Category: Thomas Blackhall

FP313 – The Long Haul: a Blackhall Chronicle, Part 2 of 3

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and thirteen.

Flash PulpTonight we present The Long Haul: a Blackhall Chronicle, Part 2 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp313.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

 

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

 

Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thomas continued.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“‘So you ARE married then?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thomas made his best effort to shrug.

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

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

It was not a pleasant descent.

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

 

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

Freesound.org credits:

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    • 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.

    FP312 – The Long Haul: a Blackhall Chronicle, Part 1 of 3

    Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and twelve.

    Flash PulpTonight we present The Long Haul: a Blackhall Chronicle, Part 1 of 3
    (Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
    [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp312.mp3]Download MP3
    (RSS / iTunes)

     

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

     

    Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

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

     

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    His palms fell with renewed purpose as he continued.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “It was the widower himself laughing loudest.

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

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

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

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

    (Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

     

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

    Freesound.org credits:

  • NATIVE DRUM LOOP B 16BARS 100BPM.wav by sandyrb

    • 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.

    FP287 – Grip: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 of 3

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

    Flash PulpTonight we present Grip: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 of 3
    (Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
    [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp287.mp3]Download MP3
    (RSS / iTunes)

     

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

     

    Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

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

     

    Grip: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 of 3

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    As the specters approached, Elijah Wheeler began to weep.

    * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    * * *

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

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

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

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

    The pair stood, startled at the noise.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    He was finding his own considerably less reliable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “Strip.”

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

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

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

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

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

    The Bells awaited him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

    (Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

     

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

    Freesound.org credits:

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

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

    FP286 – Grip: a Blackhall Tale, Part 2 of 3

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

    Flash PulpTonight we present Grip: a Blackhall Tale, Part 2 of 3
    (Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
    [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp286.mp3]Download MP3
    (RSS / iTunes)

     

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

     

    Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

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

     

    Grip: a Blackhall Tale, Part 2 of 3

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “Is this a musket wound?” he asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “I am.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “The third. The eldest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

    (Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

     

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

    Freesound.org credits:

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

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

    FP285 – Grip: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 3

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

    Flash PulpTonight we present Grip: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 3
    (Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
    [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp285.mp3]Download MP3
    (RSS / iTunes)

     

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

     

    Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

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

     

    Grip: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 3

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

    * * *

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

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

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

    His landing was not a pleasant one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

    (Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

     

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

    Freesound.org credits:

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

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

    FP254 – The Tightened Braid: a Blackhall Tale, Part 6 of 6

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

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

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

    [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp254.mp3]Download MP3
    (RSS / iTunes)

     

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

     

    Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

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

     

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Was he a wanted man?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

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

     

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

    Freesound.org credits:

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

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

    FP253 – The Tightened Braid: a Blackhall Tale, Part 5 of 6

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

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

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

    [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp253.mp3]Download MP3
    (RSS / iTunes)

     

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

     

    Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

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

     

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    He no longer cared.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

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

     

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

    Freesound.org credits:

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

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

    FP252 – The Tightened Braid: a Blackhall Tale, Part 4 of 6

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

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

    Flash PulpTonight we present, The Tightened Braid: a Blackhall Tale, Part 4 of 6

    [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp252.mp3]Download MP3
    (RSS / iTunes)

     

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

     

    Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

    Tonight, Thomas Blackhall, master frontiersman and student of the occult, is unexpectedly held up by a surprising arrival.

     

    The Tightened Braid: a Blackhall Tale, Part 4 of 6 – Of Partisans and Parades

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

     

    As Thomas made his way north, his lungs complained at each intake of frosted night air. Farmers’ axes had pushed hard at the forest, but, in this fresh land, the wilderness still stood ever on the horizon, and it was towards the shelter of those thick-limbed pines which Blackhall drove his legs.

    His focus had contracted into naught but a single line, which projected from the distant trees, passed over himself, and continued on to the panting duo who chased at his heels.

    He had long given up praying, but, as he urged himself on, he gave a small thought to his Mairi. Was this not simply a continuation of the mad race he’d been running since receiving word regarding the fate of her haunted corpse?

    Under the pitiless brilliance of the winter stars, his mind briefly settled on a moment, some years earlier, beneath a soft June sun, in which he’d watched his beloved unfurl her plaited braid as she bathed in a crisp hill spring. The world had seemed clean, and full of light, and endlessly filled with affection.

    The promises he’d made to his dead wife came to Blackhall then, whispered back to him in Mairi’s voice, and his boots were carried onward.

    The pair of trailing Fitzhughs were unable to match this restored stride, but their mired tempo was quickly corrected by the arrival of a two-horse sleigh, bearing in its bed another half dozen of the captain. The doppelgangers were swift in extending helping arms to their brethren, but, with no room to be spared, the lagging twins were forced to take up stations standing atop the skids.

    It was only Thomas’ choice to vault a homesteader’s ambitiously constructed rock-wall which bought the time necessary to move out of the broad fields, and into the close smell of timber – and yet, although his chest cramped and flamed with exertion, he dared not rest.

    Thick underbrush meant the conveyance’s advantaged was lost, and its occupants disgorged into the wildwood. No more did they call Blackhall’s name, nor curse his heritage, nor offer soothing lies – all that could be heard of their approach was the huff of their effort.

    Amongst the evergreens, the gloom was universal. Nonetheless, the frontiersman scrutinized the blackness, hoping to find an expedient escape. The search slowed his progress, and he was soon forced to lay a hand heavily onto the cheek of the nearest Fitzhugh, but, even while he laid the man low, Thomas’ gaze touched on a fat set of barren branches, ascending in a nearly ladder-like fashion. With the awkward bulk of the drum beneath his arm, and his Baker rifle bouncing at his shoulder, he stooped for a mouthful of snow, then took to the tree at a squirrel’s pace.

    As he hoped, rather than make a hurried assault towards his prodding saber, his attackers began to circle his perch. The air grew thick with the coppery musk of blood, but, before the predators might settle on a modified course of action, a second party arrived.

    There was no difference immediately visible in these new, yet identical, Fitzhughs, except for the muskets they bore – at least, until one of the newcomers stepped forward.

    “Ho, Blackhall,” said the apparent leader, who stood somehow more firmly than his compatriots. “You look as if a frightened tom cat, caught wooing an estate’s mouser. Descend and we will discuss this matter – lest I send my friends to shake you down.”

    Thomas did not respond, but, instead, worried the increasingly slushy mass he held astride his tongue.

    Despite the thirst he’d created in his flight, he dared not swallow a drop of the meager water supply.

    “I understand your distrust. I am sorry for the death of Shea, I find myself excitable these days. That said, really, I shouldn’t be blamed: Consider the nature of what you were hiding!

    “There have been losses, yes, but, in sum, your cache has been an enormous boon to the settlement.

    “In truth, I did not mean to hold on to the tools quite so long – but, well, there was an incident, in which a Lieutenant Green found his hand quite badly bitten by the blade of the silver dagger. After calming myself as to the implications of my suddenly transformed twin, I realized the use of such a talent. If a thing is easiest done by oneself, then surely it is even better done with an army of selves.”

    Above his waggling moustache, the true Fitzhugh’s eyes smoldered with an arcane light, and Blackhall damned the man as a fool.

    Thomas himself had once been caught up in the same thrill of dominion. The energies which flowed in this pristine territory were a flood in comparison to the dying flicker of their homeland, and, not long after his landing, he’d been eager to press the limits of his untested education.

    He’d learned the nature of his mistake once he’d fallen under the keen noses of the fairytale menagerie which, hungry for just such occult potency, stalked the land.

    “I do admit that errors were made,” continued the captain, “It is no easy thing to balance my progeny’s well-being against the constant bleeding necessary to keep them in their superior state. One day the graves that I have dug will be commemorated as the resting places of heroes, but, regardless, you must weigh the deeds their sacrifices have accomplished against how many die, daily and without purpose, in the muck of the backwoods.

    “The productivity I have offered our community will save lives, many more than it has done under. Was this not the equation we lived by in the war against the tiny emperor? Was this not the logic which pressed our shoulders together in the Spanish streets, and which propelled our bayonets into the bellies of the French?

    “You can not imagine the service I have rendered these last weeks. Each new collaborator – each new confederate who knows my thoughts and holds my drive for accomplishment – means another dispute arbitrated, another barroom conflict interrupted, another roadway undertaken.

    “Better yet, it means another rescue party successfully lead, another supply of medicine reaching the sick, or another marauder brought to justice, and I am but a mere captain. Imagine what I might do with the men beneath me when I am made general.

    “We must be allies again, you and I. While I have mastered the dagger there have been – mistakes – made with certain of the other artifacts. Without your guidance, I’ve had no option but to discover their use through trial and unfortunate error – but we will talk. You will teach me, and, together, we will bring the king’s rule to this land of rustics and drunks.”

    Realizing it was only a supposed familiarity with The Eremite’s relics – knowledge he did not have – which had kept him alive thus far, Thomas was content to again refuse a reply. He was sure, anyhow, that his considered retort, indicating his reason for taking up arms against Napoleon had much to do with excessive influence concentrated in one man, would do him little good.

    Blackhall’s jaws were close to holding plain liquid, and he moved to reposition The Green Drum. Until now he’d but read of its purpose, though he depended fully on its legend holding true.

    Before he might begin the short ritual, however, a ghastly parade appeared.

    The shuffling column of intruders did not advance with the sharp purpose of the duplicates; their gait was staggering, and their flesh was rotted. At their head stood a hag, her taut lips pulled into a skull’s grin.

    The great witch, whom Thomas had hounded through the wilderness, had arrived to claim the power she’d scented upon the wind.

     

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

     

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

    Freesound.org credits:

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

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

    FP251 – The Tightened Braid: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 of 6

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

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

    Flash PulpTonight we present, The Tightened Braid: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 of 6

    [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp251.mp3]Download MP3
    (RSS / iTunes)

     

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

     

    Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

    Tonight, Thomas Blackhall, master frontiersman and student of the occult, finds himself fleeing his place of rest.

     

    The Tightened Braid: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 of 6 – Absolute Corruption

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

     

    Thomas BlackhallThe trio stood staring at the corpse which lie, face down, on the floor of Thomas’ close-walled lodging.

    “I couldn’t have,” said Shea. His voice was small, but fell heavily onto the space’s silence.

    Events began to move quickly then.

    “It would be best if we relocated to Jansen’s tanning shack, immediately,” Blackhall replied, as he grabbed up his Baker rifle and saber.

    The main room was populated by a dozen diners, and a smattering of drunks. It seemed as if each took a moment to cast a raised brow toward the quickly exiting men, but Thomas felt no need to explain the sounds of struggle which had emanated from his chamber. Instead, he provided only a wave to the barkeep, as he seated his hat and pushed through to the winter’s early night.

    Cold had kept most of the settlement’s inhabitants as near their fires as they could manage, and the snow drifts and blackened shops provided little welcome beyond the public house’s warm windows.

    As he laid a boot into the darkness, Thomas held onto the hope that his temporary landlord’s professional pride would overcome his curiosity, and prevent him from intruding upon the corpse occupying his abandoned bunk.

    He took some comfort in the fact that it was a short excursion, through moon-shadowed wooden alleys, to the edge of town.

    The tanner’s plot was pungent with soaking flesh and strong abrasives, bringing the cluster of hurried travellers to a halt well away from its rough facade. The powder was ankle deep, and piling ever higher as they waited, but the hesitation gave the young private, who had so recently disclosed the sordid nature of his captain’s doings, an opportunity to once again find his voice.

    “Well,” he said, “I think it’s time I say good night.”

    “They’ll assume you played a part in the murder of Fitzhugh,” replied Blackhall.

    “You know well enough that I did not,” spat the lad. “Your man here has fattened my lip such that I believe they’ll understand my circumstances.”

    “I’m sorry – I’m sorry for all I’ve done. I’ve never before been such a fellow,” interjected the fingerless Shea. His neck grew short, and his shoulders rolled in agony. “I’ve never meant no being harm, and yet…”

    The youth’s brow softened. “Cry not – my mother would give me worse for an improperly set table. I’ll say as little as I can, for as long as I can, but I dare not be caught up further in this madness. I’m not built to fight devils, and I’ve no want to receive the same fate as poor Fitz.”

    “Might you continue to lend your aid?” asked Thomas. “I’m not pleased to seek help, but the loss of my tools is a dire thing. Worse yet, while I don’t intend offense to our friend here, his sobbing does not bode well for the strength of his nerve.”

    Though he appeared lost in his weeping, Shea bristled at the remark.

    “What right have you, Blackhall, to speak ill of me – you who have left me wretched; No, even as I say it, I know that I am wrong. I could have lived with killing the harpy on your behalf, which was all you truly asked – but, not the captain: It is too much.”

    As if summoned by the mention, a form came staggering around the distant corner, and onto the backstreet which had been their final exit from town. For a moment the drooping moustache hovering over the upturned jacket collar seemed a mirage, but, as the figure neared, he became unmistakable as the supposedly deceased Fitzhugh.

    Shea’s eyes again welled at the discovery, and he rushed the soldier with a tongue jabbering in relief.

    “My god, you’ve given me a fright. I apologize for my brash maneuvers, and wish you only well, sir – we believed you dead!”

    His eager greeting was countered by the bone-handled knife which snaked from Fitzhugh’s pocket and across the absolved murderer’s throat.

    As life began to flow from the dying man another newcomer arrived. He was dressed in a lumberer’s stocky coat and worn boots, but there was no missing the fury in his eyes, nor the thick military man’s moustache which he bore. From beneath the sleeve which covered his right arm leaked a trail of blood, and each heavy step marked the ivory ground with a spray of crimson.

    Though Shea recognized the second Fitzhugh immediately, his slick palms could do little to staunch his own wound’s flow, and, before he might even turn to warn his companions, his knees gave out. With his cheeks still damp, he fell forward.

    He would not rise again.

    Understanding that there was no further time to argue, Blackhall bolted towards the tannery. The ragged entrance gave only the briefest resistance to his flying shoulder, and he found some luck in that the object he sought – a small oak drum, bearing a freshly stretched skin and a ring of leaves engraved about its base – was upon a workbench close at hand.

    As he regained the road, the sound of lashed horses drifted from somewhere beyond the oncoming twins, and, on the same wind which carried the cracks, also came another Fitzhugh’s voice, profanely urging on the nags in harness.

    With a final prodding shout at the transfixed private, Thomas held tight his regained instrument, and made for the woods.

    The youth did not follow.

     

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

     

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

    Freesound.org credits:

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

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

    FP250 – The Tightened Braid: a Blackhall Tale, Part 2 of 6

    Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode two hundred and fifty.

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

    Flash PulpTonight we present, The Tightened Braid: a Blackhall Tale, Part 2 of 6.

    [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp250.mp3]Download MP3
    (RSS / iTunes)

     

    This week’s episodes are brought to you by the Bear Crawling odcast.

     

    Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

    Tonight, Thomas Blackhall, master frontiersman and student of the occult, witnesses an unexpected demise.

     

    The Tightened Braid: a Blackhall Tale, Part 2 of 6 – A Sudden Death

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

     

    BlackhallAs he tenderly prodded his fat lip, the young private seemed to find some relief in his admission.

    “Fitz knew you were ducking him, right enough, so he sent a chum of mine, Patrick, to sit and play bully.

    “Pattie could have done me the favour of not sprinting immediately away at the sight of you, but he’s never been much good at maintaining a lie, with that broad open face of his.

    “Anyhow, you thought you were being smart by getting out and about, but that’s exactly what Captain Fitzhugh wanted. Your handsy friend Shea, amongst others, were quick enough to gossip, and so it was easy to quietly gather your doings from a mutually friendly third-party.”

    The lad spit on the floor then, a mixture of mucus and blood.

    “Word along the chain says that Fitz isn’t quite right these days – that he works harder than ever, but never sleeps, and seems most often moody and distracted. In truth, it is his worsening condition, as much as the implications of our recent journey, that drive me to divulge such information to you. I’m just a mud-stomper, and don’t know much of what happens above my head, but Pat and I grew up trading each other’s farm chores, and he gave me a look at the loot he was lifting from your room.

    “I can not guess half their infernal functions, but you ought not hide things under the floor boards. You mustn’t have had any sisters with diaries when you were wee, but any twelve-year-old girl would have sussed your stash in a gnat’s wink.”

    Blackhall, having returned to his position by the rented room’s door, frowned, but did not interrupt the boy’s narration.

    “It was your trinkets you see: Fitz became aware you were prone to leaving them behind during your meanderings, so the longer off, the better to look over your toys. Has a few favourites, he does – that dagger of yours especially.”

    Thomas cringed at the thought. He’d considered concealing the tools and talismans a calculated risk, as he knew little of the powers within the items he’d collected after the death of The Eremite. He had had no interest in suddenly facing off against an accidentally summoned djinn, while occupied with the business of remaining alive in the wildwood during an Upper Canadian winter.

    Worse, the nature of his latest excursion had forced him to leave not only the stranger trinkets, but also the items he had practiced with for many years, for fear that the beast he and Shea had faced down might turn his own charms against him.

    When he was sure the recital was complete, Thomas asked, “where am I most likely to find Fitzhugh at this hour?”

    “At dusk? In his office, like as anywhere,” replied the lad, “I’ve inkling enough of your business to know I’ve no want to hang about, but – well, I do believe the captain had the best of intentions in invading your chamber.”

    Blackhall allowed himself a small nod. “Perhaps, but it seems all too often that our man, Fitzhugh, thinks he’s more clever than he ought. Fortunately, there remains hope that he has not laid hands on all of my goods.”

    While Thomas’ mind wandered towards the local tannery, the youth but shrugged.

    “I’ve told you the truth now,” he said, “so I’ll thank you to release me without any further violence from your crippled, yet high strung, companion – I ask only that you make no mention of the sources of your information, and that you take your infernal gear and head back into the woods which delivered you.”

    Wesley Shea, who had been watching the scene from behind lidded eyes, simmered at the comments regarding his temper and physical disposition. “Listen here, you flip cur, I’ll happily give your pilfering superior the same taste of palm that I gave ye. What right have you to -”

    His rant was cut short by a sudden opportunity to carry out his claims, as the the entry was forced wide, and a haggard Fitzhugh rushed the room. The captain was clad in a pair of civilian trousers, and a loosely fastened coat, but it was the empty blaze of his pupils which most caught Thomas’ attention.

    Though Blackhall was closest to the threshold, the swinging door had thrown him off balance, and it was the unstable Shea who first came into arm’s length.

    “You will surrender yourselves to -” was as far as the intruder was allowed, before Wesley returned the favour of the interruption.

    It was a stinging slap, though far from disabling.

    The soldier did not take well to the insult, and motioned as if to draw a blade from his hip. Fitzhugh appeared surprised, however, when he discovered the weapon lacking. Instead, he squared his shoulder, and tackled the fingerless man. The pair fell to the floor with a terrible momentum, and their limbs took to the furious process of seeking purchase within each other’s defenses.

    The struggle was frenzied, but, even as Thomas moved to intervene, Shea laid both his ragged hands upon his attacker’s collar and forced himself free of the melee.

    Attempting to pursue his quarry, the military officer endeavoured to retake his feet, but, beneath his now gaping jacket, it was apparent his simple cotton shirt was greased with blood.

    “Damnation,” said Fitzhugh – then, with a quiet gasp, he fell dead.

     

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

     

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

    Freesound.org credits:

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

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