Tag: magic

FPSE028 – Vanitas: Digging

Welcome to Flash Pulp Special Episode Twenty-Eight.

Flash PulpTonight we present Vanitas: Digging

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

 

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 take a detour into the woods and find ourselves at the site of an unusual burial.

 

Vanitas: Digging

Written by Opopanax
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

 

FPSE028 – Vanitas: Digging

 

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

Intro and outro work provided by Jay Langejans of The New Fiction Writers podcast.

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.

FP400 – Understanding: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 – The Hag

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode four hundred.

Flash PulpTonight we present Understanding: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 – The Hag

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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, Thomas Blackhall – master frontiersman, student of the occult, and grieving husband – completes his tale regarding the beginning of the end, and the woman who stole his wife’s cadaver.

 

Understanding: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 – The Hag

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

 

Vengeance outweighed the woman’s grief, and the consolidation of her power began even before her boy’s reanimated body had fully let go of its living warmth.

Setting the child to dancing a shadow of a jig, she sent the riderless pony to town, as an omen of what would follow, then made her way west.

It was her intention that his cavorting would keep him close until such time as she discovered a method to properly raise him. However, a life filled with emergencies – shattered limbs, reluctant births, fickle curses – had left the Hag with a keen mind for priorities, and, as a python is said to eat an elephant, she began with the tail of her problem and moved ever forward to overtake her goal.

First she returned to any who had imparted wisdom to her custody, so that she might demand any secrets they had held in reserve. Though none of her former teachers furnished a solution for true resurrection, fraud, extortion, and flattery would eventually bring her a deep knowledge of the three forms of magic.

The school of the written word and inscribed sigil soon covered her body in images of power and deception. It was from an Egyptian book collector that she collected the pattern that imbues longevity, but it is only due to his phantom that I was able to pass that same design on to you.

She’d approached him as a broken soul in need of opportunity to correct her tragedy, and his own timeless greed for education made him too quick to sympathize. The Hag, however, was a woman who insisted on absolute discretion, as she demonstrated by slitting his throat and removing the flesh of his back.

Longevity is not invulnerability, as his ghostly lips later informed me.

I myself learned, in nearly two decades in the bush, that a life of endless walking leaves too much time to obsess; too much time to over-think. I can not imagine the effect magnified by a century’s span.

By the occasion on which she again crossed Ibsil, her transgressors were long dead – she cared not.

In exchange for his freedom, a mute friar locked high in a coastal tower had taught her many phrases of destruction. In his youth his transcription work had carried him across a decaying tome seemingly forgotten upon the shelves of his remote cloister. Unthinking, he had hoisted the volume and begun the penitent process of re-copying its text. It was under his breath that he whispered the tones that pushed out the monastery’s eastern wall, but he had, by then, already achieved the majority of his reproduction.

Even after the removal of his tongue, the memory of the index had followed him into the tiny room that marked the fate his brothers prescribed, and a lifetime’s confinement had left his recollections too close to his quill fingers.

Once his furtive letters were written, though, his freedom lasted as far as a mile offshore. Then, as a noose-tied-stone was lobbed overboard, the sloop he thought employed for his escape was revealed to be the vehicle of his demise.

The ruination of Ibsil began with a chortle and a word like a thunderclap.

Within seconds the streets were filled with those attracted to the noise and dust of the collapsing masonwork that was once the town’s church, and so The Hag spoke of plague, for those who would hide, and of fracturing, for those who could not.

Her tongue parted the gathered like a violent wave, and she formed corrupt sentences whose shapes and sounds called forth arcane energies to snap limbs, rupture eyes, and cleave architecture.

In a week she’d flattened every residence and stable, flushed out every farmhand and cellar dweller, and set flame to anything that might provide a safe haven she’d missed.

Finally, when the townspeople of Ibsil, ruined by contagion and violence, no longer had life enough to writhe on their own, she raised their shattered husks and set them to dancing for the supposed amusement of her son’s uncomprehending corpse.

This continued for a fortnight, with any unlucky enough to wander into the remote village joining the festivities, and it only stopped when the cadavers she most favoured began to tear and sunder under her rough treatment.

Yet her real desire, the secret of true resurrection, eluded her.

Centuries rolled beneath her feet. The world shifted about her, but the Hag, and her mystically preserved boy, continued on.

In time she fell in with the children of the Spider-God, the hooded Kar’Wickians. She was not one for friendship, but the arachnid’s spawn have many social advantages that her hermitry denied her. In exchange for her skills, and an occasional conjuring lesson, they provided her a great web of volunteers – for there was no shortage of restoration tales to authenticate, though most led solely to frustration.

Raiding ancient texts from the cult’s hidden library, she learned many of the rituals of symbolism, the most primitive of the magical schools but also extremely powerful in its elementary nature. It is much more than modest voodoo doll making. Though the age of artifact creation is distantly passed, it is said this symbolic art of material manipulation, in combination with rites from the written and spoken schools, were the forge by which the Crook of Ortez and its ilk were created.

Eventually she found her answer in one such relic, the Distilling Catafalque.

Now, there was perhaps an age when the world was so saturated with ethereal energies that the Catafalque might have taken the carrion of but three or four mystically-drenched dead to operate, but the arcane had begun to leech from the land, and naught but a few locations remained upon the globe that contained some power.

The hinterlands of the united Canadas was one such place.

I had met her twice before our final encounter. On the first occasion – well, I have publicly claimed innocence by stating that it was simple error that caused our paths to cross, but, in truth, I had come to snatch the Catafalque from her very hands. Rumours of her passage, and her collection of the dead to power the device, came from the mouths of phantoms and the whispers of the fading animal lords- but I had not comprehended the size of her rotting army, and fear had driven me off from that initial meeting.

It was not long after, however, that she took revenge at my interruption by snatching up my Mairi’s body to join her column.

I carried not but mundane tools into our final confrontation, out of concern that her attunement to the preternatural might signal my presence. The thousands of capering cadavers had aligned themselves into a whirling spiral, and I was left to creep, sweaty-browed, through the dancing rings. My pen is too weak to convey the anxiety of slipping between those exuberantly jerking, absolutely silent, figures.

Thomas Blackhall, a fantasy fiction podcast brought to you by the Skinner Co. NetworkAt their center stood The Hag, an orb of light in one hand while the other rest on the torn and muck-covered jacket of her unchanged son’s shoulder. She was watching as each thrashing puppet climbed, in turn, atop the black-veiled platform their lifeless shoulders had carried across the face of Europe, over the salt, and through the dense wildwoods. There was smoke at each closing of the plush curtains, but no further evidence of its sacrifice’s passing.

I let out no yip or call upon my assault: No, my very heart ceased to beat so that the noise would not arouse her.

It was a whisper I had mastered that lit the fuse of my explosive bundle, and even that was almost too much.

There was recognition in her face as the payload landed at her feet, but not time enough to react. Even in the last she attempted to shield the boy from the blast, and in so doing proved that I had right to worry: Though her belly was pulled asunder by the explosion, the bones of her cradling arms absorbed the force without yielding. Still, the tattoos that formed the greater portion of her defense were but simple ink in form, and so burned as easily as the rest of her skin.

The ritual, already in motion, went on.

Though I had dared not search beforehand, it was my deepest hope that Mairi had not yet entered that eternal slumber. My boots seemed to gain weight with each step – with each face that registered as not her own – but an uncountable period of running along the still-rollicking spiral brought me to the woman I had sought for long decades.

With wet cheeks, I pulled her from the line, and, in her place, I lay the Hag and her boy upon the platform.

I will confess again that I knew. I knew the pact she’d made with the Spider-God, I knew that there was not enough power left in the world, unless the abomination might find some weak soul with which to barter the last of its vitality to plant a seed that would bloom into invasion.

I knew, and that is why, even years before the encounter, I had begun my project of apology – and I do apologize, though I can not bring myself to regret the return of Mairi to my side.

We have two hundred years to correct my error. Now, to the extent of your title’s responsibilities – and those carried by the other branches of my now sprawling legacy – the matter is in your hands, Coffin.

Yours till victory, or the rise of Kar’Wick,

Thomas Blackhall

 

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

Intro and outro work provided by Jay Langejans of The New Fiction Writers podcast.

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.

FP394 – The Weeping Woman: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 3

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and ninety-four.

Flash PulpTonight we present The Weeping Woman: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
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This week’s episodes are brought to you by The P.G. Holyfield Appreciation Dept.

 

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, chases dark portents into a small town on the river’s edge.

 

The Weeping Woman: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 3

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

 

On a morning so fierce and dry it made even the greenest timber seem at threat of flaring up from simple exposure, Thomas Blackhall stumbled into the village of Malhousen.

He had been summoned over the mystic aspect of an apparent impending demise.

Malhousen proper was little more than a trading post facing down a small churchyard, but the two dozen families that populated the surrounding rocky lands were on friendly enough terms to call each other neighbour, and the occasional mail delivery seemed to indicate that the government agreed on the designation.

Still, visitors were a rare thing that far off in the bushlands, and there was no public house, nor inn, motel or tavern – as a field-tromping farmer had passed word to Thomas that any with interest enough to make the journey likely did so because they knew someone in the area well enough to board with them.

Blackhall: A Skinner Co. Fantasy Fiction Podcast“If you need a place to stay, though,” the muck-handed man with the broad straw hat had said, “I’m sure a few coins could clean mother’s sewing parlour for the evening.”

The offer had stood as long as it took Blackhall to explain what had brought him.

Strolling beyond the low white fence that separated the churchyard cemetery from non-hallowed turf, Thomas came to the river that had given the town its name, then cast off his gear with the tender concern of a man who’d just spent a full two weeks cursing at its weight.

Retrieving a small pouch from his breast pocket, he lay his great coat across his packs and sat upon the sandy bank to take in the current’s breeze. In time his fingers found a fine Spanish paper and stuffed it with tobacco, then, in more, the sun nuzzled the horizon.

Not being the Sabbath, there seemed to be only the church’s red-faced Scottish priest to glower at the stranger loafing away the afternoon.

At first, as his smoke had chased the water bugs downstream, Blackhall had thought that the cleric was simply the type to disapprove of all outsiders, but, by the hour at which his stomach began to call for supper, Thomas had decided the Scot likely knew why he was at hand, and that the holy man wanted nothing to do with his occult concerns.

It was his thinking that a true busy body could not be content to maintain a distance, but the priest had spent his day at just the distance necessary to be always aware of Blackhall’s position.

As Thomas began to consider what he was carrying that might appease his complaining appetite, a man exited from the trading post, walked the short breadth of its porch, then joined him on the riverbank via the fence-side route.

“I apologize,” said the prematurely-graying newcomer. “I’m Wyatt, the man who requested your presence. I would’ve joined you earlier, yet – well, you may’ve noted that business is sluggish, but what customers I receive depend on the regularity of my habits.

“I should also mention that my ears aren’t of much use. Though I could hear till my eighteenth year, they’re long gone now. It makes me poor conversation, as I talk too much about nothing and with little response. I’ve some skill at reading lips, but there are few here who will allow me to practice. They have fields to till and cows to slaughter, I suppose.”

“You’re sole occupation is running the store?” asked Blackhall, his words slow and clear.

The man raised his brow.

“The store?” repeated Thomas, his fingers waving in the squat shack’s direction.

“Oh, I act as middleman between those who grow beats and those who grow potatoes. The potato men come to me for their beats, the beat men come to me for their potatoes, and I make barely enough between them to taste either.

“In addition, the same boatman who collects the post brings up a selection of needles and dry goods that I resell. Despite my deafness I hear complaints over even that tiny profit.”

Blackhall nodded, and the shop keep smiled to have a friendly ear.

“The truth,” he continued, “is that I receive a child’s treatment because of my conversational difficulties. You’ve been a kind audience, but those who care for anything beyond inquiring about carrot seed often grow loud, which is a body posture as much as a tone, and neuter their language to a level more appropriate for a mush-headed bairn.

“It is usually those same folks who can’t scratch their own names, and thus can’t simply write out their orders and questions for prompt service.”

“It must be a lonely life,” Blackhall repeated until the man caught his meaning.

“It’s the postal counter that most keeps me in place,” replied Wyatt. “I’ve made a tangle of friends across the globe with those simple scraps of paper, and I collect more news than a dozen broadsheet hawkers. It was those same that gave me your name to search out when the matter of the death bringer raised itself.

“Still, as you can perhaps tell, I do long for the simple pleasure of seeing a face react, instead of outwaiting the slow transmission and careful composition of a letter.”

The conversation continued forward in little ways until dusk, but, due to their minor discussion, they did not note the departure of the flame-haired priest on his sagging, silent, pony.

By the time the frogs had begun to sing and dew was forming on the grass, Wyatt and Thomas were no longer alone.

Several men with lanterns, slurring courage and raising enough noise to find each other despite the wobbling of their illumination, began to gather about the white picket fence.

Their filth-kneed pants marked the crowd as farmers, but Thomas could discern nothing more as they took to shouting commands and demanding answers, simultaneously and without deference for his neighbour’s bellowing.

The priest was close behind.

It was as the Father moved to the forefront and raised his arms for silence, however, that there came, from beyond the river, the keening sound of death – a high and jittering wail that was no more dampened by the babble of men and water than would be a bullet.

Then the evening’s trials truly began.

 

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

Intro and outro work provided by Jay Langejans of The New Fiction Writers podcast.

Coffin’s theme is Quinn’s Song: A New Man, by Kevin MacLeod of http://incompetech.com/

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.

FP387 – Coffin: Weakness, Part 2 of 6

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

Flash PulpTonight we present Coffin: Weakness, Part 2 of 6
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6)
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This week’s episodes are brought to you by Every Photo Tells…

 

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 recently sober apprentice, discuss a midnight encounter with a gasket baroness.

 

Coffin: Weakness, Part 2 of 6

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

 

The labyrinthine house smelled of potpourri and pine, and the deeper into its architecture that Bunny ventured, the surer she became that the smileless man who’d answered the door was, in fact, undertaking an elaborate prank.

“We off to see Barnum’s Egress?” she asked, but Will was too distracted to bother faking a chuckle and the doorman didn’t slow in his navigation of the hardwood sea.

Dining set islands gave way to shorelines of couch, then the couches themselves were crowded by towering library cliffs. Finally, they came to a stop in a land of Persian rugs.

The gray-haired woman at the room’s center wore her wingback chair like a throne, but her only subjects seemed to be the multitude of oil paintings that covered the walls. No image was larger than six inches wide, and there was no buffer greater than a thumb’s width between them. Thousands of tiny faces stretched in uneven rows to the vaulted ceiling.

As if playing his entrance in reverse, their guide disappeared backwards through the doorway, leaving his retreating heel taps and the tick of an out-of-sight grandfather clock to fill the void.

“Ms. Flores?” asked Coffin, but Bunny was already busy inspecting the surroundings.

“Rosanna, please,” she replied, her slender fingers dropping from a steeple to brush away the nonsense of formality.

“Okay, Rosanna,” nodded Will. “Our mutual friend, the talking owl, has informed us you have a story to tell?”

Coffin: A Skinner Co. Fantasy PodcastTheir hostess’ deeply lined face pulled into a soft chuckle, and Bunny couldn’t help but think that there’d likely been a time when droves of men had swooned over her smile.

“It happened a month ago,” began Rosanna, with a warm but firm tone. “I sleep lightly these days, and steps at the foot of my bed is enough to bring me awake like a rooster’s song.

“I was expecting it to be Curtis, but, oh, how I was wrong.

“There was a man – a baby face at forty, or a rugged gent at thirty-five. Either way, I’ve always been a sucker for a strong jaw and needy lips. I told myself I was likely dreaming, but somehow knew I wasn’t.

“Still, there was a burning between us from the moment I opened my eyes and I had no interest in denying it.

“I’m eighty-four, but a lifetime of hard work and harder play has left me strong. I’m in no danger of falling and breaking a hip or cracking a rib, and I knew exactly what his eyes had in mind. I’m not ashamed to say I invited him beneath the sheets, nor to divulge that I treated him like a rodeo bull.

“We were both sweating by the time dawn broke, but it was only because I had an early art gallery opening to attend to that I sent him away.”

Rosanna paused in her telling, and Will could read by the set of her knees, and the heat in her gaze, that she was briefly lost in memory – then she shrugged.

Clearing her throat, Ms. Flores finished her tale.

“He didn’t use the door when he departed. He climbed out my bedroom window, but I doubt he even required that much effort – there’s a twenty foot wall around the estate, as you no doubt saw when you entered – and he was gone by the time I pulled back the curtains.

”A couple of weeks later I received the note, and the photos. He must have had a tiny camera hidden in his crumpled heap of bedside clothing.

“The letter indicated a drop off point and warned me of what it would mean to my business and reputation if such images were leaked to the press. It wasn’t signed, but it smelled like him.”

“How did you respond?” asked Coffin, but Bunny already had the answer.

“She told him to go #### himself,” she replied.

As Will had listened, his apprentice had been exploring the paintings and their inhabitants. Where he’d seen just canvas, she’d found a multitude of tiny lusting figures, each in a position that might have left the creator of the Kama Sutra blushing.

“That’s about right,” said Rosanna with a smirk. “I did not build an empire on rubber gaskets by lacking an understanding of rough business. It wasn’t the amount though, it was the notion. I’ll plow a thousand miles for a carrot, but I won’t budge an inch for the stick, and that’s the way it’s always been.

“I sent a note implying that my dating life could use the exposure. I kept the pictures though – I looked good in them, and so did he.

“That was the last I heard of the matter until a few nights ago when a ragamuffin named Pendleton came by and asked that I join together with a few of his other clients in turning the tables on my visitor. I refused his offer too.”

Coffin did not mention the corpses he had recently swam with – instead he simply gave a second nod, tucked his fingers into his pockets, and said, “thank you for your honesty. It seems we have an incubus with a money problem to locate.”

As his feet chased his racing thoughts towards the exit, it was his accomplice who thought to turn and shake hands.

In that lingering moment, Rosanna asked, “if you do find him, will you pass on that I would consider negotiating? I won’t pay his blackmail, but I’d gladly hire him to the house staff at twice the price.”

Bunny’s mind struggled under the weight of four damp cadavers, but she’d come to like Rosanna.

She said, “sure,” then left before the lie could linger.

 

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

Intro and outro work provided by Jay Langejans of The New Fiction Writers podcast.

Coffin’s theme is Quinn’s Song: A New Man, by Kevin MacLeod of http://incompetech.com/

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.

FP386 – Coffin: Weakness, Part 1 of 6

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

Flash PulpTonight we present Coffin: Weakness, Part 1 of 6
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6)
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(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Every Photo Tells…

 

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 recently sober apprentice, encounter a strange party at the river’s edge.

 

Coffin: Weakness, Part 1 of 6

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

 

Finding the spot had been fairly simple – the crown of the red balloon that he’d been told marked his destination was bobbing at the center of Nash Bay, one of the river’s calmer nooks – but, though the thaw had come early that spring, the water was still frigid enough to bite at Will Coffin’s skin as he forced his bare toes and jean-covered legs into the Lethe.

Ten feet further along the shore, Bunny offered her encouragement.

“Hurry the #### up, it’s as cold as Cheney’s heart out here.”

In truth, Will was just as in a hurry as she was. Placing an ancient stone of arcane origin beneath his tongue, he tested its long-proven ability to provide air even when none existed, then slipped beneath the mirrored surface.

Below, it became apparent that the marker was only the top most balloon in a cluster of ten. Pinned to a card table which was itself weighted to the riverbed, the rainbow-coloured column waved gently in the waters flow. There were four attendees at the party, each tied to a thick metal chair and wearing a plastic party hat.

Coffin recognized but one, the blue-blazered woman who had, until recently, anchored the Capital City News at Six. Still, the note that had divulged their location had also included the identities of all involved.

Digging into his pocket, the shaman wrapped his fingers in the Crook of Ortez, the mystic chain that allowed for communication with the dead – yet, as he feared, there was not a single apparition on hand to question.

Will turned back, having seen all he’d come to see.

As he reached for a towel, his jacket, a blanket, and his hot coffee, he asked his apprentice, “What do a TV news anchor, a Catholic school principal, a rich guy’s trophy wife, and a two-bit dabbler have in common?”

Bunny could not help but notice the tone in his voice, and it struck her that in the past he would have asked the question with the cool detachment of a man who barely cared. Now she worried that perhaps he cared almost too much.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s a ####ty punch line,” she answered.

Coffin“I knew the dabbler, Pendleton, a bit,” said Will. “He earned his money scamming people with cold readings, but he nearly managed to get one of those damned cursed monkey paws working in the late ’90s. I was just lucky to get it away from him before the thing scraped together the mystic juice to actually grant his wish.”

“Do you know what he was hoping for?” Bunny asked with a raised brow.

“Yeah, infinite more wishes, which, given the ‘one finger, one wish’ nature of that sort of talisman, means we’d end up with a gigantic simian hand growing ever larger on the horizon before it finally blots out the sun with its jungle of gnarled brown digits.”

As Coffin finished the story a tight squadron of a dozen ospreys formed above the river and swept the opposite shore. As one they turned to cross in front of the pair, then, banking within feet of their audience, the birds drove skyward.

“Sweet ####ing candy corn,” said Bunny, “that was a ###damn Tom Cruise flock of birds right there. Some real Top Gun ####.”

“It’s good to know I can still impress,” replied a sleepy voice over her left shoulder.

Turning, Bunny was somewhat comforted by the frown on Will’s face. At least she wasn’t the only one taken by surprise.

With a preening ruffle of his furled wings, Wide Eye, animal lord and recently appointed regent of the area, hunkered low on a driftwood log.

“Judging by your moist nature, you’ve seen the party?” asked the massive owl.

“Yeah,” answered Coffin.

“You have spoken with the dead then?”

“No.”

Bunny shuffled from foot to foot to fill the pause as Will stooped to lace his boots.

It was the hulking fowl, however, who finally broke the silence.

In a slow midnight tone, it said, “you will look into the matter.”

Will’s shoulders became tight beneath his beaten leather jacket. “I hold an independent office. I do not work for you and you have no jurisdiction over what I deem worthy of my interest. As it happens, you’re lucky that I have nothing better to do.”

It was Bunny’s newfound mental clarity that kept her from muttering, “bull####.”

“We shall see,” replied the owl. “Go visit the woman mentioned in my note. Rosanna.”

Spreading his broad wings, the animal lord made no effort to hide his departure.

 

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

Intro and outro work provided by Jay Langejans of The New Fiction Writers podcast.

Coffin’s theme is Quinn’s Song: A New Man, by Kevin MacLeod of http://incompetech.com/

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.

195 – Support: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 of 6

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

Flash PulpTonight we present, Support: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 of 6.
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6)
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp195.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by View From Valhalla.

 

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, tells the story of an unlikely race, to a prickly, and improbable, audience.

 

Flash Pulp 195 – Support: a Blackhall Tale, Part 3 of 6

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

 

Thomas BlackhallA further two days of slow travel found Blackhall sitting on the shore of a nameless lake, with the sun strong overhead, and his gear resting just above where the gentle slope broke from grass to sand. Tossing a flat stone, he watched it skip once, lose its equilibrium, and disappear below the still surface.

His companion, who he’d encountered at the water’s edge, swatted aside a horsefly as she awaited an answer.

“Yes, Layton was a bit of an odd duck,” said Thomas, “- but you’ve got to understand, we do things differently. My thrust though, isn’t so related to his flamboyant pursual of Ms. Russell, as it is to your point regarding awe in the world. I agree that the dying time is no pleasant business, and it does my heart violence to see your like fading and twisted – but there remains much to find wonder in. The day I departed the Laytons’ farmstead, for instance, the boy asked me to partake of an odd ritual with the intention of soothing his mother, who is ill with the long sickness, and complains bitterly of the heat.”

Trying another cast, Thomas lost count of the hops before his platter exhausted its speed and sank. The wooded approach to the shore had been burnt low some seasons previous, and a meadow had appeared in the timber’s stead. At the treeline, which Blackhall guessed to be a hundred yards off, a row of sentinels, their weasel heads bobbing and weaving, kept careful watch on their queen’s temperament.

He did not relish the idea of irritating the half-dozen sharp-toothed fishers, that constituted her honour guard, and he made firm effort to demonstrate his relaxed posture.

“We tromped over the fields and through the forest,” continued Blackhall. “Layton had grown up amongst those stands, and, as we trekked, he explained that he was but a lad when his father had come across our destination while hunting deer meat against an approaching winter. Two hours work brought us to a hillock, and an increasingly sharp climb. Near the apex stood a black opening, and within, a cave. It was a slippery navigation, largely downward, but, as we came to a point where I thought we’d lose the last of the light filtering in from the mouth, he stopped. We’d come to a branch in the tunnel, and the main body of the shaft became vertical in orientation, so that it was impossible to explore it further without rope, lantern, and courage. Fortunately, our objective lay in the other possibility, a gently sloping portal of perhaps twenty feet in length, which terminated as neatly at its end as if it had been pressed into the rock with a chisel. Even in the dim, the floor glittered.”

Thomas paused to let fly with another projectile, and to attempt to gauge his audience’s level of interest. It was difficult to judge the disposition of such an entity, but, as wolverine or forest spirit, Sour Thistle’s attention seemed to be firmly upon his recounting.

She nodded at him, and he finished the story.

“It was cold below – an extended stay would have lost me my nose – but it was certainly not mystic in nature. It was the simple work of dark and stone and depth. After some time, and clever consideration on how to utilize the frosty cavern, they had taken to carrying out buckets of spring water, to fill the pockmarked divots in the slab floor. At first as a novelty, and then, when Mother Layton fell ill, as a method of easing the woman’s pains.

“Handing me a canvas sack, he located a hammer they’d left for convenience, and started pounding at the icy pools. Soon we were both well weighted, and young Layton gave me a broad grin.

“”Usually,” he said, “I manage to chill a pitcher large only enough for Mother. Perhaps, now that I have your assistance, Father might also find relief from the heat – although, given your aged legs, he may only get enough for a sip or two by the time you arrive.”

“With that, the boy made off running, leaving behind the echo of his laughter.

“Hell, I was grinning too when we broke from the entrance and onto the hill side. I’m a man who, by his nature, must move through the bush with a careful eye. My belly depends upon it. I’d forgotten what it was to stretch my limbs and test my reflexes against the blur of suddenly rearing spruce, and stony outcroppings.

“My boots felt as if they were moving faster than my feet, and while rampaging down the rugged slope I knew I might up-end for a rather brutal descent, but it did little to slow my pace. Layton had youth and familiarity with the route, but I’ve seen my share of turf, and our chase was a good one. He’d taken us in at a leisurely pace, and I realized then he’d been saving our muscle for the challenge of the return. By the end of the marathon, my focus was naught but branches, cramping thighs, and a spreading chill across my back, where the load had rested for the majority of the endeavour.

“Half the haul melted, and went to slake the thirst of the plants along the way, but it is a difficult thing to describe the reward I found in the pleasure which overtook Ma Layton’s voice as she accepted her ice water. The thought of the woman, dying there in her little room, but so overjoyed at a chill on her throat, was a satisfaction – and a wonderment – which moved me, and had naught to do with the unnatural.”

Sour Thistle nodded, her eyes alive with an intelligence which seemed, to Thomas, eerie against the savage form in which she’d manifested.

“I see your point, Mr Blackhall,” said the wolverine, in guttural, dancing, tones. Sour Thistle scratched at her ear. “Who won the race?”

“It was a near thing, but I’d say our contributions were equal.”

“Come, come,” chuckled the beast.

Thomas snorted at his own pride.

“He made first fall on plowed field, but I was but an arm’s length behind.”

Sour Thistle snapped her snout twice, and assumed what appeared, to Blackhall, to be a smile.

“You have been honest with me, sir,” she said, “and I hold your actions in honour – although I somewhat lament the loss of a quality meal. You’ve obviously strayed far to find me here, so ask now what you-”

Her rasping words were cut short by the descent of a broad-winged harrier, which landed on the grasses near to its mistress and commenced trotting on its clawed feet as it squawked its news. It’s message delivered, the bird again took flight, heading rapidly eastward.

Blackhall saw the sentinels on the hill begin running then, moving to be by the side of their queen even if they did not yet have orders. It was all a loss, however – as they decamped, a roaring hum filled the air.

A buck burst from the forest edge, swathed in a layer of damp, writhing, ebony.

As Thomas watched, it seemed to first shrink, then collapse in a skeletal heap.

For a moment, he longed for the dark of the cave to hide in.

 

(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:

rbh Waves Lake Medium 01.wav by RHumphries
rbh crickets birds quietday.wav by RHumphries

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.

182 – Coffin: The Book Worm, Part 1 of 1

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode one hundred and eighty two.

Flash Pulp

Tonight we present, Coffin: The Book Worm, Part 1 of 1.

[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp182.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Garaaga’s Children.

 

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 his roommate, Bunny, receive an unexpected letter regarding an avid reader.

 

Flash Pulp 182 – Coffin: The Book Worm, Part 1 of 1

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

 

CoffinCoffin was staring out onto the apartment’s balcony from behind the sliding-door’s glass.

In the kitchen, Bunny was operating a blender and shouting explanations between bouts of ice-breaking.

“Yeah, I know they’re kinda lady-like, but sometimes I get feelin’ a little festive. Besides, how else am I going to get my vitamin C?”

It had been her idea to stay in for the evening.

“Flintstones vitamins,” he responded, only to have his words blotted out by renewed thrashing.

As the racket paused, it uncovered Bunny’s voice, mid-tune.

“…and getting caught in the rain.”

Then there was a knock at the door.

Will was mildly surprised to discover the mute standing in his hall. With an extended arm, he offered entrance to the newcomer, but the man shook his head in friendly refusal, and, instead, removed an envelope from his pocket and set it in Coffin’s palm. Nodding, the messenger then departed.

As the codger had lost his tongue early in life, the shaman was used to this being the extent of their conversation, but he couldn’t help but feel that the old bull had seemed shaken.

There were two slips of paper within the delivery, a single handwritten page, and a photocopy of scraps torn from the margins of what appeared to be fantasy novels. Beside a paragraph regarding the claiming of something called the Sword of Dawnswood was a woman’s name, Shirley Hartley, and a string of numbers. Along a bit of text describing an elven forest was another pairing – Cynthia Mayfield and a different set of digits – but also an apology. It read simply, “I’m so sorry.”

Scanning the accompanying notes, Coffin entered the kitchen.

“Forget the cocktails, we’re going out,” he said, but Bunny was already packing down a brimming thermos.

* * *

As they awaited their bus, Will muttered the letter into his roommate’s ear.

It read:

William

I have a matter which I believe requires your attention.

A kid I once knew was raiding his local used-bookstore for fiction, and came across the scrawl beside the bit about the sword. He’s a bit of a morbid little bugger, and he recognized the name from the news. He spent an afternoon tossing the shop, and he came up with the other. I have no idea if there are more – they may have been bought or missed.

Rather than find himself involved, he turned his discoveries over to me.

Those second-hand places have no real transaction records, but I got lucky – in the top right corner of the first page of both novels, the scribbler in question had signed his name: Neil Murray.

The missing both disappeared downtown, and, as you probably suspect, the numbers are GPS coordinates. As I write this, there are already uniformed men with tents and tiny brushes setting up in the woods at the edge of town.

I did some poking around just after I called in the blues. Neil is a security guard, and very fastidious. I talked to his boss briefly, and the harshest language he’s ever heard from his employee is the occasional “gosh.” All he does is sit around a waste treatment plant, watching cameras, and periodically walking the fence. He reads constantly. I’ve been inside his place, and there are books stacked up on every available surface.

None of them held any further scrawls though.

I even got my hands on a little of the patrol footage from the plant, just so I’d know Murray to see him. I had to go back and ask for some older stuff to be sure, but you can definitely make it out on the tape: he was changing. Becoming sort of – bulbous. His skin was stretching and rounding. By his last shift he was like a walking sausage with arms, right down to the translucent skin.

What I’m banking on them not finding till tomorrow is his parent’s house. When Mr and Mrs. Murray died in a car accident, he closed it up as sort of a shrine. I only know about it because of my, uh, direct investigation methodology, and hopefully it’ll take a bit for the boys to properly make their way through the paperwork.

I realize it’s a long run down the bus-line, but you need to look into 279 View’s garage.

Smith

It was deeper than Will was used to seeing the former lawman incriminate himself on paper – unless he was at hand to see the sheet burned – and by the time they were done reviewing the dispatch, Coffin was cursing every impeding stop before his own.

After an hour of swaying with regular halts, and nearing the end of the public-transport’s route, the pair found themselves deposited in a sparsely lit, but well treed, neighbourhood. It was a ten minute walk to the driveway they sought.

The pavement was cracked, but the yard was trim, and the light-blue house looked as if it might still have been lived in. There was an external side-door to the garage, and Will was pleased to find it unlocked.

A moment’s careful fumbling brought his fingers against a plastic faceplate, and he flipped on the overhead fluorescent lights. Bunny was close behind as he stepped into the open space.

In the corner furthest from the entrance, above the wooden rafters, was a massive white cocoon. Although many tendrils detached from the main body to keep the thing in place amongst the roof’s beams, the bulk of the nylon-looking weave was in a ten foot cylinder, pressed across the plywood walls at the web’s center.

“Holy ####, it’s Mothra,” said Bunny.

“Sort of,” replied Coffin, “he’s undergoing a metamorphoses. He’s becoming a moth-man.”

“Like with Richard Gere?”

“No.”

The both took a tentative step towards the silken structure, and Will found himself surveying the collected yard tools that lined the nearest wall.

He cleared his throat.

“It takes a long time for this sort of thing to happen. Months of collecting the proper nutrients – mostly pilfered from cracked braincases. I’ve known some imps who specialize in this sort of bargain, offering to turn them into a unique butterfly and all that. You need to slip off the map of reality pretty far to start seeing those hooligans though. I’m surprised he wasn’t caught talking to himself.”

“If anyone had given a ####, they’d-a noticed this ####er turning into a ###damn man-erpillar,” replied Bunny. “I’ve seen these guys lurking in the corners of laundry mats and cheap coffee shops. Poor #######s are usually too awkward to even hold their end of the conversation if you do them the favour of making small talk. I’ve always figured it was probably their upbringing.”

“Not a bad guess – might also explain why he only caved after his Ma and Pa died. At least they raised him well enough that he had some guilt about what he was doing. He’s got another week in that thing, but he likely thought his confessions would go unnoticed until well after he was beating his wings against the night sky.”

“So,” said Bunny, after a long sip from the lip of her silver canister, “what do we do? Call in a hundred-foot-tall bat?”

“Nah,” said Coffin, digging out a jerrycan. “We give him what most moths are looking for. I saw a gas station back on the main drag, let’s hustle before Smiths’ friends arrive.”

 

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

Coffin’s theme is Quinn’s Song: A New Man, by Kevin MacLeod ofhttp://incompetech.com/

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.

179 – Coffin: Nurture, Part 2 of 3

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode one hundred and seventy-nine.

Flash Pulp

Tonight we present, Coffin: Nurture, Part 2 of 3.
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp179.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Words with Walter.

 

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 his roommate, Bunny, find themselves involved in an unusual deathwatch.

 

Flash Pulp 179 – Coffin: Nurture, Part 2 of 3

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

 

CoffinThe man which Will had mentally nicknamed “The Hustler” had wasted an hour of his time that afternoon, and Coffin’s patience was running short.

“Look, you’ve hassled me every day for the last week. I’ve got your card, but you’ve got my answer. I am not now, nor will I likely ever be, interested in letting you make bank on some poor bastard who’s stuck waiting around for the afterlife, I’d no more put you in touch with anything serious than I’d entrust you with atomic weaponry, or, for that matter, my non-existent sister.”

Bunny, who felt odd about drinking around aggravating strangers, leaned forward on the bench that acted as Coffin’s ad hoc office, and tossed a Mr Big wrapper into the Eats’N’Treats’ trash barrel.

She indelicately licked the last of the chocolate from her teeth, then addressed the tie-wearing interloper.

“Listen, I don’t mean to stick my #### in your eye, but you ain’t been welcome since the first time I laid my beady ####ing peepers on your skeevy ###, back when you were still hanging out with that hypno-chatty cannibal ##### – why don’t you go searchin’ under another mushroom for yer ####in’ cookie makin’ elves?”

Before the rejoined could pull on a smirk and attempt to parlay his lemons into some sort of unwanted lemon-aid, a red Grand Cherokee bounced roughly over the curb. It’s tires held a brief shouting match with the pavement, then the vehicle came to a full stop, directly in front of the trio.

The nearest window slid down.

“I’m late, I’m sorry!” said the reckless driver, a man who appeared to be in his mid-forties, “Mom didn’t call me till just now, but he’s been dead since this morning!”

“Who died?” asked Bunny.

“His twin,” replied Will, standing.

As they piled in and pulled onto the roadway, Coffin caught sight of The Hustler jotting down the SUV’s license plate numbers.

He knew he had no time to do anything about it.

* * *

The house that was their destination stood along a shady lane on the west side of the city.

Rory MacGillivray’s body – boxed and besuited – was set up on display in the dapper front-parlour.

“It’s my mom’s place,” explained Alister, the surviving brother.

The man was having difficulty moving his gaze away from the dead face that was his mirror image, but a shove from Will coaxed him to comforting his keening mother.

“So,” Bunny said, once the client was out of earshot. “What’re we doing?”

“Well,” replied Coffin, digging the plastic container he’d demanded they stop to purchase out of its plastic bag. “Rory over there – and Alister too, actually – have death insurance. A few years ago I was paid handsomely to deal with their superstitions. Frankly, I have my doubts, but they’ve got a family tradition – from when they were still roaming the Scottish highlands – that, well, when they die this big cat comes around to try and steal their soul, unless it’s distracted.”

“Jesus, I ain’t ever had a cat that I’ve been able to tell to do ####.”

As she spoke, the duo retreated back into the entrance-hall.

“Me either, that’s why I’ve got a fist full of catnip.”

With consistent generosity, Will began to spread plant matter over the carpet.

“You’re just gonna chuck that everywhere?”

“Cleaning up afterwards isn’t part of the service. Once this is done, we’re going to hang around telling each other riddles – the thing loves ‘em, and it’ll try to answer one if it’s presented. If nothing happens by midnight, we go home while brother Al takes over. Then we’re here in the morning, to let him finish the meet and greet stuff, and the process ends when they bury Rory, tomorrow.”

During their self-guided tour they’d managed to thoroughly dust the well appointed ground-floor, so Coffin turned his attentions to the staircase that lead upwards.

The extra distance from the mourning matriarch’s wailing gave the small cluster of bedrooms a feeling of tranquility that was absent on the lower level.

Will was tossing the last third of his supply about the hardwood when he noticed a woman sitting behind a partially closed door, on a crisply made bed. There was a child nursing at her breast. He gave an embarrassed smile, and began to turn away, but was met with no reaction. His companion, who’d taken the opportunity to open a fresh mini-bottle of Bacardi, also noticed the vacant countenance.

“The dead guy’s wife, I guess,” said Bunny, “I’d have likely gotten that stoned too, if I’d actually given a #### about Tim when I killed him.”

Approaching from yet another chamber, a stooped man with steel gray hair entered the corridor.

“She’s been saddened by recent events – but so have we all. Worry about my boy, not his bint, and I’ll take care for wee Johnny when we’ve got Rory in the ground.”

Saying nothing more, the old man hobbled to the steps and disappeared.

Coffin cast another glance in the widow’s direction, but still met no response.

He sprinkled the last of his herbs in front of her entry, then, shrugging, left.

Their first task complete, the shaman and the drunk took up seats at the rear of the viewing area, and began to pose questions to which neither were allowed to answer.

Bunny found it a very long ten hours.

* * *

Coffin was awake and standing at the kitchen counter when the call came. Closing a leather-covered, and yellow-paged, notebook, noting the caller ID, he finished his milk and answered the phone.

“Yeah? Did you see the kitty? You didn’t fall asleep, did you?”

“No, it’s not that – you need to come right away. Someone needs to stand vigil. I’ll be at the store in ten.” Without waiting for a reply, Alister hung up.

Snatching up the remote, Will increased the television’s volume until Bunny snorted awake and lobbed a couch cushion at him.

“What’s yer problem?” she asked.

“Trouble back at the wake,” he replied, zipping his leather jacket in preparation for meeting the night’s cold.

* * *

Once given a brief explanation, the police that wandered the house largely ignored the tired pair of hired mourners stationed again on their folding seats.

They were at the end of their client’s briefing.

“The guy, who you say took the infant” said Coffin, “was he wearing a cheap gray suit, two sizes too big? Did he smell like Hai Karate?”

“I was a kinda too focused on the shotgun to think about smelling him,” replied Alister, “but, yeah, I guess.”

“How’s your sister-in-law doing?” asked Bunny.

“I can’t be here,” said the grieving twin, “I need to help look for John Robert.”

Dodging past a woman in uniform, he exited the house.

Rubbing at the side of her nose, Bunny broke the ensuing silence.

“Who steals a widow’s kid when the dad’s body isn’t even planted? That’s ####ed up.”

“That moron hustler – but it’s not human. I’ve done some reading, and I’m fairly sure it’s a suckling.”

“More voodoo? Mama was raising a demon baby?”

Coffin cleared his throat.

“Not intentionally. These folks all seem to believe the little one is genuine, so there was probably a real pregnancy. The thing must have murdered the real son pretty early on, and replaced it – maybe even while they were still at the hospital. Hard to tell the difference when they’re so fresh, especially when it’s constantly feeding. I wonder if it had anything to do with Rory’s accident? Pops might have realized he was raising a cuckoo-child.”

For a while, Will chewed at his thumbnail and listened to the chatter of the passing cops.

“What do we do?” Bunny asked, after rattling off five open-ended puzzlers into the empty air.

“Once the idiotic fast-talker is found, I know of a nunnery of sorts, up north, and they can handle junior. Since Alister has buggered off, we need to stay here and ensure Rory makes it through to the other side. I ain’t giving these people their money back, and my strengths are mostly in dealing with the dead – I do, however, know of a guy who specializes in handling the living.”

 

(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.

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.

178 – Nurture: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 3

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode one hundred and seventy-eight.

Flash Pulp

Tonight we present, Nurture: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 3.
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp178.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Words with Walter.

 

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 amidst a wasteland.

 

Flash Pulp 178 – Nurture: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 3

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

 

BlackhallThomas wiped his soot-dirtied palm across the hem of his greatcoat, and promised himself time for proper laundry should he ever again encounter the water necessary.

The frontiersman stood on a blackened plain, with a dry mouth and skin cracked from recent heat. He craved the leafy shade that the field of smoking stumps had once represented, but, more over, he longed to return to the journey which would bring him to his Mairi, and away from his current miserable chase – given his thirst, he wasn’t confident he’d live to see its end.

He’d been on the hunt for Silence Babb, and the damnable bairn, for half-a-fortnight, and, while the course was at first relatively simple, the ocean of flame which had risen up amongst the mid-Summer’s timber had, on the fourth evening, and for the full day following, entrapped him in a creek barely wider than his own shoulders.

His escape from the blaze was a near thing.

As he’d readied for his departure from the stream that was his haven, he’d had little idea that it might be his last sight of cool moisture. Almost worse was the fact that, although he could guess the general direction of the traveling-pair, the fire had consumed any marker indicating their actual passage.

Now, as his boots churned up ash and an occasional smouldering ember, he cursed his heart as a fool’s for ever having been sidetracked from the path of his beloved.

The temptation to strip off garments, and leave behind his tools, was strong under the added weight of the noon-sun, but, as he crested yet another cindered hillock, a minuscule buzzing reached his ears.

With a smile, he slapped at the mosquito which alighted upon his cheek.

* * *

Seven days earlier, Thomas had determined that none in Saltflat Township could account for the babe that the woman had carried into the midst of the hardscrabble residents.

Those who’d witnessed her wandering could find no good to say in regards to the lineage of the child, and all were quick to point to the chronic moral degeneracy so often attributed to the family as a whole. Despite their tales of faulty ancestry, however, none cast blame upon the elder Babbs for having turned his wayward offspring out, even if it meant sending his mewling heir with her – especially as the girl refused to divulge the identity of her suitor.

When Blackhall had made inquiries as to how Silence, a farmer’s daughter largely marooned upon her father’s acreage, had managed to secretly bring the pregnancy to term under the eyes of the surrounding prattle-tongues, and her own kin, the usual answer was a change of topic to the impropriety of the infant’s constant posture at her breast.

Most were so concerned with the supposed vulgarity of this public nursing that they gave no notice to the vacant aspect about the new mother’s eyes. If she appeared haggard, it was the opinion of those who did observe her fatigue, that it was true of all recently-minted parents, and doubly so for those who set themselves to raise an innocent without a proper spouse.

Thomas had cursed the priggish nature of the area’s inhabitants as he’d run to retrieve his kit from the horse-shed for which he’d overpaid to shelter in.

The conversation that set him afoot was a short one.

“Sir,” Helen Brooks, Silence’s favoured companion, had said in interruption of his stroll upon a country lane. “I have risked much by making my way to you, so I would beg you hear me out. My brother has spoken of your unnatural gifts, and I ask you to consider the case of the youngest Babbs.”

“Speak on,” was Thomas’ reply.

The girl had collected herself then, slowing her speech so as to prevent the need for a repetition of her plea.

“If she was expectant, I would have known. We were neighbours, and the truest of confidants to each other. She’s barely whispered sweet words to a boy, so I do not see how it would be possible that she’s lain with a man.”

“You said ‘were’? Are you no longer acquainted?”

“That is the crux of why I have sought you out. Gardner – he who recommended you – has just now returned home from a stop at the inn, where, he reports, he witnessed her exodus in a northerly direction. He says that many laid unkind words at her feet, and that she was weeping into her chest as she departed with her charge at her teat. I know better, however, for I have seen them together. Silence’s head was stooped so that she might speak to her bundle, which, by itself, is not so unusual, but it – I have heard it speak back to her. I might say, more accurately, command her, though its mouth was gorging at her bosom.”

As he was familiar with tales of such a torment, Blackhall’s interrogations had been rapid and rough-tongued, but his rudeness made those he’d questioned eager to set him about his route. He’d quickly found the broken grass that marked her wake, but, as he enumerated Silence’s possible symptoms, he was disappointed to find all other inquires answered only with ignorance.

The length of the protracted pursuit had come as a surprise, but, on the fourth day, he’d grown confident that he’d overtake the girl by nightfall. It was then that he’d caught the first whiff of smoke on the wind.

* * *

Crushing the avaricious insect, Thomas felt a warm slick of his own vital fluids spread across his fingertips. His eyes had become keen, and he turned slow circles, hoping to catch sight of whatever puddle the pest originated from. He well knew that no such bloodsucker would be found far from water, and his survey was rewarded by a shimmer below two charred, cross-fallen, pines.

Knocking off his hat, Blackhall ran for the pool – spring or standing water, he cared not.

His headlong rush was brought up short by the withered husk of a corpse, once human, now nothing more than a tightly-drawn graying skin, set roughly over an assemblage of bones. She lay largely in the pool that was his destination, and it took only the briefest investigation to ascertain that it was Silence, as a disordered, three-deep row of puncture marks surrounded her right nipple on all sides.

Waving away the swarm of mosquitoes gathered over their birthing puddle, Thomas lay his hat upon her rigid face, and pledged to return for a proper burial.

Although he’d been delayed by the conflagration, his find gave him confidence that the matter would soon be resolved. Two ruts moved away from the cadaver, and through the ebony dust, illustrating clearly the path of the crawling brute.

It was a hard decision to still drink from the damp sepulcher, but he knew it would be little use if he were to perish of dehydration before he’d made some small vindication of the murder.

Another three hours found him standing over his objective.

“Beast,” he managed, kicking at the tiny form.

In defiance of the imp’s size, Blackhall found his foot rebuked as if by half the heft of a full grown man. The unexpected bulk further encouraged the frontiersman’s fury, however, and in short order Thomas had the fiend pinned beneath his sole, at the neck – as he might a snake.

The skin of camouflage that was the suckling’s greatest strength was rendered ineffective by the flexing rows of reed-like straws that made up the savage hellion’s mouth, and by a clear view of the split eyes that were so often hidden against the tender skin of its victim.

“Shall I be eternally assaulted by such as I have no recourse to end?” asked Thomas, addressing the sky. He faced his captive. “As you’ve none of the allergy to silver which besets so many of your occult brethren, I’ll only put a pause to your wickedness – but, with the honour of dearest love to bind me, I’ll find some way to dispatch you, no matter how long the work takes. To begin, I’ll render you feeble for as many decades as it’ll take you to regenerate your armament.”

With that, he dug into the layer of ash, and retrieved a fist-sized stone. The shattering of the counterfeit child’s hollow teeth took many hours, and the binding, and dual burials, took several more.

 

(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.

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.

171 – The Conjurer: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 1

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode one hundred and seventy-one.

Flash Pulp

Tonight we present, The Conjurer: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 1.

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This week’s episodes are brought to you by The Bothersome Things Podcast.

 

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, encounters a practitioner of dark artifice while awaiting transportation.

 

Flash Pulp 171 – The Conjurer: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 1

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

 

BlackhallAt the edge of an Eastern District dock sat three men awaiting the craft they’d been assured would arrive to take them further westward, out of the civilized portions of Upper Canada, and past the expanses labeled only as “Great Tract of Wood Land” on even the most recent of the new Queen’s maps.

The traveller who’d introduced himself as Mister Philips, a rough-faced farmer who tended a plot of land deep in the shadows of the black spruce, was winding down a protracted telling, and wiping a rag across the damp slick at the base of his neck.

“Despite that I’d suckled it from the day my musket knocked down its mother, the beast ate up my swine. Energetic from its meal, and free of its leash, it mightily walloped the interior of my barn, then, collapsing the lumber, it made its way into the bush country.

“You can see, sir, that raising a bear is no light business.”

His companion in conversation, a heavyset gadabout, whose groomed sideburns stretched to meet his masterfully crafted moustache above a strong, but barren, chin, harrumphed before responding.

“While your point is certainly well taken, I’ve a long history of probing the improbable and producing anything which was thought impossible. That is not, certainly, to imply I have any intention of cultivating a cub of my own, but I do dare say that the act would be well within the capabilities of Abraham Warwick, conjurer, exorcisor, and archimage.”

He bowed slightly at the completion of his delivery, but not so far as to upset the position of his towering beaver-pelt top hat.

“A man of supernatural knowledge?” replied the homesteader, “Surely, you banter idly.”

“Then what of this?” riposted the claimant, tapping his head-wear with a flourish, then sweeping his arm to display its empty state to his pair of audience members. Replacing it upon his pate, he drummed at its surface a second time, and once again removed it, bowing low.

From the interior brim peered three white mice, whose red eyes dodged about keenly and whose pink noses worked vigorously at the breeze.

Atop the stout barrel he’d been utilizing as a resting place during their shared vigil, Thomas Blackhall found he was no longer willing to maintain his silence.

“It’s been my experience,” he said, “that those who practice magic are oft like politicians – it’s a rare thing to meet an honest one, and most accomplish their goals not through the truth they attempt to present, but instead with nimble fingers and deft lies.”

“Well,” replied Philips, “I thought it was quite extraordinary.”

Thomas waved off a persistent black fly.

“He’s obviously trained the vermin to nest in his hair.” Blackhall paused to bite at his thumbnail, and temper his language. “Think how long the hush lasted, in this swampy heat, before you finally told us of your departed bruin. Consider, too, where those beasts must be, uh, marking their business.”

“Tis no concern if the beauties are conjured from a realm beyond,” huffed Warwick.

The farmer nodded agreement.

“Seems a shoddy mystical dimension to be infected so greatly with rodents,” replied the still seated frontiersman.

The self-proclaimed warlock leaned forward, saying, “- and what of this then?”

With a snap he seemed to pluck a twelve-pence piece from just behind the ear of the ploughman.

“Well, goodness!” exclaimed Philips.

Warwick pocketed the coin.

“Surely -” began Thomas, but the cropper rounded on him.

“You speak quite rudely to a man who’s shown us not one, but two, great works, and only since our approach to this shoddy jetty. Might I trouble you for what credentials you claim in impugning this sage’s proofs? For if you are more than some deserting rabble from the continental army, it is not apparent from your stained appearance or grizzled words.”

The heat had shown no mercy to Blackhall’s public countenance, and he knew it. Still, the reality was that he’d had plenty of opportunity to witness Warwick’s slight of hand, upon the porch of The King’s Inn, and he’d already run short of patience for the showman, who he considered little better than a vagrant sharper.

Swatting at Philips’ ear, as if to shoo a fly, the magician produced another shilling.

“It only seems fair that we split the profits of our encounter, good sir,” he said, placing it in his supporter’s palm.

Thomas stood.

“I will show you something truly fantastic, but first we must make a trade. You are flush with coinage, mayhaps from a local card table? Whatever the case, I ask you to entrust it to me. I promise I will not move beyond your sight.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Philips complied.

Blackhall quickly stripped off his coat and sword, laying all in a great heap aside his travel sack.

“I request, also, that you keep this scoundrel well from my supplies while I am below the surface.”

He knew the simple mention ought to be enough to guard against the potential thief, who would fear suspicion upon himself.

Without waiting for reply, Thomas grasped the sack of currency tightly in his off-hand, and jumped into the cool waters,whose depth covered his own height by some two feet. As he descended, he placed the stone, which he wore upon a rawhide strand about his neck, under his tongue.

The occult charm left him breathing easily, and he was relieved to be away from the conversation and swelter.

He gave an approving hand sign to his spectators, who motioned a reply, and he made ready to wait as he was gently rocked by the languid current.

Finally, when his eyes made contact with the churn of the approaching barge, he surfaced.

“I agree that you too have talents for which I have no explanation,” said the farmer, tucking away his returned bounty as the swimmer dried himself and the boat drew near, “but, in truth, you’ve both shown me things which, until today, I would have thought not possible. Who am I to say that a never-ending stay within the river is somehow better than an unending supply of wealth?”

As the man spoke, Blackhall retrieved a small vial from within his wares.

“Fine,” he said.

Warwick took on a look, as if he were preparing to present yet another trick, but, before he could act, Thomas threw down the glass tube, shattering it upon the wooden planking. As a small pop emanated from within, the hurler uttered three guttural consonants.

The hat of the conjurer, exorcisor, and archimage, was suddenly aflame.

There was a brief panic as the width of the landing was crossed twice, then the blazing apparel was cast into the stream – amongst its former wearer’s singed strands, the mice chittered, scurrying furiously about their limited plateau.

Thomas finished dressing.

As the transport secured its riggings, its passengers waited a time in silence; one puzzling, one frowning, and one suppressing a rare smirk.

“Excuse my curiosity, by why did you require my funds?” asked Philips, as they boarded.

“Partly as collateral to secure my own belongings against theft, but also to keep your limited fortune from subtle pinches. It’s not an inexhaustible income if its source is the pocket of the same baffled admirer from behind whose ear the tender seems to be produced. Worry not, however – you’ll have plenty of opportunity to count your claim and even the tab as we go. I doubt Warwick has much choice about awaiting a later berth, as its likely the townsfolk will soon be considering the state of their own purses.”

The red-cheeked hustler made no interjection.

It would be a slow crawl up the river, but Blackhall found himself quite amused throughout.

 

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

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.