Tag: Responsibility

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode two hundred and forty.

Tonight we present, The Murder Plague: Responsibility, Part 3 of 3.
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Lifestyle Jazz.

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, Harm Carter finds himself caught between a crazed sheriff and an armoured combat vehicle.

The Murder Plague: Responsibility, Part 3 of 3

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

Mr. Baldy’s first instinct seemed to be to follow the sheriff into the apartment building, but, in a rare of fit of reason, he instead turned to me and asked what I thought we should do.

As he spoke, the girl in his arms began to squirm.

While I considered my response, the armoured vehicle turned onto the roundabout fronting the tower. As it slowed, its roaming weapon ceased its circling patrols and focused its accusing finger directly at us.

I was quite familiar with the model of transport, as my final army posting had been warming the interior bench of just such a buggy. I knew it required at least one driver and one gunner to be operating as it was, and a homicidal crew wouldn’t last long in so tight a space.

It was oddly comforting, in a way, but my thoughts had taken an odd path: I was increasingly convinced that I was at risk of never being able to find my way back to Becky – or worse, that these men would harm her, if they could.

Despite my concerns, I said, “they aren’t infected.”

We waited until they’d rumbled to a halt in the guest parking space that must have once been regularly occupied by pizza delivery cars. Once stopped, the beetle’s recessed loud speaker whined briefly, and a voice that could be no older than twenty-one asked, “is this the entirety of your group?”

I wondered briefly if he was reading from the same sort of suggestion card that we used to be issued; the kind filled with helpful phrases for dealing with exotic locals, although I suspected his was something closer to a flowchart for dealing with the murderously insane.

Baldy replied, “there’s another guy, but he took off when you came around the corner.”

He still hadn’t learned the value of important information, so I added, “-and he’s crazy.”

To which the youth behind the armour replied, “yeah, that’ll happen.”

Before he could find the next step on his chart, Weaver made his re-appearance, some five floors up. Actually, he may have been on the balcony a while; it was really only his scream of, “gimme back my mother, you thieving bastards,” that drew our attention.

Despite his statement, he wasn’t in much mood to bargain, as he made clear by tossing two flame-topped bottles onto our visitors’ chariot. Although the impact of the Molotov cocktails threw glass and liquid flame in every direction, we’d kept our distance from the imposing transport, and it saved us from injury.

Unsurprisingly, however, the driver wasn’t terribly impressed with the sheriff’s guerrilla recycling effort, and the vehicle’s engine roared with his displeasure. He had little sympathy for the building’s once well-maintained decorative flower bed as he pulled away from the pavement and found the quickest route back to the road.

As they ran, the thing’s cannon tracked upwards, but the violence I anticipated never arrived. They simply drove off, with a flaming roof.

For a moment silence descended, then the toddler returned to weeping. Baldy looked as if he were ready to join her.

We couldn’t see Weaver, as we’d sheltered under the lip of the lobby canopy, but it was difficult to forget that he was up there.

It must have been the girl that drew his attention, as he suggested we, “ought to come out where he could see us.”

To move forward, into the open, seemed a sure way of relieving ourselves of the burdens of the world, but I didn’t much like the idea of retreating into the potential house of horrors that the apartment building represented.

The longer we took in thinking about it, the more I became sure the sheriff had retreated from the balcony, and would be arriving behind us shortly.

I panicked briefly, feeling as if I were on a rapidly deflating life raft, and then the clatter returned.

It wasn’t like the original, cautious, approach – watching the abrupt turns, I cringed at the brutality their seat belts must have been absorbing. They paused on the street, swung backwards, and sent their tail barreling in our direction.

Until the last second, I wasn’t sure if they would stop short of running us down. As it was, we were forced to step back as the rear hatch split wide.

The owner of the young voice reached out with waving hands, while shouting, “get in, get in,” from behind his full-body hazardous materials combat-suit.

I’d like to say that, in a moment of clarity, I pushed Baldy and the child inside, then ran, because I thought I was a danger to them. It’s not true, though.

I did it because I was convinced the stranger in the black suit would permanently take me away from Becky – I did it because the sickness had taken hold.

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

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to 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.

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode two hundred and thirty-nine.

Tonight we present, The Murder Plague: Responsibility, Part 2 of 3.
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Pendragon Variety.

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, Harm Carter finds himself the hostage of a scheming lawman.

The Murder Plague: Responsibility, Part 2 of 3

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

“You, sir, have the intelligence of a lobotomized chimp with a penchant for model glue,” I informed Mr Baldy.

I knew it would have made little difference if he hadn’t attempted to flee our crashed vehicle, but I was losing patience.

“Weaver hasn’t shot us yet,” he replied.

Although he his argument was somewhat valid, we would find out why we’d been spared soon enough.

With a wiggle of his department-issued shotgun, Sheriff Weaver said, “you will stay close together, and you will stay directly in front of me. I’m very familiar with the route: The only danger is in disobeying orders.”

I knew the statement to be as solid as a dead man’s handshake, but I kept my silence. It takes a madman to think he has any sort of existence, within the cloud of the murder plague, under control.

Instead I asked after the child. A quick inspection of her arm had convinced me that it was, at the least, badly sprained. While there was no bone protruding, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it was broken.

She did her best to remain calm and quiet, but, even when she wasn’t wailing, there was moisture in her eyes, and her chin suffered bouts of trembling.

“There are appropriate medical supplies at the apartment,” was Weaver’s reply.

At that point I spun on my heel and took in the trees and open fields that surrounded us.

As was so often the case in my days of uniform modeling for Uncle Sam, there was nothing for it but to start marching.

Baldy and I carried the toddler, so that we might make a decent pace. It was the division of labour which brought on problems.

My time toting the girl was largely spent wandering through memories of Becky at the same age. On a warm August morning, when she was four, Rebbecca came to show me a “pretty bug” she’d found while roaming the backyard. The bee had landed on her palm, and, as I moved to shoo it away, Becky defensively closed her hand. She’d spent the rest of the day forcing me to search cupboards, closets, and couch cushions, for any lurking, stinging beasts.

It was one of the few occasions in her life that she asked me for help.

As Baldy undertook his turn, my time was largely spent listening to his complaining. I believe he was attempting to bargain with the crazed sheriff, but it sounded like a litany of reasons he was living in an unjust universe.

My bit finger throbbed, my legs ached, and my back was sore: I finally interrupted my weasel-y companion’s diatribe.

“If this were a fair world, I wouldn’t find myself on a death march with the fellow who couldn’t be bothered to trim his hedges for the nearly-a-decade that he was my neighbour.”

Baldy’s rodent jaw snapped shut, but only briefly.

“Who the hell are you to talk about caretaking?” he replied, “I couldn’t help but notice how piss-poor a job you did of raising your daughter after your wife died. They had to hire an extra recycling guy just to haul off your wine bottles, and you’re supposed to be a god damn war hero. Screw you and your well-groomed yard, where’s your lawn, or your daughter, now?”

“Where ever she is, I raised her to take care of herself, and I’m sure she’s above ground – can you say the same?”

His cheeks reddened, and I knew I was right in my long-held guess that he’d been forced to dig shallow graves for his family.

It was a rough-tongued bit of work, but I wasn’t feeling entirely myself.

Weaver interrupted our exchange.

“All walk, no talk,” he said.

The road continued, and the sky darkened. The passing houses became suburbs, and the suburbs eventually sprouted residential towers. None of the streets were lit, and many of the glass-fronted plaza stores had been opened to the world with bricks, and yet we saw no one living.

We did skirt several abandoned crime scenes – a pair of nyloned legs protruded from the bed of a red pick up truck, a herculean man had been pinned to a beige bungalow with a fireplace poker, and a teen rotted in the parking lot of the McDonald’s from which she’d stumbled after apparently being poisoned. At least, that’s my guess, as the weather had done little to wash away the slug-trail of vomit behind her.

As dawn broke, we were firmly within the borders of Capital City.

“We must be close to the blockade?” I asked.

I should mention that, before exiting the truck, I’d considered attempting to hide our recently acquired GPS in a satchel, but, in the end, I wasn’t willing to risk Weaver confiscating our escape route. I’d stashed it beneath my seat.

Still, I’d spent plenty of driving hours staring at the blinking box, and I was sure of my estimate.

“The river is the quarantine line,” replied the lawman.

I didn’t yet recognize the back alleys and side-streets through which he lead us, and, I admit, for a moment I thought that perhaps Weaver really was headed out of the catastrophe.

My hopes were done in when we stopped at the gaping doors of a stout apartment building’s lobby. The balconies above had wept rust onto the cement walls, and wilted plants stood before many sliding entrances.

I wondered how many corpses were decaying within, and how many units might be rigged with bullets or bombs. I had no interest in entering, though I felt increasingly sure that was our captor’s aim.

Baldy had been carrying our bundle, and I turned to take her. If we were going in, it would better her odds.

That’s when I heard it.

Have you ever witnessed an armoured vehicle in action?

It’s not like on the big screen, where a tank can burst through a wall with little warning. They’ve come a long way since my days of tin-can touring, but there’s a grinding approach to that much metal that they’ll never make silent.

The gray people-carrier didn’t seem to care for concealment, anyhow, as it pulled into view. Even three blocks down, I could see the rotating sweeps of its roof-mounted peashooter.

“I’m a god damn genius,” said Weaver. “I knew those sumbitches had drones. They got out here P.D.Q., though, didn’t they.”

As the steel beetle halved the distance between us, the sheriff sprinted into the depths of the lobby.

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

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to 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.