Tag: short story

Flash Pulp 067 – Koyle's Ferry: A Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 3

Welcome to Flash Pulp, Episode Sixty-Seven.

Flash PulpTonight, we present Koyle’s Ferry: A Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 3

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp067.mp3]

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This week’s episodes are brought to you by the Relic Radio family of podcasts.

Did you know that genius auteur, and occasional loud mouth, Orson Welles, was responsible for hundreds of hours of audio content that pretentious hipsters never cite as an influence in their own media creation? The man was huge in radio before he was huge in general, and every week Relic Radio brings you a sample of his acting, producing, or opinions, via Orson Welles: On The Air.

Find it at RelicRadio.com, or search for it via iTunes.

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 present the first in a three part serialization following student of the occult, and master frontiersman, Thomas Blackhall. In this opening chapter we find Thomas once again moving rapidly downstream, in search of his Mairi.

Flash Pulp 067 – Koyle’s Ferry: A Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 3

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

The road west was not an easy one, craven man and beast roamed freely where the trees were at their deepest, and many souls were lost amongst the shadows before the soil was finally settled.

Thomas Blackhall had had little to do with the roadway until he came up against the Rideau, a thick band of rapid water cutting the land north to south. He’d spent a day locating a suitable crossing, and dusk was falling as he came upon the stone lodging of John Koyle.

Despite the late hour, and the dense mosquitoes, Thomas found the man seated at the corner of his porch, idly gazing down the path that lead from the east and broke suddenly at the river’s edge. When Koyle finally caught sight of the great-coated man, marching from the southern trees, he started.

“Hallo there, friend,” the ferry-master said, rising from his chair.

“- and a good evening to you, sir,” Blackhall replied. His satchel and rifle lay heavy at his shoulder, and his sabre had taken on the weight of a rock club not long after noon. Still, Thomas eyed the dipping sun and rising moon, judging the distance across the river against the size of the boat house that abutted the shore.

“Seems a might late for a crossing this eve,” Koyle noted with a conversational air.

“Would I be correct in guessing that you offer up a spare bed or three in yonder handsome residence, should it be the case that travelers arrive, but are not yet ready to endeavour onwards towards the next leg of the King’s cart path?” The homestead was well tended despite its distance from civilization, and Thomas made out a plaintiff mooing from one of the two barns which lay beyond.

“Indeed you would be, sir, at only a half dollar an evening,” replied Koyle, smiling.

Again Thomas turned to face the last of the daylight.

The weight of his baggage was heavy, but it was the small water tight container in his breast pocket that carried heaviest in his considerations.

“I have enough bacon inside to do five men under, and eggs from the morning, laid by my own hens round back,” Koyle said, “and only a pittance more to your bill.”

The final slip of sun drained away as he spoke, and the combined effect brought Thomas to a decision. He let one of his satchel’s straps loll from his shoulder.

“Come then, I’ll gladly pay you for bed and feast, but I’d rather be away as early tomorrow as is possible, so spare not the bacon this evening.”

“That’s how I always figure it, sir,” Koyle replied, holding the door wide to allow his guest entry.

* * *

Although he had seen no other boarder, nor noted wife, mistress or child about the house, nocturnal whispers tickled at Blackhall’s sleep throughout the dark hours. Even in his best efforts, with ear to wall and all otherwise silent, he was unable to make out more than a murmur, nor gather the context of the words, and the lack of understanding left him sleepless despite his fatigue and the well stuffed bed.

He met the dawn gruffly, and was eager to be away from any house that knew so little silence.

As he stepped from his room, he was greeted by Koyle, already seated at the thick ash table upon which they’d supped.

Blackhall had not heard the man rise.

“G’mornin’ to ye,’ the man offered, his chipper tone a minor offense to Thomas’ half-slumbering ear.

Rather than begin to list his reasons for believing otherwise, Blackhall lifted his satchel to his shoulder and nodded towards the door.

Mist still swirled above the dew, and as the two made their way to the river’s edge, a musk caught in the wind, leaving Thomas glad he had yet to fill his belly.

“If you’ll have a seat sir, I’ll have you right across,” said Koyle, taking up the line that left the small boat affixed.

It was a long row, over fast water, but as they moved to the center of the river the breaking sun cast light upon a pristine panorama.

“You’ll note the stone outcrop up yonder,” the ferry-man offered to the silence, his tone and words those of a practiced man making a well repeated trip. “The natives refer to it as the Devil’s nose, likely for its sharp condition.”

Some of Blackhall’s misgivings had fallen away with the shore, and he’d taken a pinch of Virginian tobacco into one of the fine Spanish papers he carried always. Closing away his supplies, he found a match amongst his satchel, which he had set, with his sabre, at his feet.

“- and there,” the man with the oar continued, “you’ll note Ophelia’s rapids, named I suppose for the madness required for a death-seeker to risk their turbulence. At sitting level there is an illusion that the rapids run flat, but if you were to stand, you’d note that there is in fact a ten foot fall upon the farthest side.”

Thomas stood, to humour the man, and Koyle joined him, despite his familiarity with the crossing.

Blackhall leaned forward.

“I see no drop.” The frontiersman said.

Once again the ferry-man had moved without noise.

As the oar struck Thomas’ skull, there was a flash of brilliance behind his eyes – then all was wet and darkness.

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm. The audio and text formats of Flash Pulp are released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

Flash Pulp 066 – Joe Monk, Emperor Of Space: Surfing, Part 1 of 1

Flash PulpWelcome to Flash Pulp, Episode Sixty-Six.

Tonight, we present Joe Monk, Emperor Of Space: Surfing, Part 1 of 1

[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp066.mp3]

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This week’s episodes are brought to you by the Flash Pulp page on Facebook.

It’s like a wild west show crashed into a Comic-Con.

To join, click here.

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 present a tale from the education of Joe Monk, well before he became The Emporer Of Space.

Flash Pulp 066 – Joe Monk, Emperor Of Space: Surfing, Part 1 of 1

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

Joe Monk had been traveling with his new friend, the short and hard-shelled alien who called himself Macbeth, for three weeks. He’d learned a lot in that time, all at the alien’s insistence.

They had just completed another short history lesson.

“Ugh, listen, I appreciate your help, but I don’t really – I mean, that noise, that ghastly whine, I’d just rather not,” said Joe.

“These are the customs of your people!” Macbeth replied, his pincers working the ship’s controls. The giant egg’s engines began to throb as the Sagan drive prepared for more heavy lifting. “When you left Earth, space onboard was very limited – what you had in this crates’ libraries is nothing more than a thumbnail of what your civilization got up to before it was wiped out.”

Joe didn’t look convinced.

“Look,” Macbeth continued, “history is defined by the relics left by the civilization that created them. You need to understand what your people were doing – it takes a while, sure, but that’s sort of the nature of history.”

Macbeth hummed to himself over his own joke, a habit that bothered Joe, as he rarely understood what the gag was about.

“Fine,” Monk replied. Changing the subject was a trick recent to his repertoire, a trick he decided to employ. “What are you doing now?”

“Surfing,” replied Macbeth. “All of these things are moving in waves, and to catch what we need, we need to ride those waves. We speed the ship up – in this case we have to travel, uh, call it left, for seven light days – to get ahead of the waves moving through the ether, then we slow down a bit and let everything wash right over us. Well, it’s not quite that simple, really. The modifications I made to this heap are doing most of the work, but those are the basics.”

Joe lay down on his couch, preparing for the acceleration.

Not for the first time, he wished that the ship had picked a lush garden planet full of Betty Grable look-alikes to make its first landing on, instead of the toad-filled dust ball on which he’d found his companion-turned-tutor.

“Have you heard the story about the girl who eats the bad apple and meets seven short guys?” Macbeth asked, as he hobbled about – his stouter constitution allowed him free movement, even under the increased wear and tear of extreme g-forces.

Joe pretended to be asleep, indicating such with a comically-loud fake snore.

It was another something new he’d recently learned.

* * *

Hours later, they slowed, deploying software and sensor suites to suck up, filter, and reconstruct the useful bits of local radiation.

Macbeth shook Joe out of an actual nap.

“Time for another history lesson, kid.”

Monk stood, rubbing his eyes with his palms.

He could smell food in the air – Macbeth often enjoyed a snack during lesson time.

The pair took up their usual stations, and the viewing screen before them displayed the content the ship had siphoned from the deep black.

The familiar face of the screeching woman took up the entire monitor.

“Oh,” Macbeth hummed delightedly, “I’ve seen this one! Lucy goes to work at a factory, and…”

With a nod, Joe deployed another recently acquired skill: pretending to listen.

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm. The audio and text formats of Flash Pulp are released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

Flash Pulp 065 – The Weebinax: A Mother Gran Story, Part 1 of 1

Flash PulpWelcome to Flash Pulp, Episode Sixty-Five.

Tonight, we present The Weebinax: A Mother Gran Story, Part 1 of 1

[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp065.mp3]

Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

This week’s episodes are brought to you by the Flash Pulp page on Facebook.

It’s sort of like Eat Pray Love, but with more Flash Pulp news, and less Eating or Praying.

To join, click here.

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 pre-empt our scheduled Thomas Blackhall story to instead present a short fairy tale, as told by Mother Gran.

This Friday’s episode brings us the return of Joe Monk, and Blackhall will appear next week in a three-part serial entitled “Koyle’s Ferry”.

Flash Pulp 065 – The Weebinax: A Mother Gran Story, Part 1 of 1

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

One crisp evening, as the fallen leaves smothered the last of the summer grasses, Mother Gran gathered her children’s children, and her children’s children’s children, about the warmth of the cast iron stove.

As the eldest of the spectators shushed the youngest, Gran, with a sly smile, stated the yarn to be truth.

Her quiet words brought silence, and she began her fairytale.

This is the story she told.

* * *

At the edge of The Great Forest lived a farmer, his wife, and their child, a boy of five.

They lived a happy life together: each morning the lad would tell an imagined tale of a far off land, to bring a smile to his parents’ faces; each afternoon his mother would teach the mountainous farm hound a new trick to delight her family; and each evening the tired farmer would whistle a tune as he created a feast from the yield of his labours.

One autumn day, as the farmer prodded his bull on through the field, there came a figure from the tall oaks of the wildwood.

The farmer had a moment of concern, as many unpleasant things were known to live amongst the branches of The Great Forest, but as the shape moved from the shadows of the trees, he saw it to be the form of a running woman, a child in her arms.

At the sight of her anxious brow, he quickly invited the tired mother to his table, and returned his bull to its pen.

As the farmer whistled his tune and set about creating a feast, this time for two more, his wife talked at length with the visitor, and her daughter, a girl of five.

The guest spoke of a beast in the woods, the Weebinax, who had approached her many years previous, as she worked the fields of her parents’ farm. The creature had appeared in the guise of a man, whispering promises of a happy life amongst the oaks. She’d known little of the dangers beyond her parents’ land, and she soon found herself seduced by the sugared words of the Weebinax.

It was not long after she’d run away to the forest that she bore the beast, whom she still believed a man, a child.

Soon after, the thing no longer made effort to maintain its disguise: its barbed claws split its sheath of skin, its gnarled legs burst from fleshy foot. In a few short days it had cast off its covering entirely, leaving but an empty husk of skin amongst the fallen leaves.

Still, the woman, bound by a sense of duty impressed upon her by her parents, attempted to make do. She spent her days foraging for nourishing acorns, and thick mosses to set in her babe’s rough cradle – but often her labours were met by the clutching hand of the Weebinax, which was happier to fill its own belly while resting on its lush mat of green.

In the second year of her child’s life, with winter nigh and the results of whatever efforts she might make under the wrathful eye of the Weebinax self-evident, she announced her intention to depart.

Popping an acorn into its mouth, the beast waved away her statements and nestled deeper amongst its bedding.

Taking up her daughter, she left and, for three years, wandered the forest. It was not an easy life for mother, nor child, but what nourishment she might collect was her own, and the little girl at her side soon grew bright and strong.

She was a normal child in all aspects but one. What little blood of the Weebinax flowed through her, allowed the beast to locate the child no matter what the distance, as if she were a beacon upon the horizon.

For the most part, it had little interest in the woman and her daughter, but, twice or thrice a year, he would appear before them, making no effort in disguise, and demand that the woman return to his side, to which she always refused.

It was a recent such appearance that had set her running from the forest, and onto the homestead of the farmer and his wife.

At the woman’s recounting, the farmer’s wife quickly offered up a bed and a place by the fire. It was little time before all became as if one family.

Upon the mornings, as the boy-child finished his imagined tales of far-off lands, the girl-child would take up her hems and dance a step of her own devising, based upon the nature of the fabulous characters.

At noon, as the farmer’s wife set about teaching the hound new skills, the woman of the forest would sit at the fire and stitch, so that soon the family was well appointed with garments of her hand.

In the evenings, the farmer still whistled his tune, happy to hear the babble of a full house as he prepared his feast, now almost twice the size.

It was during one such evening meal that the combined family first heard the long scratches of the Weebinax upon their door.

The woman of the forest was first to answer, and the beast made his demands.

Returning to the table, her face was downcast.

“Realizing I will no longer travel with him, he wishes for his daughter to join him amongst the oaks,” she said.

Unwilling to part with the girl, whom she now also considered her own daughter, the farmer’s wife asked if it might accept the meal that was laid before them in her stead.

After a moment of discussion, the beast strode into the house, snatched up the chicken leg that was held, mid-bite, at the boy’s mouth, and collected together the hot food, using the table cloth as a sack.

The family slept on their hunger, content that the Weebinax had been satisfied.

It was with no little concern then that, no more than a season later, the sound of scratching upon the door once again reached their ears as they supped.

This time, it was the farmer who answered. The Weebinax repeated the demand of his daughter, although he could no longer recall her name, and on this occasion he refused the offering of their meal.

With fear for his family wracking his heart, the farmer told his wife, and the woman, of the situation.

“Offer him up our wardrobe,” his wife suggested.

Returning to the door, the farmer did.

Again the Weebinax accepted the offering in stead, striding into the house to empty every trunk and dresser, including those of the children. What it could not make use of, it ran its claws through.

After it had departed, the family warmed themselves with the rags that remained, content that they had once again satisfied the beast and retained the girl.

Life turned another season: the farmer brought home fresh food of the earth; the woman of the forest stitched new clothing; the children devised greater entertainments; and the farmer’s wife taught the lumbering farm dog new skills.

It was spring when the now familiar scratching began again upon the door.

This time it was the farmer’s wife who stood to answer the summons, the eyes of her family heavy at her back.

With a rotting scowl, the Weebinax once again demanded the girl, all the while peeking about the edges of the doorway, in hopes of catching sight of some item he would be pleased to take in exchange.

The wife answered not, but instead whistled low and long.

The hound had been well taught at her hand: the Weebinax’s yowling, as the canine set about chasing him again into the forest, was the last they would hear of the monster of the woods.

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm. The audio and text formats of Flash Pulp are released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.