An instagram shot from my twitter feed, taken just after Opop escaped the recording process for episode 100.
I just want to take a moment to thank Jessica May and Opopanax for all their hard work in getting the words this far along. It ain’t easy to have my whip hand at your back, and you both do amazing work.
For those who haven’t checked out our latest apocalypse, please do so now!
Welcome to Flash Pulp, Episode One Hundred.
Tonight we present The Murder Plague: Harm’s Return Part 1 of 3
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(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
This week’s episodes are brought to you by Tom Vowler’s new collection “The Method, and Other Stories”.
Think you might know what a deformed brother and sister are concocting a half-mile underground?
We assure you, you do not.
Find it on Amazon, or find links to special editions and more at http://oldenoughnovel.blogspot.com/
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 introduce a new character, Harm Carter, as he finds himself in an awkward position after having laid his hired help low with a blunt object.
Flash Pulp 100 – The Murder Plague: Harm’s Return Part 1 of 3
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
Preface
I write this recounting based on my own journals, and my memories of the times. I can not be sure that each quotation of dialogue is accurate, but I can at least promise that it is my intention to relate the truth to the best of my abilities.
If there are moments that seem shocking and unbelievable, I apologize, for they seemed just as shocking and unbelievable to myself as they happened.
HLC
The moment that I understood that I’d found myself in a desperate situation came as I dropped the wine bottle to the kitchen’s floor tiles, and it landed with a blunt thud instead of a sharp crack. The muted response was largely due to the volume of blood draining from Catarina.
I plucked the phone from its charging station and tried for a dial tone, but came up empty eared.
As I was fussing with the number pad, the blood pool was growing. Realizing my foot was suddenly warm and moist, I looked down to see my left sock wicking up the encroaching puddle. Seeing my handiwork, anxiety filled my legs and I fled the house, leaving the red trail of a single stained foot along the white hall carpet.
Without thinking, I re-entered my Ford Explorer, whose engine was still ticking away the heat of my recent journey. I sat in the driver seat, my hands at ten and two, but I did not reach for the keys. Instead I took a deep breath, and considered, for a brief moment, what had happened.
I’d awoken that morning in my mountain cabin six hours to the north. It was looking to be one of the last pleasant stretches of the season, and I’d had little time to visit since giving it the traditional spring rub down, so the Monday previous I’d shuttered my office for a week and left the world to fend for itself.
What a mistake.
The vacation had been pleasant enough, mostly in that it had allowed me to indulge my prime hobby, photography. I’d taken reams of film while walking the woods, but I’d always maintained a policy of otherwise utilizing no technology more advanced than a cast iron stove while on retreat.
The lack of email or ringing cellphone had struck me as quite freeing, and I’d traveled home feeling a smug Luddism that prevented me from wanting to ruin the moment by engaging the radio.
I was surprised to see Catarina’s car in my driveway as I pulled in, but it wasn’t uncommon for her to arrive a day early. Years previous, while my wife, Kate, lay on her deathbed, she had told me: “Get a cook – when you remarry, I’d rather you do it on a full stomach.” Catarina had been the result of that command.
Although I’m man enough to be able to keep clean my own slovenly trail, I’ve never been able to manage even finger painting in the culinary arts, and Kate knew all too well my weakness for buttery victuals. Still, if I wasn’t entirely sure about dinner, I often preferred to give my dedicated chef those evenings off – it was an easy excuse to engage in a little drive-thru-consumption misbehaviour.
To make matters worse, once I’d welcomed myself into my own home, I discovered that the meal she’d obviously been working hours to make was not something I was likely to enjoy: pan roasted chicken breasts stuffed with smashed almonds, mascarpone and lemon, with a side of roasted sweet garlic and almond soup.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” she replied, her eyes on me as her hand maintained a steady stirring of the soup.
“I appreciate you coming in today,” I began. I hate to disappoint anyone, but I’d had a long drive, and I’d really become enthused by the idea of a quarter pound of greasy beef for dinner. Honestly, I was also mildly annoyed that the woman had once again forgotten that I have a long standing position that nuts are simply an alternative form of wood, suitable only for covering in chocolate or feeding to squirrels. “I’m really not feeling well after my trip – must have eaten a bad bit of trail mix, you understand. I’m sure I’ll be tip-top by the morn, so if you wouldn’t mind packaging all of this up, I’ll be happy to eat it as tomorrow’s lunch.”
It was my actual intention to simply throw it all out once she was gone, as I had done a half-dozen times previous when her meals came up short or involved some flavour she refused to remember my distaste for, but there was no reason to hurt her feelings over the matter.
To help ease the blow, I plucked a bottle of Pegasus Bay pinot noir from the rack and moved to retrieve two glasses.
I think she sensed the lie; to be fair, at the time I didn’t realize how much investment I should put into convincing her of the falsehood.
As I set the stems upon the counter, she turned in a blur, raising high the chef’s knife she’d used to slice the chicken.
The overhead grip was an amateur mistake: it gave me just enough time to panic and side-arm the bottle into her temple.
After a moment of coaxing her to rise, I understood there was no hope of her returning to the land of the living. That’s when I dropped the wine, tried the phone, then made my exit.
Out in the Explorer, I spent a long moment trying to understand what had just transpired. Realizing my cellphone was still inside the abattoir my home had become, I decided I ought to see if the Hernandez’s, my next door neighbours, would let me make a call.
First though, I must admit, I peeled off my dirty socks, rolled them into a red and white yin yang, and pulled on my hiking boots.
There is a feeling of embarrassment in expecting to have to report a death while barefoot.
Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm. The audio and text formats of Flash Pulp are released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.
I’ve been greatly enjoying the photography of Sveinn Steinar Benediktsson, and wanted to share.
His work often has the feeling of capturing scenes from a Nordic post-apocalypse.
Santiago, the capital of Chile, was founded by the Spanish Conquistador Pedro de Valdivia in 1541. The Spanish, not being particularly welcome in the neighbourhood, were met with some resistance from the natives.
The Inca ruler Manco Cápac II warned the new rulers that his Indigenous people would be hostile to the occupiers. – Wikipedia
This was a bit of an understatement, as the few hundred Spanish at the site were quickly inundated by thousands of natives who were annoyed with the land grab.
So why do we still have a city of Santiago at all? Was it the Spanish’s guns and armour that saved them? Gumption and technology?
Not according to the conquistadors.
This is a footnote from The Spaniards: An Introduction to Their History By Américo Castro, Willard F. King, Selma Margaretten, but the book I originally read about this incident in, Lost Explorers*, pointed out that, while it was a useful bit of propaganda for the Spanish to claim that St. James (Sant Yago) arrived on the scene on his spectral pony, wearing a crisp waistcoat and bearing a white lance and shield, it’s hard to understand why the heavily overwhelming native force apparently suffered a mass delusion and broke into retreat.
While I personally don’t believe that a martial phantasm came down to take up the Spanish cause, I do believe the practice of chewing coca leaves was common amongst the South American population of the time.
* I apologize for the lack of further attribution, I’m physically well away from the book at the moment, and can’t recall the author’s name.
If I might once again refer to the song Stagger Lee for a moment:
I was standing on the corner
When I heard my bulldog bark
He was barkin’ at the two men
Who were gamblin’ in the dark
It was Stagger Lee and Billy
Two men who gambled late
Stagger Lee threw seven
Billy swore that he threw eight
Whatever happened to old time gambling? The skeazy craps game is a classic fixture of a certain period of crime fiction – it seems as long as we’ve had alleys, we’ve had indigents hoping for a 7 or 11. I mean, dubious men tossing dice is a concept that goes at least all the way back to the Roman legion of the bible.
Yet, these days, you don’t hear much about it. Maybe I’m just running with the wrong crowd, but it feels like sometime in the late-80s or early-90s, the on-the-street-casinos started to lose traction, at least in the popular consciousness.
So what happened?
Well, when the gin racket was run by criminals, the American government brought them down by simply legalizing and controlling the product. My suggestion is that we no longer have a large contingent of people tossing the bones because we’ve found new dim alleyways online.
Why pull on that heavy leather jacket and stand out in the cold when you can just as easily bilk a table full of grandmas from the comfort of your own home (or a public internet cafe)?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtmvvarZLwg]
Monday is almost here!
I must admit, I still feel a little like I’ve defused a bomb when I turn off an alarm system.
“Dude-finder” is my proposal for a much less intense version of “Mantracker”.
Welcome to Flash Pulp, Episode Ninety-Nine.
Tonight we present Mulligan Smith and The Temple Of Ortru, Part 1 of 1
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Have you ever wanted to stare longingly across the table at a beautiful re-creation of yourself?
The art of Mike Mongello can do that for you. Find out how at http://www.supermonge.com
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, Private Investigator Mulligan Smith must plumb the depths of the The Temple Of Ortru, in search of truth for a desperate client.
Flash Pulp 099 – Mulligan Smith and The Temple Of Ortru, Part 1 of 1
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
Mulligan entered the room just in time to watch the huddled men moan over their companion’s death.
Three weeks earlier he’d met with the victim’s wife over a cup of mid-afternoon coffee. She’d worn a simple blue dress, with quite a bit of gold tucked about her neck, and she’d obviously taken care in arranging her graying hair into a simple, but prim, bun.
“I don’t want to bring it up to him, just… just in case.”
“I think it’s a pretty extreme thing to imply your husband is in a cult, if you don’t mind me saying so.” Mulligan had taken a long sip from his cup after his response, paying as much attention to her body language as he’d paid to her story. Once, a few years earlier, he’d spent six days chasing ghosts for a man who’d claimed he was being threatened. It had taken his third visit to the client to realize the problem: that the only thing harassing him was a head full of bad wiring.
He’d only charged the man half his usual fees.
Still, the housewife didn’t seem crazy, just a little neurotic.
“I’ve heard him talking on his phone about.. things,” Mrs. Tuttle had replied.
“What kinds of things?” He’d taken up his phone, his thumb prepared to enter notes on anything that might be of use.
“Something about demon lords? Something about the Temple Of Ortru?” Her hand had shook as she’d picked up her mug. “He laughed a lot, and it sounded so vicious, so unlike him.”
“Has he been away from the home more often recently?”
“Well – he’s always spent Thursday night at O’Neil’s, downtown, but a few months ago things changed. He never told me he altered his plans or anything, and sometimes he’d still mention a story he’d heard from his drinking buddies, but his breath didn’t smell as beery as usual, and if I asked anything more about what happened, he’d just sort of change the subject. Now he just never mentions it at all.”
Mulligan had accepted the case, but he’d assumed that the truth of the matter was much more likely to involve the husband having an affair, while his wife utilized her overactive imagination to maintain her denial.
With that idea in mind, it was with some surprise that he’d noted Tuttle’s behaviour as the man was leaving his home on the following Thursday.
As the wayfaring husband, still wearing the suit he’d returned from work in, said his goodbyes, and exited the front door, he’d taken a moment to ensure his wife hadn’t decided to approach a window to see him off, then ducked into the house’s garage.
A moment later, he’d exited with a knapsack appearing thoroughly out of place strapped across his jacketed shoulders, and gotten into his cream coloured Cadillac.
Mulligan’s first attempt at tailing Tuttle had been a bust; he’d gotten hung up at a red light and was forced to watch his quarry turn a corner in the distance and disappear.
The second week had been much more successful, however, and the PI had happily jotted down the banquet of information represented by the license plates gathered in the driveway of the bungalow at which the chase had ended. What is kept private in the real world is often embraced online, and, via some favours and Google, Smith was quickly able to come to solid conclusions regarding his client’s husband’s evasiveness.
On the third week, after the caddy was safely empty an hour, and the entire cast of Mulligan’s previous visit had long entered the house, the detective had scooped his blue slurpee from the Tercel’s driver-side cup-holder and approached the door.
After a brief explanation, the squat, black-haired woman who’d answered his knock had shown him down a short hall at the rear of the house.
They’d found the men gathered there, their eyes afire with intensity and sweat on their brow.
“I was murdered! Bloody warlock.” said Tuttle, muttering from the far corner.
Mulligan noisily sucked at the remnants of his cup’s offerings, drawing the attention of the crowd.
He tipped his straw towards his prey.
“I’m not the kind of fellow to judge a grown man for playing Dungeons and Dragons, but, I think your wife has a right to know.”
Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm. The audio and text formats of Flash Pulp are released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.
Implication #3 for episode 100:
