon came out that his flame had a sister in his hometown, and, unaware that he had other obligations, his soft-limbed lover was eager to join him there to continue their all-too-hasty courtship.

“While explaining his troubles, that evening, to the mate who usually acted as his aid, and who knew more of his situation than any other, the suggestion arose that he might try a pair of deadman’s coins – that is, the coins laid across the eyes of the deceased to supposedly pay for his journey across the Styx.

“The help-mate’s grandmother – and my own – had often levelled the accusation that such tender was capable of blinding a spouse to infidelity if placed in their drink, and, it so happened that, in the very house they were staying, an uncle was on display to collect condolences before his internment – in fact, it was the very damage to the cattle shed on which they worked that had set the man low.

“At their departure, Bartholomew brought away more than just his agreed-upon payment.

“Of course, as was their tradition on every previous occasion, his wife had kept anxious watch for his return, and ran into the field to greet him.

“Two months later, with his mistress safely installed in her sister’s home, he was finally discovered. While collecting wild strawberries to jar, a quiet footed widow had stumbled across a tryst amongst the tall grass.

“Bartholomew rose in a panic. Though a weak man, he never intended direct harm to his wife. He did love her, in his way, but his reason was captive to his instincts.

“With barely a word to his still-naked paramour, he rushed home.

“Placing the stolen tokens in his wronged wife’s dandelion wine, later that afternoon, was all that saved him. At the same moment she took her first sip, some ten miles off the berry-hauling grandmother was nearly trampled by a team of horses. She survived with only a weekend’s recovery – a fortunate thing, considering her age – but all memory of her expedition was wiped from mind, and she carried an aversion to jams for the rest of her days.

“Bartholomew nearly threw over his affair then, but the lusty promises made in secret missives from his spurned concubine were too much, and, instead, he derived a plan to sooth his loins while maintaining his household.

“Telling her they were meant to bring luck, he affixed the charms to the base of her favoured tin cup. As she sipped from it each morning, it would renew her artificial myopia – and, perversely, each time she finished her draught and spotted the devices, she would be reminded of him.

“That is, until the following year. In the interceding time Bartholomew had grown brazen, going so far as to carry on even in the out structure that acted as his shop. He did not know that, in a rare turn, his wife had decided to bring him his noontime meal.

“I suppose the fates, or whatever mystic body governed the magic, could find no other escape for the philanderer. The moment she pushed wide the door the poor woman was immediately and without cause struck truly, and permanently, blind.

“Unheard by the screaming, panic stricken, wife, his lover retreated for the final time, uttering the same words you had – though with greater disbelief.

“‘So you ARE married then?’

“I suspect that it was the same working that kept his wife unaware that prevented any in the area from breaking the girl’s heart with the truth of the matter.”

Though their lips trembled only from the cold, the disdain and disappointment was obvious in the Bells’ eyes.

Unexpectedly, Thomas moved to defend him. They did not notice his weakening tone.

“He was a rogue it’s true, but when I passed through, a year later, they were still happily married. He had abandoned his old ways – because of guilt, yes, but also due to the simple fact that his wife’s state was, at least in the beginning, largely one of hopelessness. Her care meant that he could no longer roam and build, and he was forced to turn his hand to the land. An untrained body does not know how to make its way through this world without its primary sense. Every chair, step, hot stove, and forgotten broom was now a threat.

“There was something more though. I believe the enormity of his transgression passed into his mind in that moment, causing a transformation that no lesser shock could have managed.

“A new tradition formed. With careful hands she fashioned simple sandwiches at the warmth of their kitchen window, then she would proceed with tender strides towards the entrance of their home. From her perch she would sing a tune of her youth, a warbling song of spring and foolish love, and he would come in from the fields, grateful for the meal.

“I should add, as well, that I was told the story from her own lips. He could not forgive himself without confession, though it says much of her fortitude and grace that she found it in her to grant him pardon.”

Despite Blackhall’s quiet intonation, James smirked at this conclusion, pulling his wife tight to him. Clara’s gaze, though, remained firmly on the straining face of the ship’s captain.

“There is something in the curl of your lip that tells me there is more to the tale,” she said.

Thomas made his best effort to shrug.

His mind was too soaked with fatigue to make any more happy reply than, “I know his conversion was an honest one as he was truly broken when she tumbled into the well some six months after my visit. The news that he’d laid a pistol to his temple at her burial came as an honest shock.”

There passed two hundred yards of silence, then another cramp set in. The depth of this new pain was too much for Blackhall to bare and reflex drew his arms sharply to his body. The Green Ship halted it’s progress as it unfurled, but its startled passengers were less lucky.

It was not a pleasant descent.

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

- and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and twelve.

Tonight we present The Long Haul: a Blackhall Chronicle, Part 1 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

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This week’s episodes are brought to you by Glow-in-the-Dark Radio

Flash Pulp 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, Thomas Blackhall, master frontiersman and student of the occult, finds himself transporting a pair bound for a new life – if they can stay warm long enough to see it.

The Long Haul: a Blackhall Chronicle, Part 1 of 3

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

Leaving behind many troubles, Thomas had been forced into a long journey with two companions who were unprepared for the wintery undertaking. The warm air brought in by a passing blizzard had abandoned them, and the temperature had begun a treacherous descent. To pause even briefly under the snow-heavy pines would likely mean their end, but Blackhall was a man of no ordinary means. With some effort of coordination he’d been able to seat his charges within the confines of the Green Ship, an arcane relic whose driving engine was a drum empowered to form the barren branches above into a rolling sea of greenery, and a vessel to carry them.

The longship’s soaring transit offered little shelter from the wind and drifting precipitation, however, and the Bells had just each other and a set of blankets to fight the encroaching chill.

Thomas knew that if the couple were to avoid the loss of fingers, toes, or worse, it would be by spotting a smokey column on the horizon.

Conversation was their last ward against shivering, but thanks and amazement only carried the Bell’s discussion so far. Soon, despite the fantastic events they had left behind, talk sank to the mundane. Still, James and Clara, their tongues greased from their narrow escape, seemed to chatter endlessly as Blackhall worried himself with the rhythm.

He’d been fatigued well before their sudden departure, and his shoulders still ached with his inbound voyage, but the frontiersman, understanding all too well the perils of such an underprepared excursion, considered that the alternative was likely silent fear, and, as such, did his best to encourage the waste of energy while providing as scant input as possible of his own.

After ranging over likely sources of assistance once civilization was re-achieved, the conference lapsed into a broader debate regarding the status, both marital and financial, of various friends and cousins. The topic of relations was much on Clara’s tongue, and it was with that hook which she attempted to more-fully draw out Thomas.

“- and what of you, sir? Have you a wife awaiting your return?”

Blackhall’s mind drifted to his capering Mairi and her own trek. He was forced to remind himself that even this damnably slow passage was yet another aspect of his chase, then he banished the image of his dead wife from his thoughts.

His drumming slowed, and the swell and sway of the limbs that carried the ship grew calm.

At a speed better suited to a summer afternoon’s fishing expedition, he said, “my arms tire, but disembarking is a trick I’d rather only attempt once. Let me tell you a tale of marriage and fidelity, while I briefly savor a slackened pace.

“Not but two years ago, in the fall, I met an old man named Erikson, a scrawny necked plow-wrangler living at the edge of a place barely known as Clifford, some miles east. The community consisted of perhaps four dozen souls, at maximum, and the timing of my appearance found them all in great sadness over the death of Mrs. Erikson.

“There was not a fireside in the place that was not made dimmer by her passing, and, though most were quick enough to ladle me a spoon of broth or share an end of bread, there was no joy to be had in the lake-hugging village.

“It wasn’t an easy thing to behold, those leaning huts and moping children, and nature itself, in its autumnal glory, seemed to feel the same: The leaves fell from the maples as if fiery tears.

“Now, I’d come not for its hospitality, mind you. I’d set out on word that a pair of huntsmen, fellows by the unlikely names of Hargo and Muse, had intention to ply their trade in the area.

“You see, I’d just arrived from the nearest town of Mikleson, which too had had a recent death. There they’d seen to the final rest of a boy of eighteen, and, once paid, they’d quickly struck out for fresh soil to churn. So survive vampire hunters and their ilk – even in these enlightened days.

“Clifford’s plans to improve their meager cemetery were often on the lips of the locals, but death is an inconsistent, and unfortunate, reminder, and I suspect they wanted as little to do with the patch as necessary when they might forget its presence.

“There were no more than twenty plots laid out in that strange garden, but all without stone markings, so that the engraved wood that had been used gave better indication of the age of the burial, by its rotting nature, than the hardly legible carvings indicating names and dates.

“With the populace in mourning black, their heads covered and their faces long, I’ve no doubt that Hargo and Muse thought their luck bright. Their profession is not one conducted any longer in open air, but instead relegated to secret dealings with grieving family or concerned community members.

“It was not long before rumour of midnight returns and mysterious illnesses had shot through every keyhole and passed over every supping table.

“Hargo and Muse required three days of haggling to convince Erikson to pay over their fee, and at no small tithe to his whiskey.

“The first time I’d met with the old man his eyes had been dewey and his fingers prone to trembling at the mention of his wife’s name.

“By the time negotiations were complete his gaze was clear and his hands steady.”

Thomas’ own fingers had grown numb from the unceasing blast from the north, but the lessened pace, and remembered anger, had eased the knots that had gathered about his neck and spine.

His palms fell with renewed purpose as he continued.

“It’s an easy enough trade, if you’ve the stomach to lie to the recently bereaved and mutilate the dead – beyond that it requires little more skill than ditch digging.

“I can but imagine that Mrs. Erikson – the only surviving image of which portrayed a woman of sharp nose and boney countenance – provided something of the perfect archetype of their profession.

“On the final night of the business, when every home’s lamps had been extinguished and the bairns lay deep in their dreams, the entrepreneurs lifted high the shaved spruce that acted as gate arm to the small cemetery and carried in their tools.

“The moon, unwilling to pay witness to the sight, had pulled a swath of cloud across its gaze, and the meager lantern’s work was made all the more difficult in their liquored grasp. How many sanctuaries had they crept into under such pretence? I can not say, but certainly enough that the thought of cutting out the heart of a grandmother did not cap their levity.

“Hargo was a blond man of medium stature. I believe he intended his suede coat to provide something of the air of a gentleman, but its poor patchwork and mismatched thread colourings did nothing to sell the notion. Muse stood taller by a head, a thin-faced man whose lips were far too close to the termination of his chin. It was he who spoke loudly of a fair-limbed daughter of the village, a girl who would one day certainly be beautiful, but who was, in truth, too young to be mentioned in such a tawdry dialogue.

“Still, they quieted when it came to squinting at the poorly-chiseled placards, and, by the time Hargo was preparing to raise high his shovel and begin the process of disturbing the bed of decaying foliage that lay across Mrs. Erikson’s slumbers, dread had clearly descended.

“The spade’s plunge was halted by the whispers and moans.

“Again, I can not say how often the pair had carried out their commissions, but I can assure you it was the first occasion in which the leaves upon each mound began to writhe and leap.

“Then there was no reason for the men to dig, for it seemed that the dead had saved them the effort by rising from their graves to meet them.

“I doubt either will ever return to their craft, but I had little chance to quiz them on the topic as that was the last I, or any of the people of Clifford – most of whom were by then wiping the mud from their pants and the mirth-filled tears from their eyes – saw of the scoundrels.

“It was the widower himself laughing loudest.

“They had underestimated Mrs. Erikson’s playful nature, but I had sat and listened to the tales. When her love of mischief was plainly clear I drew up the plan and proposed it to her husband, who thought it would be exactly the sort of tomfoolery that would have left his beloved cackling – and exactly the sort of tomfoolery that had drawn the woman so close to the hearts of the townspeople.

“Though the pair of charlatans had failed to settle any lingering dead, or even collect their supposed reward, it was their efforts that inadvertently slew the keening air that had lain so heavily over the hamlet.”

The reminiscence had left Blackhall craving the taste of tobacco and Spanish paper, but he knew he’d rested too long in the telling. The grins upon his passenger’s lips carried him some warmth, but it was the frosty prodding at the collar of his great coat, and the unnatural whitening about the edges of his passenger’s ears, that brought up his cadence.

The craft began to rock and buck under the renewed beat, leaping ever towards the crisp, empty, horizon.

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

- and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode two hundred and eighty-seven.

Tonight we present Grip: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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This week’s episodes are brought to you by Subversion.

Flash Pulp 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, master frontiersman and student of the occult, Thomas Blackhall, finds himself witness to a murder, and a mystical metamorphosis.

Grip: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 of 3

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

James Bell sat naked, holding his wife. Though her countenance was now several shades darker than it had been but the morning before, he took some solace in the fact that it was still Clara’s squeaking snore that emanated from the transformed face buried in his chest. The couple had been forced to nestle close beneath the three itch-inducing wool blankets that had been nailed to the floor at their lowest edges, especially as the second gale of the morning set to rocking the shanty’s timbers, but James had found no respite under the unwavering gaze of the family of ebon-skinned corpses that leaned awkwardly against the opposite wall. Four weeks on the run had hardened his sensibilities, but not to such a point as to be able to stare down the dead.

The slat roof and splinter-filled walls had no doubt once sheltered a double row of beds, but all furniture had been removed from the long building except a single stool, upon which squatted their current guard, the youngest of the Wheeler brothers.

Elijah Wheeler, catching Bell’s envious glance at the musket which rested across his knees, gave his prisoner a goading smile.

“You want the weapon? Come and try me. I grow chill, even beneath this donated finery, so perhaps a scuffle will warm me. Better yet, once I’ve done you in, I’m sure your wife will gladly provide ample heat.”

The wind gusted, and an unfilled knothole amongst the planks howled its outrage at the cold.

Unable to hold his tongue, James replied, “you speak loudly for a man thoroughly pummeled, just the evening previous, by a woman thrice his age.”

Standing, with gun in hand, Wheeler approached his prisoner with puckered face and heavy boot. Before he might repay Bell with a kick, however, he noted a flicker of motion at the corner of his vision.

The cadavers had been left as a warning after the family – Scots heading north to a homestead they’d seen only on paper – had attempted an escape. The brothers had found their carrion amongst the pines, stiff and huddled uselessly against the sleet.

Since their retrieval, the bodies had occasionally briefly warmed to the point of regaining pliability, only, at dusk, to refreeze in whatever state they were left by weight, gravity, and the Wheeler’s comedic whims.

It was Elijah’s short assumption that this shifting was simply the process again renewed, but his illusion was shattered when the shadow of the youngest, a girl of five who had once had ginger hair, stretched and giggled.

The shades of the remaining three appeared then, though their faces did not match those of the bodies they had left behind. Upon passing unhindered through the cabin’s latched door, they gathered to raise fingers of accusation.

As the specters approached, Elijah Wheeler began to weep.

* * *

Earlier, Thomas Blackhall had stood at the edge of the former lumber camp, with his Baker rifle hung on a nearby branch, and his stance set firmly in the powder’s depths.

Above his head he’d swung a silver chain of arcane provenance, and with each loop of the ornate hook at its end the storm about him had worsened.

The frontiersman’s skull ached with lack of sleep and nicotine, but the fury at the loss of his pouch had been further deepened by the death he’d witnessed only hours earlier, and he refused to acknowledge any fatigue.

Still, it was with some satisfaction that he’d observed the approach of the homesteaders phantasms.

As they’d cleared the treeline, the apparitions had made no effort to approach the buildings within which they’d once sheltered – instead their curiosity lead them towards the man who’d summoned them.

“Have you come then, sir, to avenge our metamorphoses? Our murders?” the bearded ghost that led them had asked.

“No, I have come to beg a favour – and to apologize for what I must do,” Blackhall had replied.

* * *

The storm had kept the elder Wheelers in their shared bunkhouse, and near to the cast iron stove which had consumed the rest of the camp’s furnishings.

As their younger brother stood watch, they passed the time with cards and extravagant lies, which they punctuated with complaints regarding the lack of punctuality on the part of their business associates, though the southern slave traders had yet several hours to make their appointed arrival time.

Brian Wheeler, with his fingers stained from the ink he’d busily applied the night before, was laying a four of clubs upon the table, and speaking loudly of a pair of siamese twin prostitutes he’d known in a lesser Boston district, when the girl again made a sudden appearance.

Neither men noticed her, however until she loudly exclaimed, “I’ll eat your eternal soul!”

The pair stood, startled at the noise.

“Grrrr,” she added, clawing the air theatrically.

If it were not for her translucence, and frostbitten extremities, the men might have been tempted to guffaw.

Instead, they bolted, and made it nearly ten paces from the building’s lowest wooden step before noting the weapons leveled at them.

Five minutes earlier, when Blackhall had asked Clara if she could shoot if needed, she’d replied, “it will not be the first time I’ve killed a man – in honesty, it won’t be the first time this month – but I only do so when the need is unavoidable.”

Thomas had raised a brow at the comment, but he’d handed across his Baker rifle nonetheless.

Now, with the trio captured, and his arm aching from its constant rotation, he was glad of her steady hand.

He was finding his own considerably less reliable.

Having closed the distance, Blackhall was eager to have his possessions returned, and to feel again Mairi’s braided lock within his palm.

Addressing the eldest Wheeler, he said, “sir, I have come for the goods stolen by your brother on the morning previous. I have asked him directly, but he refuses to cease his keening long enough to provide a clear answer.

”Return my pouch now, or I will provide a true reason to weep.”

The man pointed to the shack he’d just abandoned, and Thomas, with a nod of his cap to the gathered spirits, allowed the silver trinket to wind its way about his sleeve. As the winds dissipated, the forms of the departed farmers seemed to shift, then disappear.

When Blackhall finally returned from the Wheeler’s quarters, smoke billowed behind him.

Tossing James the finest garments he’d been able to locate for the couple, Thomas spoke a single flat word to his captives.

“Strip.”

It was the steel behind Clara’s smile, and the rise of the muzzle of her weapon, that convinced them.

Within moments the Wheelers found themselves strapped prone in the same shackles which had so recently held the Bells.

“I do not have your skill with calligraphic conjuration,” said Blackhall, as he entered the room with the girls’ remains in his arms, “but I’ve a fair bit of practice skinning game, and the Jesuit who taught me to sew was a master.”

What followed then was a bloody hour with knife and needle.

Once the operation was complete, and each brother’s back held a transplanted flap of skin under a tight grid of thread, Thomas stepped to the open air, needing to clear his lungs of the stink of iron.

The Bells awaited him.

They’d been efficient in the tasks they’d been asked to accomplish, namely transporting the remaining carcasses to the same structure as held the Wheelers, and to set the remaining of the camp’s buildings alight.

“I wish there was some better news I might deliver,” said Thomas, his gaze moving between the couple’s altered faces. “I believe I may be able to return you to your birth state, but it will not be a pleasant process, and the scars will remain with you for the rest of your life.”

It was James who replied, though Clara’s insistent grip on his arm seemed a confirmation that she agreed with his sentiment. “There are many things I have seen this day that I can not explain, but we owe you a debt beyond measure, and I feel perhaps we owe you at least some small confession.

“In truth, though these are certainly not the guises we expected to wear throughout our lives together, perhaps these will better serve. A warrant awaits us to the south, where the corpse of my inebriate father moulders. It was Clara’s too-true aim which put him there, but, if she had not done so, it is unlikely I would be here to offer this tale.”

Thomas only shrugged and retrieved a burning plank from the ruins which had housed the couple.

Once the temporary prison was thoroughly aflame, Blackhall released the manacle pins and let the Wheelers free to stumble, naked, into the snow, where they came up short at the sight of the armed Bells.

No longer were the brothers recognizable as the pale skinned bandits who’d so recently waylaid Arseneau’s sleigh.

Reaching into the depths of his pouch, Thomas produced a fine slip of paper, and a pinch of tobacco. As he spoke, his fingers began their ritual of construction.

“You let the majority of your hostages die, then spoil the operation with a bit of petty thievery. This whole undertaking reeks of little men overreaching.

“What now, though? I’ve taken your inkman’s thumbs, to prevent any future craftsmanship, but I believe there is some justice in leaving it simply at that.

“In all likelihood your compatriots will arrive well before the fires die down – considering the cost of traveling such a great distance, they are almost certainly anxious to recoup their investment in this enterprise. I’m sure they’ll be happy enough with such a collection of hardy replacements, even if one of you is short some digits.”

Blackhall paused to roll his tongue across his creation, and to lend a meaningful eye to the brothers’ transformed disposition.

“On second thought,” he said, “you might attempt an escape amongst the trees.”

With a steady hand he set the end of his cigarette to the farmers’ pyre, lighting his vice’s tip.

After a satisfied exhale he nodded his hat to the frantic trio, then motioned for the Bell’s to join him at the clearing’s edge.

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

- and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode two hundred and eighty-six.

Tonight we present Grip: a Blackhall Tale, Part 2 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Subversion.

Flash Pulp 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, master frontiersman and student of the occult, Thomas Blackhall, finds himself witness to a murder, and a mystical metamorphosis.

Grip: a Blackhall Tale, Part 2 of 3

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

Nestled within the rasping branches of a squat blue spruce, Blackhall considered if perhaps holding palaver with the dead sleigh-man might have been a more fruitful course. There had been little time for the decision, as the storm overhead unleashed a thickening volley of wind and snow, and the loss of the tracks marking the five remaining passengers had seemed the greater threat in the moment.

Now, with his vision reduced to the edge of his hat’s brim and the land quickly flooding with ivory, Thomas doubted he would be able to locate the Frenchman’s corpse if he did somehow managed to stumble back to the main trail.

He could only wait out the flurry and hope that continuing generally westward would be enough to determine where the party had been headed. Given the weather, he guessed it could not be far, but, with his confidence in his navigation stymied by the mind-clouding impact of his sudden descent, and without sky or landmarks to guide him, he’d just as likely wander into Peking as locate his stolen goods.

In the meantime he was left to wait; to ruminate on his lost pouch – and his lost wife.

At dusk, as he dozed lightly beneath his layers of wool and lining, the wind dropped to a gentle nudge, and the downfall lessened to a persistent dusting.

Once he’d cracked the powdery shell that had grown around his hasty refuge, Blackhall cursed the dipping sun and pressed hard west before winter’s early dusk could fully rob him of his search.

An hour passed, then two, and yet, despite the night’s arrival, a pregnant moon rose through the spent clouds, offering a small boon to ease Thomas’ chilled frustrations.

It was as he broke from a stand of frozen birch that he spotted the woman.

She had rested an arm on a nearby branch, and her ebon skin stood fully exposed to the harsh cold. If the unlikelihood of the encounter had not set Thomas back, then her stature certainly did, as such a lush physique was a rare sight for the widower.

If she had not collapsed, he reflected afterward, he might have been tempted to briefly linger.

Instead, with a sigh of “damnation,” she toppled forward into the powder.

Blackhall was relieved to find her yet alive as he lay his knee beside her, and he was quick to unfurl a blanket about her nearly-frostbitten form. As he did so, however, he discovered the sear and tear that he’d seen too often in his time fighting the little dictator.

“Is this a musket wound?” he asked.

As she replied the newfound warmth seemed to bring some relief.

“Fear carried me far and fast – in all honesty, I did not even realize I’d been wounded until I’d cleared a deadfall in five leaps. I haven’t held such alacrity since I was a child, but I suppose, as my husband used to say, being shot at is a strangely motivating experience.

”Still, though I look twenty, I remain a ragged fifty. My hip hurt even as I grew sure of my freedom, and my breath seems to slowly escape me.”

With numb fingers he unbuttoned his greatcoat and wrapped its ends about her blanketed shoulders, so that his heat might be added to her own.

It was a poor shelter, he knew, but Blackhall was just as aware that it was not the cold that would end her. There was naught he could do for her wound but provide comfort and conversation in her final moments – though the lung seemed hardly punctured, it only meant it would be a slow, painful, end.

“Though I do not wish to burden you in your current state,” he said, “I must admit, I understand little of what you’re saying.”

“You are the man in the treetop ship, are you not?”

“I am.”

“They were spooked at your passing. With some desperation they waved their pistols, and told us to proceed into the woods.

“Oh, I see your doubt, but I did not look like this then. I looked as myself – white certainly, but also an aging mother with sagging face and body, proudly showing the signs of babies past and a skill in the creation of sweet cakes. Were Horatio alive to see me, he would think his pillow talk fantasies had come true.

“Anyhow, Arseneau declared a stand, saying that they could have our coin and even his sleigh and team – though it likely meant a death by exposure for the lot of us – but he would not be marched into the weald to be executed and forgotten in the shadow of an unnamed hill.

“Without a second concern the elder of the two, he in the well-tailored suit, let fly with his weapon. Before the echo had left our ears, the dandy had moved on to berating his brother – yes, once clearly seen they were unmistakably of the same horrible lineage – for overplaying his hand, for pressing his act as an inebriate to the point of risking their safe operation.”

She pointed as she spoke. “They’re not far off, squatting in a former logging operation. It seemed I was running forever, but surely it could be no more than a mile of this frozen landscape.”

“The pox camp?” asked Blackhall. Her breathing was becoming increasingly ragged, and his impatience for details warred with his sympathy for the dying woman.

Nearly panting, she replied, “though I’ve no doubt it’s what drove the original inhabitants from the place, if there was pox, it is not there now. During Senior’s tirade it became apparent that the younger man has a knack for vomiting on command, and that it’s a talent intended to be used to deter any unexpected visitors who stumble across the grounds.

“We were apparently lucky he did not utilize the trick while enacting his false drunk.”

“Yes,” said Thomas, “but how did you come to your current state?”

“The third. The eldest.

“There are four long houses left standing in which they shelter. Three are left always cold, while the final is where they slumber. In the one in which we were housed – in which I was intended to be housed – they’ve left a dead family of four. The bodies have frozen to the walls, but the brothers insisted loudly that earth is too solid for a burial, and the unused cabin is required in case they should be taken to – visit with us privately.

“They’ve driven iron spikes into the beams beneath the floor of the last shanty, deep teeth of steel, and they’ve affixed thick chains to those anchors. The manacles are so cold my skin stuck to their rim as they applied them.

“The ritual was conducted on each captive in turn, though the configuration of our prone bodies was such that we could not gain clear view of one another – at least, that was my case.

“I had suspected a perverse indignation, but I did not know exactly what to make of the screaming until the needles began to pierce my own skin. The world seemed filled with searing, and I wept at the constant pressure of the pinpricks.

“The work seemed to last forever, but, though I can not say what pattern was created, it was clear from the mix of blood and ink that saturated the floorboards that I was being marked.

“I know not the source of his power any more than I know how you sailed the timber, but, when he completed his design, my body – changed. Took this form.”

“They spoke as I howled. Their greatest reassurance is that they have business associates arriving on the morrow. I have no confirmation, but it’s my guess that their impending company would have shipped me south for sale to a plantation lord, well outside the reach of family and any mind who might believe my tale of unlikely misfortune.”

“So you ran at the earliest opportunity?” asked Thomas. It felt a thick question, but it was all he could think to do against the transformed matron’s fading tone.

“Look beyond the change in my skin. My bosom has never been so supple, my hips never so suggestive. No, it’s not from the horrors they intended tomorrow that I ran – it was those they intended tonight.”

It was the final statement the woman would make, though her moist gasps spun increasingly fragile strands in the chill air until dawn. As light filled the land, so too did the last of it flee from her glazed eyes.

Pushing away the blanket they’d shared, Blackhall stood.

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

- and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode two hundred and eighty-five.

Tonight we present Grip: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

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This week’s episodes are brought to you by Subversion.

Flash Pulp 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 join master frontiersman and student of the occult, Thomas Blackhall, as he finds himself upon a wild path in the northern woods.

Grip: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 3

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

James Bell had suspected the drunk from the outset – though, in truth, at that moment he suspected everyone but his round-faced wife, Clara. James had spent the majority of his life within the arc of his father’s whiskeyed hands, and evaluating sobriety had become a skill critical to his ability to collect dinner instead of a bruised chin.

Even from his limited vantage point, Bell had discerned that the supposed liquor-monger was putting on his wobble.

The sleigh was a large one, with three rows of seating, but the blankets necessary to fend off the chill of the onrushing air and drifting snow greatly restricted the movements of the passengers. The inability to keep an eye on the rearmost bench, while also staring down the back of the driver, Mr. Arseneau, had left young Bell restless and fidgeting.

It was Clara’s loud disapproval of his nervous habits – nail chewing, lip biting, and general griping – that had drawn the conversation of the third occupant of their bench, a matronly woman who, to the couple’s estimation, seemed all too old to be venturing into the shadows of the northern woods at the onset of winter.

Mistaking the source of James’ agitation, she said, in her sweetest tone, “have no worries, any fellow with that much drink in his belly will likely spend the second half of the journey in unconsciousness.”

“Are you traveling with him?” asked Mrs. Bell.

“No, I go it alone – after many years of having done so, my son and his Rebecca have offered me a bed in which to wait out my old age.” The woman paused to present a toothless grin. “I know how improper my behaviour may appear, but I’ve yet to meet an adventure that I could not conquer.”

“Yes,” replied Clara, as she provided a thin smile of her own, “but it’s the adventure that you don’t that’s always the problem.”

Turning from their conversation, her husband found the spruce and pine marching past on either side of their path provided no better counsel.

Behind them, the drunk loudly spat, then gave the dapper man to his left a piece of advice that would require incredibly intimacy with every member of the royal navy, as well as the moral degradation of his mother. The dandy, wearing a tall beaver hat and a cloak more appropriate to the theater than the wilds, responded with a disapproving harrumph, but nothing more.

The language was enough to irk James into attempting to attract the attention of the reign handler, but Arseneau, alone on the fore-most bench, seemed to note only that which was in front of him. A load of five on the northward trail was a rarity of late, and the ignored man suspected the whip-holder did not wish to ruin the warm glow his coin-filled pocket was providing him.

When the sound of a pistol being cocked reached his ears, however, his head came about sharply.

The dandy had set his knee on his seat, so that he might better survey the forward rows. His well-tailored left glove rest on the sled’s wood frame, while his right made clear his firearm’s intentions were serious. Beside him, the drunk straightened his spine, produced his own weapon, and announced, “This, then, is our collective destination.”

Arseneau drew the horses to a tight halt as the coxcomb muttered, “You’re lucky that we made it this far, given your carrying on.”

It was in the brief silence that followed that they heard the drumming.

“Is – is that a man in a boat?” asked Clara, with her gaze on the treetops.

* * *

The trouble had truly begun that morning, outside the King’s Inn.

Arseneau had been atop his transport, talking of the pox that had struck the French lumber camp at the Blackmouth Rapids, and of how the disease had destroyed his business of ferrying the axemen between their work and the town’s ale kegs. As he spoke, the hired man shuffled luggage and directed the travellers to their seats, and, given his preference to situate the loudmouthed gin-swiller in the rearmost, this meant the wobbling passenger waited longest on the ice covered slats of the public house’s boardwalk.

Blackhall had passed the scene without interest until the drunk had stepped across his path, knocking roughly into his shoulder then rebounding to the ground.

The upturned man’s apology had been so hasty, Thomas hadn’t even broken stride.

It was only once in his rented room, after removing the weight of his pack, and fumbling off his greatcoat with numb fingers, that Thomas had discovered the disappearance of his possessions. The awkward altercation came immediately to mind, but so too did the intervening time.

Blackhall had thought briefly on the loss of his waxed pouch; of the fine rolling papers, Virginian tobacco, and yellowed letter that resided within. He’d thought of the braid that had recently joined the small collection that marked the extent of his worldly comfort – the braid he’d clipped from his dead wife’s locks a month previous – then, reaching for his satchel of arcane implements, he’d made for the door.

* * *

Learning the group’s destination was as easy as handing two shillings to the innkeeper who’d arranged his guest’s conveyance, but overtaking them was another matter. The path through the forest was close, and fear that he’d lose the thread had forced Blackhall to pilot his occult ship with care – if such a concept were possible when riding the crests and dips of a wildwood come alive to bare him across it’s back.

Still, some four hours into the journey, with aching shoulders and frosted brow, Thomas had located his objective.

When, not minutes later, those below came to a sudden halt and marked his passage, so too did Blackhall attempt to bring his craft to a stop. He’d had little involvement with The Green Drum since the first occasion on which he’d used it to knit a longship of living branches, and his inexperience, mixed with his haste, brought disaster. At the cessation of his rhythm, the ribbing that held him high, and the reaching timber that moved to carry him, fell away, but his momentum did not. The nearby pine which he’d intended to use as a method of descent rushed past, and he found himself falling through the barren limbs of a broad oak, a hundred meters on.

His landing was not a pleasant one.

Dazed, Thomas took stock of his kit, and, after collecting his Baker rifle from a drift some feet off, he laid a hand on the hilt of his saber, as if it might help steady him, and set himself towards the rough-hewn road.

The air grew thick with clumping snow, and the sky blackened in warning of the blizzard to come.

Stumbling onto the cleared path, Thomas unshouldered his rifle and turned his boots in the direction of the stalled sled.

For some time he was accompanied by only the chill cotton and the chewing of his boots, then a regular thudding came from the blur of white before him, and he stepped under the shelter of a pine bough.

The team of horses he’d been seeking came pounding past as if death followed, and, given the blood flowing from their flanks, Blackhall considered that it might well have been the case.

Another ten minute’s walk proved him right, for there alone in the middle of the path bled the sprawled corpse of Arseneau, the rig’s master.

The driver’s mouth seemed open, as if to collect a descending flake, and his jacket had been seared by gunpowder flame. Seconds later, with a curse that only the dead man heard, Thomas noted a set of soon-to-be-buried footprints leading into the darkening hinterland.

As his hat brim grew heavy with precipitation, and his heart heavier with the thought of the exertions ahead, Blackhall longed for his smoking tools.

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

- and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode two hundred and fifty-four.

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6)

Tonight we present, The Tightened Braid: a Blackhall Tale, Part 6 of 6

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download MP3
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This week’s episodes are brought to you by Groggy Frog Thai Massage.

Flash Pulp 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, Thomas Blackhall, master frontiersman and student of the occult, suffers a sudden reunion.

The Tightened Braid: a Blackhall Tale, Part 6 of 6 – The Beginning

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

Before he could bring his occult ship fully under control, Thomas had moved well beyond the knot of Fitzhughs, and the crone, and his beloved Mairi.

Beneath his northward-bound hull, the trees rolled ever onward, allowing ample latitude with which to practice the control of his strange tool. The forest, he found, rose and fell like any sea, though the crests were determined by the vagaries of sunlight and soil, rather than wind and gravity.

For some time there were but the sounds of creaking timber, and his steady pounding.

Eventually, Blackhall rode over an ocean of pines, which seemed, in the moonlight, to stretch outside his reckoning. He understood by then that his speed was determined by the meter of his drumming, and that his direction was readily alterable by aiming his impacts towards the edge of the instrument’s head, and so, thus confident in his course, Thomas allowed himself a moment of consideration, as the wildwood bent to meet his bow.

It had been his intention, until that point, simply to escape. Once free of pursuers, he’d reasoned, he could devise a method of extracting his stolen gear, for, without his equipment, he had no doubt as to the outcome of a confrontation with the witch – just as he had no doubt as to the inevitable result of the current contest.

He did not look forward to someday overtaking the dead column, and encountering the gaunt face of his former comrade. Would Fitzhugh’s likness be duplicated a dozen times along the parade of cadavers?

There was also the matter of the dagger. Misuse of the arcane blade had obviously drawn the crone, and it was a surety that its ownership would pass into her hands. Despite the carnage it had caused, though, Thomas knew it would be far from her most powerful talisman.

He took some small comfort in the fact that Fitzhugh had discovered the proper use of only one of the charms, and, yet, he worried that even the captain’s unsuccessful experimentations would be enough to bring the hag to Perth.

It was this thought, and the realization that he faced a shrinking opportunity to regain his relics, which shook Blackhall from his revere. His hands had become numb from cold and use, and his coat had taken on a layer of snowy frost, but he now set about redoubling his tempo.

The witch would not dare approach the settlement, Thomas knew, if he were once again in possession of his tools – and so it was a race.

There were few landmarks, at his great height, to reckon how close he returned to the battle site, but his staccato carried him wide of the mark. It was only as the trees thinned, at the cusp of civilization’s assertion, that he realized he was under-trained in the mooring of his ship.

His rhythm slowed, and so, too, did the vessel. Judging his rapidly diminishing momentum, he aimed for a final colossal maple, which marked the boundary of a farmer’s field. With measured arms, he let his craft brush the bulky limbs, then ceased his tattoo. As if a Sunday cruise encountering a friendly jetty, his sprouted-boat came to a bobbing stop.

There was little time to enjoy the victory, as the bench which had held him immediately commenced to crumble. It required quick action, and steady feet, to exit with the drum before The Green Ship’s leafy planks became fully unglued, and fell away to the ivory turf below.

Once firmly on the ground, however, there remained some distance to walk until Blackhall would encounter the lopsided shanties that marked Perth’s furthest outreaches, and, as he progressed over the drift-covered croplands, the enormity of the task ahead began to weigh at his mind. It was not a mystic problem, but one of mundane logistics.

There would likely be at least a pair of burly sentries – innocents – at the captain’s quarters, and who was even to say that Fitzhugh would be fool enough to store the artifacts where they might so easily be reclaimed?

Possibly even more pressing, Thomas was unsure of his status in relation to the bloodied corpse he’d left on the floor of his rented room.

Was he a wanted man?

The question guided his course upon re-entering the town’s limits, and his initial destination was a lingering stroll past the darkened windows of his former place of lodging, The Bucking Pony.

It was there that he received his last surprise of the evening.

Leaning against the public house’s rough planks, with a satchel at his feet, was a figure whose upturned collar, and low knit cap, prevented immediate identification.

When the form detached himself from the structure and approached, Blackhall allowed his right hand to drift to his sabre’s chilled hilt. As the distance closed, however,Thomas recognized the stranger as the quiet lad who’d driven the sleigh for himself, and Wesley Shea, but a few hours earlier.

“Come, come,” said the youth, and so the frontiersman did. As they stalked the empty boardwalk that lined the street’s shops, the boy’s feet and tongue moved with anxious energy. “I waited too long to follow, and I must apologize. I did run, but, by then, you were well gone. From a distance, I watched a band of Fitzhughs flow from between buildings, and gather in a sleigh brought round by yet another. If they noted my presence, they paid me no heed.

“After they were gone, all was silence. It was as if I were forgotten.”

Despite the pace, Blackhall seized the excuse to retrieve, from the depths of his coat, his Virginian tobacco and fine Spanish papers.

“I am certain,” he replied, “that your captain would have had a well-sharpened word with you when he returned, if it were not for the delays he encountered.”

With white-filled eyes, the private nodded. “My duty in acting as spy has been marked, officially, as leave, so, when I reappeared, I wasn’t much noticed. I ventured to my bunk, to try and sleep, but I was left feeling as if matters were unconcluded, and rest was elusive.

“It was while lying there, with my nerves being worn away by the lack of resolution, that your damnable tale came to me. For whatever purpose, you’ve revealed to me a world I couldn’t have known existed – a world beyond this colony, beyond home, beyond the entirety of the blessed empire. The power you have shown me is too much to rest in the hands of those with so narrow a goal as world domination, and, as such -” The speaker halted at the entrance to the town’s meager post office, and turned a squint on Blackhall. “No, first, tell me: What designs have you with the tools you have carried here?”

Thomas, who had completed the construction of his vice, raised a brow at the question, but answered honestly. “I wish only to retrieve the roaming corpse of my wife, so that I might lay her body to rest, and her spirit as well.”

The response brought a smile to his companion’s lips. “A romantic, eh? I wouldn’t have guessed it. I’ve long held that anyone desiring a position is likely not the best candidate for it. Here, then, are your goods.

“I played my last card with my chum, telling him that Fitz himself had asked for the retrieval. The blokes watching the door knew his face, and didn’t think hard on the move, as he’d been doing it for weeks during your comings and goings.

“They’ll be plenty displeased to find the lie of the thing, though, so it’s probably best they are not allowed an opportunity to inform us of such.”

Blackhall had thought the boy was bound to suggest a partnership; that the satchel had held supplies necessary for their imminent departure. He hadn’t expected this turn of events, and, as he accepted the extended gift, he found it necessary to clear his throat before he could provide his reply.

“Considering the efforts you have undertaken on my behalf, I feel quite beggarly in admitting I do not recall your name. Shea made it known to me, when we hired you on, but it has been lost in the chaos.

“Furthermore, if I am truthful, you may be my only living, human, friend in this bedeviled land.

“Worse, I have favours I must ask, favours which will draw you nearer to the types of uncanny danger that have thus far hounded our association.”

Little did Blackhall realize the import of his words, nor the nature of the remarkable partnership he had just proposed.

“The Queen likely won’t have me back, so I can’t see that I’ve anything better to occupy myself with,” replied the youth, as he buried his hands in his jacket pockets. “I feel bound to help, and will do so happily if it might sate the curiosity my mother long warned would be the death of me.

“Oh, and the name she gave me was Montgomery – Montgomery Smith.”

They spoke on in the hush, forging plans, then, at dawn, they began their journey north.

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6)

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to skinner@skinner.fm, or the voicemail line at (206) 338-2792 – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

- and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode two hundred and fifty-three.

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6)

Tonight we present, The Tightened Braid: a Blackhall Tale, Part 5 of 6

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Groggy Frog Thai Massage.

Flash Pulp 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, Thomas Blackhall, master frontiersman and student of the occult, suffers a sudden reunion.

The Tightened Braid: a Blackhall Tale, Part 5 of 6 – Come Hell

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

From his forgotten post in the barren oak, Thomas Blackhall watched the unnatural melee unfold.

Below, the Fitzhugh doppelgangers had fallen onto their training and assembled into a tight firing line, as if facing a continental army. Their squared shoulders knocked snow from the surrounding brush, and their boots were steadfastly planted, but the dozen men seemed to constitute a meager formation to oppose the uncounted stumbling dead that flowed from the depths of the wildwood.

Still, their muskets cracked, and reloaded, at a tenacious speed.

For her part, Thomas could see that the crone, who stood well behind her mystically resurrected wall of writhing flesh, did naught but grin at the soldiers’ efforts.

The approaching cadavers were a motley lot: Some were clad in funerary finery, and some had had their clothing so badly beaten by the exposure of their endless trek that they were now unrecognizable as anything but rags – yet others wore only their own molding skin.

Blackhall, whose mouth remained brimming with the water he’d gained through patient persistence, lay a hand on The Green Drum, and leaned further from his roost. His focus had caught upon a familiar form drifting through the dim, amid a small cluster of flanking corpses.

Mairi’s gaze was unseeing, and the cream gown he’d buried her in – the same she’d worn on the day of their joining – was tattered, but he could not resist the opportunity to be near to her.

Catching his occult instrument securely in his Baker rifle’s strap, Blackhall hung both across a stout limb, and began his descent.

It required great attention to not unwittingly sip at his jaws’ payload, but, once on the ground, Thomas moved as if in a dream.

The stiff carcasses made no effort to step high, over the white drifts, but, instead, left their feet to drag through the resisting powder, slowing their progress. Overtaking the group was a simple enough process, but, as Blackhall reached the ambush party, he was unsure what greeting he might expect.

With a kick which sent an unwanted trickle of liquid down his throat, Thomas toppled the nearest shambler, a curly-haired man, in a mud-stained set of suit trousers, whose scalp had been increasingly torn-wide by unyielding branches. Never pausing, the empty-faced straggler paid no attention to the affront, but only worked to regain his footing, so that he might continue his ponderous assault.

Releasing his saber, Blackhall gave in to the temptation of scrambling to his Mairi’s side.

Beyond his prize, the Fitzhughs had drawn into a close circle, and were holding what ground they could with muskets turned to clubs, or naked blades. The weapons appeared of scant use in turning back the press of animated bodies, although many fleshy scraps of the deceased lay separated from their owners, and motionless on the frost about the defenders’ feet.

Thomas reflected, briefly, that the authentic Fitzhugh – standing at the midpoint of the ring, and anxiously waving the bone-handled, silver-bladed, dagger – would be without trouble in
maintaining the flow of blood necessary to keep his force under their current enchantment of transformation, but, after a last closing step, Blackhall’s considerations were carried off by the chill blow of the winter wind, as it pulled at his wife’s knotted hair.

Her rites had been said below a weeping sky, both an ocean, and a lifetime, away.

The vigil and liturgy had taken place on his father’s estate, where the family preserved a long history of consigning their cherished dead. Too clearly he remembered the cavernous room that had held her exhausted form, reposed in preparation for internment. The painted clutter of some forgotten ancestor climbed the green and gold loops of the wallpaper, in a pale imitation of floral gaiety, and the ornate box at the room’s center, in which his beloved had been laid, seemed over-large for her tiny frame.

Under his scrutiny, the soft lines of her wedding dress stood stark against the red velvet of the coffin.

Not far down the hall, his daughter had mewled, occasionally, from within her swaddling, but, beside those infrequent complaints, the newborn had slept rather than face the day.

It was Thomas’ decision to negate the pomp and circumstance so often given death, and he had received no few ill-intended stares, from the damp eyes of his theatrically-minded cousins, at his demand that the room be cleared.

As the infuriatingly constant grandfather clock marked the short hours before her burial, he spoke to Mairi of the existence they had promised each other, and of the grand life he intended to make for their Elizabeth. He wept, and laughed, and screamed.

Spent, he eventually made his best effort, with unpracticed hands, to plait her hair, as was her preference. It was a rough result, as her lolling neck gave no help, but his vision was greatly clouded by the project’s completion, and he knew there was little more he could do.

Despite the outrageous abuses her remains had suffered in the interim, Thomas’ approach now made clear that the braid had held.

He offered no attempt to speak to his wife as he swept aside a pine branch to allow for a better view of her ashen grimace. Her lips had withered, revealing gaps between her once pristine teeth, and her left ear had been lost to some unknown trauma.

Time and distance had hardened the frontiersman, and yet the sight was enough to drive his heart to agony.

Unable to release his tongue, he silently cursed the hag, and Fitzhugh, who had robbed him of the equipment necessary to destroy the old woman, then, with an unexpectedly steady grasp, he held Mairi’s trailing mane, and raised his sword.

His arm’s motion was firm, but true, and, once separated from her tress, his wife continued on, unheeding, towards her grisly objective.

Thomas did not linger, as he sheathed his weapon and stuffed the captured hair into a deep pocket of his greatcoat.

It was as he was mid-ascent, and almost returned to his materials, that the crone noted his presence.

Fresh instructions rolled from her hollow scowl, weighed by the snarl of command, and the rotting procession wheeled, focusing instead on Blackhall’s nest.

He no longer cared.

Frustration, as Thomas had not felt since first taking in the news of his beloved’s defilement, and further stoked by his restricted ability to let fly his voice, blazed in his chest as he retook his lofty station.

The memory of his graceless fingers, on the day of Mairi’s requiem, came to him then, and drove his conduct before reason could halt the useless action: For, there were other skills his appendages had since learned as instinct, and a rare marksmanship was amongst them.

Nonetheless, while his shot landed as intended, passing through the harridan’s right lung and theoretical heart, she only laughed at the insult.

Unhesitating, Blackhall slung his empty rifle, and let a portion of his precariously transported liquid dribble atop the freshly stretched skin of The Green Drum. His opening strike upon the surface of the viking relic cut short the witch’s merriment.

Too late did she realize that the bare oak he’d scaled was not a last resort, but an escape.

Each booming impact let fly a spray of water, and, as the droplets settled over the chilled bark of his temporary sanctuary, the timber commenced to sway with a terrible rhythm. There came bursting, from every point of moisture, a new sprout, and from every new sprout, a bough. The growth, however, did not advance without purpose. As if guided by a master shipwright, the leafy spurs surged and became struts, then broadened and intertwined, weaving a flat-bellied dragonboat about Thomas’ cadence.

Though his supply of liquid had long run out, as Blackhall maintained a galley’s beat, his rough seat fattened to a level bench, and the tool of his enchantment became solidly affixed to the floor which had formed beneath him.

Below, the clumsy ghouls had gained some purchase in their climb, but they had not yet achieved half their goal when the structure had completed knitting itself into a whole.

No longer was it Blackhall’s tree alone which roiled at the sound of the drum, for the forest now seemed to rise at its tips, and bend in an otherwise unfelt gale. As pine and cedar bowed with equal fervor, there came to Thomas’ ear a sound like scraped shoals. With a series of creaking snaps, the vessel was separated at the dozen points which held it to the tree of its origin, and the craft lurched forward.

Finally, held aloft by the grasping woodland which had been roused to convey it, The Green Ship sailed.

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6)

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to skinner@skinner.fm, or the voicemail line at (206) 338-2792 – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

- and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.