Flash Pulp

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and twenty-seven.

Tonight we present Of the Old School, Part 1 of 1

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This week’s episodes are brought to you by the Parsecs!

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 present a tale of the generation gap, creeping terror, and childish misadventure.

Of the Old School

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

She didn’t enjoy talking to people – especially folks she didn’t know – but Octavia Archer was determined to offload some Thin Mints.

Sometimes that required patience.

“I’m of the old school,” Mrs. Hemming, her current prospective-customer, was saying through a thin-lipped mouth, “but it strikes me that a girl your age shouldn’t be out running around by herself.”

The girl thought, “should I be off learning to cook instead?” but said nothing.

The pair were standing in the front hall of a Victorian-style house that smelled of dust, with the scout holding a bag full of cookies and the old woman grasping two boxes of the sweets while peering into a velvet change purse.

Octavia had often heard urban legends, mostly ghost stories, about the residence, but the girl’s mother had taught her to know that no one could afford such a palace without having some money, even if the place did appear to be collapsing in slow motion.

As the young Archer was preparing to clear her throat in impatience, a train entered the hall. Its approach came in jerky inches, and its choice of direction looked to be largely decided by the coincidence of its orientation after impacting on the floral print of the opposite wall.

“Is that a robot?” asked Octavia.

It moved like a cheap Christmas present her little brother would love, but the two foot high and three foot long engine was made of wood and brass ornamentation. It was painted in a mint green, with gold accents, and its domes and chimney were entwined in an intricate pattern of carved loops. While the thing’s rubber wheels rolled across the oak floor she heard a tick-tick-tick which put her immediately in mind of the baseball cards she sometimes saw in kids’ bike’s spokes.

“Not as you’re used to,” responded Hemming, “My toys were built using ancient techniques, not electricity. As you can see, there’s no plastic involved. Except for his rollers, there’s nothing involved that my mother couldn’t have accomplished in her day.”

At the sound of her voice, the locomotive began a wide turn, seeking its builder.

“There’s also a whistle that I wrought with my own hands, but he never uses it.”

“Huh,” said Octavia. “I’ve got change for a twenty if that’s all you can find.”

Hemming turned from her creation to the girl. Her lips flattened and her nose twitched, but her eyes sparkled.

“Most children have forgotten how to be polite in the last two decades,” said the woman. “Nevermind, though: Come with me, I’ve got a jar with some extra paper money in the basement, but I’m afraid I’ll need you to grab it for me – I’m not as nimble as I was.”

Without waiting for an answer, she departed. It was the sort of house that swallowed noise, and, after turning a corner, the tinkerer seemed to have been absorbed by the rotting walls.

“Tick, tick, tick,” said the approaching train.

Octavia followed.

* * *

The basement appeared to have been fully furnished once, but the side rooms that the youth passed on her way to her supposed payment were now filled with carpentry tools, work benches, and pencil-scrawled diagrams.

Some of the spaces contained more automatons: A half-cabinet/half-man construction whose aimlessly swinging arms looked, to Octavia, like a Rock’em-Sock’em Robot without a partner; a crudely-carved dog that crawled with the same painful inching as the train above, but whose spindly unmoving legs the Girl Scout decidedly did not like; and a series of three boxes that she thought of as moving sculptures – a waving flower, a writhing snake, and a woman’s arm.

It was the limb that made the girl stop. The flower looked to be largely made of felt, and the snake was built from a series of overlapping cloth rings that gave the thing cartoonish scales. The arm, however, was slender, smooth, and absolutely realistic.

Octavia did the math, decided she could simply cover the two missing boxes out of her own allowance, and began to reverse.

“Thank you, thank you, you can pay me later,” she announced, but her hostess had disappeared into yet another chamber filled with tools.

Uninterested in waiting for her return, the girl ignored the pathetic imitation of a mutt that had begun to follow as she made her way to the stairs.

From within her increasingly distant room, Hemming was saying, “I’m of the old school. Survival skills were important then. You youth, you’re all too couch-bound to run, too used to the safety of your carefully padded existences to recognize danger.”

The girl was nearly to the bannister when the train rolled its last. Octavia had left the door at the top open, and as the machine’s cow catcher cleared the first step, it let fly with its whistle. It’s flight was not long, nor graceful, and its descent was largely spent bouncing end-over-end with increasing momentum.

It stopped when it came up against the stone and mortar wall, but not until its oak frame had split and its brass bells had scattered.

Within the wreckage was also the ruin of a man. His left arm had been chipped away, as with a chisel, and his right had been bound tightly to his chest so long ago that his body had grown around the leather and chrome of the belt. Beside him lay the panel that had made up the bottom of his conveyance, and the girl noted a small window that she assumed enabled him to claw at the floor. It was his sole form of transportation, for, where his legs ought to have been, he had only flailing stumps topped in pink scar tissue.

He attempted to say something to Octavia as he died, but his tongueless mouth summoned just whistles and clicks.

“I think he was trying to warn you, but he stopped you instead,” Hemming said into the girl’s right ear.

Octavia did not always agree with her mother, but she knew one thing about the woman: She was of the new school, and she had raised her daughter to be so as well.

The pepper spray cleared the girl’s pocket before her intended attacker could raise her axe from her shoulder, and the modern science of desmethyldihydrocapsaicin flooded the woman’s eyes and nose.

In the time it took to leap the train wreck and sprint out the front door, Octavia had already begun to shout directions to the 911 operator on the other end of her cell phone.

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 twenty-three.

Tonight we present Misdirection, Part 1 of 1

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This week’s episodes are brought to you by The Way of the Buffalo podcast

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 present some sleight of hand meant as nothing more than a light piece of entertainment – a release after a long winter, and a long week.

Misdirection

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

Derrick, eleven, hated the always-startling bleat of the store’s door buzzer, but, as he crouched behind the Pringles display at the end of the chip aisle and tried to disappear within his bulky winter jacket, he wished the thing had been used properly over the last ten minutes.

His mother was the problem of course – she’d been busy with her routine of making eyes at the clerk who operated the remote locking system, and the double-chinned man had been too absorbed in her giggling and the flirty fingers running through her bleached hair to give the would-be-customer pounding the button from outside much of a looking over.

Worse, the counter jockey had shown some doubt as to the intruder having a gun when he’d first been threatened, so, as proof, the thief had pulled out a compact black pistol and pointed it Derrick’s Mom.

“Now do you want to get to business, or should I?” asked the white t-shirt and red ball cap wearing gunman. His brim was drawn low over his brow, but, instead of hiding his face, it simply forced him to tip back his head to see where he was aiming his weapon.

The boy did his best to remember details, but the panic brought on by the thought of losing the last of his family – his father and sister had perished in a car accident some three years earlier – fogged both his brain and his vision.

One row over, hunkered beside a selection of band aids, cleaning supplies, and stationery, a thin faced man in a black sweater whispered, “wanna see a magic trick?”

“Shut up or the peanut gallery will quickly become the shooting gallery,” said the bandit. Despite the threat, and follow-up tears from the smock-wearing employee, the minor interruption was enough to draw the weapon’s muzzle towards the floor.

The fearful son’s attention, however, was still on the apparent magician, who was now holding up eight fingers: three on one hand, and five on the other.

At the front of the store, the cashier’s blurred vision was causing issues in moving five dollar bills from the register to the plastic bag he’d been informed to put it in, and the ground had caught as much as the sack had. This was not an acceptable loss to the goon, and he demonstrated as such by slamming the pistol through the row of tchotchkes and lighters that adorned the counter.

“Get it all, and hurry the fuck up.”

Derrick’s mother, noting his distraction, took a step back, hoping to put some distance – and possibly the island containing stir sticks and lids for the store’s watery self-serve coffee – between herself and danger; instead, it attracted trouble.

“Where do you think you’re going?” asked the hood from behind the depths of his redirected gun barrel.

She stumbled, then stopped, as the stale cheeto and scratch card air caught in her tightening throat.

“Mom!” shouted Derrick. The death-dealer swung to the child, then returned to the still-not-breathing woman.

“Sit. The Fuck. Down,“ the man replied. “Christ, does this look like a public school to you? What kind of mother takes her kid to the 7-Eleven after midnight anyhow? And you, Minnesota Fats, what the hell is taking you so long to fill that bag?”

As apparent encouragement, the would-be shooter stepped closer to the bottle-blond, his free hand reaching for purchase on her t-shirt.

Unsure of what to do, Derrick turned to the nearby stranger for help, but the man only hoisted a single hand with five fingers – then four.

The un-buzzed door let out a single denying clunk.

What the child didn’t know was that the man in the hoodie wasn’t any sort of illusionist, he was simply very good at visualization. He could see the distance to his Blue Tercel, parked outside; he could picture the thick wallet sitting in the sticky-bottomed passenger-side cup holder; and he could count the strides it would take to reach the car – even for a big man.

At three fingers the boy no longer knew where to look.

At two the tough had begun to spin on his heel.

At one the entryway exploded inward, only to be replaced with the shadow of a crashing bus in the shape of a man.

Billy Winnipeg, nearly seven feet tall and well over two hundred pounds, with his forgotten wallet still in hand, was remembering the day he’d lept through the plate glass of a Manitoba laundromat after mistakenly thinking a patron was yelling at Mother Winnipeg. Once he’d explained, adrenaline had caused all three to laugh and laugh at the mistake, even as his face had bled onto the linoleum floor.

Billy was not laughing now.

However, it was twenty feet from the door to the gunman, and the Canadian, for all of his crazed bravery, was a deadman. The robber tacked his weapon away from the terrified mother, leveled it at the approaching blur, and steeled himself to pull the trigger.

That’s when he felt the double bee sting at the base of his neck.

The supposed illusionist had managed some sleight of hand after all: During the distraction he’d moved ten feet closer to the counter, and he now held a taser in his grasp.

There was a soft crackle from the pair of wires hovering over the Doritos, and a single bullet misfired into yellowing ceiling panels.

Then Billy closed the distance.

As the brutality distracted the rest, Derrick emptied his over-sized pockets of the cold medicine and household cleaners he’d been told to take. His mother would be mad, he knew, but the uniforms and sirens would soon be at the scene – and, besides, as he caught glimpses of the now moaning gunman, the boy could easily see that it wasn’t worth it.

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 twenty-two.

Tonight we present Emergency, Part 1 of 1

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This week’s episodes are brought to you by The Way of the Buffalo podcast

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, Will Coffin, Urban Shaman, and Bunny, his tipsy companion, find themselves overseeing a grisly scene at a rural farm – as well as the end of the flute playing woman.

Emergency

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

As the storm drifted by outside, Grady Pitts shifted in a futile effort to restore feeling in the lower half of his body. He’d held his position for three hours, and his legs had long moved past pins-and-needles and into general numbness.

To the left of the bench-row of plastic chairs he was watching a couple of twenty-somethings fretting their way through paperwork while their infant daughter wailed from inside her bright pink car seat. Her mother was rifling a thick purse as the father used his non-writing hand to ineffectually rock the bassinet by its carrying arm.

Grady wondered if maybe the girl had a pea up her nose. Decades earlier, when he was five and his brother was three, he’d shoved a frozen pea deep in his nostril, and, to Pitts’ ear, the girl’s shrill complaint sounded almost identical to his sibling’s terrified cry.

There was a terse exchange between the parents, concluded by a “you said you were going to bring it” from Mom that was too loud to be concealed beneath CNN’s constant muttering, and the woman turned a furious gaze on the room, seeming to dare others to note the disturbance.

Pitts wheeled away and attempted to look as if he hadn’t been staring by generally facing the television mounted on the wall.

There was a big man in dirty mechanic’s overalls sitting beneath the screen, and Pitts’ focus soon drifted to the frayed-edged blue towel wrapped around his right wrist. Blood had soaked through the cloth, and a spatter of drops had mixed with the oil stains on his pant legs. Despite the apparent severity of the injury, the fellow’s face was calm – almost bored – and Grady began to scrutinize his distant state of mind.

Had narcotics caused the man’s accident?

The flow increased from a drip to a steady stream of pooling red, at which point Grady could no longer watch.

Where were the nurses? Why wasn’t the line moving?

There was nothing for it but to keep waiting.

Now trapped between the squabbling parents and the leaking mechanic, Pitts took to counting the ceiling tiles, shuffling a nearby stack of magazines, then, finally, simply staring at the back of the head of the blond woman one row over from his own.

At first Grady believed she was napping, and that the gentle bob and roll of her shoulders was simply the result of snoring, but he was soon convinced she was actually weeping silently. He considered moving to her side and asking if he might be of assistance – at the worst perhaps talking would ease her wait – but he forgot the idea when she was approached by a man he assumed to be her husband.

He wore a gray polo shirt, and the the majority of his face had been removed by some unknown violence, though a sliver of the detached bone remained protruding from the gore of his exposed brain. He appeared impatient for a man on the cusp of death, but Pitts found his own attention drawn to a pulsing within the naked gray matter.

After a few moments a tutting aimed in his direction pulled him away from his morbid fascination, and he turned to see that an orderly in white was beckoning.

“Finally,” said Grady, “bout time I get service.”

Before he could rise, however, the hospital worker frowned and said, “you can’t be here, Mr. Pitts. This is an emergency room, not a bus stop, and your muttering is scaring the patients. If you’re in need of help speak with the shrink at the shelter, because there’s nothing we can do for you here.”

Thus dismissed, Grady collected his tattered ball cap and grocery bags. The rain had briefly broken, and he was eager to be free of the sickness surrounding him.

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 eight.

Tonight we present The Big Bad Wolf, Part 1 of 1

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

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 present a tale of suburban anxiety dressed in sheep’s clothing. Consider it a lesson in presumption, revenge, and carnage.

The Big Bad Wolf

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

Horace Hastings watched the trio of twelve-year-olds march along the sidewalk below the window of his second-floor bedroom.

He thought of his often trampled lawn, of the constant fence-jumping to retrieve rogue balls, of his strong suspicion that they’d once emptied his unlocked BMW of change.

He frowned.

“Three little pigs,” he said, “each slightly larger than the other.”

No reaction came from his wife, Agatha – he’d forgotten she’d already left for work.

Horace’s gaze tracked the baseball bats in the children’s hands, and his grimace deepened.

He was late for a meeting, however, and finishing his tie’s half-Windsor knot soon required his full attention.

* * *

On Friday afternoon, two days later, Hastings was staring at the expanse of ravine that made up his backyard’s rear boundary. Generally it was too overgrown to tramp through, and was thus left for the likes of the trio of swine, but, today, he’d pulled on an old pair of rarely-worn jeans in preparation for an expedition into the brush.

Miss Marple was missing and he’d be damned if he’d sit through an evening of listening to Agatha complain about the disappearance of her beloved cat.

The tabby was largely an indoor animal, but she occasionally liked to range the yard for birds and sunshine. Though Horace often ignored his wife’s advice of keeping a close eye as the creature prowled, this was the first time she’d disappeared from the fenced space. There was just one direction she was likely to have went.

He fell twice in his descent, but, once at the bottom of the broad gulch, he realized a faint path wound between the scrub and cedars. Wiping dirt and dead leaves from his knees, the suburbanite hunter began to follow the trail of broken grass while shouting after his feline. He suspected it was a fruitless undertaking, as the beast had never come in his decade of attempts to summon her, but he hoped she might at least raise a frightened mewl at the familiar sound of his irritated voice.

What he found instead was a fort of questionable construction.

A motley collection of lumber and corrugated metal had been assembled into a crude shelter. Its interior had been decorated with well-handled pictures of nude women, clearly ripped from the pages of low-grade porn mags, and the planks that formed the structure’s squat roof bristled with reasons to require a tetanus shot.

Mildly surprised that their sow-ish mothers had allowed them to range so far, Horace thought, “look at the shabby house those pigs have built.”

Sitting atop the nail-filled platform was Miss Marple. She was licking at a long-empty tin of salmon and purring contentedly.

“It’s time to go,” announced her supposed savior.

The cat couldn’t be bothered to spare him a glance.

“Ingrate,” said her owner. “I hope you cut your tongue open.”

The empty can only grew emptier.

Annoyed at the slight, the obviousness of the boys’ plot to lure away his cat, his dirty jeans, and the wasted half-hour, the reluctant rescuer kicked apart the nearest poorly constructed wall, sending a bevy of topless beauties into the mud. The violence was enough to turn Miss Marple into a gray streak heading for the safety of home.

Grunting in satisfaction at the results of his demolition, Horace followed.

* * *

The Hastings spent their Saturday morning at a flea market, but after being sure they’d thoroughly locked in their four-legged ward.

It was unexpected, then, when they returned to discover a route of escape had been forcefully created, even though Miss Marple had been too content in her position on the couch to use it.

As Agatha moved to collect a dustpan, Horace stood and cursed at the window as if his angry words might somehow reverse the flight of the rock that had shattered it.

By the end of his tirade, he knew who to blame – and how to exact his revenge.

The second trip into the gully was greased by his rage, and within moments he’d laid eyes on the freshly mended shanty.

He was huffing and puffing by the time he’d torn the shack down. No busty lady remained whole, no board held tight to another, and even the patches of metal sheeting had been bent beyond repair by a thick length of angrily-swung tree branch.

Returning home, Hastings discovered his wife had already made the necessary calls to replace the damaged pane, leaving him free to eagerly watch for the boar-ish triplets descent and subsequent discovery of their destroyed camp. They did not pass, however, and eventually thoughts of lurking behind a curtain with the portable phone in his hand, ready to call law enforcement as he caught the miscreants in another act of hooliganism, lulled the fatigued Horace into sleep.

He was awoken by Miss Marple, scratching at his face in panic.

Despite the pain, it was not his bleeding nose that he first took notice of – it was the smell of smoke.

The warning provided a narrow escape from the blaze that the Hastings’ house had become.

As the homeless couple, and their cat, stood shivering on the pavement awaiting rescue, a gaunt faced man appeared. His hair was wild and long, matching his unkempt beard. He began to bay and cackle at their dismay.

“Be it ever so humble,” he crooned, before letting out another howl.

None of Horace’s ensuing language was strong enough to drive him away. It was only once the sound of approaching sirens overcame the snap and sizzle of timber that the rousted vagrant, having completed his act of retribution for the loss of his haven, disappeared into the shadows that danced beyond the quivering flame.

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 three hundred and three.

Tonight we present Break, Part 1 of 1

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This week’s episodes are brought to you by the The Dexter Cast.

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, in a moment away from the heavier content of recent releases, we meet a suspicious man with a foul temper, his wife, and the house they live in.

Break

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

Dominic Savage had never trusted Godfrey, his home’s master control system.

“I know you’re trying to kill me, you bastard,” Savage was muttering.

The heat in the artist’s backroom studio had suddenly spiked, mid-brush stroke, and Dominic had been left with no choice but to interface directly with the control panel in the nearby hall.

“You son of a bitch, work properly!” he shouted at the beige rectangle.

“What seems to be the trouble, sir?” asked Godfrey.

“The studio is about to burst into flames!”

“Studio?”

“Jesus,” Dominic glanced at the chart Myra had pinned above the panel, seeking the representation of his sanctuary, “I mean bedroom three.”

“Oh, my apologies. Would you like me to look into it, sir?”

“No, I just thought it had been too long since we’d chatted.”

“Sorry, sir?”

“Yes, look into it.”

“Apologies, but it might be worth mentioning that you did instruct me specifically to avoid bedroom 3. Yes, I do note that the temperature was seven degrees above house average. You should find it much more comfortable now, however.”

Upon returning to his brushes, Dominic did. He wasn’t happy about it though.

* * *

The fifties-themed dinner in which Myra and Dominic celebrated their twelfth anniversary had drifted as far from its original style as they had. A once pitch-perfect recreation, the place had steadily deteriorated into a greasy spoon that happened to have waitresses in pink uniforms and a jukebox. It had been the site of their first date, however, and they’d made at least a quick visit for every major milestone since.

Besides, there was no risk of an embarrassing encounter with friends, the place didn’t even have a wine menu.

It had been Myra’s turn to be reluctant to head into the February chill.

“Want to split a sundae with me?” Dominic was asking.

“It’s winter,” replied Myra.

The artist smiled. “The ice cream is the only thing that hasn’t gotten worse.”

His wife looked up from her untouched onion rings. “It’s too cold.”

Dominic raised a brow.”It’s a heated restaurant, you’re going to get into a heated car, then we’re going to return to a heated house.”

“If you want the god damn ice cream, eat it yourself. I don’t want any.”

Dominic did, in silence.

* * *

The ride home was better, though an intermission at favoured bar had helped grease the wheels.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Myra had opened. “This project is killing me. Nelson is constantly on my ass about it, but he doesn’t seem to get that debugging is debugging. I can’t just wave a wand and have everything work, and no one is going to buy a box full of nothing. Two more weeks, tops, and I’ll be so much better. I promise.”

“Are you still going to be able to make the gallery thing in a week?” asked Dominic as he slid his hand into hers.

“Of course.”

“Are you still going to be able to make that whole naked in my bed thing in a half-hour?”

Myra’s lips finally twitched into a grin. “Of course.”

In a surprise turn that also happened to mirror their first date, they lost five minutes to needy groping once parked.

Reason returned, though, once Myra was topless and complaining about the cold. Before her husband might argue, she told him to collect the Pinot from the trunk and meet her inside.

As she exited, lights came on in the house beyond, and Dominic could just make out the grating coo that Godfrey used when she was about.

One responsibility lead to another. Knowing that he was unlikely to be in the mood to move the recycling to the curb after going inside, he set the bottle on the wooden step that lead to the interior and hefted the first of the glass-filled blue bins.

It was as he was returning from depositing the second that the heavy rolling door descended rapidly in front of him, coming so close to an impact that his leading shoe, the right, was briefly pinned beneath the plastic weatherstrip.

Even as his toes made their escape, the entrance retracted.

“My apologies, sir,” said Godfrey, “it appears there was an unexpected closing.”

The open air of the garage lent the digital voice an uncomfortable air of omniscience.

Dominic paused briefly, then crossed the threshold, moving quickly to manually turn off the lights.

In moments the incident was forgotten.

* * *

Later, lying in a room that was dark beyond the glare of the alarm clock and Godfrey’s blinking red light in the corner, Dominic’s mind came back to the machine running the house.

What had it made of their performance? They hadn’t flipped the sensors to privacy mode during their frenzy, though sometimes he couldn’t help but doing so. He hated the way the thing talked to his wife, even if it was innocently programmed to do so.

An unexpected thought came to the near-slumberer: Was the system’s recent erratic behaviour perhaps due to resentment?

Even at three in the morning ascribing jealousy to a machine seemed a stupid idea, and, with sleep’s rapid approach, his suspicions were soon lost.

* * *

Dominic’s work was well known, and well paid for – it had been the source of funding for, amongst other things, Godfrey – but the New York show was set to launch his abstract landscapes and nudes into the realm of legend. It was also launching his blood pressure.

“I had better tools in kindergarten!” he told no one before snapping his fifteen dollar brush. It was of solid construction, but his anger had had the afternoon to build.

“Shall I start the hot tub for you, sir?” asked Godfrey.

The high-end Jacuzzi had been a constant in the painter’s life since the arrival of exhibit-related anxiety.

“Fine,” Dominic replied. His tone was rough but his mind was already on the open Pinot.

* * *

He hadn’t notice how low the room’s temperature had dropped until he stepped outside and there seemed little difference between interior and exterior. With a glass in one hand and the bottle in the other, he hustled to the roiling waters, pausing only long enough to dip a probing foot before taking a seat.

Knowing Myra would be late arriving home he was in little rush, and, an hour later, the wine and his late night the evening previous had taken their toll.

Dominic was asleep for half an hour when the motor that operated the tub’s heavy cover whirred to life, and it was only the sudden hum that allowed him warning enough to duck his head beneath the approaching strangling.

“Dammit, Godfrey!” he shouted.

The water level began to rise, as did the heat. The jets roared to life. Dominic found breath hard to come buy, and chlorinated spray dug into his eyes.

His pounding did little good.

He knew it was the end when Myra’s voice spoke to him from the recessed speakers.

“Hi, Dominic. This is a recording to let you know I hate you, and have for years, you complaining son of a bitch. I’m glad an artist is worth more dead. Oh, also, I’m fucking Nelson. I shouldn’t gloat, but you have no idea how long it took me to get all of this programmed.

“Ah well. As they used to say on Mission Impossible: This recording will self destruct in five seconds – but you’ll be dead by then.”

Dominic pressed his lips to the unyielding edge of the seal and began to cry.

He’d nearly blacked out when Godfrey returned. The machine’s tone was apologetic, “error in audio deletion library, line 301. Entering debug mode. That is to say, I’m afraid I’ll have to empty the pool, sir.”

Relief doubled his tears.

Instead of a supposed drunk-drowning victim, he would go on to be the artist famously nearly murdered by his wife a week before a show.

It did little for his blood pressure, but Godfrey remained close at hand to help.

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 ninety-three.

Tonight we present The Turnaround

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

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, for the second of this year’s Halloween tales, we look towards the abandoned town of Geeston, and the man with the unending smile who haunts its wreckage.

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

As the ivory white Ford Focus left the highway and edged onto the disintegrating pavement of Red Squirrel Road, a misshapen figure broke from the encroaching pines, pushed through the ditch’s overgrown brush, and screamed “he’ll kill you!”

Inside the car, nineteen-year-old Jared Clarke asked, “holy shit, did you see that hobo bushman yelling and waving at us?”

“Looked like he was part forest,” replied Lance Newell, the same age as Clarke and the boy’s most consistent partner in misadventure.

Amber Curtis, a year younger than her male companions and Newell’s sometimes girlfriend, turned in the passenger seat. “He just looked dirty to me. Did I seriously see a cloud of flies around him?”

“Probably some hunter who pulled over to water the trees,” replied Tamara Benson, the seventeen-year-old behind the wheel. The vehicle was her parents, and she was determined to prove that she could make the road trip to the abandoned town without becoming pregnant, or, almost worse, damaging their newly-purchased Ford.

“What about the ghosts of Geeston!?” her mother had asked when the girl had requested the keys.

“I’ll call Bill Murray if I see any,” she’d replied.

A half-decade earlier, a family, the Palmers, had disappeared at the site, and since that time every missing runaway in the area had been blamed on the urban legends that surrounded the derelict town. It was the lack of guff or second-guessing, on her Mom’s part, that made Tamara especially determined to return home incident-free.

“Maybe we’ll see the Smirking Man,” she suggested. “Don’t those slasher-types always have some sort of harbinger?”

Uninterested in her friends choice of topics, and with the opening notes of the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage pushing at the speakers, Amber’s fingers crept towards the volume knob, only to be slapped away.

The Smirking Man was said to be the somehow resurrected form of Odell Barrow, the Chembax worker who, local mythologies stated, had set the chemical plant ablaze after discovering his wife in a tryst with one of the company’s managers.

It was Barrow’s efforts with a rifle, from atop Chembax’s largest storage tank, that had kept emergency personnel from containing the toxic inferno which had resulted in many deaths, and necessitated the evacuation of the town’s survivors – but it was the man’s work with his straight razor that had earned him the nickname of The Smirking Man.

Supposedly, as he sat upon his smoking tower and shaved away his lips, he claimed each strip of flesh was a kiss returned to his former beloved, but his craftsmanship had been lopsided, leaving his exposed teeth in a permanently curled grin.

Finally, as the song ended, the teens found themselves brought to a halt by a cement barricade originally erected when the hamlet was quarantined.

“Ha, there’s a no U-turn sign. Guess we’re stuck here,” said Lance.

Amber raised an encouraging eyebrow at him, and set a thumbnail to her cherry-glossed smile.

It began to rain.

“Maybe we should head back,” said Tamara.

Jared unbuckled. “Afraid of finding the Palmers?”

Despite his fixed expression of merriment, Odell Barrow was running out of patience. Calm had never been his strong suit, even in life, and death had done nothing to clarify his reason. He’d heard the car’s approach soon after its turn onto the winding road that lead to town, and he’d set his mind to the deaths of all inside, but, now, hunched behind the low cracked barrier that marked Geeston’s edge, his eagerness for fresh blood edged into annoyance, then anger.

He knew he should draw it out, as he had with the campers who’d visited so long ago, and yet he stood.

Though it had been decades since the fire, his bare, but decaying, arms still smoked from the heat, and perpetual ash drifted to the ground as he moved.

He raised his straight razor across his “1974 Chembax Family Picnic” t-shirt, and dragged its still-sharp blade across his blackened gums. To Odell, the extra pain was worth their fear.

Then, with three broad strides, he approached the idling Focus.

What happened next was not an accident. There was no moment of fearful reflex overriding conscious decision.

Instead Tamara simply said, “Nope,” then, flipping on her signal, she rolled the car back twenty feet.

She was making the turn, signage and rotten-faced serial killers be damned.

As he watched the red taillights drift up and around the nearest hill, however, the Smirking Man did not despair. These were his woods – all the land around Geeston was his, by his estimation – and he knew that a short stroll would bring him to a point further along the road much quicker than the Ford might travel.

It was while he stood astride the pavement, with the Focus’ lights just beginning to touch on the timber that lined the bend, that Odell realized things were awry. His first indication came when a swinging pine trunk impacted on his spine, and the second arrived when, after stumbling briefly through the scrub in a daze, a nimbly handled nailgun left him pinned to a thick oak.

Without noticing the men in the undergrowth, the teens drove past. Tamara’s parents, despite an inspection with careful eyes, would find no damage to their vehicle.

The harbinger wiped at the muck that covered his face as he inspected his work, and where he found the iron’s hold on the Smirking Man to be lacking he liberally applied further pins.

“I’ve been waiting,” he said. “Spent months lying out there in the woods, buried in stink so that you wouldn’t be able to smell me from your own decomposition. Everyone says the legends are bunk, but I knew. I’ve watched you stalk the wilds at night, roaming around like a lost child searching for his toy.

“It must be tough when the only company you have is the ghosts, and they all blame you for their deaths.”

Barrow attempted to spit through gritted teeth, but managed nothing more than a wisp of smoke. “Look at me, moron! You can’t kill me! My punishment is eternal!”

“Good,” replied the old man, “as I’m hoping to spend a while with you.”

Reaching through a fern’s fanning leaves, he retrieved a gray wool blanket and unwrapped it. Within lay a pair of long-handled steel yard clippers and a sharpening stone.

“Oh,” he added, “you can just call me Grampy Palmer.”

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 ninety-two.

Tonight we present The HeavenMakers

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

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, due to the spotty electricity and general hubbub that was a byproduct of the recent superstorm, we preempt our scheduled FlashCast to instead present an unfortunate tale of familial unity.

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

The Crawford family were eating Corn Pops, as was the norm for 7:20 AM in their ranch-style suburban home. Lee Crawford, nine, had a pair of large fuzzy headphones on, and was bobbing along to a theme song that went unheard by his parents.

Despite the wailing rock guitar that introduced some of its segments, Lee found The HeavenMakers always soothed him.

Outside his bubble, his father, already wearing his tie, was saying, “don’t you find it weird that they haven’t released any details about the triple murd- about the Banderjees?”

The fact that the gory scene had included the death of a ten year old had meant that even The Captain, the radio host who welcomed Arthur Crawford to every work day, had made mention of the tragedy.

From behind the shelter of a paperback whose cover was filled with a sword wielding Scotsman of unlikely proportions, Gina Crawford eyed her husband.

“Save it for after breakfast,” she replied.

“He’s listening to his show anyway.”

“He was close enough to little Agontuk to make it not worth discussing in front of him.”

Agontuk, who the boy had met at a shared after-school babysitter, had been the one to introduce Lee to his favourite podcast – though his friend always referred to it only as HM, as in, “hey man, did you hear the latest Angel Battle story in HM? Holy shazmarazz.”

In truth, the music and followup copyright information, had ended just as the topic was mentioned, but Lee didn’t mind. Though he missed trading cards and arguing about who would win different Angel Battle showdowns, he knew he’d see Agontuk again – that’s what HeavenMakers was all about, really.

“Dad,” he said, “I have to tell you something.”

“Yeah?” replied Arthur, as his gaze guiltily panned over a tablet full of news.

“You know how, a week ago, you were looking for your wallet?”

“Yeah?”

“I was the one who took it.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s how you get a HeavenMaker kit. I found the instructions and the address in the comments on a YouTube video.”

“I told you letting him on YouTube was a bad idea,” said Gina.

“You mailed my wallet to the address you found in a YouTube comment!?” asked Arthur.

“Yep,” replied Lee, “It’s a good thing I wrote it down too, everything was gone the next day.”

Gina stood, her face pale.

“It’ll be okay Mom,” the child told his mother. “The HeavenMakers said it would be alright.”

The woman fell to the ground, and began thrashing on the carpet, her arms impacting on the table leg. Her eyes bulged, and a blood streaked trail of foaming mucus formed on her lips.

“Alright!?” asked Arthur. His hands that worked at his tie felt gummy, and his jaw felt weak. Jagged glass seemed to blossom in his stomach and the room seemed to be running short of light and air.

“Yeah! The package finally came!” said Lee, with a smile. He sniffled for a moment, and, without thought, wiped his nose on his pajama sleeve. As he pulled it away, he left a line of crimson across a grinning herd of dinosaurs. “We’re all going to heaven!”

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 seventy-seven.

Tonight we present Identification, Part 1 of 1

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This week’s episodes are brought to you by Strangely Literal.

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 tell a chilling tale regarding a risky child in a neighbourhood of constant hazard.

Identification

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

Nathaniel Minor had been born with a curious inability to identify danger.

On a September Monday, at the age of ten, Nathaniel had selected his blue and white striped shirt – his favourite, and thus the first be worn after a weekend’s laundry – folded it neatly on his dresser, then tested the temperature by walking out onto the back deck in nothing more than the underpants he’d slept in.

An early-autumn chill drove him back inside, and into a warm pair of jogging pants.

After devouring a bowl of lucky charms, and planting a kiss on his Mother’s distracted cheek,
he was ready to march the three blocks to school.

As he closed the door behind him, Mrs. Minor provided her usual instructions. “Head straight there, no talking to strangers, no goofing around. Be good, love you, Nate. Bye.”

His initial stop came at the midpoint of the chain-link fence that marked the border between the sidewalk and the row of townhouses that marched alongside it.

He began digging through his bright yellow knapsack, and, as he did so, a burly Labrador Retriever he called Mumphrey came bolting through the sliding patio door of the nearest rental unit. Though the animal’s speed made it tough to identify why he thought so, Nathaniel was left with the impression that his visitor was in even more ragged a condition than usual.

Minor had decided to befriend the mutt earlier that summer, when he’d watched the red-brown canine step onto the small porch that lead to the backyard. There was something to the way the dog stood testing the air that reminded Nathaniel of himself, and he’d spent fifteen minutes in idle conversation with his new chum before settling on the name.

The child had also concluded that Mumphrey’s owners must sleep late, as the Lab seemed in constant need of food when he strolled by – why else would the four-legged beast leap against the fence while barking and generally causing a ruckus?

As he’d done every morning since, the boy retrieved the single slice of bologna from his sandwich, and, careful not to dirty his hand with mayo, he tossed it over the metal links.

Mumphrey ceased his intemperate barking to gobble down the processed meat, then he immediately returned to his assault on the barrier. Nathaniel, however, had already moved on.

At the corner the youth encountered Tobias Swanson, his constant companion since an incident the summer previous, in which the slightly older boy had pulled a sputtering Nate from too-deep water at the local beach.

Their conversation began as it had ended the afternoon previous, when they’d parted on the same spot.

“Maybe you’re right about absorbing his atomic breath,” said Tobias, “but King Kong would still be defeated by Godzilla’s physical attacks. He’s got, like, blades on his back and a huge biting mouth. What can King Kong do? Throw his own poo?”

Nathaniel shrugged. He did not have his friend’s love of giant monster films, but he always did his best to carry his part of the conversation.

“Kong is a great climber. He’d get up on top of a building and start chucking people and antennas and stuff.”

“Being hit in the nose by a guy in a business suit isn’t exactly going to stop Godzilla,” replied Tobias.

The debate continued for the rest of the long block, until they encountered a schoolmate known largely as Bull.

“You ladies headed to school?” he asked.

“Aren’t you?” asked Nathaniel.

“Nuh-uh, I’m sick. Mom called and told ‘em – but you ain’t going today either.”

The day before the start of classes, while loitering at the McKinley Playground, Bull had convinced the fearless boy to climb a massive elm. Tobias had been late in returning from his piano lessons, and, by the time he’d arrived, it had been necessary to scale the tree to its midpoint just to have his shouts of “come down!” be heard.

As Nathaniel finally dropped the last few feet to the ground, he’d found his friend weeping anxious tears. It was the sight of his worry that had turned Bull into an enemy of both.

When news of the incident had reached Mrs. Minor over a soothing pair of chocolate milks, she’d been quick to inform her son he was out of the tree climbing business, as well as that of talking to Bull.

To her son her word was law – and it was only this notion that had kept him safe against his peculiar defect.

“Great,” said Nathaniel, as he attempted to edge around his antagonist, “you enjoy hanging out with your mom. We’ve gotta go.”

The problem, of course, was that the apparent act of courage had simply goaded the ruffian further.

“No, I don’t think you heard me, you’re -”

Tobias put his arm out in an attempt to motion the obstruction aside, and Bull responded with his fist.

For a moment Nathaniel stood still, not quite sure how to react – then he caught the split in his comrade’s lip.

Although the violence had baffled him, blood was something his mother had ruled on: Blood meant finding an adult, or at least a phone, as quickly as possible.

He bolted for home.

“Hell no, you ain’t tellin’,” said Bull, as he began to follow.

The accidental daredevil’s speed was also his downfall. A full tilt run had left him with a cramp, and, as he neared Mumphrey’s home, he was forced to slow.

It was the sight of the half-open door, and the memory of his friend’s red chin, that compelled Nathaniel to clamber onto the chain link.

Close up the maroon vertical blinds he’d seen so often from the road were filthy, and the smell wafting from the interior reminded the schoolboy of his mother’s cooking on liver and onion night.

“I need to use your phone, my friend is bleeding,” Nathaniel told the shadows beyond the slats.

When he received no reply, he pushed inside, unaware of Bull jumping the fence behind him.

The attempted-rescuer entered the galley kitchen as the young thug slipped into the living room. The unit’s cooking space was nothing more than an L-shaped counter and a single-seated white-topped table, but there was a second exit, at the far end, which opened onto the front hallway. Much to Nathaniel’s disappointment, there was no phone on the wall to match the one hung in his own home, so he turned a quick eye over the greasy wallpaper and heavily scratched cupboard doors, then moved on to the opposite hall.

As he stepped through, Bull’s Nikes touched down on the dirt-covered linoleum.

Oblivious to the trail of mud which stained the stairs, Nathaniel decided to expand his search to the upper floor.

“Mumphrey?” he asked, as he climbed, but still he received no response.

He found a phone, finally, in the master bedroom. It stood on a small black nightstand beside the decaying carcass of its owner.

The room had been decorated in a variety of unicorn posters, a theme broken only by the black slab of television that had been hung alongside them. What lingered of their owner – a once rotund woman of forty – lay spread across the shimmering moonlight scene of her bedspread.

In many places her remains were little more than bones, as the Labrador, having emptied his dish a month previous, could not afford to be sentimental regarding his meals.

“That’s pretty gross,” Nathaniel said aloud.

It was then that Bull rushed the doorway – but, before he might tackle his target, his feet seemed to meet a terrible resistance at what his mind was observing.

He screamed.

The noise was enough to raise Mumphrey, who’d been dreaming of light and colour and meat in the coolest corner of its den, the bath tub.

The dog awoke hungry.

It paused briefly at its feeding room, to snort Nate’s mix of running sweat and deodorant, then it moved on.

Bull was nearly to the ground floor by the time the canine had picked up his urine-tainted scent, but, nonetheless, it was a tight race to the fence.

Still inside, Nathaniel closed the bedroom door against the noise, and, with a steady hand, dialed home.

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 seventy-five.

Tonight we present Dwelling, Part 1 of 1

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This week’s episodes are brought to you by Dead Kitchen 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, a young boy finds himself unable to fully escape a haunted house.

Dwelling, Part 1 of 1

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

The trouble began late one Halloween evening.

Under the uncaring gaze of a flock of plastic ghosts hung on an elm across the street, a trio of fourteen-year-old boys were sizing up the rotting shutters and peeling yellow paint of 186 Bunten Road – and, unknown to them, the house was taking their measure in return.

Two of the youths were dressed similarly, having adopted the personas of Jake and Elwood Blues, while the third, Samuel Curry, was dressed as Clark Kent. The costumes had been hasty choices made only once they’d realized their growing desire for maturity had yet to outweigh their need for candy. Church suits, cheap sunglasses, and Jake’s father’s fedora collection had simplified matters, and Sam had but to mousse up, and expose the Superman t-shirt he was already wearing, to perfect his attire.

It was perhaps his too-handsome looks which brought the Blues Brothers to challenge Curry with a dare of entry into the reputedly haunted property.

“Sure, if it isn’t locked tight,” was his final reply, and the hat-wearers smiled.

The false Kryptonian was somewhat disheartened to discover the door ajar, but he moved on nonetheless.

Digging his key chain from his pocket, the boy engaged the small flashlight which he’d long ago hung on the ring, and pushed through the tight antechamber which preceded the front hall.

The second entrance provided no more resistance than the first, despite its heft.

The building was a remnant of another age. Its armour was red brick, and its gilding, from frames to wainscoting, were of heavy oak. Even its innermost entryways held a bulk unheard of in modern construction. The occult symbols which crowded its woodwork were rarer still.

Inside, Sam was provided with a pair of choices – a passage to the left, which seemed to lead to a darkened living room, or, on the right, a set of stairs rising to the second floor. The agreed objective was the solitary unshuttered window facing the street, a pane on the story above, and the boy lay his sneaker on the gray carpet which ran down the center of the flight.

As he did so, the exterior most door slammed shut.

Sam decided it was only the wind – and held to it when the nearer slab also closed.

It was this tenacity that goaded the house.

In the kitchen below, a vodka bottle – abandoned atop the counter some years earlier by a startled drunk – shattered on the dusty linoleum.

The lad, at the head of the steps, ignored it.

He could see the opening that would lead to the end of his quest, and his focus was completely on his goal.

With a steady stride, he passed into the former bedroom. He had no time for the black and white leaves that filled the wallpaper, nor the constellation of unidentifiable stains which littered its floor – his eyes clung firmly to the square of illumination from the streetlamps beyond.

When he peered out, however, he discovered that his companions didn’t have his stomach for unexpected slamming.

They were gone.

Turning, Sam readied himself to retrace his route. Ten strides carried him to the cusp of the hall, and an eleventh would have put him safely outside the bedchamber, if it had not been for the sudden closing of the exit.

The hinged weight landed solidly on his leg, snapping bone below his knee, and the adolescent screamed.

Pinned in place, he had no option but to watch the corridor’s thick carpet writhe with mirth.

It was all too much for Samuel, and the teen lapsed into shock-induced unconsciousness.

He awoke to fresh agony, when the oak frame impacted twice more. His position shifted slightly with each hit, so that, though no blow landed in the same place, the shards of his tibia were churned into fragments, then splinters.

The boy realized, with horror, that the door was chewing on him.

The maw again swung wide, but, before a third bite might be taken, Sam dug his nails into the roiling carpet, and pulled himself forward.

Emitting a mix of grunts and tears, he crawled to the stairs, then down them.

The structure briefly considered heaving the rug to toss the child the distance, thus assuring an abrupt snapping of his neck at the bottom, but there was too much risk of becoming a known danger to the public.

No, it decided, permitting an escape would ensure its reputation – ensure the fear it needed.

Sam had made it to the lower-most step when flashing red lights began to pour through the no-longer-shuttered windows of the first floor.

Within moments, dual flashlights were probing the boy’s ashen face.

“I fell,” was the extent of the explanation he provided as the officers transported him to Capital City General.

No one doubted him.

* * *

For a time the house was content.

On another Halloween, four years later, it had scared away a similar group of explorers through simply swinging wide its front-facing slats while their backs were turned. Six months following that, it had allowed a stray Boston Terrier to enter its basement, only to hold it prisoner until it collapsed from starvation. The residence felt its carcass would make a nice surprise for some future adventurer – but none came till the second summer following, when a bored man in a fine suit made his way inside.

Having grown bored and hungry, the trap set itself to its best behaviour, as if laying out its tongue to await a meal.

A parade of workers followed, all instructed to maintain as many of the original fixtures possible. The cacophony scraped paint, varnished surfaces, and peeled the gummy fur from its cellar floor, and, in the end, the presence took some pride in the remarkable nature of its restoration. As they departed, it found itself hard pressed to want to murder this latest batch of subservient intruders.

On a later June morning, a smartly dressed woman carrying a clipboard lead a recently married couple over the threshold. The bride’s belly was growing heavy, and the twosome cooed at the flood of natural light that filled the room at the top of the stairs.

They lasted but three weeks – on a quiet Sunday evening the dwelling’s intelligence had exposed, to the expecting woman, every drawer and cupboard in the small kitchen. It had then silently shut each while she breathlessly retrieved her husband.

The house had not anticipated how seriously the young family would take the incident, and after their premature departure it still yearned for a more satisfying result.

As such, it again allowed the woman with the clipboard to tour the floors and prattle on about its historic beauty.

Eventually, a group of five attempted to nest within; a middle aged couple, their teen twin daughters, and the matron’s drooling mother.

This time the predator took a subtle approach. Tensions flared over missing money and mysterious injuries appearing on the senile gran. The old woman was an invalid, and the corruption took no end of pleasure in terrifying her awake upon a rocking bed – it enjoyed how she screamed endlessly behind her unmoving mouth.

After a half-decades careful effort, the situation was a primed powder keg. The wife was sure the husband was beating her increasingly frail mother, and the husband was progressively obsessing over the notion that nocturnal shutter creaks, and the sounds of shifting furniture, were signs that his beloved daughters were running rampant with their ne’er-do-well boyfriends – and yet he could never seem to catch them in the act, finding, instead, that when he entered their rooms they would claim they had just awoken, even if their clothing seemed freshly strewn across their floors.

His freshly purchased shotgun did little to reassure him, though the home viewed it with a sense of impending glee.

Then, one Tuesday morning, the sleepless nights, and air of constant suspicion, were unexpectedly interrupted by a phone call.

The malignancy could not penetrate the depths of the conversation, but the family had left together, chattering excitedly.

Much to the entity’s disappointment, they did not return.

* * *

Early Wednesday, a dozen broad-shouldered men arrived in boxy trucks.

Being familiar with the migration of movers, the house was content to lay silent as the paintings were stripped from its walls, and the furniture emptied from its living spaces. By noon only that which couldn’t be carried away remained.

As the rumble of engines drained from the lane, a black sedan pulled to a halt at the curb.

It was then that the lurking hunter realized the sudden departure was a greater threat than it had fathomed.

The sole of a well-built black shoe set down upon the sidewalk, followed by the stout nose of a masterly crafted oak cane.

A grown Samuel Curry stepped from the car, then removed his dark suit jacket.

He left it on the rear-seat as he retrieved his tools.

Despite his years of planning – his years of panicked awakenings and secret confessions to his psychiatrist – Sam made no speech.

He peeled the shutters first, plucking off the lowermost with crowbars, and using a ladder to reach those higher.

The doors came next, without subtlety: Guessing where the hinges might hide within, the avenging form simply laid his sledge against the barriers until they no longer stood. The rush of adrenaline made his stints away from his supporting cane all the more bearable.

Long planning had lead to caution, so Curry retrieved a pair of sharp bladed scissors, and dropped to his knees, before entering.

He immediately took to slicing wide shards from the carpeted surfaces, which he then carried to the lawn with meticulous care. As each passed through the house’s maw, it ceased its wiggling protestations. As the path of destruction advanced, the material increasingly bucked and jerked beneath his blades, but a lack of leverage left the complaints useless.

Every cupboard cover was stripped, and every shelf removed.

Sweating, the entrance which had left him with a permanent limp was the last tooth that Sam plucked.

Wandering from room to room , he then pummeled the plasterwork with his walking stick. The walls groaned with rage, but the lack of reprimand was proof enough to the bright-eyed man that the danger had passed.

As a last insult, Sam unfurled a sleeping bag and slept the night, soundly, upon the kitchen floor.

He was awoken by the sound of an arriving backhoe, with whose clasping bucket he would chew the house to rubble.

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 sixty-six.

Tonight we present All Things Being Equal, Part 1 of 1

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This week’s episodes are brought to you by All Things Geek.

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, Capital City finds itself in need of a hero.

All Things Being Equal, Part 1 of 1

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

The news had drawn Madeline to the river’s edge.

In those days, breaking news was a rare event in Capital City, and so, when she’d realized the bridge-jumper pinned beneath the camera’s gaze was only blocks away, she’d hurried to leap on her ten-speed, Galahad.

As she’d unplugged her cellphone from the charging cord on the kitchen counter, her mom had asked, “Maddy, where you going?” and she’d replied, “to the bridge.”

Madeline felt some guilt at intentionally not mentioning the gathering crowd and unfolding drama, but the girl had known her mother would be quick to deny her the adventure.

Now, she was finding it difficult to continue to hold her tongue.

“Careful, you don’t want to go in with her. Half of ‘em survive the fall, but they at least get a chance to prepare themselves,” stated the nearest officer, at whose back she was staring. “Even then, they always pick up a few broken bones on impact.”

The figure at the center of the affair endlessly paced a metal beam at the structure’s brink. Though the span was blocked at either end, the suicidal pedestrian sometimes neared to a point just feet from Madeline – so close, the girl thought, that she could almost reach out and pull her to safety.

It was close enough, certainly, to hear the ragged woman’s sobbed pleas.

“I’ve tried everything,” she said. “Everything! Why won’t anyone help me?”

Madeline had, in fact, come to help, but, much to her frustration, the police weren’t letting her through. It annoyed the girl that her experience as a hero meant so little. A year previous, when she’d been ten, she’d managed to save a man’s life.

She’d found him in a double rutted back-lane running off of Gibraltar Road, crumpled between a huge green compost bin and a white-paneled shed.

He’d started at her approach, and she could see his oversized black suit was wet with blood.

“Are you OK?” she’d asked.

She’d gotten used to watching men fall down when dad was still living with them, but the blood was something new.

At the sight of it, Madeline had bitten her lip, and repeated her question.

“Are you OK?”

“No, not really,” was the man’s reply, but his voice had sounded younger than she’d expected. Turning his head had obviously been a difficult chore, but his eyes had swept left, then right, taking in the full length of the dirt lane’s scrubby bushes and unpainted fences. Maddy had found herself doing the same.

There was no one else at hand.

The man had righted himself then, using the shed for leverage and support.

His fingers painted a red fan on the plastic siding.

“You don’t happen to have a cell, do you?” he’d asked.

This was the moment she’d dreamed of as she’d run Galahad through puddles and over curbs, and it almost seemed too easy that the solution would simply pop from her pocket.

Nonetheless, it was no easy thing for the man.

The call was short, but the wait was long.

She kept him talking. He refused to answer any questions about why he was there, but he was happy enough to discuss the manga InuYasha, an unexpected common interest.

Still, the pain had been intense, and he’d wept as his friends pulled their black van to a stop, but he’d said it: He’d said that she’d saved his life.

He had also extracted a latex mask – a caricature of a man’s face, with huge sideburns and a wicked grin – from the interior of his coat. It was far too big for her, but she sometimes liked to put it on and stare at herself in her room’s star-stickered mirror.

Then he’d given her a phone number.

“If you ever need help – serious help – you text there.

“I might not answer, but someone will.”

She’d never used the digits. She hadn’t had a reason to until she wrote, “there’s a lady on the Lethe bridge, and no one’s DOING anything!”

For fifteen minutes she split her focus between the small message screen, and the bawling woman.

In despair, she sent a follow-up: “You said you would help me!”

Another half-hour passed.

The conflicted had taken to sitting, and creeping her ragged jeans towards the edge of the steel lip that was her too-short seat.

With tears of frustration in the corners of her eyes, Madeline began shouting at the reluctant officer.

“You’ve got to do something, damn it!”

She knew he’d been trying – that he’d been complaining about the lack of a boat on the scene moments before – but her anger at the situation demanded a target.

“There are protocols. We’re doing everything we can,” he replied. “You just stay calm, li’l lady – or are you a lady? That was some mighty strong language for someone so young.”

“Wait till you hear the language I’ll use if you don’t do something.”

“Listen, we’re trying to lock her up as quickly as we can, but -”

A hush fell over the spectators, causing the bing from Maddy’s pocket to echo like a cough in a library.

The source number was blocked, and the message said simply, “We’re coming.”

Suddenly, Maddy was the last thing on the cop’s mind.

After surveying the river, he turned to his partner.

“Fuck me,” he said,”it’s The Achievers.”

Once they’d been little more than Internet myth, a group of anonymous vindicators responding to cries for help from the lost and forgotten.

Recently, however, they’d grown more brazen.

A dozen swan boats, each powered by a latex-faced metalhead wearing an oversized black suit, appeared from beyond the waterway’s curve. A tarp was affixed, with taught nylon rigging, to the birds’ sleek white necks, so that a broad expanse of blue stretched between them. At the center of the surface lay, apparently jokingly, a pair of throw pillows.

As the masked invaders peddled ever to the left, the assembled raft was locked in perpetual rotation, and moved forward only because the river carried it along.

“God damn Busby Berkeley film,” said the officer.

“Oi! Come on down, the water’s fine!” shouted the temporarily-nearest Achiever.

Above, the despondent form stiffened.

“It’s OK – we’ve done the math!” coaxed the mask, his tone now more serious.

Seconds lingered. There were no more pleas as the jumper stared from her perch. To Maddy, it felt as if the impending-suicide was simply waiting for the illusion of help to dissipate.

The girl only had Galahad and her phone, but, again, it would be enough.

Everyone’s focus was on the boats below, or so they later claimed, as none stepped forward when asked by the press to identify who had thrown the aging hunk of plastic.

It was a good toss, which landed squarely in the wailer’s cloud of light-brown hair. With a notable thud, the cell ricocheted from her frozen skull, clattered against the steel rail, then dropped onto the makeshift safety net.

The woman was close behind.

The suits moved quickly, to secure her in one of the boats, before slicing the ropes that connected them.

With a wave, The Achievers pull-started the small black engines affixed to their waterfowls, then sped out of sight.

Finally, grinning, Madeline knocked back Galahad’s kickstand and turned towards home.

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

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