textfiles/magazines/TWILIGHTWORLD/twilight.world-2.2

From lets2780@stud.let.ruu.nl Fri Apr  8 11:42:23 1994
Date: Jan 01, 1970 at 12:00
From: Twilight World <lets2780@stud.let.ruu.nl>
To: Subscriber <pauls@fir.cic.net>
Subject: Twilight World Volume 2 Issue 2


                         T W I L I G H T   W O R L D




                               Volume 2 Issue 2

                               March 12th 1994



                     "You have entered the Twilight Zone
                  Beyond this world strange things are known
                         Use the key, unlock the door
                    See what you fate might have in store
                      Come explore your dreams' creation
                       Enter this world of imagination"
                                            Rush, "The Twilight Zone" ("2112")







 This magazine may be archived, reproduced and/or distributed provided that no 
additions or changes are made to it. All stories in this magazine are fiction. 
No  actual  persons are designated by name or  character.  Any  similarity  is 
purely coincidental.
 If you bought this magazine through an expensive PD library,  be sure to  get 
it cheaper somewhere else next time,  as it's FOR FREE and I didn't intend  it 
to be for free just so that someone else could make lots of dosh with it!
 Please  refer  to  the  end  of this  text  file  for  information  regarding 
submissions, subscriptions, donations, copyright and all that.


= LIST OF CONTENTS ===========================================================


 EDITORIAL

 PARTICULARLY NASTY ARTHROPODS

 by Richard Karsmakers
 The ultimate of itch-invoking nausea.

 MASTERS OF WAR

 by Bryan H. Joyce
 Another mesmerizing tale told in the Tavern at the Edge of Nowhere.

 RAMBO III

 by Richard Karsmakers
 Where Cronos Warchild enters the nightmares of a Police Officer.

 A REALLY BAD DAY

 by Bryan Kennerley
 Some  days nothing happens the way you want it...but it's never quite like  a   
  REALLY bad day.

 AIRBORNE RANGER

 by Richard Karsmakers
 Mokheiny beware, for death is heading your way.

 DOGS OF WAR

 by Richard Karsmakers
 No  brain,  or at least not much of it - give it a flamethrower and see  what   
  happens.

 HOLY WARS
 by Richard Karsmakers
 A piece of fiction that fortunately didn't come true in the days of the  Gulf 
  War.


= EDITORIAL ==================================================================
 by Richard Karsmakers


 The second reincarnated (renamed) issue of "Twilight World" already,  and the 
fifth in total. Things haven't been standing still and subscriptions have been 
oozing  in  the  way they should,  i.e.  aplenty.  Once again  the  amount  of 
subscribers  has  almost doubled - and this time only in two months  as  we've 
gone  bimonthly.  It's  extremely  gratifying to know  that  the  magazine  is 
appreciated  and  I  will strive hard to make it even better  in  the  future. 
There's no incentive quite like a large amount of readers liking what you  do, 
so there's no danger of things growing worse than they are already.
 There is one thing I'd like to see change, though - the amount of people that 
write  for "Twilight World".  So far I have received only one story  that  was 
written  by  a subscriber,  only one story that hadn't  already  been  written 
before the whole "Twilight World" concept was thought of.  I would really like 
all  you out there to check if there's something lying around that  you  might 
deem  worthy  of  publication  and send it to  the  usual  email  address  for 
evaluation and inclusion.
 Come on!  Get writing! I started "Twilight World" as a forum for all creative 
writers, not just myself and a few select friends. Don't let me down.

 As usual, I hope you'll like reading this issue.


 Richard Karsmakers
 (Editor)


= PARTICULARLY NASTY ARTHROPODS ==============================================
 by Richard Karsmakers


 It was a perfectly ordinary summer's day.
 Perfectly ordinary,  of course, except for the fact that it was exceptionally 
warm,  clothes clung to bodies,  sweat formed beads on foreheads,  and armpits 
really stank awfully.
 Er...quite ordinary, thus.
 I came in from the balcony.  I always liked sitting on the balcony.  It's one 
that's built on the north side,  so it's got a nice temperature as long as the 
sun  doesn't  shine on it - the latter usually only happens during  the  early 
evening hours.
 I came into the kitchen and opened the fridge for a refreshing bit of Coke to 
quench my thirst. I put the bottle to my mouth and took a large swig.
 It was then that I saw them for the first time.
 Little  black flies with quivering wings that seemed to stroll leisurely  and 
slowly across the ceiling. Two of them.
 I  burped,  took something to hit them with and hit them.  I got a  piece  of 
paper to get the red blood stain off the ceiling,  after which I put back  the 
Coke bottle and got back outside.
 The sun had yet to appear at the north side of the flat,  so the  temperature 
was still bearable.  The weather made me refrain from reading any stuff  other 
than comics.  Some kinds of weather probably have not been designed with heavy 
reading in mind,  and I estimated this kind of hot,  oppressive weather to  be 
one of those.
 Besides,  comics  are a lot of fun to read,  too,  even though they  may  not 
stimulate the mind or imagination a lot.
 Who  cares?  It's  warm,  the  wind barely blows,  a  blanket  of  damp  heat 
perpetually caresses you.  Comics are fine.  Reading "Lord of the Rings" would 
cause  you  to faint due to the physical exercise involved in  keeping  it  at 
eyes' level.
 Barely an hour later,  when the sun slowly but certainly started to appear on 
the north side of the appartment, I decided to head for cover inside.
 I opened the fridge to get some Coke again. I took a swig, causing my eyes to 
wander across the ceiling again.
 Damn. Two more of those particularly nasty arthropods.
 Could this be some kind of plague we got on our hands?
 I decided to examine them from a somewhat closer distance.  I knew my dad had 
a  book about insects at home,  and I guessed I could give him  a  description 
accurate  enough  for him to find the species in that book.  At least  then  I 
would know something about their habits,  food preference and actual degree of 
danger, if any, to humans.
 They  were  about half a centimetre long and pitch black.  Not black  like  a 
blackened  end,  or not even black the way regular flies are intensely  black, 
but  a kind of black that made your eyes want to look away because of lack  of 
valid impulses.  I did not have the impression I was merely looking at a black 
fly - it was more like looking at the ceiling with a patch of black hole  with 
wings on it.
 The  wings,  now I mention them,  where quite different from  regular  flies' 
wings,  too. They were transparent, but they were attached to the body by what 
seemed like a little arm, a more solid and sturdier part of extrement that was 
designed  to  do a task far more taxing than just moving those  fragile  wings 
with the odd black patterns across them.
 I looked one of the flies right in the eyes. It had stretched its hind 'legs' 
so  that  it  was  tilted towards me.  It was then that  I  felt  a  very  odd 
sensation.  I felt as if the fly could actually *see* me.  And not only did  I 
feel  like it could *see* me - a gripping feeling around my guts told  me  the 
fly  *knew*  I  was a threat,  as if it said "F*@k off,  you  big  oaf"  in  a 
telepathic language.
 Ordinary  flies are stupid.  Try to hit them and they will fly like a  raving 
madman in a raving mad chopper,  trying to crash through the nearest available 
window which they can't.
 This  patch of black hole with wings on it did no such thing.  It  seemed  to 
look straight at me, or even *through* me, and it menacingly quivered with its 
wings,  like  a bird or a butterfly that tries to look bigger to scare off  an 
enemy.
 Damn.
 Feeling this about a silly fly made me feel nauseous.
 I  grabbed  something with which to hit them and hit them.  I took a  bit  of 
paper to clear away the patch of red blood, threw it away, put the Coke bottle 
back  in  the fridge and called my dad so he could have a look at  his  insect 
book.

 I could have predicted this.  The book didn't mention anything like them.  My 
description had been too poor or the book too superficial. Either way, I still 
didn't know. It might be some kind of mutant insect that ate humans.
 No.  That was a positively ridiculous assumption. I normally regard myself as 
a  rather  sensible person with enough in the brains  department,  and  I  was 
startled to notice me making such ridiculous assumptions.
 But  these  flies did have red blood.  The colour of the blood is  caused  by 
haemoglobin, the stuff that transports oxygen through the veins from the lungs 
to  all  the  bits of the body.  Insects don't use their  blood  to  transport 
oxygen.  They  only  use it to transport food.  Oxygen is  distributed  by  an 
intricate  network  of trachea,  air channels that flow from  multiple  little 
openings in their skins to the relevant bits of their body.
 Then  why did these flies have *red* blood?  I knew gnats seemed to have  red 
blood,  but  that was actually the blood they had sucked from humans or  other 
animals.
 This  unmistakably  implied  that these little flies  with  their  menacingly 
quivering wings sucked animals' blood,  too. I didn't like that conclusion. It 
made  me  urge to make silly assumptions that in turn lead me to think  I  was 
being stupid.
 I looked at the ceiling. No new ones had appeared, even though the phone call 
and the making of silly assumptions had taken up its fair share of time.
 They  had probably flown in through the kitchen door that had been  open  all 
day. As the door was closed now, they couldn't enter any more.
 Yes.  That  thought  was a whole lot more consoling that the  previous  ones. 
Consoling  enough to get to bed and fall asleep quite  quickly,  without  ever 
waking up of having strange nightmares involving little black holes with wings 
on 'em that sucked blood.

 Next  day  started off like an ordinary,  albeit particularly damp  and  hot, 
summer's  day usually does.  The first rays of the morning's sun were  already 
hot on the face as I opened my eyes to the new day.
 Before doing anything else, I had to satisfy my curiosity: Would there be any 
new  flies in the kitchen?  Whereas my sleep had not been interrupted  by  any 
flies (or even gnats), my being awake was immediately haunted by them.
 I opened the kitchen door.  Slowly. If there were any there, I didn't want to 
arouse them which might cause them to fly to other locations in the house.
 Three  little black dots that moved slowly across the ceiling  confirmed  the 
dark  sense  of foreboding I had had ever since I got woken up  by  the  sun's 
warmth.
 I  went closer.  They were the same kind I had seen  yesterday.  They  walked 
around  with  slowly quivering wings,  although they could not  normally  have 
sensed my presence yet. I got something with which to hit them.
 The  problem was that they were somewhat apart now.  I couldn't possibly  get 
them  in  one blow.  I discovered I was afraid,  which  immediately  urged  my 
subconsciousness to inform me of the fact that I was being stupid again.
 There  is something very odd about people.  They are not afraid  of  ordinary 
flies because they know they don't bite or something. They are not afraid of a 
large  Saint Bernhard dog because of that very same reason.  But people  *are* 
afraid of wasps. Wasps are hardly bigger than flies but they can sting. People 
*are*  afraid of a rabid pitbull,  even though it's lots smaller than a  Saint 
Bernhard.
 I didn't know what this fly could do. It looked menacing enough to be able to 
do something vicious, and I didn't particularly want to find out what it might 
be that it could do. For all I knew it was something unimaginable that was far 
worse than what any wasp could get up to.
 I  was being silly.  Very much.  I decided to hit them with the thing  I  had 
fetched for that purpose.
 I got two in one blow.  The third one kind of fell to the ground, but halfway 
down  it started to fly.  I jumped off the chair I had been standing  on,  not 
caring about the red stains on the ceiling.
 The thing with which I had hit the other flies fell from my hand.
 The  fly didn't fly like an ordinary fly.  It seemed not to be used to  using 
its  wings for doing anything else rather than quivering them.  It  flew  very 
awkwardly,  as  if  deciding  upon another course every  few  wing  beats.  It 
reminded me of a rather clumsy bat.
 A bloodsucking bat. A vampire! Raaah!
 This  rather upsetting analogy caused me to duck quickly,  causing the  black 
threat to my temporary sanity to miss my head by a couple of inches,  so  that 
it  could  fly a bit further and settle itself on the opposite  kitchen  wall, 
close to the door that I had left open.
 I  was being very stupid.  I needed to convince myself of that fact or I  was 
going to perform some irrational behaviour pretty soon.
 I walked,  no, I *stalked* up to the dratted little creature. It seemed to be 
panting, for its body rose and sank regularly with the approximate speed of my 
own breathing.  Its wings still quivered menacingly.  There was no way to  see 
its deep black eyes in its deep black body, but I *knew* it was looking at me. 
It was looking at me angrily, for I had disturbed its morning peace and killed 
two of its fellows - possibly even two of its brothers.
 I was being stupid again. Very.
 I turned around to get the thing with which I had killed its  brothers,  only 
to turn around and stare at a rather empty piece of wall that had just  before 
been occupied by something black, small and menacing.
 Instinctively  I ducked,  suppressing signals of my brain that told me I  was 
now beyond the stages of simply being stupid. I wielded the thing with which I 
could  hit  it,  carefully scanning each square inch of the  kitchen  for  the 
presence of something dark.
 I did not have any problems finding something dark.
 Two black things had appeared on the ceiling,  as though out of  nothing.  It 
was  then  that I noticed a small hole in the ceiling.  It was  one  of  those 
lowered ceilings of wood, with about two or three inches' space between it and 
the actual roof. Out of the little hole, even as I looked, another black thing 
came.
 I left the kitchen, brushed my teeth and took a shower, after which I went to 
the  local  supermarket to get whatever they stocked to get  rid  of  insects. 
Unfortunately,  it  seemed  that  more people had been  having  problems  with 
insects lately as the insect sprays and repellents were all gone.  All I could 
do was get a couple of fly traps - those long, sticky pieces of paper one pins 
to ceilings where stupid flies die horrible, slow, cruel deaths.
 I came back home minutes later.
 I had had visions of the entire place crammed with little black flies by now, 
but  fortunately  this  turned out to have been a figment  of  my  over-active 
imagination.
 I  cursed as I discovered I had left the kitchen door open before I  left.  I 
went into it, looked at the ceiling and saw no more flies.
 The  lack  of  their  presence  somehow  seemed  more  startling  than  their 
actual presence had been.

 I  climbed  the chair again and attached two fly traps to the  sides  of  the 
window that was closest to the ceiling part with the little hole in it.
 It  didn't  take much of my imagination to think of dozens  of  little  black 
holes  with wings on them to roam in the space between the actual ceiling  and 
the  lowered  wooden  bit.  The  little hole was  as  dark  as  the  creatures 
themselves.
 It was large enough to stick my little finger in.  Something weird inside  my 
mind  told  me to try it,  but I could suppress the urge.  What's the  use  of 
sticking your finger into a wasps' nest? 
 I eyed the hole conspicuously,  waiting until some of the little flies  would 
come out.
 None came.
 The  thought  of intelligence in these nasty little insects  dawned  upon  me 
again.  I had *felt* them seeing me as a threat.  I had sensed awe when one of 
these  creatures tried to scare me off by stretching its hind  extrements  and 
quivering its wings menacingly.
 And I had seen red blood.
 The image of dark red spots on the ceiling and the conclusions I had attached 
to  it made me feel sick in the stomach.  I could blink my eyes as much  as  I 
wanted.  Each  time I closed them I saw the dark redness on the insides of  my 
eyelids.
 "Damn! I am being stupid!" I cursed to myself.
 The  only answer to this statement,  apart from the echo that came back  from 
the  appartment buildings on the other side of the green,  was a little  black 
thing crawling from the hole.
 It walked directly to the bit of the ceiling adjacent the window where I  had 
attached  the fly traps.  It seemed to examine the chord on which a  fly  trap 
hung,  quivering with its wings as if it was probing the air for something. It 
walked  slowly  around the chord,  then left it be and did like  all  of  them 
usually did:  It started walking rather aimlessly across the ceiling,  seeming 
to shift its goal at every few centimetres.  Regularly,  it would stand  still 
and  intensify  the quivering of its wings,  as  if  listening,  or  touching. 
Sensing something.
 I started to sweat a bit.  I wasn't sure whether this was because of the heat 
or  because of the fear I somehow felt for these little insects I didn't  know 
anything about.
 The fly started walking quicker.  Another fly would have flown to wherever it 
wanted to go,  but this one just walked.  The quivering of the wings with  the 
black  patterns on them quickened even more,  as if the thing sensed  it  came 
closer  to a target - an intensifying of the scent it seemed to  be  searching 
the source of.
 Damn!
 It  was smelling *me*.  It had caught the scent of sweat.  It had caught  the 
smell of fear.
 The quivering now nearly caused it to fly in its particular,  awkward way. It 
stretched its hind 'legs' again when it was precisely above me on the ceiling.
 I  didn't  dare  move.  I  was afraid it might see me and  lurch  for  me  or 
something. I was rooted to the spot, and I was determined only to move when...
 The little insect started to fly and descended.
 I  moved quickly,  ducking.  My mind no longer sent signals that I was  being 
stupid, and this alarmed me even more than the actual fly descending upon me.
 During my quick movement, however, I had lost track of where it was. I looked 
around.  It  was  nowhere  to be seen.  I got scared  shitless  when  an  itch 
manifested  itself  on  my arm - but it was only a hair  suddenly  finding  it 
necessary to get erect.
 Shit.
 It had found ways of vanishing, much in the way its fellows, or brothers, had 
done during my short visit to the supermarket to get the fly traps.
 Only this one had not disappeared from the kitchen. It had merely disappeared 
from sight which I found out mere seconds later when I felt a stinging pain in 
my throat.  I grabbed for the foul beast, nearly choking myself, but I was too 
late. I could see it fly off in its awkward way in the direction of the little 
hole. Within a matter of two or three seconds it had disappeared in it.
 I cursed.
 There was blood on my hands, which could only bring me to one conclusion: The 
arthropod had bitten me. It hadn't *stung* like a gnat would - it had actually 
*bitten*. More blood was appearing from a little wound.
 I went to the bathroom to have a look at the bite.
 First thing I saw wasn't the blood.  First thing I saw was that my complexion 
had  paled  almost to grey - as if I was a corpse or something.  I  flexed  my 
fingers. They still moved fine, so there wasn't any rigor mortis.
 I was being very silly. I knew I was, but somehow I couldn't care anymore.
 Then I looked at the bite. It was minute on all accounts, but its edge was of 
purest black,  and with each heart beat a little trickle of blood pulsated out 
of it.
 I had never been capable of facing my own blood.
 I fainted.

 When I came round, I immediately felt there were a lot of reasons to pass out 
again.  My skin seemed to feel as if it was pulsating at various locations  on 
my face, neck and back.
 Carefully, I felt with my fingers. I felt something tough, a bit like a wart, 
at the spot where I had been bitten a short while ago.  Bleeding had  stopped, 
but the little wound still felt wet and slightly sticky,  like a wound that is 
in the latest stages of producing the bitter,  yellow blood suppuration  fluid 
known as pus. The edge of the little wound was the bit that felt tough, almost 
like the edge of charred flesh.
 I  erected myself and found myself looking at my own mirror image.  A  mirror 
image  with about two dozen little wounds on neck and face.  I didn't need  to 
have a look at my back.  The slightly uncomfortable, pulsating feeling told me 
there were at least another dozen there.
 A sudden feeling of dull nausea becrept by stomach.
 Obviously, a couple of dozen of the little buggers had had a go at me while I 
was out cold, or perhaps a few of them had had a genuine feast.
 I ran to the toilet and vomited.  It seemed like long minutes before  finally 
my stomach felt it was empty enough. The feeling of nausea persisted, however. 
It  seemed  to  find a limitless source of energy from  whatever  those  nasty 
insects had injected in me.
 I thought about calling the doctor.
 No.  I  was probably exaggerating.  It would all be gone  by  tomorrow,  like 
gnats' bites.  The feeling in my stomach worsened,  and extended itself to  my 
lower abdomen and head.
 I had to vomit again.
 It  seemed as if I had ended up in a perpetuum sequence of being  sick.  Each 
time when I thought about what had happened to me,  I felt my gullet  starting 
to  work backwards.  Bending over the toilet,  looking at what I  had  vomited 
earlier, did the rest - quite effectively.
 Was this nature's way of getting even with me after I had tortured and killed 
ants and stick insects during my childhood?
 I mustered all my power, flushed the toilet and got up. I felt awfully dizzy, 
and  I was afraid I'd run into something and break a leg if I didn't lay  down 
quickly.
 I fell on the bed and passed out again.

 Dozens of dark little spots hurled themselves down at me,  seeking a bite out 
of  this  big lump of meat that lay prostrate on the bed.  It was  as  if  the 
clouds turned into flies, crashing down like a torrent of rain that was alive. 
Alive, hungry, and pitch black. I felt them bite, but I was too weak to react. 
I felt them suck blood,  but to my mind it was as if they sucked my very  life 
force away.  I became more weak and frail by the minute.  There would not be a 
lot  more than bones and skin left in a couple of minutes if  these  creatures 
continued like that,  but I felt too limp to move, too tired to get rid of all 
these  parasites  that  preyed on my body.  I wanted to  shout  but  couldn't. 
Opening  my  mouth merely resulted in those damn insects getting a go  at  the 
soft inside of my oral cavity.
 My lips got stuck.  Exploded into a load of blood,  pus and mucus.  I was  no 
longer capable of closing my mouth.  My teeth fell out as the flesh got  torn, 
eaten,  bitten, stung. So much for brushing your teeth twice a day. I felt the 
first batch of 'em enter my digestive system.  I was helpless. I was doomed to 
die.  They would feast on my innards, get off totally on the fresh blood in my 
heart and lungs.

 "No, God damn! No! I don't deserve to die!"
 I was bathing in sweat as I awoke from this nightmare.  Outside, darkness had 
fallen already. The room still echoed the scream I had uttered.
 I felt my neck and face.
 Part of this nightmare was real. Sticky, with edges like burned flesh.

 It  must have been morning when I woke up again.  I wish I could tell I  felt 
refreshed, but I didn't.
 Nor did I need to touch the spots - I could feel they were still there.  They 
pulsated  like one's head seems to throb with every heartbeat  after  running. 
The morning seemed real,  everything seemed real.  But the spots didn't. Was I 
still locked in some kind of horrific nightmare?
 The sound of kids playing outside tore me out of this line of thought.  I had 
never had nightmares that payed enough attention to detail for me to hear kids 
playing outside in the summer sun.  This was reality.  Reality,  and then  you 
die.
 Face it.
 I crawled out of bed. I was feeling like a dry version of a wet towel, but at 
least I could walk.  At least my body seemed to have been able to get to grips 
with the spots - something my mind hadn't yet.
 I felt a morbid desire to look in the mirror. It's a bit like when you have a 
headache.  Shake your head to see if it's still there,  if it still hurts.  It 
usually does, effectively increasing it a bit. Pull a scab to see if the wound 
has healed. Curse at the blood when it hasn't.
 I looked, and was startled.
 The spots had grown.  Not much, but enough for me to notice. Each one of them 
now occupied a somewhat bigger part of my skin,  but they also seemed to  have 
grown *out* of my body.  Like warts.  Black,  shining warts with crumbly edges 
where  they seemed to have appeared from under the very skin,  like  volcanoes 
erupting in infinite slow motion.
 I moved closer to the mirror.
 *There were things moving in the warts*.
 An acute feeling of intense nausea struck.
 Living  things were presents in what seemed like partly  transparent  cocoons 
partly encased in my body. They reminded me of almost mature frogs' eggs I had 
once seen floating in a pond.  These warts,  however,  looked like  infinitely 
*evil* versions of those frogs' eggs, deeply blackened.
 And that wasn't just me being silly, stupid, or lacking sense.
 The warts itched,  especially the ones on my chin.  I scratched one of  them. 
Carefully at first, but soon more intense as the itch increased and begged for 
more intense ministrations. With a sickening 'pop' it burst and a tiny, black, 
maggot-like thing dropped out of the torn wart into the sink.  Pus seeped from 
the opening in my skin. In the mirror I could see exposed flesh where the wart 
had been.  The itch had transformed itself to pain, a pain that seemed to echo 
through my jaw,  and concentrate somewhere in the middle of my head,  creating 
quite a headache.
 I  looked at the maggot in the sink.  Like the creatures that had brought  it 
forth, it looked like a tiny black hole. The difference was that it didn't yet 
have  the  quivering wings and that it was worm-like in  shape,  and  wet.  It 
seemed to suck at the sink like a leech.
 The  thought that many of these horrible little creatures were located on  my 
body worsened the feeling gnawing my stomach.
 I turned away from the mirror.
 At least I wasn't turning into a fly myself. Wouldn't that have been quite an 
awful cliche? The lack of cliche didn't make me feel better though.
 I  had  to get out.  Out of this place where it all had  started.  To  assure 
myself that this was no nightmare I sinmply *had* to get out.  Gauge  peoples' 
reactions. What would the neighbours say?
 Holding the latch, doubts entered my mind. Wasn't I just heading for things I 
would not like?  People that would look at me,  horrified. Children that would 
run away,  screaming and crying. A cast-out of society. A freak-out of nature. 
A helpless case.
 I'd probably have to be put down.  These maggots might not remain that small. 
They  might  grow  and devour my flesh and innards.  Once  released  onto  the 
unsuspecting world,  they might invoke damnation on mankind.  The earth  would 
belong to them. It sounded like a bad H.G. Wells book.
 I was just in time to notice I was emotionally spiralling downwards again.  I 
had  to stop these thought before I would do something to myself that  society 
and  posterity would frown upon forever.  Some way or another,  I had  already 
walked to the kitchen and taken a meat knife from a drawer.
 I startled,  dropping the knife on the ground.  It clattered, tearing me from 
my thoughts for a few moments.
 The  damn warts started itching again.  I couldn't refrain  from  scratching. 
Just for a short time. Stop before it starts hurting, but I continued.
 Pain.  Feeling of pus oozing from wounds.  Little crawly things dropping down 
my neck and back.  A maggot fell on my leg.  It attached itself.  Mutely I saw 
the flesh around it turn black,  dry and crumbly as if scorched.  I forgot  to 
feel the pain of the maggot digging into flesh until I saw blood pulsate  from 
the little hole through which it was apparently eating itself.
 Existence felt like nill.  What was I to do?  I saw the knife. It had a sharp 
point.  I could cut the warts off.  Yes.  That seemed to be the only solution. 
Intense pain on my back and neck told me the other slimy, crawly creatures had 
found ways, too, to attach themselves to me, slowly but surely eating inwards. 
Would they get to my nerves too?
 The pain was excruciating, like a dozen red-hot knitting needles slowly being 
stung into my body.
 I grabbed the knife and sat down,  trying hard to block out the pain. I cried 
out  when  I  inserted the point into the wound where  the  first  maggot  had 
burrowed.  Blood started to flow more plentiful.  There it was. I cut the vile 
creature out of my flesh and threw it away. The pain wasn't lessening.
 How  was I going to remove them from my back?  I'd  never  succeed.  Damn!  I 
paniced.  "Don't panic". How absurd. The one that was digging in my neck would 
have to be next. I went to the mirror, afraid of what I might see.
 My complexion had turned even more grey, like a dead man's. For all I knew, I 
could already be a corpse. But I moved. I breathed. I felt pain, lots of it. I 
bled, too. A lot.
 I inserted the knife point into my neck,  where the other maggot seemed to be 
eating  its  way inward.  I had to be careful.  It was damn near  the  carotid 
artery. No. The maggot seemed to have caught the scent of the vein. It shifted 
its direction.  Damn!  I had to be quick.  Quick and careful.  Impossible. And 
what  about  my  back?  I  flinched as the pain  there  suddenly  grew  beyond 
endurance.  Had  one of those damn maggots entered the vertebrae?  The  flinch 
caused the knife to dive into my neck, slashing through the artery.
 It  dropped from my hand as I saw myself in the mirror.  It looked like  some 
cheap horror movie.  With each heartbeat, blood gushed from my neck. I felt my 
life  flow down my shirt,  down my trousers,  in my shoes.  I think I  wet  my 
pants.
 I  didn't  even try to stop it.  Mutely,  I looked at my  reflection  in  the 
mirror.  I saw myself grow even more pale.  All of me seemed pale,  except for 
the  dark  red that kept appearing,  in regular beats. At least the  pain  was 
bearable now.  It was getting less and less.  The world seemed to turn around, 
even smile at me.
 I was getting a bit sleepy. First silly, then stupid. Reality. Sleepy.
 Leaving a trail of blood and gore,  I stumbled to the kitchen.  I felt  weak. 
Someone was crying outside, but it might have been a child playing.
 In the kitchen,  I looked up to the small opening in the ceiling. I smiled at 
something that looked like a little black hole with quivering wings.
 It stretched its hind legs threateningly,  a movement that my mind associated 
with the eerie hissing of a rattle snake's tail.
 "You won," I muttered.
 I fell forward onto the stone kitchen floor, probably splitting open my skull 
in the process.  But that was no longer my concern,  rather that of the people 
who would have to clean up the mess.

 Original  written  July/August  1991.   Rehashed  February  1994.  Previously 
published in the Utrecht University English faculty magazine "Quill"  (October 
1991). The insects were real.


= MASTERS OF WAR =============================================================
 by Bryan H. Joyce


                 A Tale From The Tavern At The Edge Of Nowhere
 

 Sometimes  it's  quiet in the  Tavern.  Irritatingly  quiet.  No  fights.  No 
interesting  people.  Nothing much happens for days on end.  At times such  as 
these I often add to my journal.
 What to write about this time?
 Now,  what  tale  had  I heard recently that was worth  remembering  in  this 
journal? Perhaps the tale of how I came to work here in the Tavern at the Edge 
of Nowhere?  Nah!  How my hair went white?  Nah!  There must be something more 
interesting than that load of baloney?
 Nothing  interesting had happened for weeks.  The last good tale that  I  had 
heard  was the story of how a scientist by the name of Richard Thrum had  lost 
his  head  and  lived  to tell the tale.  His head  had  been  turned  into  a 
superconductor and he had ended up becoming a permanent feature of the Tavern. 
His  silvery-looking head now sits on a shelf above the mirror at the back  of 
the bar.
 The  only  way to communicate with him was through a  gadget  unimaginatively 
know  as a psionic device.  This device looked like a silvery locket  and  was 
currently  hung  about  my thick neck.  It's been a  good  talking  point  for 
customers. They spot it. Ask what it is. That gives me an excuse to talk for a 
while.
 I'd already written Richard's story up in the journal,  so no help  there.  I 
bet he's got plenty of other tales to tell?  Unfortunately,  Richard Thrum had 
not  let out so much as a psionic squeak in the month that his head  had  been 
here.
 The device definitely worked.  It allows the wearer to read or project  their 
own  thoughts  into the mind of others.  I've never tried to use  it  to  read 
minds. Alburt Greshin gave me Richard's head, the psionic device and warned me 
about reading minds.  It's never pleasant so don't do it.  He is a  telepathic 
detective,  so he should know what he is talking about.  The psionic device is 
great for shutting up noisy drunks or stopping fights.  A few carefully chosen 
words at extremely high volume broadcast straight into the offenders mind work 
wonders. Yesterday it allowed me to see a ghost.
 Perhaps I could use that tale to fill up some room in my journal? Nah! Hardly 
worthy of a few paragraphs. There wasn't really any story there. The ghost and 
his  companion  seemed to be of low intelligence and were  unwilling  to  talk 
about much.
 One  of them was a typical hippy looking guy about twenty years old.  He  had 
long  mousey hair,  a short beard and plastic glasses.  He carried a  sort  of 
briefcase and wore a woolly jumper.  Decidedly odd!  His manner and dress were 
suggestive of the last century. Maybe about 1990.
 The  other  guy was clean shaven and very pale.  He was dressed  in  a  white 
boiler or ship suit with white shoes. Not just white, but sparkling white. His 
hair  was pure white,  just like mine,  and he had no eyebrows.  He  was  very 
unhappy looking.  Decidedly odder! It was impossible to tell which time period 
he was from.
 Their mannerisms were rather strange.
 "Remember to use plenty of eye contact." said the pale guy.
 "Can I have a coke please?" said the hippy putting his case on the bar as  he 
stared at me.
 "Sure. Don't scratch the bar with that thing will you?" I said.
 "There's no sharp edges on it." said the hippy.
 "Don't be a wimp.  Ask for a beer!  Not too much eye contact." said the  pale 
guy.
 "Make that a beer." said the hippy, looking away.
 "Any particular type?" I asked.
 "Er, I..."
 "Don't mumble.  Be positive.  When in doubt let the barman choose." said  the 
pale guy.
 "Surprise me." said the hippy.
 "Good one." said pale face.
 "One beer coming up," I said.
 "Be communicative.  Don't wait.  Introduce yourself. You know who you are and 
he can't be allowed to forget it." said pale face.
 "My name is Brian Jones. I'm from 1991."
 "Tony  Wheelbough.  From  any time you want." I gave the hippy his  beer  and 
turned to the pale guy. "You want a drink smiler?"
 They both looked at each other uneasily and then stared at me.
 "What?" said pale face quietly.
 "What do you want to drink?"
 "You can see me?" he sounded really surprise.
 "No.  I'm just guessing.  What do you want to drink?  Are you a loony?  And I 
don't mean someone who lives on the moon!"
 I'm like that. Insult someone with a smile, a joke, the right type of tone in 
your  voice  and  they will usually be put at ease.  It's very  rare  that  it 
doesn't work. Sometimes they just punch you.
 "No, I'm not a loony. I was Victor Torus. I'm a ghost."
 You  would  expect  that Victor and Brian would be interesting  to  talk  to. 
Wrong!  They were DEAD boring (he,  he). Victor didn't want to tell his story. 
All  he would say was that he was teaching Brian how to be assertive  (he's  a 
bloody rotten teacher if you ask me).  Hence the odd conversation.  He  didn't 
know anyone other than Brian could see him. Victor was haunting him.
 How interesting! Could they elaborate? No they couldn't!
 Getting  either of them to talk was like pulling teeth with rubber  tweezers; 
time-consuming and pointless.  Eventually,  in sheer desperation I asked  what 
the briefcase was for.  This was pay dirt.  Extremely boring pay dirt I  grant 
you, but pay dirt nevertheless.
 The briefcase was in fact a portable computer.  Brian was a  writer.  Seconds 
after learning this,  the computer was opened and powered up. The thing was so 
antiquated that it had a real keyboard.  I pressed a few keys  experimentally. 
Mmm, nice! First time that I'd used a solid keyboard in years.
 A  badge  below the tacky green screen proclaimed STACY.  How  nice!  My  own 
computer didn't have a name.  If it did, it would probably be something boring 
like Freda or Susan.
 Brian was unbelievably enthusiastic about this old-fashioned box of delights. 
I decided to try and spoil his day by showing him my computer.
 This  was  also  my  opportunity to do what I consider  myself  to  do  best. 
Introduce unusual stories into mundane conversations.  What to talk about  and 
how to connect the theme to computers? Oh yes, the Builders!
 I  was  given a universal format organiser over a year ago by a  short  furry 
customer who I did a favour for.  Four human teenagers from Mars somewhere  in 
the 2090's got stranded here on this planet (there is no official name for  it 
yet) where the complex know as the Edge Of Nowhere is built.  I gave them  use 
of one of the bars space/time vehicles to help them back to their own time and 
planet.
 Their  guardian was a talking dog called Daisy.  She gave me  that  organiser 
because it was of no use to her because she was herself a  supercomputer.  Her 
computer  brain  was  interfaced with the dog brain with  the  hope  that  the 
organic part of the linked brains would enable her to develop free  will.  She 
did  develop  free will and had quite a rude personality.  Within  minutes  of 
meeting  her,  she called me "tubs" and swore at me several times.  I took  an 
immediate  liking to her.  That's another story for another  day.  Wonder  how 
things worked out for her?
 The  name  "universal format organiser" doesn't give away the fact  that  the 
thing  is  the one of the most advanced pocket computers in any of  the  known 
universes.  It is manufactured by a group of silicon-based beings known as the 
Builders.
 It's the same shape as a credit card only it's about half an inch  thick.  In 
the centre is an inch square sliding cover.  Moving this turns it on.  Beneath 
the sliding cover is the holographic projector used to produce the  appearance 
of a full sized desktop computer.
 The holographic keyboard works by detecting the capacitance that your  finger 
makes as it enters the holograms field.  The computer then works out which key 
you are using. It's extremely difficult to learn to use this kind of keyboard. 
You can't touch-type with it and there is no key click.
 The  monitor is also a hologram.  It's rather odd looking to see a  perfectly 
rectangular screen with no perceivable thickness floating in the air above the 
computer. The screen, when set to its maximum width, can be three feet across. 
I've set the one on this computer to roughly 15 inches across.
 Sound is supplied through sympathetic resonance.  Put simply, this means that 
the  whole  computer  vibrates and the nearby surroundings pick  this  up  and 
convert it into sound.  Well, that's not really how it works, but it's a close 
enough analogy for this little black duck.
 I don't like this sympathetic resonance nonsense at all!  If the surface  the 
computer  is placed on is smooth,  the vibration makes it  slide  about.  It's 
always falling off of the bar when I'm not looking.  Fortunately, the hologram 
automatically  compensates  and remains where it is.  The computer has  to  be 
moved several feet before the hologram goes with it.
 There  are  no  sockets on it at all.  All input/output is  by  direct  piped 
magnetic induction.  This is why it is known as the universal format organiser 
(or  more  commonly  as a UF organiser).  It can intelligently  work  out  the 
storage method used to store any type of magnetic/atomic storage. It will even 
read and write to old fashioned floppy disks without touching them.  Just  let 
the  computer know where the disk is and it does the rest provided that it  is 
within a few feet of it.
 I'm  reliably  informed,  a little known side effect of this means  that  the 
computer is also an expert at picking electronic locks.  I've never tried  it, 
but I'm assure it works.
 Software? It writes its own to suit your needs.  Memory? Don't know. It can't 
be  measured  accurately.  Well,  not by me.  If you ask it,  it will  give  a 
meaningless  number something along the lines of 10 to the power 898650357  or 
some  such drivel.  It then has the cheek to add the word  approximately.  All 
this  memory fits onto a single memory crystal the size of  my  thumbnail.  It 
uses something known as molecular switching to store the data. I haven't got a 
clue  what  that means.  It's a very big memory that's all  I  know.  Probably 
bigger than the human brain. It always has current running through it, so when 
you switch the computer on, it's always doing whatever it was it was doing the 
last  time that you used it.  Because of this,  there is no need to have  hard 
disk units.  If the current failed,  the memory would freeze. You could remove 
the memory crystal and pop it into a new computer.  Funnily enough, the memory 
crystal is human-built.  Invented about 2050. It was never designed to be able 
to  access more than a few thousand giga-bytes,  but that's the  Builders  for 
you!  They often make other beings' technology do things it was never designed 
to do. Indeed, this is what enginners the Universe over constantly do.
 I haven't a clue about the power source. It's not atomic or gravic that's for 
sure. The Builder duplicator doesn't work with those sort of materials.
 The  duplicator  is the reason why someone like me can own  such  a  powerful 
computer.  The duplicator will reproduce nearly anything as long as it's  less 
than 30 pounds in weight.  Don't ask me why that limit exists.  The duplicator 
itself  takes  up a space the size of a small factory and needs a  reactor  to 
power it. Its own parts are too big and heavy to copy itself.
 The Builders were themselves originaly the construct of another race.
 Two thousand years ago the Abcronxuddlern were highly advanced in two  areas. 
Genetics was just a hobby.  Killing was their main interest. They were masters 
of  war.  The  development  of space travel  didn't  interest  them  much.  It 
interfered with the day-to-day running of the wars.
 The  Builders looked like large blobs of protoplasm only because that's  what 
they  were (still are).  Giant-sized amoeboid like creatures whose ability  to 
extrude  themselves  into other shapes made them tool users  who  didn't  need 
tools. Well, not many anyway.
 If  a Builder was too small,  it would eat and ingest rocks until it was  big 
enough for the job. If it was too big, tell it so and it would divide into two 
or more individuals.  They didn't know their own life spans because,  although 
they  were often killed whilst working,  not a single creature had  ever  been 
known to die a natural death.
 You have probably guessed by now, the Builders were designed as slaves. Their 
three  goals  in  life were to learn,  work and  obey.  They  were  programmed 
workaholics and they loved it.
 Perhaps  because  they were fashioned out of silicon  compounds  rather  than 
carbon,  their  brains  were  unstable producing a high  degree  of  eccentric 
behaviour.  Sometimes they behaved like full blown lunatics.  To say they  had 
psychological problems is an understatement.  They could give lessons to fruit 
cakes.
 One  of the Builders developed the theory for nuclear weapons.  Rumours  that 
such  things were possible was enough for Builders  everywhere.  Having  built 
them the Abcronxuddlern had to use them.
 At  that  time,  the  population of the planet was roughly  2  billion  adult 
Abcronxuddlern and a couple of million Builders.
 Two weeks after the theory of nuclear destruction went abroad,  there was  10 
Builders for every Abcronxuddlern on the planet. Builders are virtually immune 
to radiation.  Their chromosomes are just too big to be affected by radiation. 
It took a very extreme heat or cold to even annoy them. Life on the planet was 
now practically non-existent.
 The Abcronxuddlern learned nothing by this.  Small groups of survivors sprang 
up  and  declared  war with tooth,  claw and club on  other  small  groups  of 
survivors.  The Builders did learn a lesson from this, for it was their nature 
to do so. They were not going to stand for this type of behaviour any longer.
 First things first.  They re-designed their own genetic structure and created 
a second race of Builders with complete free will who were capable of sticking 
two extruded fingers up at anyone that ordered them about.
 The Abcronxuddlern were rounded up and sent to camps for  re-educating.  This 
did not work.  After nearly a hundred years of failure,  the Builder's decided 
to get heavy and kick protoplasm.  The Abcronxuddlern were genetically altered 
so  that  their offspring would be less aggressive.  The new  breed  developed 
something  very desirable.  A moral code.  The old breed died out  eventually. 
Rumours crop up now and then about how some of the bad seed survived,  but  no 
one really believes a word of it.
 By this time,  the Builders had discovered ways to muck about with space  and 
time.  Effectively,  faster than light travel was possible.  They finished re-
building the planet's natural environment,  deprived the Abcronxuddlern of all 
technology  and  went  off singly or in pairs to  learn  about  the  universe. 
Wherever they went, civilisation followed.
 The Abcronxuddlern, left to there own devices, re-built their civilisation in 
less than a thousand years.  They are still too aggressive for their own good, 
but  they  have not tried genocide again.  How high the masters  of  war  have 
fallen.  Today,  Abcronxuddlern  are  regarded as the Pit Bulls of  the  known 
Universe.
 If  you  ever  meet  a Builder you are unbelievably  lucky  and  may  end  up 
disgustingly  rich.  Daisy  didn't tell me the story of the  Builders.  It  is 
etched into the computer's memory and cannot be removed.
 I  told Brian all this and more.  He listened closely and made a  few  notes. 
When  I  told  him about the my computer I demonstrated  each  point.  When  I 
finished  talking about the Builders,  I left him to potter about with the  UF 
organiser whilst I tried to talk to Victor for a while.
 "I suppose that you're a ghost writer?" I joked.
 "No." said Victor.
 "Been dead long?"
 "No."
 "How did you die?"
 "Brian killed me."
 "You feel like talking about it?"
 "No."
 A ghost of few words was Victor. And then later...
 "Your hair is white?" said Victor.
 "Yes." I said.
 "Yet your eyebrows are jet black?"
 "Yes."
 "Do you dye it?"
 "No!" I said rather rudely.
 "Oh! I didn't mean to offend! I was just making conversation."
 Just  making conversation!  Can you believe it?  He actualy said that to  me! 
Time for revenge.
 "I don't feel like talking about it." I said and walked away.
 In disgust I wandered off to polish the Wurlitzer.  What sort of song  whould 
offend a ghost and a hippy? Maybe that old CD thing by Frank Zappa's daughter? 
That  offends  everybody!  Press a few buttons,  turn up the  volumn  and  the 
sickening vocals of "Valley Girl" rang out. How many repeats? 10. He, he!
 They  both left on the fourth repeat.  If they ever come in again,  I'll  get 
their story even if I have to drug them to do it. How'd you drug a ghost?
 That was yesterday.  I suppose that I might as well write it up. Nothing else 
interesting  has happened around here.  They might come back and I can  always 
add a bit to the story when I find out a bit more about them.
 I put my computer on the bar and turned it on.  Strange?  The file manager is 
open? That hippy must have been using it. Let's take a look in the log and see 
what he was doing....
 WHAT?  He's been copying files! That speccy swine has actually stolen some of 
my journal!
 "Bloody hippies!"
                                                            (c) Bryan H. Joyce

 Original  written  January  1992.  Last rehash  August  1992.  Final  editing 
February 1994.


= RAMBO III ==================================================================
 by Richard Karsmakers


 It had been a rainy afternoon,  and the air was smelling clean and pure.  The 
street was wet.  The sun was shining weakly through thin clouds, and the birds 
seemed to rejoice life now that it was dry again.
 A  lonely  man dressed in a U.S.  army jacket walked slowly along  the  road, 
sticking up his thumb at every passing car.  None of them stopped for him, but 
he seemed to have reconciled him with that a long time ago.

 A town was looming up in the distance.  Finally,  he would be able to eat and 
drink something after having wandered through dense forests for over two days. 
He welcomed the sheer thought of once again being in the civilised world, even 
though he hadn't particularly liked the civilised world in recent years.
 He  sighed deeply,  readjusting his rucksack.  He looked at a squad car  that 
came nearer and passed him in the opposite direction.
 The car turned around and came back to him again.
 "Good  afternoon," a police officer said after having wound down the  window, 
"can I perhaps be of any assistance to you?"
 The  man in the U.S.  army jacket stood still for a moment and looked at  the 
officer with raised eyebrows.
 "Can I perhaps be of any assistance?" the man repeated.
 The wanderer shook his head.
 "Where are you going?" the Police officer inquired.
 The wanderer seemed in deep thought for a moment, then said: "North."
 His voice sounded worn, and had something threatening yet innocent.
 "Get in the car," the Police man proposed,  "I'll take you to the north  town 
exit."
 The man in the U.S.  army jacket got in, uttering nothing but a muffled grunt 
of approval.
 
 "This  is quite a quiet little town,  really," the officer said after he  had 
driven  for  a couple of moments,  "there's nothing going on  that  you  would 
like."
 The wanderer looked at the Police officer and once again raised his eyebrows.
 "It's  actually quite a dull town.  But the problem is that we don't mind  it 
being dull and quiet. And I am paid to *keep* it that way. Do you understand?"
 The wanderer didn't say anything or even nod.  They both sat silent until the 
officer halted the car, about a mile north of town.
 "Here it is," the officer said,  adding "You're welcome" when he noticed that 
the man in the green U.S. army jacket wasn't about to say anything.
 The wanderer got out; the Police car turned around and went back to town.

 The Police officer was pretty pleased with himself.  Another potential threat 
to rest and peace in his community was got rid of.
 Until  he looked in his rear view mirror.  The bum was walking  towards  town 
again.
 He  turned his car around rapidly and stopped before the man.  He wound  down 
the window again.
 "What do you think you're doing?" he said to the man.  Some irritation  could 
be heard in his voice now.  "I thought you were going north. Didn't I tell you 
that our town is nothing for you?"
 The  wanderer looked blankly at the officer,  obviously not thinking for  one 
moment to heed the public servant's remarks.
 He walked on.
 "Well I'll be..." the Police officer said, put his car in reverse and stopped 
again in front of the man wearing the tattered old green jacket.
 "Didn't I tell you to turn around, and to avoid this town?"
 When  the wanderer moved to walk on,  the Police officer got out of the  car, 
obviously quite excited.
 "Please put your hands on the car and spread your legs, mister. Now, please." 
He helped the wanderer assuming the required position and searched him.
 "Ah!" he said triumphantly when he found an enormous knife on the  wanderer's 
belt.
 "You're under arrest for carrying a concealed weapon!  You have the right  to 
remain silent.  If you give up the right to remain silent,  everything you say 
can and will be used against you in a court of law.  You have the right to  an 
attorney.  If  you don't have an attorney we will appoint one for you."  While 
saying this,  he clicked handcuffs on the other man's wrists. He pushed him in 
the back, got behind the wheel himself and drove to the Police station.
 "We  don't  like people like you around our town," the  Police  officer  said 
gravely, "especially not when they're carrying huge knives. What do you use it 
for?"
 "Hunting." the wanderer replied.
 "Ha!  What do you hunt then? Elephants?" the Police officer obviously thought 
this to be a pretty funny remark and laughed.
 "Why do you pick on me? I didn't do anything." the wanderer asked. He sounded 
beaten, tired.
 There was a moment of silence.
 "What did you say?" the officer asked.
 "Why you pick on me. I haven't done anything to you."
 Again, silence.
 "We  don't like your type of guy around here." He pulled over the car at  the 
Police station and got out.  He got the man in the U.S. army jacket out of the 
car, too, and guided him inside.
 
 The wanderer was put down for questioning at a desk.
 "Here's another wanderer,  Mitch," the first Police officer said, "he carried 
a concealed weapon and resisted arrest."
 He put the enormous knife on the table.
 "Says he uses it for hunting." the first Police officer said before he left.
 "Please state your full name, mister," the second officer said. He sat behind 
his typewriter, ready to type it down.
 The wanderer didn't say anything. Just looked around him uncomfortably.
 "Look," the officer said,  "we've got methods for guys like you. If you don't 
tell us all we want to know, we'll get it out of you anyway. The hard way." He 
showed his teeth, and beat his truncheon menacingly on his other hand.
 "You'd better believe him," a younger Police officer with light red hair  who 
happened  to overhear the conversation said,  "he can beat it out of  you  all 
right!"
 The  wanderer  now looked around him a bit  more  uncomfortably.  "Your  name 
please!" the officer repeated.
 Still,  the  man  in  the green army jacket didn't even utter as  much  as  a 
disapproving grunt.
 The Police officer raised from his seat and went to stand behind the man that 
was  now  looking most uncomfortably around him.  He seemed to  shiver  for  a 
moment,  as if he was thinking back of something horrible that had happened to 
him years ago.
 "Well,  let's  see  if our friend here wants to  say  something...NOW!,"  the 
officer said, suddenly holding the truncheon to the wanderer's throat, pulling 
quite  unsubtly.  The  wanderer tried to pull it off but  didn't  succeed.  He 
grunted more loudly now.
 "Ah!"  the  officer  said when he saw an army ID  plate  hanging  around  the 
suspect's neck.  He tried to grab it,  but then the wanderer suddenly took the 
officer's hand and held it tight.
 "You  do  that..."  whispered the officer,  "...and you'll  see  your  brains 
splattered all over the desk." He held a gun to the wanderer's head.
 The man in the green U.S.  army jacket released his grip.  The Police officer 
tore off the army ID.
 "Warchild, Cronos J.," he read aloud, "Hmmm...."
 He turned around to the desk where the younger officer with the red hair  sat 
and said: "Can you check out Warchild, Cronos J.?"
 The younger officer nodded and typed in something on his computer terminal.
 The  first  officer came back again and said that the wanderer would  need  a 
bath before he would be put in a cell.
 "You're filthy,  Cronos J.," the second officer said, "you hear what the boss 
said. You need a bath. Well, let's give you a bath!" A sadistic smile could be 
seen on his face.
 
 Warchild  was brought downstairs for a bath by Mitch and the younger  officer 
with  the light red hair.  Bath?  A cleanup anyway,  for all that he saw  down 
there was a hose.
 "Take off your clothes," the officer commanded, pointing to a place where the 
clothes  could  be put with his truncheon.  When Warchild didn't start  to  do 
anything  even  remotely looking like taking off his  clothes,  a  threatening 
movement with the clubbing device made him do so anyway.  "Crikey!" the  young 
officer  sighed when he saw huge scars on Warchild's body,  "what has he  been 
through?!" Mitch didn't seem to be impressed much.  "We must give him a bath," 
he only said,  "well,  give him a bath!" The younger officer took the hose and 
turned it on.  Water sprouted from it hard and landed on Warchild's body.  "Be 
sure to get him behind the ears!" Mitch yelled,  laughing. Some minutes later, 
Warchild  was  thought to be clean enough.  Now,  he only still needed  to  be 
shaved.

 The younger officer took a razor-blade from a cupboard, as well as some foam. 
Warchild  got a blank look in his eyes as he saw the man come nearer with  the 
blade. Flashes of old memories battered through his brain; memories of ancient 
tortures, exploding ships, and pain. A lot of pain. His eyes betrayed panic.
 "Keep quiet,  Cronos J.," said the younger officer,  "I wouldn't want to slit 
your throat with this!"
 "Just  do it!" Mitch grumbled while holding Cronos tight to his  seat,  "he's 
tough enough. Shave him. Dry!"
 The blank look in Cronos' eyes disappeared and was replaced by a small  flame 
-  a  flame of fear mixed with rage.  He saw the blade coming  nearer  to  his 
face...
 Mitch saw the rage in Cronos' eyes, but saw it too late...

 "AAAARRGGHHH!!!!"
 Mitch woke up,  bathing in sweat and turning on the light.  Next to him,  his 
wife woke up, too.
 "Mitch, darling, what happened?" she asked with concern in her voice.
 Mitch panted and couldn't answer for a while.
 "I think I had a nightmare, sugar, but it's nothing. Go to sleep again."
 He turned out the light.
 A  couple of minutes later,  they were fast asleep again.  This  time,  Mitch 
dreamed of promotion, women and money.

 Behind the bedroom door,  a burglar sighed very deep. For a moment he thought 
he had been discovered, but he was still quite safe. He was a broad and rather 
tall man. He wore a grim face and a U.S. army jacket.

 Original written spring 1989.  Rehashed February 1994.  I would not  normally 
have included this as it's a bit of a rip-off (A BIT?!) but I wanted to do all 
the Warchild stories I've written so far in proper chronological sequence.


= A REALLY BAD DAY ===========================================================
 by Bryan Kennerley


 Dallon sat slowly down upon the rock he had taken to be his seat this longest 
night.  The coldness rose from the stone sending a chill throughout his entire 
body.  His hand fell to his sword, sheathed in his belt. He loosened it and it 
fell to the ground.
 Slowly  he  surveyed the horizon,  his eyes barely moving as he took  in  the 
entire  vista of his existence.  He had never been outside the  boundaries  of 
what  he could now see and he knew that he never would.  Stories  abounded  of 
far-off lands,  of magical and mystical creatures, of heroes and evil warlocks 
who  could  cleave  great rifts in the ground with a single wave  of  a  hand. 
Perhaps they were true. Perhaps not.
 The sun was starting to set.  Unnatural colours bounded across the  sky,  the 
clouds a landscape in themselves,  infinitely more beautiful than the land  as 
it was now,  grey, barren, marks of death and pestilence everywhere for all to 
see  -  no  matter  how often the survivors  turned  their  heads,  trying  in 
desperation  to avert their gaze from the memories of the disasters  that  had 
befallen them, a new tombstone to their civilisation would come into sight.
 Here,  high  on a mountain top,  Dallon sat,  surveying what had once been  a 
thriving town,  his town,  where he was born,  where he married, where his son 
was born,  where his bride and child had died,  leaving him alone.  Alone.  If 
only it was just his family. Countless others had died when the first wave had 
struck,  a  great wall of water,  a mountain of doom racing out of  the  east, 
sweeping away all they had built,  all they had known.  A few survived,  those 
who were in the hills, and they were here still.
 The  impossibly strong wind buffetted against Dallon,  trying to  remove  him 
from his seat,  but he sat firm.  His long, dark hair blew back from his face, 
bringing  a  clarity  of thought that he would  much  rather  be  without.  It 
wouldn't be long now.
 The  sun  hung  low in the sky,  reluctant to set,  as  if  floating  on  the 
tumultuous sea before him.  A huge crack of lightning split the sky apart  but 
there was no rain.  The moon glowed serenely through the chaos, as if gloating 
from its position of calm and order, seeking the appropriate gap in the clouds 
through which to watch, ghoulishly enjoying the suffering of those who were to 
witness the end.
 And then there was the second moon.  The moon that had been in the sky  since 
early summer,  growing in size as the terror of the people increased, doubling 
as  thousands  died in the wave,  and doubling again as the  survivors  buried 
their  loved  ones.  The  ones that were found.  Dallon had  thought  for  one 
hopeful,  but brief moment that as the people lost all that was theirs to lose 
it  would  cease growing,  deprived of it's food,  but as  despair  grew  into 
resignation, so the harbinger in the sky grew too.
 Those who were left had come to the mountain and sheltered from the storms in 
the  caves of their ancestors,  their primitive drawings still visible in  the 
rockface.  Countless generations had died here, their bones still buried under 
this generation's feet.  One more would join them tonight. Some would watch as 
their world was torn apart,  others would cower in the caves, praying for some 
miracle,  hoping  beyond  hope  that  averting  their  eyes  would  avert  the 
catastophe. Others had already died, or gone missing, of their own choosing.
 The new moon now hung over the ocean,  many times larger than the sun.  As he 
stared at its brilliant surface,  Dallon imagined he could see oceans upon it, 
continents,  trees,  rivers,  cities,  mountaintops. Mountaintops where people 
such as he were sitting,  looking back at him,  anger and bitterness in  their 
eyes,  sorrow seeping out in their teardrops,  unimagineable sadness  gripping 
their heart. Except that the sadness was all too imagineable.
 The wind was increasing now.  Before long he would no longer be able to  hold 
his vantage point. But no, this monster had taken everything he had ever known 
and  there  was  no  way that it would now deprive him  of  his  final  stand. 
Reaching  down  to  his side,  Dallon sought the  handle  of  his  sword.  His 
fingertips struck metal and his hand gripped the hilt with iron determination. 
Rising  to his feet,  he held the sword above his head in one last gesture  of 
defiance and sank the blade deep into the ground before him.
 As the wind continued to grow and rain like pebbles thrashed down around him, 
he gribbed the sword with all his might, Dallon screamed at the storm, drawing 
energy from the depths of his soul,  but his voice went unheard above the roar 
of the apocalypse.  With a final surge,  he forced his eyes open one last time 
to see that which was his executioner carry out the sentence.  The moon filled 
the sky before him and, the instant before it hit, breaking the planet in two, 
Dallon was sure that he saw people on its surface,  their faces frozen in  one 
final, voiceless scream. 


= AIRBORNE RANGER ============================================================
 by Richard Karsmakers


 It has been Tough. Really Tough and, indeed, "Tough" with a capital T.
 When  Cronos Warchild,  mercenary annex hired gun,  had first read a  leaflet 
with prerequisites of applicants for the Ranger course,  it was love at  first 
sight.  He immediately knew that he would finally be able to put into practise 
everything he had worked for at the local gym.
 "You must be in top physical condition," the leaflet had read, "able to do at 
least 50 push-ups, 60 sit-ups, and run two miles in under 15 minutes. You must 
have  passed  the Combat Water Survival Test,  which means that you  can  walk 
blindfolded  off  a 3-meter diving board,  and swim 15 metres in  full  combat 
gear.   You  must  be  qualified  in  marksmanship,   first  aid,  camouflage, 
orienteering,  and construction of observation posts and defensive  positions. 
You must be confident of your own skills and abilities, and ready and eager to 
improve them."
 A smile appeared on his lips as he remembered the pamphlet.  Reality had even 
been worse,  and the four training phases had been Tough, Tough indeed. But he 
had been through worse,  though some of his old injuries (especially the  ones 
he  sustained when trying out a breathtaking trapeze act once) were  regularly 
playing tricks on him.

 But now he was ready. He had now joined the exclusive fraternity of those who 
wear the unobtrusive patch reading "Ranger".
 Unobtrusive indeed.  Was this what he had gone through hell for? Just a small 
piece of cloth with some characters knitted on it.
 Tomorrow  he had to check in at Fort Benning at 0900 hours.  There  was  some 
kind of job to do in some godforsaken country in the Middle East.  None of his 
team had yet received their mission briefing, but rumours spoke that they were 
to perform a quick assault to a country called Inar where they were to  abduct 
or assassinate the spiritual leader, Mokheiny.
 He walked the streets,  thinking about what might happen there.  He was kinda 
enthusiastic  and  particularly  looking  forward  to  tomorrow's  assignment. 
Finally,  he would be able to wield a gun again, which he hadn't been asked to 
do since he was set out to kill that ridiculous detective, Eddie-what-was-his-
name.
 He crossed a busy street and totally neglected the fact that it was 5 PM  and 
that  everybody was trying to get home from work as fast as possible;  a  time 
when  even the entire New York police preferred to say indoors and try not  to 
miss tomorrow's weather forecast.
 A  car  crashed into his left leg:  A Black Pontiac Trans-Am.  It  must  have 
driven at least 50 mph. For about pi nano-seconds, Cronos thought he was dead. 
When  he opened his eyes,  he discovered that he was standing upright  with  a 
black car folded partly around his shin bone, and he thought he was surrounded 
by  Angels chanting songs of peace and bliss.  But either he  wasn't,  or  the 
Angels'  reportoire had changed considerably;  he only heard swearing  curses. 
The Angels looked at bit like New York citizens,  too;  citizens looking for a 
thrill and the sight of fresh blood and/or a heavily mutilated body.
 When  Warchild realised that A) He was not dead,  B) People did not  seem  to 
discover any fatal injuries on him, C) The driver of the Trans-Am was swearing 
like mad,  and D) Aforementioned driver was swaying a sturdy jack and  looking 
threateningly in his direction,  he decided that it was time to bring some  of 
his training in practise.
 The Trans-Am driver was an enormously sized feller,  with a chest width  that 
most  people would have considered to be a proper total body length.  The  guy 
must have weighed at least 270 pounds.  Warchild wasn't particularly small and 
light either, but this dude made him look like his foster mum's piano teacher.
 He decided to wait and see what the gigantic guy was up to.  For this, Cronos 
didn't  have  to wait long.  The guy lifted the jack above his head  and  made 
movements that would surely end up with the connection of solid steel to solid 
human skull bone.
 Warchild's  reaction was swift and sure.  He stepped aside  carefully,  which 
made sure that the piece of solid steel got connected to the Trans-Am's hood.
 Devious dude: "Grooowwll!"
 Warchild: "Watch yourself; that's bad for your throat!"
 Silly stooge: "Grooowwll!!"
 Jack: "Wooosshh!"
 Warchild, stepping aside once more: "?"
 Trans-Am's front windshield: "Rinkeldekinkel!"
 Malignant macho: "GROOOWWLL!"
 Warchild: "Tsk, tsk..."
 Furious fool: "GROOOWWLL!!"
 Jack: "ZZzoooppp!"
 Warchild, stepping aside even once more: "Sigh..."
 Trans-Am's roof: "Crash! (Crucial collapse)"
 "It's  about  time  for some defensive transactions,"  Warchild  muttered  to 
himself.  The  next  second,  he  beheaded the wild weirdo  with  one  of  his 
fingernails.
 Warchild's fingernail: "Swooosh?"
 Mutant madman: "Waddoyouthink you're do...Glop."
 Mutant madman's body: "Thump."
 Jack (after hanging in the air for a while, not quite aware of what happened, 
and least of all of the laws of gravity): "Dang!"
 Cronos  looked around the people that stood around the scene.  Most  of  them 
looked  deathly  pale now,  and some of them could be seen having  trouble  to 
keep their afternoon coffee'n'sandwiches inside.
 "Step  aside  please," he said as he left the crowd to continue on  his  way, 
"and  can  someone perhaps call a mortician?  Thank you.  I have  a  plane  to 
catch."
 He left the story for the moment.

 Original written late spring or early summer 1989. Rehashed February 1994.


= DOGS OF WAR ================================================================
 by Richard Karsmakers


 A  bird of many colours flew up as Cronos Warchild put his foot on the  soft, 
damp jungle soil.  He startled,  used his ABC-M-7 flamethrower and transformed 
it  into a heavily overdone piece of poultry that dropped down without any  of 
the grace it had formerly possessed.
 He  looked  around  as  if  he  had  just  now  performed  a  deed  requiring 
considerable  heroism.  A  grin  that wrinkled his lips  made  his  expression 
complete.
 He  adjusted his helmet,  carefully scanning the bushes for signs that  might 
indicate  that he was discovered by the enemy.  Yet he did not see  any  enemy 
soldiers suddenly popping out,  nor was he able to distinguish the sharp forms 
or flashes of weaponry between the bushes.
 He wasn't actually sure whether he regretted this fact or not.  Some  killing 
was  bound to keep him awake a lot longer than that old coffee in his  canteen 
or the long green leaves he found at times and used to chew.

 It  had  been eight days ago now since he had left  Saigon  airport,  on  his 
search for the lost son of a wealthy American industrialist, which was thought 
still to be a POW since the Vietnam war.
 "Fifteenthousand," the concerned father had said,  "half up front." Well,  it 
wasn't much but you had to do something to maintain a certain lifestyle  these 
days  - he was usually turned down when applying for regular jobs due  to  his 
devastating  lack of intelligence and the rather rude way in which he  usually 
tended to express himself.
 Then again,  maybe he shouldn't have insisted upon trying to get submitted to 
the Salvation Army all that time.
 The  Salvation  Army was probably capable of supplying him with  a  far  more 
interesting  job rather than this one.  Okay,  it payed slightly  better,  but 
except  for  obliterating a couple of gnats that bothered  him  regularly  and 
setting fire to the occasional bird, nothing had happened thus far.
 
 So  it  was  understandable that Warchild kind of rejoiced  when  he  finally 
noticed soldiers on the road ahead of him.  And these weren't just soldiers  - 
they were none other than enemy personnel.
 Finally, some decent killing to do. Killing that he was paid for, that is.
 He  cried  one of his battle cries (a rather ridiculous one he  had  one  day 
heard in a movie about Japanese suicidal squads) and commenced attack.
 The Vietcong soldiers were rather caught by surprise, and within seconds they 
were reduced to undeterminable heaps of smouldering limbs,  bowels,  bones and 
weaponry.
 As  he  blew the smoke off the barrel of the massive  weapon,  another  smile 
wrinkled  his  lips that could not be mistaken for anything  other  than  pure 
satisfaction. Added to that, he chuckled slightly.
 He  adjusted his helmet,  and again scanned the bushes for more  soldiers  to 
exterminate.
 Pity. There weren't any.
 But the fact that he had ran into a whole bundle of them proved nothing other 
than good luck for the future.  He could almost smell more enemies now,  so he 
guessed that the POW camp was probably not bound to be far off, either.
 He  walked  in  a steady but somewhat faster pace  deeper  into  the  jungle, 
anticipating massive mayhem, oblivious onslaught and colossal killings.

 Original written July 1989. Rehashed February 1994.


= HOLY WARS ==================================================================
 by Richard Karsmakers


 Below you will find a little thing called "Holy Wars" that I wrote on the day 
the allied forces started Operation "Desert Storm".  I wrote it just because I 
felt frightened and concerned back then. It was January 17th 1991.

 The Eve of the War

 When I woke up it was about half past one at night.  My waking up was  caused 
by a car hooting irregularly.  At certain intervals,  the hooting stopped  and 
the  amplified sound of a female's voice could be heard,  echoing through  the 
empty streets against the silent houses of G!tersloh, Germany.
 "Warning!  Warning!..."  I could hear when I strained my ears.  The  rest  of 
whatever she must have said got lost somewhere on the way.  The hooting of the 
car,  slowly disappearing in the night, indicated that I would probably not be 
getting a chance at hearing it again.
 I got out of bed.  It was very cold, but my shivering was primarily caused by 
something entirely different:  A sense of foreboding,  a subconscious  feeling 
that something was happening or about to happen. Something bad.
 I recalled a television program that had been on two days before;  a  program 
in  which a German journalist had interviewed Iraq's dictator Saddam  Hussein, 
who refused to tell anything about whether he did or did not have any  nuclear 
weapons  at his disposal.  A documentary earlier that evening  had  elaborated 
about possible global consequences of a war in the Gulf.  "Once the  Kuwaitian 
oil  wells are ablaze," its narrator had told,  "it will take about 1 year  to 
put  out their fires,  which are lit by billions and billions of tons  of  raw 
oil.  The  result  of  the  smoke of this blaze will be  20  years  of  global 
darkness, and highly acid rain all over the world."
 In other words, it would get to be pretty damn cold.
 I  had never before thought of 'war' as something I could be the  victim  of; 
'war'  was something that happened in Vietnam,  Central America or the  Middle 
East,  which  couldn't possibly cause any problems to me  personally,  nor  to 
anyone I was likely to know. Everything was simply too far away.
 Now,  I  suddenly  found  'war' something I could  almost  feel  despite  its 
enormous  distance.  The world suddenly turned out to be much too small  after 
all.
 I went over to Thorsten,  one of three of my colleagues that live in the same 
house as me during weekdays.  There was still light in his room, and he turned 
out to have returned not long ago from some extra work at our company.  On his 
radio, the British Forces Broadcasting Service was softly playing typical mid-
night  moody music,  and when I told Thorsten what I suspected he said he  had 
not  heard any cars hooting.  There hadn't been any newsflashes on the  radio, 
either.
 So  I  went back to bed,  only to be stirred mere minutes later  by  drumming 
noises from outside.
 Dark thoughts flashed through my head as I put on some clothes and went  onto 
the balcony, shivering, trying to find out what was going on.
 Something  was happening.  That was certain.  But what?  And,  should  it  be 
something really bad,  would I ever see my loved one again?  Why was there  no 
air-raid alarm?  I was surprised at the fact that I already thought all  these 
things. After all, the Gulf was very far away and there would most probably be 
no reason for concern whatsoever.
 A  crowd  of two or three dozen people walked through the streets up  to  the 
market square, which I could see from the balcony. They were carrying pots and 
pans,  which they constantly beat on with assorted cutlery.  Their faces  were 
grim. They didn't speak, not even chant slogans or something.
 The  car I had heard earlier now also came driving through  the  street.  The 
hooting  was  still repeated now and again,  but the female's  voice  was  now 
replaced by what seemed to be a radio broadcast.
 It spoke of bombing raids on Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. It spoke of American 
B-52  bombers  and Flak.  It sounded exactly like the  kind  of  broadcastings 
actors  listen to in WW II movies when they hear that the allied nations  have 
just declared war upon Germany.
 The Gulf War had begun.

 Desert Storm

 Thorsten now also came. He was only wearing pyjamas, so he was shivering even 
more.  Michael,  another colleague,  also came out. He looked very sleepy, and 
was mostly swearing about the noise. Unlike me, he appeared not to be even the 
slightest  bit concerned.  Thorsten's worries seemed to be  somewhere  between 
Michael's and mine.
 A  police car had now appeared on the square,  soon accompanied  by  another. 
Some police officers started to talk or discuss with the people on the square. 
The beating sounds had ceased.
 We  went  into the living room and turned on the television.  On  two  German 
stations,  direct reports about the Gulf War could be received.  Two  American 
journalists  (who'll probably get the Pullitzer prize for this - if  they  get 
out alive) were broadcasting from a hotel in the centre of Baghdad. They spoke 
of "enormous explosions" towards the south, and of a "shuddering sound we have 
heard before only during the launch of a Space Shuttle".
 As it turned out,  the "liberation of Kuwait" had begun at some minutes  past 
midnight  CET as B-52 bombers started to unload their deadly load on  specific 
targets in and around Baghdad.
 Codename:  Operation  Desert Storm.  It sounded like a Microprose  simulation 
game, but this was one that had a bit too much of a reality factor.
 I  was somewhat relieved to hear that the Iraqis had not yet really  defended 
themselves - so at least there were no nuclear missiles heading anywhere,  and 
the oil wells were not yet ablaze.
 I headed back for bed again.  Although my sleep was restless, I arose from my 
bed the next morning, refreshed.
 The first day of Operation Desert Storm. January 17th 1991.

 Breath Held

 I turned on the television again. Just like I had thought and anticipated, it 
still  featured  continuous covering of the Gulf War.  There had  been  little 
allied casualties,  and indeed only 2 of 1500 planes seemed to have been  shot 
down  -  both  and English and an  American.  More  complete  information  was 
lacking, however, so basically anything could have happened.
 Iraq  was thought to have launched rockets,  but apart from the fact  that  a 
Saoudi Arabian oil tanker and a couple of oil riggs in the Gulf were  supposed 
to have been shot at,  there had been no defensive transactions.  Hussein  had 
called  upon  the Iraqi people to aid the defence.  The Kuwait  government  in 
exile  had  called upon their citizens to aid the attack and  the  underground 
resistance. All the world's leaders had reacted with horror at president Bush' 
initiative to attack.
 Bloody hypocrites.
 Outside,  in  the  streets,  a couple of hundred  people  were  demonstrating 
against the war.  Most of them were youths;  a large amount of them was  still 
carrying  school bags,  which filled me with doubt as to their intentions  for 
joining this demonstration.  "No war for oil" was one of the slogans  readable 
on some of the white sheets they were carrying with them.
 They gathered on the market square. More came.
 As  it  was  Thursday,  I  had  to  go  to  work  as  usual. I  had  problems 
concentrating there. Each hour, I anxiously went to listen to the radio with a 
couple  of other colleagues,  where I heard the scarce bits of news about  the 
Gulf War.  The United States Navy had been activated to liberate Kuwait. Their 
ships  had bombarded stretches of coast that were now used by special  landing 
vessels  to ooze loads of marines on the land,  where vicious combat was  held 
with  Iraqi  ground  troops  and artillery who had  suddenly  popped  up  from 
everywhere.
 Iwo Jima, the 1991 version. The first casualties of this war.
 As  the  hours progressed,  the mood of the news bulletin readers  seemed  to 
become  more and more dreary.  In the afternoon,  they started to sound as  if 
they  had  just  returned from Baghdad themselves where  they  had  personally 
witnessed  the direst of possible sufferings.  The meaningful  pauses  between 
individual  news bulletin items became longer and  longer.  Suddenly  internal 
affairs  and international economic problems seemed no longer to  exist.  They 
only spoke of the war.
 Then,  in  the four o'clock BBC news bulletin,  it was said that several  oil 
wells had been hit - they were aflame sky-high,  and there was no holding  the 
fire that spread from well to well in a fearsome chain reaction. Eye witnesses 
spoke of huge bulks of thick,  black smoke, crouching upwards into the sky, on 
their way to signal eternal devastation.
 Black smoke. Enormous amounts.
 My heart froze. A wild beating appeared in my throat; sweat on my forehead. I 
felt  a kind of fear I had never felt before;  a kind of  desolate,  desperate 
fear.  The  fear  that tells you that you're going to lose  everything  you've 
built  up  in your life.  A fear that tells you *everybody* is going  to  lose 
*everything* they've built up.
 No matter where you would go,  no matter what you would do, it would get you. 
There was no way out. The cliche was true: Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
 I  looked  outside.  The  sky  was  clear  blue  and  the  bright  sun  shone 
desperately,  as  if in an attempt to enchant the gloomy faces of  the  people 
walking through the streets.  Bit it did not succeed in enchanting the  faces, 
nor could it gladden any hearts.
 It  was  the  first cold week of the winter;  it was to  be  the  longest  of 
winters.
 I  decided  to withdraw some money from the bank.  Get some  canned  food  or 
something.  Anything. Stuff my car trunk full with it and then head home, head 
for Holland.
 Home. Miranda.
 Would she have heard the news?  Probably not,  as she would have called me at 
work immediately.
 Why hadn't I called her yet myself?
 Although  it was very hard for me to resist getting out on the double to  get 
some canned food knowing that more people would probably already have the same 
idea, I found myself dialling her phone number.
 Nobody answered the phone,  though,  so I guessed she wasn't home.  Or  maybe 
Holland  was  hit  by the black smoke  already?  No.  That  was  a  ridiculous 
assumption,  and  I quickly dismissed the thought.  She was probably still  at 
University.
 There were queues at the super market. Now already! It seemed as if a hundred 
people  were running around in it,  desperately seeking for whatever  kind  of 
storable food they could take home.  It was the kind of scene where one  would 
expect children to be trampled upon, but there didn't seem to be any at all.
 Only just before,  I had cherished the thought that everything was just a bad 
dream.  In a couple of minutes the alarm clock would ring and I would wake  up 
in a world without war.  A world without the threat of this toxic black  fume. 
But  the  lack of children's cries,  the grim silent determination  on  people 
faces,  somehow  made  everything  much more real.  I  realised  this  was  no 
nightmare. This was reality.
 I  got my hands on some canned meat and beans.  It was remarkable  how  self-
centered  people  can suddenly become.  The same men and women  that  had  but 
months earlier been celebrating German Unification Day together now had  eager 
looks in their eyes,  scanning their surroundings for things they could buy  - 
or steal.  It was not important what the others could get their hands on. Only 
*they* themselves mattered. Survival of the fittest in its most savage form.
 There didn't seem to be any more storable food left, so I quickly queued up.
 Two police officers suddenly entered the super market through the rear entry. 
The  flashing  of their car's blue lights threw on the  doorpost  behind  them 
the disembodied shadows of people outside,  scurrying along.  Apparently, they 
had been summoned by a member of super market personnel to prevent people from 
looting,  or  worse.  For some people,  the arrival of these  law  enforcement 
officers merely increased their tension and fear.
 But,  curiously,  all I could think of was Miranda.  Miranda,  and the  black 
smoke.
 If this darkest of fumes would block the sunlight out, resulting the earth to 
get cooled off too much,  there would very likely not be much time left. Every 
fibre  in my body ached with a desire,  no,  an *obsession*,  to  spend  every 
precious minute left of my life with her near me.
 As  I carried the goods to my car,  I noticed myself looking up in  the  air, 
paranoid,  at  each sound that could possibly be interpreted as some  kind  of 
fighter plane,  or a rocket. There were no fighter planes in the air at all  - 
nor had their been any during all of the morning and afternoon. As a matter of 
fact,  I  found the emptiness of the air eerily discomforting.  There  was  an 
active Royal Air Force base close to G!tersloh.
 German roads are notorious for their Friday afternoon traffic jams,  but that 
early  Thursday  evening it seemed as if every German wanted to enjoy  a  long 
weekend  on  a Dutch beach - I got caught in what can only be described  as  a 
mass exodus westward.
 The  sun  set  slowly,  dipping the country in the  darkness  of  the  night. 
Tomorrow, it would rise again in all its pale mid-winter glory - but everybody 
in  the traffic jam knew that the day on which the sun may be setting for  the 
final time was nearing, as if by an unstoppable force.
 It was past midnight when I finally arrived at my home town,  physically  and 
mentally  battered  by  the journey that  had  been  slow,  long,  and  highly 
uncomfortable. The stream of cars on the highway simply didn't seem to relent, 
and it kept on doing so even during the very early morning hours,  when I came 
home and could finally hold my loved one in my arms.
 We didn't bother watching any more news programs on the television,  and went 
to bed. There, we drifted off into the proverbial deep, dreamless sleep.

 Six Weeks Later

 Then the dark clouds came.
 They  seemed to have appeared overnight at the southeast horizon.  They  were 
still far off,  or they seemed so, yet their danger seemed to be palpable even 
at this distance.  As I saw the dark masses,  black and impenetrable, with the 
pale sun shining still barely above them,  my heart froze again for a second - 
followed  by my pulse beating rapidly and my temples throbbing.  I  had  knows 
this would happen,  but somehow I had maintained a shred of home.  I felt  its 
flame dying inside me. Through the open window we could already feel a chiller 
breeze. The air below the clouds was black with rain.
 Acid rain.
 This  was  it.  Science had not been able to avert  this  global  catastrophe 
caused by politics and religion.  Even now,  and for many months to come,  the 
flaming  rage  of the Middle East oil wells,  distant  though  it  was,  would 
feed  this ominous and all-encompassing cloud of darkness that  would  envelop 
the  entire earth before long,  plunging it into the devastation of a new  ice 
age.
 We beheld the dark clouds in resolved silence,  holding each other firmly  as 
if  we  truly believed our love could send the darkness back to where  it  had 
come from, back to the womb of the earth, back to the hell of the war that had 
sent it forth.
 The  wind  could be seen tearing at their dark  tops,  sending  ahead  narrow 
streaks  of  dark filth as if tempting us,  playing with our fear like  a  cat 
would with a dead bird.
 The  little  square  in front of our  flat,  normally  filled  with  children 
playing,  was  now completely empty except for a tattered glove  that  someone 
must have lost.  Windows were closed. No bicycles or cars could be seen on the 
empty streets.
 And the dark clouds just came nearer. There was no thunder or lightning. Just 
dark  clouds,  raining acid.  The way the clouds came slowly closer  was  like 
seeing a train crash into you in slow motion, with the sound turned off.
 For  a  while a rainbow appeared,  fragile and beautiful under  the  absolute 
darkness of the clouds.
 It was getting very cold. We closed the window. The rainbow had disappeared.
 At just past noon,  the rain became clearly audible.  It lashed at the houses 
on  the other side of the highway that ran behind the appartment buildings  at 
the other end of the square. They were sometimes partly obscured from sight by 
the torrent.
 We  embraced  each  other even more tightly,  but we both  couldn't  help  to 
shiver.
 Then the sun disappeared.

 Original written January 1991. Rehashed March 1994.


= SOON COMING ================================================================


 The next issue of "Twilight World",  Volume 2 Issue 3,  is to be released mid 
May this year.  Please refer to the 'subscription' section, below, for details 
about automatically getting it in case you're interested.
 Please  refer  to the section on 'submitting',  below,  for more  details  on 
submitting your own material.
 The next issue will probably contain the following items.

 GODS
 by Richard Karsmakers
 The True Story of Creation. Perhaps.

 THE SCHOOL OF LIFE!
 by Kai Holst
 A story of the two L's: Love and Life.

 SAVAGE
 by Richard Karsmakers
 Where Cronos rescues his mother, foster mother and fiancee.

 ALICE THROUGH THE FLAMES
 by Roy Stead
 An interesting story of Parallel Paradox (or something or other).

 GAUNTLET II
 by Richard Karsmakers
 Where, amongs others, a Dwarf and an Elf have to battle something Terrible.

 BLOOD MONEY
 by Richard Karsmakers
 Where a Compact Universal Nuclear Teleporter confuses someone mightily.

 AND MORE


= SOME GENERAL REMARKS =======================================================


 DESCRIPTION

 "Twilight World" is an all-format on-line magazine aimed at everybody who  is 
interested  in any sort of fiction - although it usually tends to  concentrate 
on fantasy-and science-fiction.
 One of its sources is an Atari ST/TT/Falcon disk magazine by the name of  "ST 
NEWS" which publishes computer-related articles as well as fiction.  "Twilight 
World" principally consists of the best fiction featured in "ST NEWS" so  far, 
with added stories submitted by dedicated "Twilight World" readers.

 AIM

 It  has  no particular aim,  but "Twilight World" would like to  be  a  fresh 
breath  to all you people out there that don't mind a magazine that tries  not 
to  conform  to too many preset rules,  which might indeed cause some  of  our 
stuff to be considered 'rude' or perhaps totally disgusting (or  worse,  plain 
boring).

 SUBMITTING ARTICLES

 If you've written some good fiction and you wouldn't mind it being  published 
world-wide,  you can mail it to me either electronically or by standard  mail. 
At  all  times I reserve the right not to publish submissions.  Do  note  that 
submissions on disk will have to use the MS-DOS/Atari ST/TT/Falcon disk format 
on  3.5"  Double-or High-Density floppy disk.  Provided  sufficient  IRCs  are 
supplied (see below),  you will get your disk back with the issue of "Twilight 
World"  on it that features your fiction.  Electronic submittees will  get  an 
electronic electronic subscription automatically.
 At all times,  please submit straight ASCII texts without any special control 
codes whatsoever,  nor right justify or ASCII characters above 128. Please use 
*asterisks* to emphasise text if needed.

 COPYRIGHT

 Unless  specified along with the individual stories,  all bits  in  "Twilight 
World"  are copyrighted by the individual authors but may be spread wholly  or 
separately to any place - and indeed into any other magazine - provided credit 
is given both to the original author and "Twilight World" and/or "ST NEWS".

 CORRESPONDENCE ADDRESS

 All  correspondence and submissions should be sent to the address  below.  If 
you  need a reply,  supply one International Reply Coupon (available  at  your 
post  office),  or two if you live outside Europe.  If you want  your  disk(s) 
returned,  add  2 International Reply Coupons per disk (and one extra  if  you 
live  outside Europe).  Correspondence failing these guidelines will  be  read 
(and perused) but not replied to.
 The address (valid at least up to summer 1995):

 Richard Karsmakers
 Looplantsoen 50
 NL-3523 GV   Utrecht
 The Netherlands
 Email R.C.Karsmakers@stud.let.ruu.nl

 SUBSCRIPTIONS

 Subscriptions (only electronic subscriptions available!) can be requested  by 
sending  me some email (at the address mentioned above).  "Twilight World"  is 
only available in an ASCII version.  Subscription terminations should also  be 
directed to the mentioned email address.
 About  one to two weeks prior to each current issue being sent out  you  will 
get  a  message to check if your email address is still valid.  If  a  message 
bounces, your subscription is automatically terminated.
 Back issues of "Twilight World" may be FTP'd from atari.archive.umich.edu and 
etext.archive.umich.edu.  It will also be posted to alt.zines,  alt.prose  and 
rec.arts.prose. Thanks to Gard for this!

 PHILANTROPY

 If you like "Twilight World", a spontaneous burst of philantropy aimed at the 
postal  address mentioned above would be very much  appreciated!  Please  send 
cash only;  any regular currency will do. Apart from keeping "Twilight  World" 
happily afloat,  it will also help me to keep my head above water as a student 
of  English at Utrecht University.  If donations reach sufficient height  they 
will  secure  the  existence of "Twilight World" after my  studies  have  been 
concluded.
 Thanks!

 DISCLAIMER

 All  authors  are  responsible for the views  they  express.  The  individual 
authors  are also the ones you should sue should copyright infringements  have 
occurred!

 ST NEWS

 In  case  you have an Atari ST/TT/Falcon,  you might want to  check  out  "ST 
NEWS",  the  "Twilight World" mother magazine.  The most recent issue  can  be 
obtained  by sending one disk plus two International Reply Coupons  (three  if 
you  live  outside Europe) to the snailmail correspondence  address  mentioned 
above. "ST NEWS" will *not* be officially available through me electronically.
 "ST NEWS" should run on any TOS version,  needs a double-sided disk drive and 
prefers at least 1 Mb of memory (though half a meg should be supported too).

 OTHER ON-LINE MAGAZINES

 INTERTEXT  is  an electronically-distributed fiction magazine  which  reaches 
over  a  thousand readers on five continents.  It publishes fiction  from  all 
genres, from "mainstream" to Science Fiction, and everywhere in between.
 It  is  published in both ASCII and PostScript (laser  printer)  formats.  To 
subscribe, send mail to jsnell@ocf.berkeley.edu. Back issues are available via 
anonymous FTP at network.ucsd.edu.

 CYBERSPACE VANGUARD:   News and Views of the SciFi and Fantasy Universe is an 
approximately bimonthly magazine of news, articles and interviews from science 
fiction,  fantasy, comics, animation (you get the idea) genres.  Subscriptions 
are available from cn577@cleveland.freenet.edu.
 Writers contact xx133@cleveland.freenet.edu.  Back issues are availabe by FTP 
from etext.archive.umich.edu.

 YOU WANT YOUR MAGAZINE MENTIONED HERE? Mail me a short description, no longer 
than six lines with a maximum length of 78 characters. No logos please.

 EOF