Kzine Issue 9

by Graeme Hurry et al.

  I see the fear in the little faces. They believe everythin’ I tell ’em, so I have to be careful. Don’t want ’em believin’ fools’ dreams what started them wars: one lot sayin’ sommat, another lot sayin’ sommat else, an’ all knockin’ the shit outa each other over a few words. So I only tells ’em the things there’s no arguin’ about: how the old ones poisoned the rain an’ the air; made bombs what put stuff in the wind that changed folks’ bodies so their little ‘n’s were born all wrong; how folk near enough to watch them bombs go off, died a cos of it. I tell ’em about the hole in the sky what made the sun go bad and give death instead o’ life. I tell how Yelloston, across the Black Ocean, blew up. The burnin’ dust covered Erth, and the sun hid. I tell how the freezing winter lasted years, an’ most people died. Then the sun got brave and showed his face again.

  Haz leans close and says, “Tell ’em Yelloston blew ’cos Erth was angry with the people, so they better not hurt her again.”

  “No,” I says. “That’s the sorta thing what starts believin’ and not believin’, an’ killin’ over what’s true and what’s not true.”

  After the Tellin’s over, the mothers or fathers come for the little ’n’s. I catch Leeza’s eye as Haz runs to join her and his little brother. She waits for me at Parkland gate.

  “I’ve a need to speak with Traveller,” I says. “He be welcome to eat with me at sunset.” Her arm tightens round Haz’s shoulder and I see she knows what I’ll be a sayin’ to her man.

  “I’ll send some apples and blackberries with him, Teller,” she says. Her voice is a tremblin’ whisper and her eyes is full.

  I’m headin’ back to my tent, pickin’ dock leaves from the hedges where the bugs run free, when I hears a pack o’ lads yowlin’ and bayin’ like beasts. They’re circlin’ two who’s tearing an’ hammerin’ at each other. They shut up when they sees me, and the tearin’ an’ hammerin’ stops.

  “Worra ya fightin’ over, lads?” I ask.

  One of ’em has blood runnin’ from his nose. “Lukey says there’s a big fella in the sky, and if we don’t do what he wants he’ll throw rocks down, so big they’ll crush Erth’s bones, so we better watch out.”

  Lukey’s strugglin’ to his feet. “You a new Teller, Lukey?” I ask.

  “I just told Cal what I think, Teller,” he says, “and he tried to smash my face in.”

  “What do you say, Teller?” Cal says.

  “Truth is,” I say, “I don’t know. No one knows if there’s a big fella, or a big lady, or a bit o’ both, in the sky or not, and we’re not gonna know. So is it worth fightin’ over?”

  “No, Teller,” they say together, without meeting my eyes.

  “Then stop it.”

  He joins me as I’m turnin’ the salmon over the fire outside my tent. The sky’s splashed with red and gold, lighting up the distant mountains in the land of Wails, and throwin’ dancin’ colours across the river. We eat with no speakin’ and life feels good.

  The words come later. “When’s you leavin’, Traveller?”

  “Soon after sun-up. A sail-boat rides from Mercy River to the land of Erra.”

  “I’ve a need for you to take Haz along.”

  “He’s young yet, Teller.”

  “But I aint. I’ve not many years left. He’ll be Teller after me. He’s gorra see how things is, and learn right thinkin’. Now, be my far-off eyes and ears. What have you seen on your travels?”

  He tells me how some folk have tended Erth and she’s given them veggies again. Some haven’t learned and they try to take what the others have got. He says it seems like some o’ the young men will always find sommat to fight about. Some go hungry and think their lives will come right if they sing’ to the stars or dance to the moon, but the Tellers say the moon and stars don’t watch and listen.

  “They’re right,” I say, “an’ if a rock falls out o’ the sky it wasn’t no giant what throwed it ‘cos someone sang the wrong song.”

  “Sommat I know will please you, Teller. I’ve seen birds. They just keep well away these days. They’ve learned what’s good for ’em and what’s not.”

  “I wish folk would learn as quick.”

  “I’ll take Haz to see these things,” he says.

  “You take care o’ that lad, and tell Leeza thanks for the fruit. Give her this.” I hand him a good chunk o’ salmon wrapped in dock leaves. I feel his life-honed hand on my cheek as he leans to kiss my head. I watch the movement of his limbs beneath his dog-skin coat as he walks away: tall an’ muscular, his long hair tied in a knot an’ hangin’ down his back. He reminds me of his father, and I smile, the way a woman does, rememberin’ some good things.

  When he’s gone I think on what the dead Tellers passed down about old folk sending young ‘n’s off to kill and die for what they thought was the right or wrong way to live. They telled about the fightin’ over oil, and when there was no more oil the fightin’ over whose fault it was. Maybe Traveller’s right, an’ they’ll always find sommat to fight about. But that’s no reason for not tellin’ ’em what happens when they do. I needs my bed if I’m to rise and see my son and grandson afor they goes off to the land of Erra, but I sit awhile as the fire’s still smoulderin’, an’ watch the meltin’ sun slippin’ from the sky.

  WITCHCRAFT 2.0

  by Dusty Wallace

  TABITHA & JULIE

  Tabitha looked like a ghost sitting at the desk in her dim apartment, her face lit only by the glow of a computer monitor. The screen she was staring at displayed a virtual phone on the right half and an internet browser on the left. A cursor moved along the browser even though her hands were by her sides, the mouse left untouched.

  “C’mon, you bastard,” she said to the monitor. “Click it. You know you want to click it.”

  The little arrow moved up to the top of the screen and settled over Game of the Day. A box popped up with a description:

  Witchcraft 2.0 offers gamers the most in-depth, unique role-playing experience possible. Take control of lifelike characters and fight evil in an unlimited amount of self-designed levels. Or, if you like, use your new powers to wreak havoc on common citizens and commit crimes in vast open-world environments. Good or evil? The choice is yours!

  Tabitha was proud of the synopsis, knew that Pete was a nerdy bastard and couldn’t resist such an offer. She had built the website months ago, gave it time to build a reputation. She had taken a few computer programming courses on her way to becoming a nurse. Still, the site was simply designed. It took some cyber stalking to lure Pete in, once she posted a link to the site on his favorite forum the trap was set.

  “It’s almost time,” Tabitha called out.

  Julie came out of the bathroom, her cutoff jean shorts still unbuttoned, just in time to hear a click. He had taken the bait, it was downloading now.

  Tabitha shot a smile towards Julie, one that grew when she saw the unbuttoned shorts. “The fun will have to wait babe, we’ve got work to do,” she said wryly.

  Julie looked down and noticed the pants, wasn’t embarrassed at all. “It was just getting a little stuffy in here is all,” she joked.

  Tabitha laughed while her eyes traced Julie’s features. The tattoos sleeving her arms and legs looked strangely fluorescent in the dusky room. Much of her torso was made invisible by a black halter top, but her shape silhouetted in the light leaking from the partially open bathroom door. The silver gauges in her ears shone like stars in a desert sky, twinkling as strands of jet black hair whisked by.

  SIX MONTHS EARLIER

  To Tabitha, Julie represented the one good thing to come out of her relationship with Pete. The two of them met one night just outside of his apartment. Tabitha was returning a watch he had left on her nightstand. Julie opened the door to leave before Tabitha could even knock. Over Julie’s heavily-inked shoulders she could see Pete pawing at his genitals with a washcloth.

  “Here’s your watch, asshole,” she said and threw it at him with all her strength. He looke
d up just in time to take it on the forehead, leaving a little red gash, a mark to warn other women away.

  As she turned to storm off she heard a voice call out, “Wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” She didn’t pause to acknowledge the voice, instead ran to her car. Julie’s footsteps were inaudible over the sound of her own sobs, but as she put the key in the ignition she heard a thump on the window. The crazy bitch had followed her.

  Tabitha reluctantly rolled down the window. “What do you want?”

  “I didn’t know I was the other woman. I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “Fine, whatever. Doesn’t really matter now does it?” she said, tears still streaming.

  “You shouldn’t drive home like this, dear. Let me take you out for a coffee and we’ll talk.”

  Tabitha was incredulous. This slut had slept with her boyfriend and now wanted to have coffee and a chat. Ridiculous.

  Julie leaned in the window and wiped a tear away from Tabitha’s face with her thumb. The touch calmed her instantly as if Julie’s hands were possessed by magic. Tabitha almost couldn’t believe what she said next. “Okay, coffee sounds good.”

  TABITHA & JULIE

  The phone app was poorly designed. There were only a couple of animations and they looked like Saturday morning cartoons from the 70’s. A green witch with a wart on her nose and a pointy black hat stood guard behind a black cauldron. Julie was the only witch Tabitha knew, and there wasn’t a wart anywhere on her body. And she wasn’t green and ugly, not at all ugly. The phone-witch held a big wooden spoon in one hand and clutched the lip of the giant pot. To make the illustration simpler, her body hid behind the bulky vessel.

  The rest of the application consisted of text menus, recipes for spells, and little square icons that represented ingredients. The icons lined up in two rows on either side of the witch: pinky bone from a still-born baby, crow’s wing, frog heart, swamp moss, virgin’s tongues, sulfur powder, mouse tail, spider leg. Those were the kind of ingredients you’d find in a Michelin-starred restaurant, at least if it were run by witches.

  Truthfully, the app did nothing. It was totally functionless, but Pete would never know that as long as Tabitha and Julie paid attention to the monitor. They constantly watched his actions so that Julie could perform the real-life equivalent of the spells. While Pete was dragging the ingredients into the virtual cauldron she’d already be cooking based on the recipe he chose.

  Across the room from the computer desk were two five-shelf book cases. There were no books on them though, instead they were lined with round plastic containers, four-wide on each shelf and stacked in threes. Under each stack was the name of a spell, printed with a standard label-maker and stuck to the faux wood paneling. When Pete made his choice, all Julie would have to do is grab the appropriate container and dump its contents in to the Crock-Pot on the kitchen counter. Witches who still used wood-fired cauldrons were just showy bitches according to Julie. Besides, neither of them wanted to clean up a mess that big.

  It wasn’t long before the computer dinged. It sounded like the bell a waitress slaps to let the short-order cook know a ticket is waiting. The virtual phone showed the recipe for The Broken Heart. A picture of a handsome man wearing a gray business suit and a casual smile popped up underneath the recipe. He appeared to be in conversation with someone, but they had been cut out of the frame.

  Tabitha sprung into action. The first thing she did was print the fuzzy portrait of the target. While it was spitting out of the printer she rolled her chair over to the bookshelf. All the containers had been arranged alphabetically according to spell name. Broken Heart, The was on the top shelf and to the left. She stood and plucked the container from the top of the stack. Out of the corner of her eye she could see little icons being dragged into the cauldron and imagined Pete’s finger on her own screen. She tossed the plastic tub to Julie, who removed the lid from the container, dumping the macabre ingredients into the Crock-Pot; 3 pinky bones, 1 virgin’s tongue, 2 crow’s wings, 8 spider legs. It took six years of college to become a registered nurse, Tabitha’s salary hardly put a dent in the student loan debt but at least she had access to rare ingredients for Julie’s spells.

  Tabitha watched as Pete finished virtually mixing the vile soup, he tapped the Apply button just below the cauldron. The little green witch stirred up the concoction and cackled. Tabitha retrieved the photo of Pete’s target. Julie held pulled a Zippo lighter from the pocket of her still-unbuttoned jeans. She set the photo ablaze and Tabitha dropped it into the bubbling mixture. A flame erupted from the Crock-Pot like pyrotechnics at a glam-rock concert, the dimly lit apartment suddenly awash in amber light. It burnt itself out within a matter of seconds, the room once again blanketed in darkness.

  “Tabby, can you imagine the look on Pete’s face?” Julie asked.

  “His jaw is probably hanging open like Roger Rabbit’s after seeing Jessica for the first time.” Tabby answered, then added, “Of course Pete’s a shameless prick so he might just chuckle and walk away.”

  “Good point. After all, the folks he chooses as targets probably aren’t his friends,” said Julie.

  They both realized that debating Pete’s emotions was futile. Not one recipe on the application, even the ones that sounded like fun, would end well. These were curses, not blessings or luck spells. Hell, even Four Leaf Clover wasn’t really a luck spell. Whatever luck it bestowed on the target was syphoned from people close by.

  Julie dumped the disgusting soup down the garbage disposal, still-born baby fingers and all, and cleaned out the Crock-Pot. When it was squeaky-clean she measured out three cups of rum from a plastic rehoboam, filling the pot to not quite halfway. She replaced the pot on its base while Tabitha sat down at the computer.

  A great weight fell on Tabitha’s eyelids as she stared at the flatscreen monitor. The little green witch stared back at her, casting some sort of sleep curse with her pixelated eyes. Tabitha crossed her arms on the desk like a makeshift pillow and rested her head, eyes still open as if she were determined to win a staring contest against a poorly-rendered opponent. But Tabitha blinked first and lost. On her second loss she got stuck mid-blink, trapped in time, the savory taste of revenge filling her dreams.

  PETE

  When 36-year-old Pete was a 10-year-old kid playing Final Fantasy on his brand new Nintendo Entertainment System, he never imagined he’d be downloading Role-Playing Games for a cell phone. Actually forget the games, when Pete was a kid he never imagined a cell phone.

  But there he was, sitting in his cubicle, ignoring the papers on his desk, sales data he should have been inputting on his company Macintosh, sliding his finger across a touch-screen and browsing games. Mages and Trolls, Hell in a Handbasket, Forest Creatures Unleashed; all just clones of the latest hit games. Pete wanted something different so he browsed his way to WhoGnu.com, a website that offered independent and homemade games. They could rarely match the graphical intricacies of major publishers, but the developers’ creativity was allowed to blossom, resulting in some unique products.

  At the top of the homepage was a Game of the Day section that offered a new free game each day. On a Tuesday in late August the featured title was Witchcraft 2.0. The synopsis read as such:

  Witchcraft 2.0 offers gamers the most in-depth, unique role-playing experience possible. Take control of lifelike characters and fight evil in an unlimited amount of self-designed levels. Or, if you like, use your new powers to wreak havoc on common citizens and commit crimes in vast open-world environments. Good or evil? The choice is yours!

  Pete didn’t even need to think about it. “An open-world RPG with unlimited self-designed levels? For free? Pfft.” he said aloud and tapped DOWNLOAD, then INSTALL.

  “Rick.” Pete stood in the cubicle and waved towards his boss. The front of the office building was mostly glass and the morning sun hurt Pete’s eyes as his head elevated above the cubicle wall. Rick was at the water-cooler on the far end of the room making small talk with a young,
blonde CPA in a slitted black dress and a low-cut white blouse. He raised his finger to hush Pete. After a few moments he kissed the girl on her cheek and navigated the labyrinth of short walls with a stack of papers in hand. He peered over one of the padded barriers at Pete.

  “What’s up, champ?” Rick always called his employees champ or tiger, never knew their names. Pete was a five-year veteran of Equinox Accounting and was still called champ on a daily basis.

  “Thought I might take a break. That okay?” He was eager to try the new game, make sure it installed properly.

  “No can do, tiger. Need those sales figures coded pronto. Afterwards, you can get started on these.” He dropped the stack of papers on Pete’s desk. His fingers formed a little gun, he fired it with his imagination and winked at Pete before walking back to the cooler.

  “To hell with that,” Pete muttered softly. He snatched the phone off his desk and launched the application. A disclaimer popped up on the screen:

  Video games may trigger seizures in certain sensitive individuals. Use of this application could result in headaches, nausea, disorientation or dizziness. Do not use this application if you are pregnant, or plan to become pregnant. Do not use this application if you have a heart condition. Seek immediate medical help in case of emergency.

  Damn, just like my parents always warned me, he thought. He almost chuckled at himself but fought back the urge so as not to draw attention. He tapped the check-box to verify he had read the disclaimer.

  When the program launched there were no credits, no developer’s name, no logo, just a box that said NAME. Pete punched his in and tapped OK. The next screen accessed the phone’s camera capabilities and currently showed the inside wall of Pete’s cubicle. A message at the top said Please take a picture of your target. Rick was at the water-cooler again yapping at the same blonde. Pete zoomed in and captured a close-up of his face, complete with fake smile.