Unfortunately for him, as journal-news.net reports, he didn’t:

Jonathan G. Parker, 19, of Fort Loudoun, Pa., was arraigned Tuesday one count of felony daytime burglary.

According to court records, Deputy P.D. Ware of the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Department responded on Aug. 28 to the victim’s home after she reported the burglary.

She told police that someone had broken into her home through a bedroom window.

There were open cabinets in her garage, and other signs of a burglar.

At this point we’re all familiar with social media’s role in crime fighting, and I’ve provided something of a hint off the top – so how was he caught? Bragging on Facebook? Tweeting pictures from the scene?

Nope: Old fashioned stupidity.

The popular online social networking site Facebook helped lead to [Parker]‘s arrest after he stopped check his account on the victim’s computer, but forgot to log out before leaving the home with two diamond rings.

As the Huff Po tells it, Brenda and Sheila’s solution was a little less obvious.

54-year-old Brenda Byrd, and 48-year-old Sheila Joiner were booked with contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile and allowing an unlicensed driver to operate a motor vehicle.

Surely this is all just a misunderstanding revolving around a loving grandmother teaching her grandson to drive, right? Not quite:

A Kenner police news release says the boy’s grandmother and another woman in the vehicle were arrested early Wednesday when the car was pulled over on a city street. Police say they told officers that they had the [10-year-old] boy drive because they were intoxicated.

If that was their problem, what possibly could have been their solution? It’s not perfect, but they could have considered letting the other kid drive:

The young driver and a 15-year-old passenger were later released to family members.

The post True Crime Tuesday: Simple Solutions Edition appeared first on Flash Pulp.

Tonight we present Mulligan Smith in Can’t Live with Them, Part 2 of 3
Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)
(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, Mulligan Smith, PI, finds himself face-to-face with a surly client, and the man’s nervous dachshund.

Mulligan Smith in Can’t Live with Them, Part 2 of 3

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

Mulligan’s morning had largely consisted of asking neighbours and friends about the disappearance of his client’s wife, Monika.

It had been a short process.

After he’d run through the houses that flanked the Dougherty home, and the single set of parents who used her day care services, Smith knew that the woman had seemed kind but distant, loved children, and was very forgiving about being paid late. They had little else to offer but questions and conjecture.

The mother of Julian, the boy Monika had been walking to school on behalf of his steel worker parents, had suggested that things were perhaps not always great between the missing and her husband, but that she’d felt it was none of her business. Later, as he’d stood to leave the Dunkin’ Donuts at which they’d met, she’d also asked if the situation was at all connected to the vanishing of Lita Carver.

“Who?” Mulligan had replied.

His afternoon had subsequently been spent online, at a small desk beside the non-fiction autobiographical S’s of the Capital City Public Library.

There were three references to Lita: The first was a quick mention in her father’s obituary, and the second a quote from a schoolyard hot dog sale she happened to have visited. Both items were years old and likely entirely unrelated to the matter at hand. The third, however, intensified Julian’s mother’s question.

Lita had been married to a Marshall Carver nearly two decades, producing a single son, Mayfield. The boy’s birth announcement in the Capital City Daily, and a bit of math, told Mulligan that the youth was now seventeen. Mrs. Carver had gone missing on May 18th of the previous year, after having walked the teen to school, as reported when Marshall arrived home from work that evening. Lita’s history of – as her husband put it – “dramatics” had convinced the police to conduct an immediate search.

Creeping further through the records for follow-ups had provided the PI only frustration.

A phone call to Marshall forced Smith to be up for the second early morning in a row. The man had insisted – much as his client had, though in a more even tone – that Mulligan conduct his interview before business hours.

“- and what is it that you do, Mr. Carver,” Smith had asked ten minutes after snaring a prime parking space on the road alongside Eastern High School.

“I sell knives,” replied Marshall, “High-end custom kitchen blades. Everything you’d need to peel an apple or a pig.”

Upon his arrival he’d told Mulligan that he’d taken over his wife’s duty of escorting their son in the year since her disappearance, and the investigator had had a brief opportunity to meet the teen.

The Carvers had been dressed identically – light green polo shirts, well-pressed khaki slacks, chrome Breitling watches, and a pair of carefully parted haircuts, both swept to the left – and, following an exchange of hellos with the detective, Mayfield had moved to kiss his father and depart.

As such, the discovery of Marshall’s occupation had simply unsettled the already fatigued Mulligan further.

“How did Lita spend her time?” he asked, letting his interviewee trail ahead a step as they began walking towards the man’s residence. Mulligan had little interest in allowing Marshall’s cutting experience and dead smile behind him, but it was necessary to share the sidewalk with a sharp-elbowed crossing guard and her merrily swinging stop sign.

“Why is a private investigator looking into my lost wife?” Carver responded.

Smith could detect no difference between this question’s tone of delivery and the earlier mention of butchery, but the school employee did cease her unthinking waving.

Noting her blue and red hair, Mulligan gave her a nod as he passed, but held his tongue till he was out of her earshot.

Finally he said, “another woman, Monika Dougherty, has gone missing. She lived three blocks away, and it has the same sort of feel as Lita’s case. I was wondering if you might have some insight into the situation.”

Carver stopped then, turning back towards Smith and locking his eyes on the detective’s.

This was close to a show of emotion as he came before explaining, “I do not know where my wife is, but, when I do find her, I will lock whoever is responsible in a very small room. In that room I will place a single hotplate. I own a pair of gloves – I bought them on the internet – that are amazingly resistant to heat, but provide enough flexibility to use your fingers with precision. I’ve also purchased the entire Carbon series of knives, a product I myself sell. I invested in them because I know, from experience and from the literature, that the line is heat resistant up to 800 degrees.

“I will arrange the set – from paring knife to butcher’s blade – on the burners, and, once the steel is glowing, I will use them to shave away the person in question. I’ll start with their toes, then their feet – don’t worry, there’s a Japanese Deba knife in there that’ll easily handle the bone – and I’ll just keep working my way up. I may not be able to go through their shins, but I bet I can cut and cauterize some solid turkey slices from their calves.

“Once the accountable party has clarified their actions, and apologized, I’ll allow them to die. I know a pig farmer who’d trade almost anything for some of our out-of-stock product.”

Marshall ended the statement with a dry “ha,” as if he’d intended the whole thing as a bit of joking bravado.

Mulligan, however, had no further questions.

(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.

The post FP330 – Mulligan Smith in Can’t Live with Them, Part 2 of 3 appeared first on Flash Pulp.

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Tonight we present Mulligan Smith in Can’t Live with Them, Part 1 of 3
Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)
(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, Mulligan Smith, PI, finds himself face-to-face with a surly client, and the man’s nervous dachshund.

Mulligan Smith in Can’t Live with Them, Part 1 of 3

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

It was earlier than Mulligan liked to exist on any given day, but his client, Maxwell Dougherty, had demanded the meeting take place before the man had to depart for his desk. The account manager was straightening his crimson tie as Smith leaned the Tercel into his driveway.

This was an especially unpleasant situation for the private investigator, as he’d spent the previous evening consoling a woman whose missing son he’d finally turned up. She’d requested he drive her to the grassy lot where police technicians were retrieving what was left of his long-decayed corpse, then he’d voluntarily stopped at the bar just down her street to talk over how common suicide was amongst teens. Instead they mainly discussed their mutual love of mystery novels and dogs, though they were both between pets at the moment; Small talk, but the lack of serious subject matter had kept him from remembering that he should leave.

He rarely drank, largely because of how it made him feel on that very early, very bright morning, and because it often led – as it had last night – to his guilt covering the tab. His sympathies had guzzled half the value of his invoice, and that perhaps pained the detective the most. It meant belt tightening and having to watch idiots kick their puppies.

“C’mon and piss,” said the Windsor fussing, leg throwing, Dougherty.

It was obvious to Mulligan that the dachshund was too concerned with flying Oxfords to consider taking a moment to water the lawn, so he arranged a distraction.

“Hey, Max,” he said with a wave.

The client turned on his spotless heel. “Maxwell. I mentioned the same thing in my email, remember?”

Yes, in fact, Smith remembered quite well.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Actually, about that, I just had a few follow-up questions.”

In truth he hated to take a job – even a well-paying job – without meeting the client. The offer had arrived with a portfolio of information that he guessed wasn’t all that different than an account file Maxwell would have put together on an average work day.

Mulligan closed the distance with his hand extended, an awkward gesture that forced Dougherty to keep his eyes on the approaching handshake. Seeing his master’s distracted state, the dog turned a leg on a well-watered looking maple.

As the shake was exchanged – Smith was unsurprised to discover Maxwell was a squeezer – the detective opted to overstep his advance in hopes of catching something on his clients breath that might match the red flare of broken blood vessels across the peak of his nose. He didn’t have to get terribly close to confirm his theory.

Then the questions began.

“You were on good terms with your wife?” asked Smith.

“Yeah, we were in love,” was all Dougherty replied.

“Were the two of you in any fights just before she disappeared?”

“No.”

“Was there anything else out of the ordinary – was she away a lot? Distracted by her cellphone or the Internet?”

“Was she fucking someone else, you mean? No. I don’t have money to throw away on her having her own phone, and she could barely find our computer’s power button.”

Smith nodded, more out of a lack of surprise than any interest in affirming his client’s notions.

“You mentioned that she ran a daycare – any problems with the parents?”

“No. She was down to two kids, and she really just watched them in the morning until she walked them to school. Their folks do shift work, and they never discussed much beyond ‘how much do I owe you?’”

“Did she have any habits that might have gotten her into trouble?”

Maxwell’s voice grew thicker with this delivery, as if the gin on his breath was only decorative.

“She drank too much sometimes. We didn’t fight, but it could make her pretty bitchy.”

While Smith worked on his next question the dog barked a noncommittal hello to a passing cyclist.

“Shut up, Brutus,” said its owner. “She bought me this shitty mutt. I swear it’s about as smart as she is. I mean, who the fuck gives an animal as a present? I’d have it put down if the vet didn’t charge so much.”

Mulligan could guess, and projected loneliness would be high on his list of suggestions. He also now had some idea of why his client had taken him on:` He himself wasn’t entirely convinced the man hadn’t murdered his wife, and it was a short jump to what the cops might think.

“Anything more?” asked Dougherty.

“Nah, that’s all I needed,” replied Smith.

Maxwell turned back, pulling open the entrance. His toes narrowly missed the dachshund’s scrambling rear legs as the pup bolted inside.

The pet owner told his employee, “you better not be billing me for this time. You’re supposed to be looking for my fucking wife, not standing here bullshitting with me,” as he pulled shut the inside door.

Smith noted that, in his rush, he’d forgotten to lock it.

“I didn’t plan to actually start billing till nine,” Mulligan replied, “so you’ve got another five minutes.”

With a glance at his watch, the account manager said, “shit.”

Less than two minutes later Smith was pulling right at the corner’s stop sign as Maxwell accelerated away behind him.

The lingering PI then took another right, and another, and another. He didn’t bother killing the engine as he stepped out onto Dougherty’s driveway. He found Brutus excited to be unexpectedly free, and it required little coaxing to convince him into the backseat of the Tercel.

The Mulligan knew a lady who would actually appreciate the company.

(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.

The post FP329 – Mulligan Smith in Can’t Live with Them, Part 1 of 3 appeared first on Flash Pulp.

Last Week:

(Mouse-over for episode titles, click to read/listen. Blog content begins below.)
Don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, or RSS, to get the episodes hot off the mic!

The post This Week appeared first on Flash Pulp.

It’s a lesson – as YorkDispatch.com reports – that Karen Harrelson and Gregory Stambaugh did not learn:

As Karen Elaine Harrelson, 48, and Gregory L. Stambaugh, 57, were watching “American Idol” in the basement of Stambaugh’s West Manchester Township home Wednesday, May 15, the two got into an drunken argument over which contestant – Candice Glover or Kree Harrison – should win the season’s title.

Which is hardly surprising, as…

Both Harrelson and Stambaugh told police they been drinking, with Stambaugh adding that Harrelson started drinking beer and tequila at 5 a.m. and that he joined in at noon by drinking beer and a pint of scotch, the report says.

So, how do you decide who should win? Engage in a well reasoned discourse and examination of the individual contestant’s strengths and weaknesses? Rock Paper Scissors? Watch the show?

In this case, they chose knife fight.

So one of them went to the kitchen, got a knife and stabbed the other. Whoever was stabbed first then took hold of the knife and stabbed the other, according to West Manchester Township Police.

Who stabbed first? Unsurprisingly, the pair argue the point.

Ever heard the saying that “no good deed goes unpunished”? 71-year-old William Moody apparently holds the axiom close to his heart, as, according to wxpi.com:

A North Strabane Township man was arrested Friday after police said he got mad that a good Samaritan parked her car in his driveway while helping the victim of a car crash.

The nice thing about starting a fight beside a car crash, however, is that the police are already close at hand to deal with things.

When officers arrived, they said Moody fought with them before being arrested.

How does a man of that age go into battle against the theoretically-well-prepared forces of justice? Guile, apparently.

Moody is also accused of faking a heart attack and hitting a paramedic when the cuffs were removed.

His wits, however, were not his only defense – he also had his teeth, though perhaps not in the way that you might think.

Once at the police station, officers said he again began to fight with law enforcement and threw his false teeth and a watch at them.

The post True Crime Tuesday: Pick Your Battles Edition appeared first on Flash Pulp.

We had some questions about Balticon & America, and we demanded answers.

Download

* * *

Huge thanks to Nutty, Tek, Hugh, and Rich the Time Traveller!

* * *

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.

The post FCM006 – BaltiQuestions appeared first on Flash Pulp.

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Tonight we present Fastest Gun in the West, Part 1 of 1
Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

This week’s episodes are brought to you by the Final Shot Saloon

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 an unexpected turn even to us, we take a trip to the dusty plains of the Old West to meet a lad of some renown.

Fastest Gun in the West

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

William “Brazos” Barden held a reputation for speed that few could match, but he’d worked for it.

It had started when he was eight. His father had stepped down from their wobble-wheeled cart with a pistol on his belt – a J.H Dance & Brothers black powder Navy revolver – and the younger Barden had fallen in love with the thing before he’d even finished helping unpack the supplies that crowded the wagon’s bed.

It had taken a month of asking, but Barden Senior had eventually been convinced to allow the boy to inspect the weapon unattended. On a warm Saturday morning in June his father had handed across the gun, after a careful inspection to ensure it was unloaded, and the lad had immediately bundled up the leather sling to scurry into the shadows of the barn.

William’s hours were spent drawing and firing, and every spray of imagined bullets knocked down a line of invisible road agents. It was nearly supper when he was finally ordered away to complete a day’s worth of chores in an hour’s time.

In the following months his Pa found it increasingly convenient to allow the boy access to his fascination instead of laying aside pennies as compensation for the youth’s efforts on the homestead. It was soon the case that, despite dusty wind, or sweltering heat, or even impending storm clouds, William could be found in the shooting gallery of his mind.

Draw, holster, draw, holster, draw – the muscles of his arm became attenuated to little more, and his finger danced upon the trigger to the beat of empty-chambered clicks.

At the age of fourteen William had been wearing the weapon – now loaded and often used to scramble unwanted reptiles – when he’d stumbled across one of the Elmore brothers raising his voice to Father Barden while keeping his hand on his belt knife. It was late, and by the smell of whiskey on their breath Brazos knew they’d likely been at cards previous to his appearance. It seemed to be coming to a head as the lad approached, but, even as the irate guest began to flex his wrist to retrieve his blade, the younger Barden had drawn and planted his barrel against the man’s left nostril.

Wordlessly the pair had marched – one forward, one backwards – to the distant gate that marked the edge of their spread. By the time they’d arrived the drunken Elmore had swung from anger to melancholy, but William barred the entrance behind him nonetheless.

It was in recounting the story that the elder Barden gave his son his nickname, for each telling would conclude on the same statement that the lad had “damn near backed the bastard into the Rio Brazos.”

Still, it wasn’t gumption that made William proud, it was his speed.

At seventeen he collected three Comanches apparently fleeing, long distance, from the cavalry columns that rode the territory in search of their deaths or their surrender.

The trio were armed with weapons that would have been familiar to Grandfather Barden, but if it was good enough for the army, it was good enough for Brazos. Before they could raise their lap-bound flintlocks to scare off what they thought to be a hungry coyote, William’s ego had him standing beside their fire. He did so with his palms empty and his thumbs in his belt. When the youngest of the group, likely a year Will’s junior, moved to stand, the old cap-and-ball revolver found itself the quicker to rise. The single round it fired passed cleanly through the boy’s left shoulder.

Later William would tell himself, and those who’d listen, that it had been his intended target.

In the end it was a lucky result for the Comanches, perhaps, as the elder two captives were able to staunch the bleeding, and a life on the reservation was a small step up from a lonely death in the dusty stretches.

The story of their capture did much to bolster William’s name.

Two years later, when he was largely known simply as Brazos, and he’d traded his father’s seemingly-ancient pistol for a Colt, William encountered Chauncey Miller, another man with a reputation.

Chauncey was well known as a drunk, and a washed up Pinkerton, and it was said around most railyard card games that he might have once held the title of fastest draw in the Republic. He still wore a weapon at his hip, but he often spoke loudly about how rarely he’d used it since his supposed retirement. On such occasions his closest friends would raise a questioning brow, though they declined to argue the point.

Miller hadn’t been considering his notoriety as man of pacifism or war when he’d demanded payment from Brazos, he’d been solely interested in the whiskey the victory would afford him. His firm-chinned step towards William was meant as intimidation, not invitation, but Barden had become proficient with just one solution.

He’d fired twice before Chauncey had even cleared his leather, and the Virginian’s quadruply pierced hat was tumbling to the ground with a well-ventilated peak by the time the older man’s carefully oiled Peacemaker was brought level.

Brazos didn’t have the chance to make a third shot.

For three-tenths of a glorious second he’d been the fastest gun in the West – it was only through misfortune that he’d happened, that very day, to run into the man who remained the most accurate in that same territory.

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.

The post FP328 – Fastest Gun in the West appeared first on Flash Pulp.

For example, life was getting a bit rough on Aftab Aslam, as CBS News reports:

[John's Creek city spokesman Doug] Nurse says Aslam left home because he didn’t want to tell his parents he was failing an English class at Georgia Gwinnett College.

Did he strike out into the world, looking to make his fame and fortune on the path less traveled? Not exactly:

Nurse says Aslam bought a cellphone and texted his parents a story about being kidnapped April 27.

- but guess what’s harder than a community college English class? Camping out to fake your own kidnapping.

Nurse says Aslam camped for about a week in an undeveloped area in Forsyth County, but the weather turned cold and rainy and he went home.

Some folks, on the other hand, will fight even when others might suggest they should simply let things go.

Such is the case of Kaleb Young, Westword.com reports:

[I]n September, officers raided Young’s home, and they came in force. “They had eighteen SWAT-level officers wearing battle dress uniforms, many of them carrying assault rifles,” [defense attorney Rob] Corry said. “They ripped Kaleb out of his house with guns drawn — this for a guy who had no criminal record — and did the same thing to his mother.”

The cops subsequently found a warehouse space containing what Corry described as “a small grow — fifty plants, some of them dying, cared for by an amateur grower with piles of documentation.”

An open and shut case in some locations, perhaps, but not so in Colorado:

Kaleb Young, a marijuana caretaker [was] acquitted of three felonies. But while the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office gave back some of the items seized during a raid the previous year, 42 marijuana plants weren’t returned — because they had died.

Of course they had – why should the officers in question have been exercising their green thumbs? Well:

Corry offers up the following analogy: “Let’s say the government seized my dog, and they say it’s vicious. But if it’s later determined that the dog wasn’t vicious and should be returned, they couldn’t say later that they’d denied it food and water or put it down. They’d need to keep it alive until either the wrongdoing was proven or it wasn’t — and that’s the case here. The jury acquitted my client of all charges. So they needed to return the property they’d taken from him in as good or better condition than it was in when they took it.”

So now Young is seeking compensation, but how do you price that sort of thing out?

Actually, the American government has been happily practicing that sort of market estimation since the 1970s.

Speaking this week, Corry says, “If you use the DEAs valuation of them, probably in the neighborhood of $200,000 — plus some equipment and those sorts of things.”

The post True Crime Tuesday: Turnabout is Fair Play Edition appeared first on Flash Pulp.

Tonight we present M Day by David “Doc Blue” Wendt, Part 1 of 1
Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

This week’s episodes are brought to you by The Mob

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 very special Doc Azrael-related Guest-isode. Huge thanks, Doc Blue!

M Day by David “Doc Blue” Wendt

Written by David “Doc Blue” Wendt
Narration by David “Doc Blue” Wendt
Art and opening intro by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

* * *

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.

The post FPGE19 – M Day by David “Doc Blue” Wendt appeared first on Flash Pulp.

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Hello, and welcome to FlashCast 88.

Prepare yourself for: Road yogurt, Polaski’s exit, lion meat tacos, The Avengers: The Sitcom, Zombicide, and Of the Old School.

* * *

Huge thanks to:

• Threedayfish (Facebook – Twitter) for his cinematic considerations
• David “Doc Blue” Wendt (Twitter ) for the return of Doc Azrael, Angel of Death
• Gibralter (Twitter – Tumblr) for his Horrible History
• Hugh O’Donnell (wayofthebuffalopodcast.blogspot.com – Twitter) for his comic review
• Gigantor (Twitter) for his game review.
• Tibbi (Spiraling Sideways – Twitter) for her Amble & Ramble

* * *

Pulp-ular Press:
• Poisoned yogurt
• Lion meat tacos
• Piggy bank pilfering prostitute
• Do authors ever prefer the movie to their book?
• Fifty Shades helps the pulp-pushers

* * *

Skinner Co. Announcements:
• Join the Facebook Mob to stay current on the upcoming Mob Movie Night, Gaming Night, and Board Meetings

* * *

Mailbag:
• Send your comments to comments@flashpulp.com!
• Don’t forget to send in your Sunday undertakings!

* * *

Backroom Plots:

• FP327 – Of the Old School

Watch this video on YouTube.

* * *

Also, many thanks, as always, Retro Jim, of RelicRadio.com for hosting FlashPulp.com and the wiki!

* * *

If you have comments, questions or suggestions, you can find us at http://flashpulp.com, or email us text/mp3s to comments@flashpulp.com.

FlashCast is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

The post FC88 – The Chinese Connection appeared first on Flash Pulp.

]]> http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/22/fc88-the-chinese-connection/feed/ 1 http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/19/sing-a-song-on-sunday-green-eyes/ http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/19/sing-a-song-on-sunday-green-eyes/#comments Mon, 20 May 2013 00:49:39 +0000 Jessica May http://flashpulp.com/?p=19573 Download Here No fancy reason this time for my song selection. Since Coldplay released it, I’ve loved it. I hope you dig my jive. <3 Note: All of my older songs are still available at May Tunes!  

The post Sing a Song on Sunday: Green Eyes appeared first on Flash Pulp.

]]>

Download Here

No fancy reason this time for my song selection. Since Coldplay released it, I’ve loved it. I hope you dig my jive. <3

Note: All of my older songs are still available at May Tunes!

 

The post Sing a Song on Sunday: Green Eyes appeared first on Flash Pulp.

]]> http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/19/sing-a-song-on-sunday-green-eyes/feed/ 2 http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/18/fp327-of-the-old-school/ http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/18/fp327-of-the-old-school/#comments Sun, 19 May 2013 02:07:56 +0000 JRD Skinner http://flashpulp.com/?p=19564 Tonight, we present a tale of the generation gap, creeping terror, and childish misadventure.

The post FP327 – Of the Old School appeared first on Flash Pulp.

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

Tonight we present Of the Old School, Part 1 of 1
Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

 

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.

The post FP327 – Of the Old School appeared first on Flash Pulp.

]]> http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/18/fp327-of-the-old-school/feed/ 0 http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/18/skinner-co-ink-57-viral-marketing/ http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/18/skinner-co-ink-57-viral-marketing/#comments Sat, 18 May 2013 19:32:26 +0000 Opopanax http://flashpulp.com/?p=19561 Art by Opop, Words by JRD

The post Skinner Co. Ink #57: Viral Marketing appeared first on Flash Pulp.

]]>

The post Skinner Co. Ink #57: Viral Marketing appeared first on Flash Pulp.

]]> http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/18/skinner-co-ink-57-viral-marketing/feed/ 0 http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/14/fp326-ruby-departed-what-happened-at-the-super-8/ http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/14/fp326-ruby-departed-what-happened-at-the-super-8/#comments Wed, 15 May 2013 02:05:19 +0000 JRD Skinner http://flashpulp.com/?p=19554 Tonight, Ruby, our zombie-slaying heroine, finds herself reading a harrowing tale of silent survival amongst the roaming corpses.

The post FP326 – Ruby Departed: What Happened at the Super 8 appeared first on Flash Pulp.

]]> Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and twenty-six.

Tonight we present Ruby Departed: What Happened at the Super 8, Part 1 of 1
Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Aboard the Knight Bus

 

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, Ruby, our zombie-slaying heroine, finds herself reading a harrowing tale of silent survival amongst the roaming corpses.

 

Ruby Departed: What Happened at the Super 8

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

 



 

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.

The post FP326 – Ruby Departed: What Happened at the Super 8 appeared first on Flash Pulp.

]]> http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/14/fp326-ruby-departed-what-happened-at-the-super-8/feed/ 0 http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/11/fpge18-coffin-the-cat-came-back-by-opopanax/ http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/11/fpge18-coffin-the-cat-came-back-by-opopanax/#comments Sat, 11 May 2013 20:28:31 +0000 JRD Skinner http://flashpulp.com/?p=19543 Tonight, due to wonderful complications related to Jessica May’s birthday, we will be pushing back the intended return of Ruby till Monday. Instead, we present a tale of Coffin and Bunny - by Opop!

The post FPGE18 – Coffin: The Cat Came Back by Opopanax appeared first on Flash Pulp.

]]> Welcome to Flash Pulp Guestisode eighteen.

Tonight we present Coffin: The Cat Came Back by Opopanax, Part 1 of 1
Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by wishing Jessica May a happy birthday over in The Mob

 

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 wonderful complications related to Jessica May’s birthday, we will be pushing back the intended return of Ruby till Monday. Instead, we present a tale of Coffin and Bunny – by Opop!

 

Coffin: The Cat Came Back by Opopanax

Written by Opopanax
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May



* * *

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.

The post FPGE18 – Coffin: The Cat Came Back by Opopanax appeared first on Flash Pulp.

]]> http://flashpulp.com/2013/05/11/fpge18-coffin-the-cat-came-back-by-opopanax/feed/ 1