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FP292 – The HeavenMakers

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

Flash PulpTonight we present The HeavenMakers

[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp292.mp3]Download MP3
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This week’s episodes are brought to you by SkinnerCo.

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

“Save it for after breakfast,” she replied.

“He’s listening to his show anyway.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah?”

“I was the one who took it.”

“What? Why?”

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

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

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

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

Gina stood, her face pale.

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

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

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

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

 

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

Freesound.org credits:

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

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

FP291 – Ruby Departed: Contact, Part 3 of 3

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

Flash PulpTonight we present Ruby Departed: Contact, Part 3 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp291.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by The Ice and Fire Convention.

 

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

Tonight, Ruby and her companions face off against a hunger greater even than that possessed by the ravenous dead.

 

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

 

Ruby Departed

(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.

Mob Game Night: The Halloween Session (Throwing Down the Challenge Dice)

Winner Take All pulp cover Ernest Chiriaka, 1959

Mobsters!

We’d love to see you (or, at the least, a textual representation of yourself,) at the next Mob Gaming Night.

Savage Glenn had this to say on the matter:

I have a few things of note.

– First, the next game night has been confirmed. It will be October 27th at 6:00 PM (EST).

– If you’re interested in playing, please contact me so we can get your character made and do a brief primer on the rules. That said, if you don’t want to play and just want to hang out, feel free to stop on by on the 27th!

– The Google Drive folder has been reorganized a bit, but can still be found at the same link here. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, let me know.

I think that covers it. If you have any questions, let me know!

Other than that, I might only add that you can encircle me on Google+ and send panicked last-minute questions once the session has begun, or leave them in the comments below.

Cover Story: Two EC Covers That May Make You Weep

Tales from the Crypt #28

I make no bones about my love of old pulp covers, and, with Halloween fast approaching, I thought I’d share a couple of EC classics that always leave my brain in a spin.

The first, above, is the sort of premise (possibly stolen from Poe’s you still see replicated in movies like The Serpent and the Rainbow, Buried, and Kill Bill Volume 2.

Bargain in Death!
Two medical students need to procure a corpse in order to get an anatomy credit to graduate and pay an imbecile five bucks to dig and grave rob a newly dug grave. The target of their efforts is a man convinced by his ‘friend’ to take a drug that will emulate the death-like appearance in order to collect a forty thousand dollar insurance policy. The friend tells him that he will insist upon his being buried immediately and then dig him up later, but he intends to betray him and leave him in the coffin. – http://ec.wikia.com

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1Yyhxq56Xg”]

Of course, as Snopes points out, not all such burials have been fictional:

In the first century, the magician Simon Magus, according to one report, buried himself alive, expecting a miracle — a miracle that didn’t happen. On Iona, in the sixth century, one of St. Columba’s monks, Oran, was dug up the day after his burial and found to be alive. Legend has it when he told his fellows he had seen heaven and hell, he was promptly dispatched and re-interred on grounds of heresy. And the 13th-century Thomas a Kempis, the reputed author of the great devotional work The Imitation of Christ, was never made a saint because, it was said, when they dug up his body for the ossuary they found scratch marks on the lid of his coffin and concluded that he was not reconciled to his fate.

The second cover hits me in a much different place – there’s something oddly touching about the simplicity of the scene and its ragged coffin. The story has a bit of a Bradbury-esque touch to it, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it was one of the tales Gaines somehow pilfered:

Let the Punishment Fit the Crime!
The children came marching down the street carrying a wooden coffin, and the neighborhood buzzed about it. […] Thinking back, many of the town’s people had been questioned by the same kids about all sorts of things having to do with death and funerals […] but the one thing they really wondered about was what the punishment would be for robbery and kidnapping. The local lawyer explained that kidnapping could be punishable by death, but not robbery. Suddenly, a mother came up screaming to townsfolk, telling them that her son was missing…..that he had stolen another child’s doll and had refused to give it back. Then…..they all looked in horror as they gazed over at the kids, who had just finished burying the coffin! – http://ec.wikia.com

Vault of Horror #33

Have any cover suggestions of your own?
Leave ’em in the comments!

FP290 – Ruby Departed: Contact, Part 2 of 3

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode two hundred and ninety.

Flash PulpTonight we present Ruby Departed: Contact, Part 2 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp290.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by The Ice and Fire Convention.

 

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

Tonight, Ruby finds herself caught between mysterious horsemen and the ravenous mouths of the rotting undead.

 

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

 

Ruby Departed

(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.

Research Fodder October 24, 2012

  • Flex LED – Invisible Mercedes – YouTube
    How to defeat drones, Step 2
  • Gloria Ramirez – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    “[S]aw an oily sheen covering Ramirez’s body, and some noticed a fruity, garlic-like odor that they thought was coming from her mouth. A registered nurse named Susan Kane attempted to draw blood from Ramirez’s arm, and noticed an ammonia like smell coming from the tube.

    She passed the syringe to Julie Gorchynski, a medical resident who noticed manila-colored particles floating in the blood. At this point, Kane fainted and was removed from the room. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Gorchynski began to feel nauseated. Complaining that she was light-headed, she left the trauma room and sat at a nurse’s desk. A staff member asked her if she was okay, but before she could respond she also fainted. Maureen Welch, a respiratory therapist who was assisting in the trauma room was the third to pass out. The staff was then ordered to evacuate all emergency room patients to the parking lot outside the hospital.”

  • Egg freezing changing fertility treatments – CNN.com
    “She went online to a new website that sells frozen donor eggs flown in from other cities. She was pleased to find a much wider selection than with fresh eggs — dozens of choices instead of one or two — and for about $11,000 less.”
  • Creepily realistic robot can hold conversations and answer questions – YouTube

True Crime Tuesday: Dr. Feelgood Edition

White Cap Lesbian by Brandon House, originally published in 1965

Today’s True Crime Tuesday entry is a tale of lady lust, fraud, and surgery.

All quotes are pulled from HoustonPress.com

According to an Angelina County arrest affidavit, in March, [Angela] Buchanan started contacting the woman posing as “Doc,” a Lufkin gynecologist with whom Buchanan claimed to have a sort of mother-daughter friendship.

To be clear, this is one person, Buchanan, contacting the accused via two different Yahoo! Messenger accounts. (Yes, Yahoo! Messenger.)

What “Doc” messaged the 51-year-old was chilling. Buchanan had a precancerous mass in her breast. The best course of treatment, “Doc” advised, was for Buchanan to spike her natural hormone levels through having sex. Lots and lots of sex, specifically sex with the 51-year-old woman reading her messages. It was the best way to try to save Buchanan’s life.

Stepping back, does this not seem like a ploy developed by a high school kid? “I’ve got the cancer and we’ve got to sex it out!”

The older woman later told police she had religious qualms over the relationship at first, but soon overcame them to try to save Buchanan’s life. Under the online supervision of “Doc, the women started having sex regularly.

The victim had apparently self-identified as lesbian at thirteen, but had since tried to distance herself from her feelings due to religious guilt. I suspect there may have been a bit of wishful thinking involved in this odd case, as:

Buchanan pretended to check in with “Doc” for weekly blood draws, and “Doc” would send over results via Yahoo! Messenger. She would also “prescribe” the frequency, nature and duration of the sexual healing regimen.

Say what you will, I suspect this sort of remote “prescription” could really catch on with people missing a little something in their marriages. I may even just write a Doctor Bot script that doles out the remedy at five bucks a pop. Still, you’ve got to be careful about that next step.

Mugshot of Angela Buchanan via Angelina County Jail
Mugshot of Angela Buchanan via Angelina County Jail
The woman suspected that this might not be enough to save Buchanan, so she advised her to go in for a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. Buchanan agreed and the two women went together. After the procedure was done, the older woman asked the surgeon about the lump. The befuddled doctor told her that all he’d done to Buchanan’s breasts was augment them.

The woman hastened to a computer to get some answers from “Doc,” and was told that the surgeon had performed the procedure “under the table” and had to lie because cameras were watching in the waiting room.

Seriously, I find it difficult to believe any adult would entirely buy this story at this point, but the heart is a great source for suspension of disbelief. Which is maybe why the victim was tricked into a wedding.

Throughout June and July, Buchanan said that she was embroiled in a custody battle over her twins, and that it would really help her cause if they could travel to a same-sex marriage state and tie the knot. In August, they whisked off to Massachusetts and did just that.

Of course, the house of cards came down when the victim’s daughter guessed that Buchanan and Doc were the same person. Someone bothered to contact the accused’s ex, who explained that there was no previous bout of breast cancer, nor a custody battle. That’s when the police were called.

So, in the end, is it a rape charge? Some odd forced marriage indictment?

[Buchanan has] been charged with online impersonation, a class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in county jail. Buchanan is currently free on $1,500 bond.

Women in Prison by Joan Henry