Flash Pulp

Welcome to Flash Pulp, Episode Twelve.

Tonight’s story: Red Mouth’s Legacy, A Blackhall Tale – Part 6

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

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This evening’s episode is brought to you by Old Time Radio Extra, available at oldtimeradioextra.weebly.com

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OTR Extra has all the sources of jim jams and flim flams indexed, so you don’t need to go crawling up and down google like some kinda mook.

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Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – 400 to 600 words brought to you Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Tonight we present the finale to our first Blackhall tale, as Thomas makes his final stand against his ursine captor.

Next week we return with a trinity of solo pieces, including another entry in the case files of Mulligan Smith.

Red Mouth’s Legacy, A Blackhall Tale – Part Five of Six

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

A new type of waiting had begun, as man and beast watched the flames move voraciously amongst the brittle wood.

“What treachery is this? You would roast us both!” the bear roared.

“I will give you some advice – and what I give you will be free, not a spite heavy trade.” Thomas smiled, his smokey vice bobbing between his cracked lips. “If you head down to the river we have twice now conversed upon, your strength will surely knock back the great elms which hang over that water. If you were to then rut the dirt clean, you could create a break and stop this contagion – at least so long as the wind stays easterly. T’will not be easy, nor quick, but it’ll keep this blasted hillock from balding entirely, and from letting the blaze spread to the lands beyond.”

“Pray do not think to inform me of how to fight such an enemy.” The bear snarled, stepping forward. The rending hooks of its front paws caught the light of the flames.

It reared and bellowed then, its rage flooding the hilltop and valley below.

Thomas raised the tip of his sword.

“Until now I’ve not thought it likely that I might see my Mairi again, but if pressed I will gladly remove your head to save the time. I’m sick of your god awful shouting and groaning – if you wish to taste the poison of my silver, then come, and quickly, as I have a date to keep.”

He had taken his full height as he talked, and despite the mighty bulk of the beast below, upon his perch his frame now towered over even that of the lord of this primordial forest.

Without response the bear sank upon its haunches, once again resting in the position it had so long held.

Lowering his weapon, Thomas once again spoke:

“Do not rest long, it will be a short time before even yonder valley begins to crackle.”

The albino moaned then, the forlorn cry of a being who has lost a child and must make do with what remains. Rolling forward it took to its legs and began to push its way along the corridor of flames, picking up speed as it moved down the hill and out of sight.

Blackhall stood against the roasting heat as long as he dare, then slipped down the rocky scape and into the trees to the north, limping towards the smell of ocean salt.

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.

Welcome to Flash Pulp, Episode Eleven.

Tonight’s story: Red Mouth’s Legacy, A Blackhall Tale – Part 5

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

[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/skinner/FlashPulp011.mp3](Click play to listen or subscribe via libsyn RSS or iTunes)

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This evening’s episode is brought to by TomMerritt.com, because we love him.

We love you, Tom.

That’s Tom Merritt.com.

Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – 400 to 600 words brought to you Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Tonight we present the penultimate episode in our current serial, in which Thomas Blackhall, tired, injured and having gone for days without sleep, begins to see an end to his labours.

Red Mouth’s Legacy, A Blackhall Tale – Part Five of Six

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

Thomas once again fell silent.

Moments passed, then the great albino emptied his lungs, once again beginning his mumbling chant. A raven flew down from an unseen perch, landing at the feet of its lord. The bear’s instructions took longer this time, but as his words trailed off amongst the growing chorus of crickets, the black bird croaked and rose into the air, its definition lost against the darkening woods.

Thomas attempted a small meal of his remaining jerky, but his stomach had soured and he found it difficult to keep even his meager portion down.

He used the remaining time until the bird’s return to gamble with his life.

Until then he’d dared not move from the head of the slope that kept the fury of his jailer in balance with his blade, but now he limped to the single white pine that overhung his meager prison, and, with one eye still on the beast who sat waiting at the bottom of his roost, reached deeply into the center mass of the standing giant and cut loose a single broad branch.

As he retreated to his precipice he stooped regularly, enjoying the stretch and tug of the motion upon his limbs, and pulled forth some of the dry bunches of scrub that had had the misfortune to root upon the desolate plateau.

Sitting once again upon the flat rock he’d come to use as a stool, he freed his knife from his belt and began to trim the offshoots from the trunk of his branch.

From above came the flutter of wings, and then, to his left, the shattering crack of stone on stone.

“You claimed you only required the smallest of portions,” came the throaty voice from below, its breath pregnant with a snicker.

After a time he finished worrying the branch with his knife and then slid on hands and knees to where the crash had emanated. A long search turned up three larger portions and a dozen smaller shards, and from this selection Thomas kept the largest, a piece not quite the length and width of his thumb.

Returning to his post, he set down the fragment and took up the reed braid and barren branch. He began to talk as he worked.

“Old King James may have said it was a “custome loathsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomlesse”, but if I’m to draw my final breaths on this empty rock, I’d rather some of them be filled with Virginian tobacco.”

With that he set down his design, and rummaging within the interior of his great coat, retrieved a small water tight flask. He opened it to reveal a pouch with a small quantity of shredded brown leaves, from which he took a hearty pinch, as well as a carefully folded packet of thin Spanish papers. The remaining volume of the container was largely taken up by the yellowing slip that was Mairi’s final letter.

“Oh, Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, they were twa bonnie lassies,” Thomas began to sing under his breath. He licked shut his work and tucked it between his lips.

Blackhall moved quickly then, his sabre close at hand.

He made a bushel of the driest of the scrub he’d gathered, and silently wished that the excess pine needles had been crisp enough to add as well. Once again his fingers closed about his knife, and with a sharp series of glancing blows to the flint stone, sparks and then flame lept amongst the ragged twigs.

With his right foot he tipped the cattails, stripped of their reeds to become simple shafts capped in brown fuzz, into the flame. With his left hand he lit his cigarette.

“It has grown dark, Master Bear, but my work is done,” Thomas said, lifting two of the bullrushes to his crude archer’s bow.

“What’s this now?” The clouded tone told Blackhall the beast had likely drowsed at its shadowed station.

The question hung in the air as twin arcs cast forth from the flat above, licking flame tumbling through tangles of branches before sprawling on the dry forest floor to the east.

“My work is complete – see now the child’s toy that shall mark my passage upon this hill.”

His cigarette dangling such that the stubble that had grown upon his face was at no small risk, he continued to speak as he let fly.

“A child’s toy indeed, and the child who taught me to build it would laugh to see my own shoddy work, but it is enough to allow me to reach yonder trees.”

He’d spent his ammunition before his jailer could fully rise from stupor. The seeds of the cattails took air as they burned, drifting downhill upon the breeze. Wherever they set down, the dry brush drank greedily of the flame.

Thomas stood upon the edge of the stony flat then – bow cast aside and sabre occupying his right hand – letting his work truly settle in as his lungs filled with his addiction.

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.

Welcome to Flash Pulp, Episode Ten.

Tonight’s story: Red Mouth’s Legacy, A Blackhall Tale – Part 4

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

[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/skinner/FlashPulp010.mp3](Click play to listen or subscribe via libsyn RSS or iTunes)

Download MP3

This evening’s episode is brought to you by RelicRadio.com. Bringing back the radio of yesteryear with the technology of today, visit to hear the cream of the radio age, right in your podcatcher.

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Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – 400 to 600 words brought to you Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Tonight, Thomas Blackhall gives up an explanation – as well as his only source of entertainment – while attempting to avoid inhabiting a bear lord’s gullet.

Red Mouth’s Legacy, A Blackhall Tale – Part 4

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

As the sun crested noon, Thomas became more daring in how long he’d allow his sword arm to become occupied. The full heat of the day was upon the land, and the small store of stimulant that had held him had run dry before the dew was off the grass.

His great coat and shirt lay beside him, his wide brimmed hat providing his only real shelter on the empty expanse of plateau. The shade of the lone pine that abutted his prison tempted him, but he dare not leave his post. As his task became more complex and his aching fatigue more palpable, he cursed at himself, at his captor, at the forest, at the reeds, at the boat that had carried him from his home, at the sun, the wind, the land and the sky.

Tilting the white shag of his head, the bear spoke.

“You’ve taken to crafting some sort of artifact of your passage? I have slept in caves adorned with your art – I usually attempt to eat something especially rotten on those occasions, so I might leave my own pungent artifice. I have noted however that in recent millennia your leavings have become increasingly complex – are you especially adpet at some form of these works? Should I expect some member of your family to come in search of this scrap, and possibly your own remains? If you come down now, I’ll promise not to eat any errant son or hardheaded daughter that might arrive.”

“I have yet to sire a child of my own, although I was shown this craft by an eight year old Iroquois girl. I don’t mind admitting hers was considerably more impressive than mine will be – or might be, as I rather expect the moment I become over interested in my work you’ll cover the distance and end my little project,” Blackhall replied.

“I have shown you already that I might be reasonable – and in truth I am interested to see what a human with fortitude enough to murder Red Mouth might leave behind to mark his last moments. I have already indicated that, once you lapse into sleep, I will suck the meat from your bones as the bees drink the honey of their hives. I can also smell the aid you’ve used to stretch that time. Fine then, a race: if you should nod off you will awaken to my maw, but until that time you have my word that I will not attempt the climb.”

Thomas considered the proposition, then grunted his assent.

He did not re-sheath his weapon however, choosing instead to lay the naked blade gently across the scrub closest at hand.

“Yes, yes, make yourself comfortable,” the bear chuckled.

On his lap, Blackhall laid out the components of the cattails he’d been so hard pressed to strip. The reed leaves had begun to dry under the baking of the sun, and he set about tearing long strokes from each.

By dusk he’d made a braided twine of admirably slender width. It had come at no small cost however, his eyes burned and his head ached.

“Have you completed your task?” the beast asked from below.

“One part, but to complete it I require another component. It would be best if I had the baggage you encouraged me to leave upon my campsite-” the bear continued to look on in disinterest, “but, failing that, I might create a reasonable facsimile from the flaking stones found along the banks of the same stream from which your thralls drew these reeds.”

“Yes, I have seen these flaking stones, I have seen their use in crafts before, but I also know them to be of equal use for the bumbling you call a hunt. Surely you do not think such a tool will somehow save you from your lofty perch? I do not recall seeing a piece upon the pool’s edge large enough topple upon me.” The ursine let out a short bark, his gummy lips rising to reveal the arsenal of his jaw.

“Master Bear, to complete my craft I require but the smallest shard of stone.”

“And why should I provide such a thing? It seems to me my favour has already become stretched.”

“If you wish to see the end of this creation, I require some of the stone.”

He paused a beat, then added: “I have not yet slept.”

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.