Flashlight weapon¶

The flashlight weapon is a flashlight-shaped beam device of unknown origin that fires a blinding blue-purple flash, sets targets alight and burns even water; the team first meets it in the hands of Agent Murphy and later carries one of their own.


Type	Item (weapon, probably alien technology)
Aliases	Murphy's flashlight device; the purple-flash weapon; heat-ray flashlight; alien flashlight; flashlight laser; flamethrower flashlight; the flame light (Walkers 09); the flashlight that kills everything
Holder	Agent Murphy (first); the soldiers and "volcanologists" hunting the team; Kurt Larson; Andrew Howard; a broken copy with Boris Yeltsin
First appearance	Radford Horror 03

Description¶

Murphy's device looks like an ordinary flashlight until it is switched on. When fired it makes a rapid electric "clack-clack-clack" and a pulse of intensely bright blue-purple light (Radford Horror 03). Later episodes call it a laser, a heat ray and a flamethrower. In Summer Service 06 Andre notes that nobody knows what powers the team's copy or how many shots it holds (Summer Service 06).

Properties¶

Burns. Each hit does 3 harm. In Radford Horror 03 the flash sets Kurt's shirt on fire, and Murphy sets trees ablaze as he flees (Radford Horror 03).
Blinds. The flash leaves anyone nearby unable to see, and a user needs very dark, welding-style glasses to avoid blinding himself. Kurt wears a welding mask when he tests the captured device in Radford Horror 08, and the light still leaves dots in his vision (Radford Horror 08; Radford Horrors 01). In the Marblehead pantry in Summer Service 05, the beam bouncing off metal cans blinds Andrew and the Biz, the Biz for about a minute (Summer Service 05).
Burns water. In Radford Horror 08 Kurt aims the captured device at the river. A patch of water explodes into steam, with an unnatural ultraviolet glow around the edge of the mask, and Andre describes the heat breaking the water into hydrogen and oxygen that burn and recombine: "It is so hot that it is literally burning the water" (Radford Horror 08).
Overheats. In Radford Horror 03 Murphy's device overheats and he vanishes in a pulse of light. In Summer Service 06 the plastic case begins to melt in Andrew's hand, and in Walkers 09 the "flame light" melts itself after its last charges (Radford Horror 03; Summer Service 06; Walkers 09).

History¶

The Radford Horror¶

In Radford Horror 03, Murphy is hit by the team's car and found alive on the highway, vomiting blood, clutching a flashlight and a briefcase. He shows a badge: "I'm Agent Murphy. I'm NSA. You are fucking this up for me. Get back in your car and drive away." When Kurt grabs him, Murphy points the device. Kurt's shirt ignites for 3 harm and both Kurt and the Biz are blinded. Murphy burns trees as he flees into the woods. The team does not see his end: the narration cuts to him, panicking and firing at birds, until the device overheats and he vanishes in a pulse of light (Radford Horror 03).

In Radford Horror 04 the team finds a circle of ground melted to glass with almost nothing left of Murphy but the back of a suit, part of a skull and a little brain. There is no trace of the weapon, which Kurt assumes exploded. Kurt grumbles that UTAW tried bombs on bats, dolphins, dogs and boomerangs, but never produced a heat ray: "You know what I could have done to Castro with that heat ray?" (Radford Horror 04).

At the end of Radford Horror 07, soldiers without insignia and people in metal "volcanologist" suits with flamethrowers approach the team, and Andre points out that they carry "those flashlights", which Dante identifies as the one that set Kurt on fire (Radford Horror 07). See Cleanup crew.

In Radford Horror 08 the team ambushes one of the searchers and takes his flashlight, which comes free, along with his shadow poncho. Kurt wraps the poncho in foil and hands both it and the flashlight to Molly Underhill as "special federal evidence" before the team passes out. Molly returns the flashlight and foil in the hospital, and Kurt, who says he likes the flashlight, tests it at the river (Radford Horror 08).

The Summer Service¶

In Summer Service 05 Kurt remembers midway through the Doberman fight that he has "a flashlight that burns things". Later he calls it the "flamethrower flashlight" and plans to have it out when the team clears the house. In the pantry Andrew fires it at the worm-ridden dog: the beam incinerates the worms in the air, sets the dog on fire for 4 harm, and blinds him and the Biz. Huell, who had looked away, can still see (Summer Service 05).

In Summer Service 06 the device is passed around the team. Huell's shot at a screaming man on the road goes wide over a bump and burns out a tire. Andrew burns the fleeing worms twice. In the finale he reaches out of the shelter of the car roof and hits the angel thing (Kick Some Ass, 8), burning his hand as the plastic case begins to melt. The creature spirals off, crashes into the earth and burns as a pillar of flame (Summer Service 06).

The Walkers in Skin¶

In Walkers 09 the device, now called the "flame light", is Kurt's weapon again. He sweeps the killdozer with it and sears off the two remaining attackers clinging to it (an 11). At the portal, when Zack asks whether they still have "the flashlight that kills everything", Andre confirms it, and Kurt sprays the crowd until it grows too hot to hold. He sets it down and it melts itself, its charges spent (Walkers 09). See also Flame light.

The Radford Horrors¶

In Radford Horrors 01, Boris Yeltsin unwraps a broken, half-melted object from a silk handkerchief and asks Dick "The Biz" Baxter, his prisoner in Moscow, whether he recognizes it. It is identical in design to the team's flashlight weapon. Yeltsin says he has had scientists working on it, and sent them to Siberia when they failed, and that the man it was taken from wore very dark sunglasses "like welding glasses". The Biz describes it as a heat weapon and explains that the glasses were so the user would not blind himself (Radford Horrors 01).

What remains unknown¶

Who made the devices, and whether Murphy, the soldiers in Radford Horror 07 and the man Yeltsin's copy came from belong to the same group.
What powers them and how many shots they hold.