Episode 14 - That Sun Never Set on Pine Falls

"That Sun Never Set on Pine Falls" by Chris Capps
A strange occurrence in a small town changes their lives forever.

Author
Chris Capps - https://www.amazon.com/

Cast
D.E. Medus - david.medusmedia.com

Music
Into the Unknown by Oddsprite
Concentration by Kevin MacLeod | (Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License)

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Hello and welcome to meters podepisode 14. I'm your host D
Mitas. Our story for thisepisode comes to us from Chris
Capps. Chris Capps is acognitive point of reference
living in the American Midwest.His work the cathedral appeared
in massacre magazine, and he'sbeen posting short stories to
his blog and editing forhatchlings writers group online.

(00:25):
He has a few books on Amazonincluding the homespun horror
novel, our war with Malini, fac,and the Evan the waste series of
post apocalyptic pulp books.Without further ado, here's our
story

(00:47):
that sun never set on Pine fallsby Chris Capps.
Matthew Wilcox is the one thatmade the bomb stop exploding.
And no one knew where it camefrom or who dropped it. We

(01:09):
didn't even really know what thepayload was, whether it was a
full Makaton or 10 or splinterfrom a cluster bomb. All we knew
when everyone and pong ballswoke up at 336 and 15 seconds is
that it was hanging in the sky,just outside the city limits.

(01:32):
And then the man named MattWilcox had made it stop. Just
ever had started to go off.Everyone, every woman, every
child knew that name. Ithappened at 336 and 15 seconds
and the town meeting happened alittle less than an hour later.

(01:54):
I say it that way for a reason.The town meeting happened it
wasn't called. People woke up,got out of their homes and just
started walking towards townhall to talk about it. There was
a thick orange glow in the skyjust bright enough to trip the
sensors and the automatic streetlamps and make baby bird start
crying from the nest for earlyworms. Some denied with a new

(02:19):
denied knowing it claimed it wasjust the morning sun. And they
ignored that the lot was comingfrom up north over by where the
airfield was. A lot of the olderfolks who lived through the Cold
War figure that's probably whatthe target was lots of silos on
the ground by the airfield. Andpine Falls was just bullet holes
with from an automat. The mayorgot on the phone called up

(02:45):
Kalafatis where the Onassisdairy plant was to see how they
were doing. The phones justwhistled like electric wind
through an old house. He said itdown and chewed his cheek for a
while and then assembled a teamto head out into the world and
check on 16 men we never heardfrom again. Their truck just

(03:05):
stopped on the highway as soonas they reached the exit the
town. Six people working in thefarm and fresh saw it they just
stopped moving like their truckhad turned into a Polaroid. The
first real question asked whenthe strange meeting at town hall
started wasn't about what hadjust happened. It wasn't about

(03:26):
the phones and it certainlywasn't about the truck no one
knew had already been sent.First question when the room
finally got quiet was fromJessica, who was sitting at the
head of the band Falls CityCouncil. No one had asked her to
go up but Jessica was known forher initiative and though young

(03:46):
people the town tended listenwhen she spoke. Jessica had a
good heart the camera you couldjust tell by listening. It was
an odd questions he asked whydid we all know it was Matt
Wilcox it stopped it and nobodyreally had an answer. Matt
wasn't much of a man to speakof. He worked down to the auto

(04:09):
shop but he didn't know muchabout cars so he was low on the
totem pole. He was married to awoman the same 40 years named
Janet. Janet MC Hagen's Wilcoxwas a nice woman hard to hear
and had no patience fordrinkers. She took the stage
next and Jessica letter. I wokeup same as everyone else. And I

(04:32):
knew Matt had done it. Somehow Iknew she Paul's shaking her head
and pantomime and how her handhad reached over to where her
husband had been in bed. Hewasn't there though. I don't
know where he went. He's up onthe hill. Jerry Bivins kid said
Jerry Jr. was 17 sitting in thetown hall with his girl Tawny

(04:54):
they didn't say much else. Mostfolks were able to deduce which
hill they meant The old quarrylip where the high school kids
like to go, if you understandwhat I mean. Half the town went
up there, then to that man onthe Hill drunk, stopping that
spark from swallowing us all. Hehad half a bottle of paint
thinner whiskey in his hand anda receipt from the SIR gas a lot

(05:16):
where he had made the purchase afew days prior, he was sitting
on a stump with red eyes staringas hard as he could into the
burn in face of frozen nuclearholocaust with pice naked down
his trouser legs. Janetordinarily would have started
dealing then, finding out thatMatt was drinking out in the

(05:37):
world without telling her thatshe wasn't mad. Then she just
sort of looked at him with apatient kind of love and then up
at what he was looking at. Hewas rocking a little and talking
the words to an old HankWilliams song.
car headlights were pullingaround him, spilling on his back

(05:58):
and then to the side as theyparked behind him and whole
families got out to look up atthe sky. It took the better part
of an hour to talk him down offthat hill. Someone brought him
blanket and others asked him alot of questions. Eventually, he
agreed to stop staring at thething in the sky. He explained
later that he had thought thething would start moving again

(06:21):
if he blinked too much or lookedaway. But he had been wrong. And
after everyone got him a freshset of clothes and enough coffee
to sober up a little. He saidthat he had the biggest headache
of his life. And everyone lethim sleep. hours past many

(06:41):
hours, the sun never rose, moregroups were assembling, thinking
about leaving town and going outinto the world to see if
explanations can be found there.The television channels or
showed a single frozen image onevery channel, constant streams
of the same tone of sound. Theinternet didn't work. Phones,

(07:04):
reception was fine all over. Butno information came in or went
out. The rest of the world atleast his pond Falls was
concerned had simply stopped andmid stroke. And so they could
see the world wasn't offeringthem anything in the way of
answers. Without facts thetown's people shared words. At

(07:26):
the end of the day, the mayor'soffice got a wind of a second
group, Robbie hicker and hisboys had set out to leave town
on foot with raffles in hand foranyone who tried to stop them.
They were found in a field likescarecrows standing still with
their guns. I stayed like that.For them. Time had stopped. No

(07:50):
one went near them. Matthew gota lot of visits that week. Work
resumed in the farms. But thatfirst month we mostly stuck to
the fields well inside theperimeter of town. No one knew
for sure how far existence went,how far you could go without
getting stuck. After that firstmonth, the grass kept growing

(08:14):
and we use that to indicatewhere we could and couldn't go.
Signs went up around the edge oftown. Don't go in the short
grass. Hard to say why the grasskept growing. But Marge over the
flower shop notice that all hersunflowers reporting to the big
orange thing in the sky like itwas the sun. There was no day or

(08:34):
not just that no orange rain inwhatever light we could get
down. And the plants loved it.And sound Dr. Mackel from the
university guests that Tomhadn't stopped exactly as best
as he could tell. There wasstill some kind of transfer of
energy happening just at a rateso slow enough that the nuclear

(08:54):
explosion was not harmful morelike a sunrise. When we ask what
mount a call is something likethis, he shrugged angry. I don't
know Judith, why don't you get aPhD in thermal engineering and
tell me the boys in the townstarted up hobbyists digging
arrows in the sky. After about amonth most of the birds have

(09:17):
disappeared. Well, they didn'tdisappear. There's a big black
Halo ring around the perimeterof town. funerals for men who
stopped in the field neverhappened. Dalton Fuller, a
greasy spoon line cook who wasthe first one to ask to be taken
down after his heart attack.With pong balls cut off in the

(09:40):
hospital wasn't looking good. Heasked to be taken to the park
the edge of town and that'swhere we pushed his wheelchair
down the hill until it stoppedand the short grass him with his
arms up like he was riding aroller coaster. Dalton fuller
never died where we see it. Ayear past lack that laugh in the

(10:04):
town was simple, but in its ownway, we were still living
through the end of the worldjust not one we had pictured. We
had to live on our own, makewhat we needed. Matt stop work
in the auto mechanic shop afterit closed and he started working
in the soil and his property andgrow food for him and Janet

(10:24):
Wilcox never had any kids. Neverthe time for it. Gear started
slipping past us and bit by bitthe old world faded from memory.
Whenever exactly forgot aboutit, but after a few years, it
came up a lot less inconversation. Matt Wilcox got

(10:45):
older, old enough that his eyesstarted turning yellow and his
doctor told the rest of us hisliver was showing signs of
giving up.
He'd been drinking the wholetime quietly by himself. He
never bothered anyone. So wenever really noticed. And so the

(11:05):
second meeting in the historyupon Falls was called to discuss
Matt Dennett didn't go to thatone. Matt Stein, Mayor Jessica
said, older now. Doctor says itcould be next month or a year
from now. Now ordinarily, Iwouldn't consider it our
business but there's that firein the sky and I'd like to just

(11:29):
talk to you and see what we allhave to say about it. What's
gonna happen when he dies?Someone said, and did matter who
anybody could have said. We wereall thinking it. He doesn't have
to die. Another said. The dinerelax statues. Immortal at the

(11:51):
edge of town, where they stoodin the fields called mid stride
as they backed away, wave andinward. There was a circle of
mall around us all dressed intheir Sunday finest. No one ever
had to die. Believe it and Mattgo off and find that hill while
everyone else in town figuredout what to do with him. He sat

(12:12):
there yellow eyed staring at thesun. What half a bottle of fine
Scotch in his hand. When thesheriff found him the first
thing he did was feel the drunksnack for a pulse. Matt Wilcox
was dead by the sun, our new oldson never said never grew and

(12:35):
swallow us up and just stoodburnin over us with a cool
forever morning. Maybe somedayTom will start again. But I
don't know. And I don't knowwhat will happen when it does. I
know the bomb will finish whereto started all those years ago.
And whoever tries to find outwhat happened upon falls will
find a crater same as you'dexpect. I'd say they find more

(12:59):
bodies than usual buried in thecemetery. But no one's visited
in years. And without newdeaths, there's no need for
headstones. I'd still get a kickout of some politician somewhere
talking to America mourn in ourtown publicly say in every life
in our town was snuffed out inan instant. Maybe he's right. Or

(13:23):
maybe our towel just go onforever in this doomed footprint
the story reminded me of anepisode of The Twilight Zone
called a little peace and quiet.I recommend you check it out if

(13:44):
you get the chance. If you'dlike to make a donation to help
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(14:05):
unless otherwise stated. Have agood one, folks. We'll see you
next time.