Flash Pulp

Welcome to Flash Pulp, Guestisode 20.

Tonight we present Appearances: A Bunny Davis Tale by Rich the Time Traveller, Part 1 of 2
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulpGE20.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)
(Part 1 – Part 2)

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

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

Tonight’s tale was penned by the able hand of our own Rich the Time Traveller! We deeply appreciate his efforts in these weltering vacation months. Many thanks, sir.

Now, join us in an adventure starring our foul mouthed imbiber and her magic wielding friend.

Appearances: A Bunny Davis Tale, Part 1 of 2

Written by Richard “the Time Traveller” Jefferson
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

(Part 1 – Part 2)

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

Freesound.org credits:

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

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

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and thirty-seven.

Tonight we present Coffin: Masks, Part 3 of 3
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp337.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

This week’s episodes are brought to you by the Way of the Buffalo

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 Will Coffin, urban shaman, and Bunny, his normally tipsy companion, interrogate a ghost about the serial killer who slew him.

Coffin: Masks, Part 3 of 3

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

It was Bunny’s first instinct to start yelling till she got some truth, but the lesson of 255 Cypress Crescent was still fresh. So, instead of approaching the murders directly when Marshall Carver answered her summons, she said, “where’d you get the blade?“

Her skin felt dry and too tight. What was she doing knocking on a serial killer’s door? Especially without any Grey Goose in her? Life had grown entirely too weird, and entirely too upright.

“I was told you might come around,” replied Carver.

“By who?” asked Coffin.

“You know I can never tell you.”

His hair, parted to the left, was so precisely trimmed that Bunny thought it might’ve been done by a surgeon, and the crisp combination of khaki pants and lime green polo shirt somehow further gave him the look of a storefront mannequin.

Without waiting, the killer turned and motioned for them to follow.

Bunny shot Coffin a raised brow over her right shoulder, but he only shrugged, so, after a moment’s hesitation, she stepped inside.

They passed the living room first. The leather couches appeared unused, and the golden borders of the three National Geographics arrayed on the low coffee table were perfectly aligned with the surface’s matte black corners. There was a large portrait hanging above the white stone mantle: Carver, a boy who was obviously being raised as his clone, and a woman who seemed to be smiling with her mouth and screaming with her eyes.

“How much have you figured out?” asked their host.

She’d seen enough Law & Order reruns to make this one an easy answer.

“All of it,” she said. “Though, with a name like the Laughing Buddha, I was expecting, I dunno, a signature maniacal cackle, or at least a big bald guy.”

Except for the five neatly aligned wooden blocks on the rosey-marbled countertop, every tool in the kitchen was chromed. While Carver talked Bunny watched reflections shift from appliance-to-appliance. It seemed as if their journey was being paced by funhouse versions of themselves.

“That was exactly the point. I have no interest or connection to Buddhism, reincarnation, or a receding hairline. There are a half-dozen junk shops downtown where I could buy the statues, and I would just slip in and grab one whenever a candidate called for it. I mean – for the ones in Capital City. I used to be a traveling salesman, and different cities call for different flavours.”

“Let’s say, theoretically, that I’m a little less informed than my partner,” said Coffin. “How did you choose these, uh, ‘candidates’?”

In the hallway beyond the kitchen they came to a crescent staircase that descended into the basement.

Stepping onto the hardwood, Carver replied, “oh – so you really know nothing. Which of them gave you my name? Was it Morrison? Was it Woodley? It doesn’t matter, I suppose.

“I was told the dead would give me up, but I’m a rational man. I wouldn’t have believed it possible if I hadn’t been shown exactly what the blade could do.

“I picked them on the Internet; depression and suicide forums, mostly. They were all willing you know – volunteers. I provided a service.

“Really, I should say they picked me.

“Suicides, all of them, but they didn’t want to lose the insurance money by doing it themselves. We would meet once, in a public place, and they would pay me. It didn’t really matter how much, I based my fee on what I thought they could afford. Then I’d take their arm, or their neck, or their calf, and I’d give them a taste of the blade, so they were aware of what was coming.

“They wanted it, but they also wanted to make sure their families would still get paid. That was the other point of the Laughing Buddha story – so the insurance people couldn’t use their histories of depression to contest that it was a crime.

”I enjoy a quiet encounter with a stranger on a country road as much as the next guy, but there was a joy in knowing they knew, that they were willing – hoping – that I would come to end them.

“Unlike my other projects, no one screamed at the approach of the Laughing Buddha.”

“####,” said Bunny. “Bunch of teary-eyed one-handed keyboarders on the internet looking for someone to share the misery and the only person who reaches out to them is a serial killer? That’s just ####in’ sad.”

The lighting grew dimmer as they descended, and Bunny’s tongue went dry. It seemed as if it would take a kiddie pool full of Captain Morgan to ever wet it again, but, despite her concerns, the view from the bottom of the stairs seemed normal enough. The entrance Carver ushered them through opened onto more leather couches facing a flat screen, a desk in the corner holding up an aging laptop, and a foosball table.

That’s where the normalcy ended, however.

The rear wall was a massive inbuilt glass case filled with an array of knives, none longer than a foot. The expansive cloth-backed display allowed for two floor-to-ceiling radial blade designs, with the smallest weapons nearly touching tips at their centers, and the weapons circling, handles out, at the perimeters.

“Holy ####. Interior design by Chuck Manson?” asked Bunny.

Carver’s hand reached for a pearl-handled straight razor hung near the heart of the right-most loop, and he flipped it open with a practice flourish. The blade was missing.

“Simply a matter of having a tool for every occasion,” he said in the flat tones of a bored clergyman. He pointed to a detail on the armature. “The instrument in question, though, was special. I lost it on a sad one. You can see where they tried to attach it firmly to the spine here, but I think whatever kept it sharp eventually just cut the edge free.

“It was a father whose son was running around with the wrong sort of crowd, getting involved in meth dealing and selling stolen WalMart electronics. I guess the old man was hoping his death would shake the delinquent from his lifestyle and give him a bankroll to start over.

“I’d watched the place for a while, and it should have been empty, but the boy came home earlier than expected. When they’re wild like that, you never can tell when they’ll show up. I had to duck through the window, and I didn’t even realize I’d left part of myself behind.”

Bunny had been thinking that it explained why the dead guy in the shower was wearing a suit – knowing it was coming, he’d been the sort of person to dress formally in preparation for his own murder. It was while examining this thought, however, that she’d placed a single finger on a nearby cleaver she’d noted in the assortment.

It was also when Carver had wheeled, revealing the eight inch Portugese faca in his free hand.

His face was perfectly composed as he made a low swing at the Black Sabbath t-shirt exposed by her open jacket, and, if Coffin hadn’t stepped in, the practiced butcher would have succeeded in his attempt to bury the point in her sternum.

The problem was that Bunny was no longer in the drop-ceilinged basement: She was no longer looking at the foosball table, with its players all carefully upright, nor could she smell the odd metallic taint to the air that the slash across her stomach had lent the room.

She was in her old apartment’s kitchen. She was standing, barefoot, on the white linoleum. The radio was on, and the end of “Heart of Glass” was unspooling into the warm afternoon. She’d been dancing, she remembered, but Tim had turned it down. Her thigh ached from where her ex-husband had planted his steel toed boot.

Below her panic there was a nagging feeling that she’d been somewhere else. That she hadn’t been herself a moment ago. There was no time to figure it out, though – Tim was right there, with that ####ing fish fillet knife. He wouldn’t stop at her belly, he wouldn’t stop at her arms. Not now. Not since she’d picked up the cleaver.

Now he had to demonstrate that he had the bigger balls.

This Tim wasn’t laughing through his anger, though; this Tim wasn’t calling her names – but this Tim did have a knife.

Closing her eyes, she thought “sober seventy-two hours and now I’m dead. What a waste of three ####ing days,” and it was the very fact of her lack of liquor that pulled her mind back.

Too much of her courage had been in the bottle to have faced Tim otherwise.

She wasn’t in the kitchen.

This wasn’t Tim.

She did have a cleaver though.

Her eyes opened, and there was Will, holding off a homicidal Old Navy dad like it was the exciting conclusion to a MacGyver episode.

The momentum of her memories had brought up her hand, but the sight of her friends’ struggle, and the frustration of a hundred Heart of Glass filled sleepless nights, brought it down.

“Try to kill me? TRY TO KILL ME?” she said, “You aren’t even a proper ###damn psycho, you’ve just wanked to Rambo too many times, you ####ing manipulative misery guzzler!”

It wasn’t the first time she’d seen a head split open, and, unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last.

Still, her mind immediately went to the chain in Coffin’s pocket.

“Prepare yourself for an afterlife full of watching me break in here and ####ting on this carpet, you ####ing steel fetishist,” she shouted at the corpse.

She tried to clear her throat, but found it wouldn’t stop clenching.

Her voice was wavering as she told Will, “I’m going for a drink. Come if you want.”

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

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

Freesound.org credits:

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

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

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and thirty-six.

Tonight we present Coffin: Masks, Part 2 of 3
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp336.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Talk Nerdy 2 Me

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 Will Coffin, urban shaman, and Bunny, his normally tipsy companion, interrogate a ghost about the serial killer who slew him.

Coffin: Masks, Part 2 of 3

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

Bunny had stumbled across the address while seated in the silent depths of the Capital City Library. Most of the Laughing Buddha’s murders had taken place in private homes, which – as she was little interested in collecting a Breaking & Entering charge – made it an even trickier matter to interview one of the victims. It was a stroke of luck, then, when a search told them of 255 Cypress Crescent’s “For Sale” status.

The real estate agent had given them a doubtful look when they’d arrived for their viewing, but had pulled the bulky gray lock off the door handle nonetheless. Her lips were pressed tight as they entered, but the voice that issued from her mouth was as soothing and practiced as any infomercial pitchman’s.

“The main access is into the kitchen – which makes grocery day a lot easier. The dining area, this way, has recently had all the carpet taken up, and – can you believe it – there was beautiful hardwood beneath. The previous owner didn’t even know what she had.”

Stepping into the empty cavern that was the living room, the Realtor reviewed Coffin’s battered leather jacket and Bunny’s denim ensemble.

“You’re in luck,” she said. “The seller had to relocate to Baltimore – work related – and, because of that, this place is about as cheap as you could ever hope for in such a great neighbourhood. There are three bedrooms upstairs, as well as a laundry nook. It comes with the washer and dryer. The basement, on the other hand, is unfinished but has plenty of potential. Which would you like to see first?”

Coffin passed the question on to his companion with a raised brow.

Before she might answer, however, the agent asked, “how long have you been married?”

“I’m not his wife,” replied Bunny, as her fingers absentmindedly rubbed at a ‘What Would Ghandi Do?’ pin on her threadbare collar. “I’m just here to make sure you ain’t makin’ him look like ###damn Tom Hanks and Shelley Long.”

The woman in the well-cut black blazer paused and said, “sorry?”

Bunny’s eyes narrowed. “The Money Pit? With Tom Hanks and Shelley Long? You’ve never seen The ####in’ Money Pit?”

“My wife’s dead,” interjected Coffin, as he put a boot on the stairs to the upper level. When he had their attention, he added, “- that’s why I need a change of scenery. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take my advisor here and conduct a self-guided tour of the second story.”

With a neck stretch that read of deep experience with wasted afternoons, the saleswoman retrieved her phone and said, “sure.”

* * *

They found him in the bathtub, his left arm draped over the protruding tap and his head pushed into his chest by the lounging angle at which his body had taken its last gasps.

As Coffin pulled the man into an upright position with the Crook of Ortez, Bunny asked, “you were killed in the shower wearing a three-piece ####ing suit?”

The apparition replied, “I died, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be dignified.”

His voice was such that his words seemed to originate more in his nose than his mouth, and his first act upon being allowed free movement was to straighten his tie.

“Oh, #### yeah,” replied Bunny, “there’s nothing as classy as biting it in your bathroom – just ask Elvis.”

The spirit’s brow furrowed. He asked, “who are you, and why are you here?”

“I’m Bunny, and this is my – uh – my sidekick, Will.” Coffin coughed airily, but said nothing. She continued. “We’re here about the Laughing Buddha.”

The ghost’s brow reversed course. His eyes were suddenly open.

“Who?” he replied. His hand again went to his muted red tie, and his fingers tugged at the knot.

Closing the door, Bunny took a seat on the edge of the faux marble countertop and asked, “having a tough time remembering the guy who murdered you?”

The man’s voice now seemed to issue entirely from his nasal cavity.

“I don’t remember much about it…”

His unusually sober interrogator leaned forward on her perch.

“Lemme remind you,” she said. “You were apparently in here, showering in your Brooks Brothers discount special, or whatever the ####, when some ###hole came in and slit your throat, Pez-dispenser style. The papers say it was with something like a straight razor – the same one he used over his eight years of killings. Then he put a little Buddha statue on your bald spot and left.

“Did you get a look at him? Her? It?”

The victim only shook his head.

With a nod to his companion, Coffin asked, “why did the house take so long to sell?”

“People don’t want to buy a place someone’s been murdered in. They figure it might be haunted. I mean – there was no mess. You couldn’t even tell I died here. Still, it was taking forever to close on the property, so, a couple of months back, Madeleine had to just go.

“You know how it is.

“The insurance settlement had arrived, and she simply couldn’t take the stress of being here anymore. When she came home after work, all she could think about was my body sitting in the tub. She used to wake herself up crying – or that’s what she was telling Hannah Schuyler, anyway.”

Leaning back against the mirror, Bunny asked, “it must get lonely in here since she moved?”

“I’ve always been lonely,” the dead man replied over his sagging chin. “I do miss my wife fiercely though.”

“You still talk like you’re in the land of the living – maybe you’d like some news about what Maddy’s doing these days?”

The specter sniffed. “Uh, no offense, but she’s in The Charleston, downtown. It isn’t the sort of building you’d go unnoticed in if you were snooping – and it’ll be tough to peek through her windows on the twelfth floor, unless you can fly too.”

“No,” answered Bunny, “but we’re friendly with a guy there. Another The Ring-looking mother####er like you – uh, right, Will?”

Coffin’s long familiarity with the city backed her bluff.

“Yeah,” he replied, “there’s an autoerotic asphyxiation one floor over, actually. He’s pretty chatty because he’s afraid I’ll tell his Mom the truth about his ‘suicide.’”

The shade glanced at the chill white enamel he knew he would soon be returning to and sighed.

“It was Marshall Carver. I know because that’s how he answers his cell – just, ‘Marshall Carver.’ He dresses like the sort of person who does that too. I mean, who’s calling him that isn’t already aware of his name?

“I guess I shouldn’t let it bother me, but I was barely even dead and he was taking calls like the person at the other end had caught him waiting in line at Starbucks.

“He was looking right at me when he did it too. The flatness in his voice was probably the scariest part of the whole thing.

“Anyway, it was him. He planned it all. He even told me to put my hands up first so he could make some defensive wounds.”

Will snorted and said, “with that blade of his I bet he didn’t have to ask twice.”

The apparition gave a guilty shrug. “If you want anything more, you’ll have to ask Carver. When will you get back to me about Madeleine?”

“Soon,” replied Bunny, as Coffin returned the Crook to his pocket.

As they descended the stairs and bee-lined for the front door, she raised her voice and told the empty, echoing rooms, “it’s all about professional growth and interest. A Realtor who’s never heard of The ###damn Money Pit? #### that – that’s like going to a dentist who’s never seen Marathon Man.”

They had to visit two convenience stores and a gas station to find a payphone that still had its phone book, but an hour later they were standing on Carver’s neatly trimmed lawn.

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

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

Freesound.org credits:

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

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