1696 lines
99 KiB
Groff
1696 lines
99 KiB
Groff
= TWILIGHT WORLD - Volume 3 Issue 2 (March 18th 1995) =======================
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You can do anything with this magazine as long as it remains intact. All
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stories in it are fiction. No actual persons are designated by name or
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character and similarity is coincidental.
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This magazine is for free. Get it as cheaply as possible!
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Please refer to the end of this file for further information.
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= LIST OF CONTENTS ==========================================================
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EDITORIAL
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by Richard Karsmakers
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THE JAWMAN
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by Bryan H. Joyce
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MAGIC POCKETS
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by Richard Karsmakers
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= EDITORIAL =================================================================
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by Richard Karsmakers
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The second 1995 issue lies before you now, and really there isn't much to
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say about it other than that it's finished and ready for your perusal. I have
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selected some more stuff this time that I haven't written myself, though this
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kind of material *is* running out quickly so I hope you're all getting the
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message and you'll all be writing for "Twilight World" soon. I am fairly
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content to fill the magazine up entirely by myself, but I would like this
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magazine to be used as a forum for other people too! If you've written a nice
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story yourself, feel free to submit it as an ASCII file, for which directions
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are enclosed near the end of this file. "Twilight World" is anti-elitist, so
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anyone with a decent story is welcome to partake!
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As per usual, I hope you'll like reading it. Remember to spread the word -
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and the file!
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Richard Karsmakers
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(Editor)
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P.S. If you no longer want to receive "Twilight World", *please* unsubscribe;
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don't let me wait for the messages to bounce instead, totally flooding
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my email box! This especially goes for people on AOL, about 1 out of
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every 5 direct subscribers.
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= THE JAWMAN ================================================================
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by Bryan H. Joyce
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A Tale From The Tavern At The Edge Of Nowhere
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It had to happen. Victor and Brian came back. I tried all night, but was
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unable to get their story out of them. Luckily, Richard Thrum decided to
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break his silence and talk to Victor. They didn't need the psionic device to
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talk to each other. After all, Victor was a ghost and Richard was an, er
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whatever! What would you call him? A disembodied intelligence trapped inside
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a superconductor that had once been his own head? Surely there must be a buzz
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word for someone like him?
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I was on late shift the night Victor Torus and Brian Jones came back. It was
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about nine in the evening when they came in. By midnight Brian was blasted
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out of his brain by the vodka and cider he had been rushing all night. He
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staggered off to the 'coffins' to sleep it off leaving Victor on his
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lonesome. The Tavern was practically empty by this time. I hoped Victor would
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feel like talking to me now that Brian was out of the way. He and Brian had
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been trying to avoid me all night. Perhaps they were trying to avoid a
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confrontation with me. The last time they had been in, Brian had stolen some
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of the text from my journal. In reality, I had more things to care about than
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the theft of some disjointed ramblings. I was angry at the time, but that was
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now so much water under the bridge. Mind you, that was weeks ago by my time
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scale. It might have only been days by theirs.
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Anyway, things got quiet so I tried to engage the ghost in conversation.
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Things must have seemed odd to the few customers who still hung about. They
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couldn't see or hear Victor at all. I could because of the psionic device
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that hung about my neck. I suppose that I could have 'thought' the psionic
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field bigger, but it just didn't occur to me at the time. I had been given
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the device by Alburt Greshin when he left Richard's head for safe keeping.
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The device was the only way to talk to him - or so I thought until now.
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Unfortunately for me, he hadn't felt like talking in the two months or so
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that he'd been here. Recently, I had begun to doubt the validity of the story
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I had heard about the silvery looking head that still rested on the shelf,
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above the mirror, at the back of the bar. Right on cue, Richard decided to
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break his silence.
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"Stop tormenting the guy and tell him your story!"
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"Huh!" I mumbled. Victor looked surprised too. The cheerful deep voice had
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come out of thin air.
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"It's me! The man in the mirror."
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"What?" I said.
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"It's the guy in the head," Victor exclaimed. "Brian told me all about him!
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He read his tale in your journal."
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The man in the mirror! How apt! I hadn't looked at it like that before!
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Richard's head was not just silvery in appearance, but was in fact mirrored.
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"Richard?"
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"Yes!" he sniggered.
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"'Bout time you put in an appearance," I said.
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"I was meditating."
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"For two months?"
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"Yeah, for two months. Whatever. I've got eternity in here with me. Time can
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pass like the flash of a spark. It's irritating talking to so-called normal
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people like you. By my time scale we've been talking for nearly half an hour.
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By yours its probably not even been a minute. I don't bother talking to the
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likes of you unless I have to."
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"Charming!" I exclaimed.
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"Don't be ignorant! Would you enjoy a conversation if an hour of talk seemed
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liked days? Days of talk so slow that you could write a paragraph between
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each of the other party's words? Eh?"
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"Sorry," I apologised, "Why have you joined us this time?"
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"To talk to the dead guy. I've never met a real live dead guy before, so
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shut up and let us talk! You, what's your name?"
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"Victor Torus."
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"Tell me your story and hurry up."
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"I don't wish to talk to anybody about it at the moment."
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"Stop pussy-footing about! You've heard my story. It's only fair that you
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tell yours. I need to know. Hurry up!"
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"No," Victor said, and meant it.
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"Oh hurry up! If you tell me your story, I'll show you how to interact with
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reality."
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A handful of zed nuts rose smoothly out of a nearby dish. The nuts separated
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and began to circle the ghost at high speed.
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"Can you do that?" said Richard.
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Victor was lost for words. So was I. Then there was the noise of someone
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being slapped. Victor's head jerked to the side. His white face was starting
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to go red where the invisible blow had struck.
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"Or that? Don't you wish you could touch things?"
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Victor's mouth hung open in astonishment. He gulped at the air like a fish.
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"Do you want to be able to do that?" Richard repeated.
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"Y...yeah!" Victor spluttered.
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"Good! Then we've established a point from which to negotiate. Tell me your
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story and I'll show you how to enjoy the rest of your death."
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And so it was that Victor and Richard began to talk in earnest whilst I
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listened in silence. As Victor's story unfolded, I began to feel an
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increasing sense of horror and disgust. The horror was not directed towards
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Victor. He was a very unusual innocent bystander. The horror was directed
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towards a monster whose life Victor was forced to share for a while. A very
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human monster. A monster by the name of Philip King.
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*****
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Life began for me, in Scotland, sometime around the first few months of
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1982. I say 'began' because I wasn't born in the conventional sense of the
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word. I didn't know the place in which my self-awareness occurred and I
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didn't know the year. I've since worked them out for myself. Brian Jones and
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I came from Scotland in 1992. There's a naturally occurring doorway in time
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near Loch Ness that leads straight to the Edge of Nowhere. Brian found it the
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first time by accident. Since I am haunting him - after all, he did kill me -
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I followed. The year 1992 is my point of reference. The events that I'm about
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to relate happened approximately 10 years previous, so the year 1982 seems
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about right.
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Obviously, I wasn't aware of events occurring before that time. I picked up
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some clues from the memories of my host, but most of the background was
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filled in much later by Brian Jones.
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Philip King and Brian Jones were the best of friends since kindergarten.
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They were both science fiction writers. Brian was quite good, but never
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attempted to publish anything. It was a hobby that he enjoyed. He wrote very
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slowly. Savouring plots. Using them only as mental jigsaws. Never feeling the
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need to progress into the so-called big time.
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Philip was quite the reverse. He was a rotten writer. He wrote fast and
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often. He was obsessed with getting published. By the time he was nineteen he
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had written ten really bad novels and nearly a hundred short stories. His
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latest work was a play for television called "The Last Night Of The Mobile
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Riot Club." The play was about CB radio which had just been legalised in
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Britain the year before. Years later - after all the nastiness - I had the
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chance to read the manuscript. It was bloody good stuff! It was the first
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time that Philip had drawn from life.
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If the problem that he had for most of his life hadn't come to a head and
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manifested itself so brutally in 1982, he might have hit his goal and sold
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the play. His problem was simple. He was mad. Had been for most of his life.
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I have been unable to trace the starting point to his problem. He was a
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paranoid schizophrenic who believed he was the most insignificant being on
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the planet. His constant failure to get anything published reinforced this
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warped self image. He took every failure as further proof of his own
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unworthiness to live.
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In 1982 he finally realised that he was mentally ill and decided to get
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help. He used the time honoured gambits of telling his G.P. that he had a
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friend with a problem and could he advise him. The Doctor could only advise
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that his friend would have to admit the problem to his own G.P. so that
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therapy could be arranged. Philip admitted nothing and never talked about the
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matter again. He would handle it himself. He wrote his worries down on a list
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and looked at them for a long time. By his way of thinking, all he had to do
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was prove to himself that he mattered to somebody and he would be cured. Part
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of his illness was an obsession with violence. He didn't use violence against
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anyone. It was all imagined and directed towards himself. Everyone he met -
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even Brian Jones - was the enemy. They all wanted to hurt him - perhaps kill
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him. Philip decided that if he channelled this violence outwards, away from
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himself, he would have progressed in the right direction for a cure. He had
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tried to get fame through his writing and failed. Now he deliberately set out
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on the self-destructive path of infamy. He looked at it all quite differently
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of course. He just wanted to be loved.
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It was about then that I entered his life.
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My first memories are decidedly odd, disjointed and frightening. It was like
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scenes from a badly made film that had been spliced together in the wrong
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order and played at varying speeds. When my birth intersected that moment in
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Philip's life, our first shared emotions were of total confusion and terror.
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The confusion came from me. The terror came from Philip. He was in the King's
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living room at the time and he was choking to death. He was choking to death
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on sweet and sour pork. The key word is 'pork.' Remember it. It might be of
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significance when I later tell you what manner of being I am.
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Here is what was happening at that point in time as related to me by Brian
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Jones many months later.
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"Bloody some walk that," Philip was saying, "Remember the Graveyard? When
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the dawn came up? All that mist and drizzle? The green damp gravestones? All
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very spooky."
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"That's right," agreed Brian, "Near the golf course. I wanted to wait there
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at the bus stop, but you were spooked and insisted that we walk on to the
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next bus stop." He gave a laugh and took a large gulp at his pint of cider
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which he was having with his dinner.
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Philip put a tape into the video machine and pressed the play button. The
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screen was filled with the hiss of white noise. "Takes a while for the first
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song to come on," he explained. "Wasn't spooked," he continued, "Just soaking
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wet and freezing cold. It was better to keep warm by walking than standing
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for half an hour waiting for a bus that would probably be late."
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"Rubbish! You were spooked. First class brown trousers scared!"
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He never answered this goading, just stuck a whole ball of pork into his
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mouth and with much difficulty tried to chew it.
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"Careful, you'll choke your self!"
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Just then the video sprang into life and a song by an English punk band
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called the Jam came on. They were singing about the things that people did
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for entertainment.
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"Hey, I like this one!" said Brian as he used the remote control to turn the
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volume up.
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"Spooked?" Philip mumbled quietly.
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"What?" He turned the sound down again.
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Philip didn't repeat himself. His face had gone a funny colour. Sort of
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grey. His mouth was full of pork and hung open. With glazed eyes he stared
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into space. Brian had seen Philip this way once before. They had done a lot
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of dope together a few years ago. Once Phil had dropped some Black Bombers
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and a few Mandy's on top of some good quality LSD. Rather a stupid
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combination really! Brian wouldn't touch the acid. It scared him. Phil had
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freaked out on the stuff. He had looked then, much as he looked now. Neither
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of the pair had done dope for years.
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"Could this be what is know as an acid flashback?" Brian thought. "You
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okay?" he asked.
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"Spooked?"
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The family dog, Bristlehound - who had been asleep in front of the fireplace
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- woke up and wandered over to see what was happening.
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"Spooked?" He mumbled again. This time, bits of half chewed meat dripped on
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ropes of saliva from his open mouth. The dog snapped them up hungrily.
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He coughed and then coughed again. Most of the pork fell from his mouth with
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a splat onto the smoked glass of the coffee table. In a flash, Bristlehound
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was on the table devouring the mess. Philip collapsed onto the floor and
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started choking in earnest. The dog thinking he was playing, jumped back onto
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the floor and started barking.
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"No! You idiot! I warned you!" panicked Brian.
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He stopped coughing and managed to get to his feet again. His face had gone
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bright red and the muscles in his throat were twisting spasmodically. After a
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few shaky steps he fell down again. His right hand - now like a claw - raked
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through Brian's dinner leaving lines of blood across the top of the table.
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Little red magnifying lenses of blood splattering across the television
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screen. Look again Brian? It wasn't blood. It was the red sweet and sour
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sauce.
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As if in slow motion, Phil's body hit the glass table top and it shattered.
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Now there was real blood. Amazingly, it didn't come from Philip. It came from
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the side of Brian's face as a small spear of glass struck his left cheek.
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Philip started to cough again and the dog began to lick his face. By now,
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his face was almost purple. Brian panicked and slapped the dog hard on the
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side of the face. With a loud yelp, Bristlehound leapt away and ran from the
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room. Brian grabbed Philip by the shoulders and shook him violently.
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"Don't die in the living room!"
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What to do? What to do?
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"Don't bloody die you swine!" He turned him onto his side and began to pound
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on his back. A final piece of meat flew from Philip's mouth and stuck to the
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wall with a meaty slap.
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He gave a last cough and then beamed an evil grin. Something shaped from
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pure badness lay behind that grin. Something so corrupt and warped that you
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wouldn't believe in it even as it was killing you. He gave a gurgling, wet,
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painful laugh.
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"Gonnie kill them all!" The voice wasn't his. It belonged to somebody or
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something whose vocal cords were so rotten that they had to bellow hard to
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form even the simplest of words. Brian's blood ran cold and he almost
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fainted.
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"Gonnie cut them! Gonnie split them! Gonnie eat them all up. Gonnie do them
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good! Gonnie do them rude!" He began to laugh louder and louder until Brian
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had difficulty making out any words. Over and over again. "Kill them! Spill
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them! Slit them! Dead them!"
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"Oh my God!" Brian gasped.
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Philip suddenly shut up. His eyes bulged as he seemed to consider for a
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moment. Then he spoke in that dead voice again. This time it was just three
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word spoken with a period between each.
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"Not. My. God."
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"This can't be happening!" thought Brian.
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Philip began to shout about killing them again. He ran the words together
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forever faster and louder until the words became a continuous throat-ripping
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screech.
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"Stop it! Brian screamed.
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And he did.
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Phil's face changed - became relaxed and surprised looking.
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"Wh...what happened?" he whispered, "My throat hurts?" He sat up.
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"Stay still," Brian said shakily,"You've had some kind of a choking fit!"
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His mouth was dry and he was visibly trembling.
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"I'm okay. A bit shaky, but okay - 'cept for my throat," said Phil fingering
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his Adam's apple, "Which is more than I can say for you. Your face is
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bleeding. Your as pale as hell and shaking."
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"Yeah?" He wiped the side of his face and looked at the blood on his
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fingers. There wasn't much. "I'm not surprised I'm shaking. You gave me some
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scare." He gave a watery smile and turned the television off. Bristlehound
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entered the room slowly and gave a small whimper.
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"Aw, come here old girl! Sorry!" Brian rubbed the old dog behind the ears.
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She forgave him and gave his nose a lick. She waddled over and gave Phil's
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face more of the same treatment.
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"What did you do to her?" said Phil.
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"I panicked. She was licking your face and I slapped her."
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"Why did you do that?"
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"Like I said, I was panicking. Didn't know what to do. I though you were
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dying."
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"If I was that bad, why didn't you do C.P.R. or that thingamy manoeuvre?"
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"It just didn't occur to me," Brian shrugged.
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Shortly afterwards, Brian went home. I later discovered that he was so upset
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by what had happened that he went straight to the toilet and was violently
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sick.
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When he left, Philip went upstairs and filled in his diary. As he wrote of
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his choking fit, he laughed. I just watched.
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24/October/1982 (Tuesday) Me and B went to the dole. It was shut. Forgot
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that it was being moved yesterday. Checked the letter they sent weeks ago.
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Not only had it moved, but my signing date is now a Thursday. Bah! Got the
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CB antenna fixed up yesterday. Its a 5/8 wave with a heliptical (don't know
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how you spell it) ground plane. B was suppose to help, but the lazy swine
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didn't turn up. I managed okay by myself, but my dad wasn't pleased. I
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hadn't told him that the antenna was over 20 feet tall and would be stuck
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on a 22 foot scaffolding pole. Tough! The screenplay I'm writing is going
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well. Did ten pages of dialogue last night. Had a bit of a nasty turn
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today, but I turned it to my advantage and scared the daylights out of B.
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It was a bad choking fit. At the end of it, I put on a voice and started
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shouting rubbish about killing folk. B drank it in like the moron he truly
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is. I had trouble keeping my face straight. I should be an actor instead of
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a writer. I've started dreaming about light bulbs again. Wonder what it all
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means?
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And those were my first memories. I wasn't scared because I had nothing to
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compare those events to. In fact, the only memories that I had were those of
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the host and I had yet to learn how to access them. Back then, in my first
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few days of life, I lay timidly at the back of Philip King's mind and
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contemplated the Universe. Who was I? How was it that I could understand so
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much without ever having been taught anything? Without ever having learned a
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language, I should have been thinking in abstract instinctive picture form. I
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was not doing this. I had a mastery of the English language that was far
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superior to the host's? What did I mean by 'host'? Where did I come from and
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what was I doing here? Again, who was I? What was I? I would be only a few
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months until I had the answer to that last question. The others were never
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answered.
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When I learned how to access Philip's mind, I became very frightened. The
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mind of a mad man is not a nice place in which to live. Perhaps I could re-
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shape this dark tortured place? Prune the memories? Mould them into clearer
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cleaner shapes? It would be dangerous, but I could see a way. It would take a
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while to research my plan, but a way did exist. Unfortunately, a few days
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later, events forced my hand before I was ready.
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It was a Saturday. It was a cold winter night. We were at a fund raising
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dance organised by the local C.B radio club. It was held in the Burlington
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Soccer Clubhouse. The soccer clubhouse was pretty normal for any Scottish
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club except for its unusual name. Nobody in Burlington would be seen dead
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calling it by its proper name. An American business man had put a lot of
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money into the club and insisted that the official name was the Burlington
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Soccer Club. To all in Burlington it was always known as the Football Club.
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"You want a drink?" asked Brian Jones.
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"Cider. Thanks," replied Philip King.
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Brian wandered off to the bar. Philip took a pack of cigarettes from a
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pocket in his coat which was slung over the back of a chair. Removed one and
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tried to put the pack into his right front trouser pocket. There wasn't room,
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so he put them in the left hand pocket. There wasn't room in the right hand
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pocket because it contained a large retractable modelling knife.
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He lit the Marlboro, inhaled it deeply and looked the place over. To the
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right of the table was a small dance floor behind which was the D.J's booth.
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To the left was the main body of tables and chairs. At the far left was the
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bar and grill. The lighting was dim and the place was dusty. In places, the
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wallpaper was patchy with damp. Even although October was nearly over, a
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nearby poster still advertised last year's Christmas panto. The music was
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quiet. Although there looked to have been forty or fifty people there, no one
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was dancing. It was still early. Just turned eight. Things would liven up
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later.
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Brian came back. He had a pint of cider for Phil and a beer for himself. He
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had also bought a double vodka each. He complained about feeling very cold
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after the two mile walk. He had on a dress jacket with a thin shirt, a tie
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and training shoes. Everybody else had been wearing parkas or overcoats.
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"Get that into ya," said Brian.
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"Thanks," said Phil and threw the vodka back in one swallow.
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"Don't mention it! The next round is going to be triples and you're buying,"
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said Brian.
|
|
"Right," Philip croaked, "That stuff is rough! You can feel it doing you
|
|
harm as it goes down. What is it? It's great!"
|
|
"Don't know. No label on the bottle. Just some cheap crap."
|
|
"They could get done for that."
|
|
"Shur'up moaning. You seen Sharon anywhere?"
|
|
"Nope. She'll not turn up."
|
|
"Who's that over there then?" he waved at a girl coming in and she waved
|
|
back. She was overweight, had on high heels and a denim mini skirt. There was
|
|
no warm coat for her either. Brian and Sharon were peas from the same pod.
|
|
Sharon was a server in the chip shop in the shopping centre. She always gave
|
|
Brian extra chips. When she had mentioned months ago that she had a C.B
|
|
radio, Brian had went out and bought a legal 40 channel Amstrad rig and a
|
|
slightly illegal DV-27 antenna just so that he could talk to her. Philip had
|
|
bought a silver rod and a Nato 2000 rig which was legal to own, but illegal
|
|
to use - if the chips were switched - anywhere in the world. This was Brian
|
|
and Sharon's second date.
|
|
"Eyeball the Nowhere Man!" shouted a deep voice belonging to a short guy
|
|
with a black beard. He left the bar and headed for our table.
|
|
"Right back at ya, Werewolf," shouted Philip.
|
|
"Who's your buddy?"
|
|
"This is the Slob," Philip gesticulated towards Brian.
|
|
"Right! I was talking to you last night wasn't I? You're the one with the
|
|
Amstrad squawk box aren't you?"
|
|
"Yeah. Excuse me a minute," said Brian as the went over to see Sharon."
|
|
"Right! Is Golden Girl his seat cover?"
|
|
"Not yet," said Philip. 'Seat cover' was C.B slang for girlfriend. Golden
|
|
Girl was Sharon's C.B handle.
|
|
"Cancer stick?" said the Werewolf offering Philip a cigarette.
|
|
"Thanks," he said, taking a tube of tobacco, "Think I'm turning into a chain
|
|
smoker. I've just put one out."
|
|
"How is the Nato doing? Been down to the crypt yet?"
|
|
"Couple of times. Just listening mostly. Talked to a guy down there called
|
|
Mike. Can't remember his handle. Think it was a Ham Jumbo he was using."
|
|
"Right! That'll be big Mike Miller. Handle's Judge Dredd."
|
|
"That was him."
|
|
"He's only been on the box for about a month. By Christ, has he got some
|
|
good equipment."
|
|
From there on in the conversation got even more boring. Names like K40,
|
|
Realistic, and Stalker Nine were thrown about as if they were important. When
|
|
they started going on about SWRing in a tinfoil dipole and talking about
|
|
ground planes, I decided to go to sleep for a while.
|
|
When I woke up, the music was loud and lights were flashing. Someone was
|
|
going on about how his dog had ate concentrated washing powder meant for dish
|
|
washers and had died.
|
|
"How did it get at it?"
|
|
"A bag had burst at work and the boss said it would get rid of the weeds I'd
|
|
been moaning about. So, I took it home and dumped it on the weeds. Stupid dog
|
|
ate it. Probably its idea of a joke."
|
|
"Must have burnt its insides."
|
|
"Right."
|
|
Philip wasn't listening to the conversation. He was drunk and he was angry.
|
|
The anger was directed towards two young women he was staring at on the dance
|
|
floor.
|
|
Near the disco lights the two young women were dancing by themselves. They
|
|
seemed - to Philip - to be about eighteen years old, but he wasn't sure. They
|
|
wore identical, but differently coloured, clothes. One was dressed in blue,
|
|
the other in red. Both were blondes and wore yellow ribbons in their short
|
|
hair. They were dressed in flat shoes, fishnet stockings, short thin cotton
|
|
skirts and tight fluffy jumpers. Each time the disco lights in the background
|
|
flashed, their skirts went transparent.
|
|
"I've always had a thing for women in tight fluffy jumpers. Have you ever
|
|
thought about getting one Sharon?" said Brian.
|
|
"You!" Sharon slapped Brian's arm good-naturedly.
|
|
I searched Philip's memory of the events that had occurred whilst I'd been
|
|
asleep. Nothing interesting there, but I got the names of the new people who
|
|
had joined us at the table.
|
|
"Dirty bitches!" mumbled Philip.
|
|
"You're the dirty one Phil," declared a redhead named Sara. She was the
|
|
Werewolf's wife. Her handle was Lady Love.
|
|
"Com'on. Let's dance!" Sharon said and dragged Brian onto the dance floor.
|
|
"Nice legs, huh?" said Ronnie drunkenly gesturing towards the two young
|
|
women. Ronnie was the Werewolf's real name. Sara gave him a dirty look.
|
|
"Yeah," Philip agreed, hiding his anger. He knew that the young women were
|
|
deliberately taunting him. He didn't have a girlfriend and they knew it.
|
|
Somehow they had found out that he was a virgin and were tormenting him. He
|
|
knew that they were laughing at him. They had deliberately positioned
|
|
themselves so that he - and only he - could see the curves of their thighs
|
|
and their white panties as the bright lights pulsed through the thin skirts.
|
|
The fact that most of the male eyes in the room were also watching the same
|
|
sight never occurred to Philip.
|
|
He looked at his watch. 11.00 pm. It was time. Time for what? I could read
|
|
his memories, but it was often difficult to read his conscious thoughts.
|
|
Maybe it was because I'd just woken up.
|
|
"Nature calls," he said to no one in particular.
|
|
The toilets were in a separate part of the building near the ground floor
|
|
fire exit. There was no one to see him go out of the fire exit. He jammed the
|
|
lock open by forcing a dead match into the bolt housing and carefully closed
|
|
the door behind him. He waited. For what?
|
|
I looked in his memories and saw that six months ago, he had waited in this
|
|
same dark car park for someone to hurt. It was over an hour before he
|
|
chickened out and went home. Perhaps he was going to go through with it this
|
|
time?
|
|
After a few minutes a guy left by himself from a side entrance a few yards
|
|
away. Philip made as if to follow him, but a commotion at the main entrance
|
|
made him fade back into the shadows.
|
|
"It's the luckiest night of your life, pal," he whispered.
|
|
The commotion was caused by the same two women who had been tormenting him
|
|
on the dance floor. They were arguing heatedly about something. Neither of us
|
|
could make out what they were saying.
|
|
"All right! I'll walk!" shouted the young woman in red.
|
|
"Well you can do it without your COAT!" screamed the young woman in blue.
|
|
"Keep it! I wouldn't go near your car if you payed me!" she screamed back.
|
|
"It wouldn't be the first time someone payed you!"
|
|
"Bitch!"
|
|
The young woman in blue hurried to her car and the young woman in red
|
|
hurried off into the darkness. It started to snow. Standing there in the
|
|
darkness, Philip smiled and licked a large dry snowflake from his lips.
|
|
"Bloody TYPICAL!" screamed the young woman in red's voice from out of the
|
|
darkness. "Snow! In October?"
|
|
"Perfect," smiled Philip.
|
|
He ran around the back of the Burlington Soccer Club building and followed
|
|
the young woman at a distance. She was mumbling to herself and swearing a
|
|
lot. At a crossroads of paths, she paused and then headed for the park.
|
|
"Even better," he whispered, "Nobody but a fool goes through the park at
|
|
night."
|
|
When she got near the underpass that ran under the main road, Philip ran up
|
|
a side ally and crossed the deserted road. He ran down the only path into the
|
|
heavily wooded park. The trees were too bare here. He needed the shelter of
|
|
the fir trees just a dozen yards away. It was pitch black, he skidded in a
|
|
pile of broken glass from one of the vandalized lights and fell over. He
|
|
didn't cut himself. He was only winded. Picking up a heavy chunk of wood from
|
|
a nearby vandalised park bench, he hurried into the fir trees and waited.
|
|
Less than a minute later the young woman neared his hiding place. She had
|
|
stopped mumbling to her self and was shivering already. He was also shivering
|
|
for he hadn't brought his coat. There was enough light for Philip to see that
|
|
she looked frightened. She was probably wishing that she had not decided to
|
|
take a short cut through the park. And then, she was gone.
|
|
Philip hurried after her. She did not hear his soft footfalls behind her.
|
|
The makeshift club was silent as it was raised. As it arced forwards, it made
|
|
a tiny wind-like sound. She didn't hear it. It was too late anyway. I
|
|
screamed a warning. No one except Philip heard me. The wood split. Her skull
|
|
did too. Philip caught her as she fell and dragged her a few yards into the
|
|
woods.
|
|
The snow stopped falling and the moon came out from behind a cloud. He stood
|
|
over her warm body and drank in the sight. I had to watch too. I hadn't known
|
|
her in life, but in moonlit death she looked so innocent. She was beautiful.
|
|
She didn't deserve to die in such an ugly way. No one did. She deserved to be
|
|
loved for she was lovable. In that still silent moment, I loved her. I wanted
|
|
to cuddle her and tell her everything would be all right. I wanted to rip
|
|
away these last few minutes of time and make her live again. I could not do
|
|
these things. I am no time ripper and I have no body to cuddle with. Neither
|
|
did she.
|
|
Philip smiled. The adrenaline and testosterone buzzing through his body felt
|
|
wonderful. He felt like a God. I saw a misty figure rise up from her body.
|
|
The God didn't. I cried and he heard.
|
|
"Decided to make yourself know?" he said in his mind.
|
|
"You killed her." There was nothing else to say.
|
|
"I didn't think you would be back," he said.
|
|
"Back?"
|
|
"I've always hoped that I would meet you in the real world Victor. And here
|
|
you are."
|
|
Then I had it. I had been tinkering with his memories. For years Philip had
|
|
been using the Silva Technique of meditation to explore his mind. In it, the
|
|
person uses various relaxation techniques and mind exercises to condition
|
|
their own mind. The participant imagines a place which becomes the 'office'
|
|
of their mind. In this office, they imagine a 'helper'. Philip's helper was a
|
|
character from a book he had written called, The Man In The White Boiler
|
|
Suit. The Man In The White Boiler Suit's name was Victor Torus. I had adopted
|
|
the persona of this character and inserted characteristics of my own
|
|
developing personality into the memories of Philip's meditation sessions. I
|
|
figured that this would make it easy for me to slip 'live' into his next
|
|
session. Philip often took Victor Torus's advice. I had intended to do a bit
|
|
more tinkering with his memories, but now my hand had been forced. I was too
|
|
upset to think clearly, but I had to play things by ear now.
|
|
"You have to turn yourself in," I said.
|
|
"Of course I will. Eventually," he said.
|
|
He unzipped the dead woman's skirt at the side and struggled it down her
|
|
legs. What was he doing? Then I realised...
|
|
"DON'T!" I cried, "Please don't!"
|
|
"Don't worry," he laughed in his mind, "I'm not a rapist I just want the
|
|
skirt to wrap the souvenir in."
|
|
"What souvenir?"
|
|
"I need to leave a sign so that the cops will know its me when I do the next
|
|
one."
|
|
"Next one?"
|
|
"Yeah. Nine or ten should be enough. Then we'll turn ourselves in. We'll be
|
|
more famous than Nielsen or Sutcliff. Just to prove we're not sexist, the
|
|
next one can be a guy. What do you think?"
|
|
"You're insane!"
|
|
"Obviously," he said, "Who else but a madman could have a conversation with
|
|
a fictional character he'd invented?"
|
|
I was too thunder struck to reply. How could he be contemplating such things
|
|
without me seeing them in his mind? Are human beings that impetuous?
|
|
"Suit yourself," he shrugged and removed the modelling knife from his
|
|
pocket.
|
|
It is impossible to remove a human jaw bone with just a modelling knife. He
|
|
also used a large stone as a leaver. The cloth of the skirt prevented his
|
|
hands being covered in blood. I will not speak further on this matter for I
|
|
am still deeply revolted by it. On that cold painful night, so long ago - the
|
|
night of the first murder - I was so shocked by these actions, I fainted.
|
|
Thank you God! I didn't come round until Philip had long finished his dark
|
|
deeds and was fast asleep in his bed.
|
|
I cried for a long time.
|
|
I searched Philip's memories for my missing hours. It looked to me as if he
|
|
had got away with it. He had wrapped the young woman's jawbone in the skirt.
|
|
He managed to fish a polythene bag out from one of the parks few remaining
|
|
garbage cans. Putting his memento in the bag, he hurried back to the dance.
|
|
Removing the match stick from the fire exit lock, he closed the door and
|
|
slipped into the toilets. Nobody saw him. He went into a cubicle and locked
|
|
it behind him. For a few minutes he sat there smiling.
|
|
"You in there Phil?" someone hammered on the door. It was Brian Jones.
|
|
"Yeah."
|
|
"You okay? You've been gone ages!"
|
|
"I've had too much to drink. Been a bit sick," he lied.
|
|
He opened the door and came out clutching the polythene bag. Brian didn't
|
|
notice it. He was too concerned for his friend's welfare.
|
|
"Christ! What happen to you? You're a mess!"
|
|
"The hair kind of suffers when your head's down the bowl," he grinned
|
|
weakly.
|
|
"Tidy yourself up and I'll get you a coke. You'll soon feel better."
|
|
"No. I'm going home. Feel really bad."
|
|
"Give me five minutes and I'll walk you up the road."
|
|
"No. I'll go my self. I've enough money for a taxi. I don't want to spoil
|
|
your chances of getting off with Sharon," he laughed.
|
|
"Yeah. Great ain't she?"
|
|
"Could you phone me a taxi?"
|
|
"Sure. What's in the bag?"
|
|
"Some of my money fell out of my pocket when I was throwing up. I thought
|
|
I'd finished being sick, so I stood up and was promptly sick again. All over
|
|
the money," he lied easily.
|
|
"That's gross."
|
|
"I felt too bad to wash the money here. I wrapped it in paper towels. Fix it
|
|
when I get home."
|
|
"I'll rinse it for you."
|
|
"I was sick again. This time into the bag."
|
|
"Yuk! I'll give you a fiver for the taxi. You can sort the money out
|
|
tomorrow."
|
|
"Thanks. Tell you what, I'll phone for a taxi myself whilst you get my coat.
|
|
Could you put the bag in one of the pockets?"
|
|
"Sure."
|
|
He took the offered bag carefully with a look of disgust. There was no way
|
|
he was going to look inside it. Philip went and phoned a taxi then waited in
|
|
the car park. Brian came out with his coat and gave him the five pound note.
|
|
It was raining hard. There was no sign that it had ever been snowing. Philip
|
|
quickly struggled into his coat.
|
|
"You must have been really sick. I felt the bag squelch as I put it in the
|
|
pocket."
|
|
"I'll be alright after a good night's sleep. Sorry to spoil your night out,
|
|
man."
|
|
"You haven't. The best is yet to come," Brian smiled.
|
|
"Feeling lucky?"
|
|
"Put it this way - earlier on - I visited that funny bubble gum machine in
|
|
the gents. When you see me tomorrow I'll be smiling a lot," just then the
|
|
taxi arrived, "See ya!"
|
|
"Bye."
|
|
Philip got into the taxi and told the driver his destination.
|
|
"Felt the bag squelch!" he sniggered.
|
|
"What?" said the driver.
|
|
"Nothing. Laughing at a joke I just heard."
|
|
"How'd it go?"
|
|
"You wouldn't find it funny!"
|
|
Philip King laughed all the way home.
|
|
When he got there, the house was in darkness. His parents and the dog were
|
|
spending the weekend at the family caravan in Ayr. He stripped his clothes
|
|
off and put them in the front loader along with the dead woman's skirt. He
|
|
placed the young woman's jawbone on top of the washing machine and looked at
|
|
it for a while. There was a lot of meat still attached to it. Bristlehound
|
|
would have loved that. It struck him how ugly the thing was and decided to do
|
|
something about it. He ran the hot tap until the water was warm and filled a
|
|
small pot. He put the ugliness in the pot and put it on the stove to boil.
|
|
Still naked, he took the modelling knife to bits and carefully washed the
|
|
pieces. He dried the parts and re-assembled them with a new blade. He looked
|
|
at the old blade for a while. It was chipped and slightly rusty. It was long
|
|
and scored with lines where it was suppose to be snapped off and extruded
|
|
from the knife handle as needed. Wrapping the old blade in a towel, he broke
|
|
it into several pieces and put them into an empty beer can. The can was
|
|
squashed and put in with the rest of the household garbage.
|
|
Starting to feel the cold, he went a put on some pants and a shirt. Still
|
|
cold, he put on his bathrobe.
|
|
He went into the living room and turned on the hi-fi and played the album
|
|
"Bat out of Hell" very loud. He danced through the album and then replayed
|
|
it. Halfway through the second play of the last song, he turned it off and
|
|
went back into the kitchen.
|
|
The clothes had been cleaned and spun dry. The bone had been nearly boiled
|
|
clean. He had assumed that the teeth would have fallen out as the meat boiled
|
|
away. They hadn't. Taking some time to pick the remaining meat from it, he
|
|
polished the bone with a dish towel and then wrapped it in the dead woman's
|
|
skirt.
|
|
The water in the pot was dark and greasy. He started to pore it down the
|
|
sink and then stopped to consider. It seemed a shame to waste such a rich
|
|
liquid. What else could be done with it? He realised the answer and began to
|
|
laugh. Checking the cupboards, everything he needed was there, lentils, stock
|
|
cubes (not that he'd need many), onions, carrots, potatoes and all the herbs.
|
|
It had been years since he had made some home-made soup. When it was ready,
|
|
he turned off the stove and left the soup to cool. Then he went to bed and
|
|
slept like an angel.
|
|
Next day, he poured the cold soup into freezer bags and hung them in the
|
|
freezer to harden.
|
|
Philip was in such a good mood that day that he decided to play music over
|
|
the main contact channel of his C.B radio all day. I tried to talk to him,
|
|
but he didn't seem to hear me.
|
|
Brian Jones came to visit that afternoon. Philip never asked about Sharon
|
|
and Brian didn't volunteer the information. He wasn't smiling, so he couldn't
|
|
have got lucky. He stayed late, so Philip cooked him some dinner. Not that he
|
|
went to any trouble preparing the food. Just put a portion of frozen soup
|
|
into a bowl and heated it in the microwave.
|
|
"This is bloody great," said Brian, "What's in it?"
|
|
"Mostly lentils," he smiled, "And a secret ingredient."
|
|
"What's the secret ingredient?"
|
|
"Not telling. It's a secret."
|
|
Later that night, his parents arrived back from the caravan. They enjoyed
|
|
the soup too - Bristlehound truly loved it.
|
|
It was two days before some kids found the body. The news stories said that
|
|
it had been extremely mutilated. No details were given. Within a few days,
|
|
the word on the street was that the woman's head was missing. Other rumours
|
|
were a bit more horrible. All agreed that part of the body was missing. One
|
|
of the rumours was that the victim's lower jaw was missing. Most people
|
|
discounted that one. Obviously, someone on the investigating team had talked.
|
|
After the second murder - over a month later - the general belief on the
|
|
streets was that it was indeed the jaw that was missing from the bodies. The
|
|
popular press picked up this rumour and hinted at a nickname for the
|
|
murderer. Three weeks later - the day after the third murder - one of the
|
|
daily tabloids gave the murderer a name. The name stuck.
|
|
|
|
B U R L I N G T O N J A W M A N
|
|
|
|
C L A I M S C H R I S T M A S V I C T I M
|
|
|
|
Every idiot, on the Burlington Citizen Band radio circuit who enjoyed
|
|
annoying other users, started calling using croaky voices and calling
|
|
themselves the Jawman. Philip King was one of them. He wasn't totally stupid,
|
|
he never gave anything away. Just behaved like dozens of other nondescript
|
|
'muppets'.
|
|
"I'm gonnie get you!" says croaky deep put-on radio voice.
|
|
"Who's that? Come in on the side," says nice lovable respectable Citizen
|
|
Band radio user.
|
|
"The Jawman," croaked deep put-on radio voice.
|
|
"Not another one! Go and do a ten-two thousand on yerself pal," says nice
|
|
lovable respectable Citizen Band radio user.
|
|
"Okay. I'll do it right now."
|
|
Followed by lots of deep breathing, gasping, breaking wind, swearing and -
|
|
perhaps - the occasional burst of someone blowing down a straw into a cup of
|
|
water. Nice lovable respectable Citizen Band radio user turns off in disgust.
|
|
Jawman, number hundred and one, laughs and goes off to find someone else to
|
|
annoy.
|
|
Shortly after the third murder, Philip decided to catch up on his
|
|
meditation. It took him a while to relax properly for he was well out of
|
|
practice. He had stopped meditating because he had been feeling too ill to
|
|
concentrate properly since the first murder. Although he was eating no more
|
|
than usual, he appeared to be putting on weight. Maybe it was the drink?
|
|
I slipped into his vision without any difficulty. The way he was going, he
|
|
wouldn't get caught murdering anyone for a long time. My first priority was
|
|
to delay the next murder for as long as possible. The day after that last
|
|
murder, I adjusted his memories of the event so that he thought he had been
|
|
seen in the act.
|
|
"We got that one real good," he said from his meditation.
|
|
"Yeah, I know. I was watching," I said.
|
|
"Don't be modest. You helped guide my hands. I was shaking too much. I
|
|
couldn't have done that one my self."
|
|
"Well, perhaps I helped a bit," I lied.
|
|
"Serves him right for being a homo," he sniggered.
|
|
"How could you tell? He seemed okay to me."
|
|
"It was obvious. His clothes were too tight and he was too good looking.
|
|
Most homos are macho and good looking. Thought everyone knew that? How about,
|
|
we get a black dude next time? Just to prove we're not racist?"
|
|
"Sounds good to me, but I think we should wait a while."
|
|
"Why?"
|
|
"I think someone saw us."
|
|
"Yeah, I thought that to. It was weird that one. Almost as if it was a
|
|
dream? Someone watching from behind a tree or a bush or something? Can't
|
|
think why I didn't do anything about it at the time?
|
|
"Perhaps we should give ourselves up?"
|
|
"Na, we need to get lots more first. But you're right. Let's play it safe
|
|
and give it a rest for a few months. Maybe even a year. That way it'll have
|
|
much more impact. They'll think the Jawman has gone. It'll be so great! We
|
|
could wait at least six months and then send a deliberately misleading letter
|
|
to the papers telling them that we've moved to another town. We could even
|
|
give a date and time for the next one."
|
|
"Sounds good."
|
|
"And the best bit is, if we do the letter properly, they will think its a
|
|
hoax and do nothing. Imagine their faces when a black dude turns up in
|
|
Burlington with its jaw missing," he started to laugh again, "I can't wait.
|
|
Let's do it this weekend."
|
|
"NO..." I panicked, "...up until now the only clue was the fact that they
|
|
got done on a weekend. Even the times were different. They think we used a
|
|
scalpel. The idiots are looking for a medical student. If that witness goes
|
|
to the cops we're sunk!"
|
|
"It was too dark for them to see us. Anyway, it will be in the papers if he
|
|
goes to the cops," he said uncertain.
|
|
"Don't bank on it. If he described us, the beat cops'll pull us in the next
|
|
time we're out at night on a weekend. It's routine. They won't be able to
|
|
finger us, but we'll be in deep dodo when they find the knife."
|
|
"I always change the blade. There's no traces on it. In fact, this time I
|
|
travelled to Glasgow and bought a whole new knife."
|
|
"I know. I was with you Mr Jawman," I mocked him. He didn't notice.
|
|
"If we're caught out at night with the knife, I'll say that its for my own
|
|
protection. Say that I'm scared of the Jawman getting me."
|
|
I didn't admit it to him, but he was right. Without a description of the
|
|
murderer, that story might work. Half the good citizens of Burlington were
|
|
probably carrying something when they went out at night.
|
|
"I still think we should wait a while before the next one."
|
|
"Oh, all right. We'll wait at least six months," he reluctantly promised.
|
|
Two weeks went by and his parents told him that they would be spending the
|
|
weekend at the caravan. Philip began to think about breaking his promise.
|
|
"Could you make some of that lovely soup whilst we're away? The heating in
|
|
the caravan is still okay at this time of year, but the car is freezing. A
|
|
good bowl of hot soup would go down a treat on Sunday night," said Philip's
|
|
Mother.
|
|
"Sure Mom," said the loving son.
|
|
"Probably be the last trip to the caravan this year. The weather is getting
|
|
far too cold. The snow will be here soon."
|
|
Later, when his parents had gone, Philip laid his 'collection' out on his
|
|
bed. There was little chance of it being discovered for it was hidden under a
|
|
screwed down floor board in his bedroom. There was a red skirt, a ripped
|
|
white shirt and a denim jacket. All were washed and ironed. His favourite was
|
|
the red skirt. Sometimes he wore it and looked at himself in the mirror. The
|
|
last time that he did that, he tied the polished jawbones together with a
|
|
length of silver plated chain and wore them about his neck. He looked at his
|
|
reflection in the mirror and felt sad. The sight of the makeshift necklace
|
|
and the skirt beside his large belly looked pathetic. I think he knew it. Now
|
|
there's a thought? Why was his stomach so swollen when he was not eating and
|
|
drinking any more than usual? I didn't think he would wear the jawbones
|
|
again.
|
|
That night - as he looked at his 'collection' - he laid the jawbones on top
|
|
of the red skirt. He was careful to lay them down in the correct manner for
|
|
he had noticed the similarity between them and horseshoes. If a horseshoe was
|
|
stored with its U shape pointing down then the owner would have bad luck.
|
|
Perhaps it was the same with jawbones? Maybe they had to be stored the
|
|
correct way up in order to gather the luck?
|
|
It was whilst gazing at his 'collection' that he decided that he would
|
|
deliberately break his promise to me. After all - he reasoned - who but a
|
|
madman would keep a promise made to a fictional character?
|
|
At around ten that night, he put his 'collection' back in its hiding place
|
|
and screwed the board down. Then, he took his knife and a screwdriver, put on
|
|
a thick coat and went for a walk. I didn't know it then, but matters had been
|
|
taken out of my hands again. This time the horrible events, which were about
|
|
to unfold, were to bring good luck. This luck wasn't for Philip. Neither was
|
|
it for me. This luck was for the good (and bad) folk of Burlington. The
|
|
Jawman's horseshoe luck had finally run out.
|
|
Unknown to me at that time, two days previously some of the nice lovable
|
|
respectable Citizen Band radio users of Burlington had taken matters into
|
|
their own hands. They were tired of this outbreak of 'Jawmen' who were
|
|
spoiling their hobby and decided to do something about it.
|
|
Brian, Ronnie, Kev, Stevie and Jimmy - alias the Slob, Werewolf, Bandit,
|
|
Kingfisher and Sonny Jim - were cruising in Ronnie's old van which they had
|
|
christened the 'Blues Mobile' after the car in the film. They were all
|
|
slightly drunk otherwise the idea that Ronnie was about to have would not
|
|
have been considered. They were earwigging the C.B channels when they
|
|
recognised the voice of a 'Jawman' who was being particularly disgusting to
|
|
Golden Girl. This Jawman was in fact Reggie Stone, also known as Lager Man.
|
|
When Lager Man had finished hassling Golden Girl, Ronnie went down to the
|
|
breaking channel and shouted for Lager Man.
|
|
"You got me Ronnie," he answered almost immediately in his normal voice.
|
|
"Me and the guys are cruisin'. Got some beer. The Bandits here too. He knows
|
|
where you stay. Fancy an eyeball?"
|
|
"Ten-Four on that one. See ya soon Werewolf.
|
|
Before they picked Reggie up, they formed a plan to scare the living
|
|
daylights out of him. They would take him up to the ordinance survey
|
|
triangulation point by the water tower on the edge of town. Beside the
|
|
concrete triangulation marker was a large rough stone set in the frozen mud.
|
|
According to Stevie, it had a three foot tall metal fence around it and a
|
|
small plaque declaring it to be a Roman altar. What it had been used for none
|
|
of the five knew, but it had a worn groove on top which looked as if it might
|
|
have been used to sacrifice animals or people on. Did the Romans go in for
|
|
that sort of thing? None of the five knew, in fact Stevie wasn't even sure
|
|
that it was a Roman altar. It was more probably Celtic. They would have to
|
|
read the plaque to check.
|
|
The plan was simple. They would hold a kangaroo court and declare Reggie to
|
|
be the real Jawman and sentence him to death by decapitation. Ronnie was a
|
|
marshal arts nut who kept an imitation samurai sword in the back of the van.
|
|
He would show Reggie the sword. The other four would hold him face down over
|
|
the alter. They would have a pretend argument in which they would decide to
|
|
let Reggie go. Then Ronnie would slap the back of Reggie's neck hard with a
|
|
plastic ruler which was wet with engine oil. They would all laugh like mad
|
|
and take Reggie to the nearest pub to help him get over his ordeal.
|
|
In practice, the warped plan worked pretty well as planned. Reggie peed
|
|
himself with fright and then blackened Ronnie's eye. The rest of them found
|
|
this hilarious and laughed themselves silly. Reggie didn't go to the pub with
|
|
them. He had to go home and change his trousers. I, of course, didn't find
|
|
out about all this until much later.
|
|
Tonight was Philip's turn.
|
|
They spotted him as he crossed the main road. On the spur of the moment,
|
|
they decided that he would be the victim of tonight's court. Brian wasn't too
|
|
happy about this, but he agreed to go along with it anyway.
|
|
"Eyeball the Nowhere Man," shouted Brian.
|
|
"Back at ya Slob," replied Phil.
|
|
The van drew up along side him. The white noise from the C.B radio was
|
|
uncomfortably loud.
|
|
"Where you off to?" asked Brian. He was riding in the shotgun seat. Stevie
|
|
was squeezed between Ronnie and Brian. The other two were in the back.
|
|
"Need cigarettes," he said.
|
|
"Hop in," said Ronnie, "We'll give you a lift."
|
|
"'Kay," he opened the side door and got in, "What happened to your eye?"
|
|
"It's a long story," he smiled.
|
|
"Beer?" asked Jimmy with a belch.
|
|
"Ta," he took the offered beer and the battered old van, known as the Blues
|
|
Mobile, started off.
|
|
"So what's going down, good buddies?" he said and took a long slug from the
|
|
can.
|
|
"Just cruisin' and breaking the airwaves," so saying, Stevie turned the
|
|
Midland 40 channeler off. The silence was deafening.
|
|
"Done any good wind ups lately?" said Kev, miming winding a clock.
|
|
"Na!" He shook his head.
|
|
"Rubbish! I heard you last night noising up Silver Lady with your Jawman
|
|
voice," said Kev.
|
|
"Wasn't me," he lied.
|
|
"Sure it was."
|
|
"Let's have a vote on it," said Ronnie, "Brian?"
|
|
"It was him," said Brian.
|
|
"Traitor," said Phil.
|
|
"Yes," Brian smirked.
|
|
"Stevie?" said Ronnie.
|
|
"Him."
|
|
"Kev?"
|
|
"Aye."
|
|
"Jimmy?"
|
|
"Yup."
|
|
"Ronnie?" said Ronnie pointing to himself. "It was him," he answered in a
|
|
Jawman voice, "He did it," then in his own voice, "Phil?"
|
|
"What?"
|
|
"What's your vote?"
|
|
"It was me," Phil said in a Jawman voice.
|
|
"The aye's have it," said Ronnie.
|
|
"You rotten swine. Talking dirty to that nice old lady," said Kev.
|
|
"That 'nice old lady' isn't yet forty and is one of the biggest bucketmouths
|
|
on the airwaves!"
|
|
"Doesn't mean you've got to bucketmouth," said Jimmy.
|
|
"Ah, shut up. You've done it before! You've all done it at one time or
|
|
another," he complained and added, "There's the garage. Let me out here."
|
|
"You won't need your cigarettes," said Ronnie as the van sped by the well
|
|
lit garage store. "We've got something to show you."
|
|
"What?"
|
|
"You ever seen the Roman sacrificial altar near the water tower," said Kev.
|
|
"Yeah. It's crap!"
|
|
"You're going to be looking at it real close. Real soon. Cause we don't like
|
|
mike keyers who call themselves the Jawman. Especially, ones that really are
|
|
the Jawman! You're going to get a taste of your own medicine and no one but
|
|
us will ever know!" said Kev.
|
|
"Look on the bright side Kev, if anyone ever finds out that we done the
|
|
Jawman in, we'll probably get a bloody medal!" said Jimmy.
|
|
"Two medals," said Brian.
|
|
"Three medals," said Stevie.
|
|
"We'll be heroes!" said Ronnie.
|
|
This was the same lines that they had used on Reggie a few nights before. He
|
|
hadn't been worried at that point, but Philip went pale and struggled to
|
|
control a sudden surge of panic that threatened to engulf him.
|
|
"You're NUTS!" he said.
|
|
"Yes..." said Kev, "...and we're going to NUT you!" He grinned insanely and
|
|
they all did Jawman laughs and moans.
|
|
Just then, the van stopped near the field where the altar was. They all got
|
|
out. Kev gripped one of Philip's arms. Jimmy held the other. Philip was
|
|
distantly reminded of the only time he had been arrested. He was 14 years old
|
|
at the time. Brian and himself had taken a short cut through the partially
|
|
built shopping centre extension and had ran into some cops. They had been
|
|
lifted for trespassing. "Don't worry..." Brian whispered to Philip in the
|
|
back of the paddy wagon, "...in Scotland you can't be prosecuted for
|
|
trespass. They'll question us and then let us go." Brian had been right.
|
|
Ronnie and Kev told Philip about their evidence that proved he was the
|
|
Jawman. It was, of course, made up on the spur of the moment. Philip wasn't
|
|
listening. He was in shock. He really believed that he'd been found out.
|
|
Four of them took him over to the altar. The fence was broken and the frozen
|
|
mud cracked and flowed beneath their boots. Ronnie got the sword from the van
|
|
and showed it to Philip. Like the rest of them, he mistook Phil's apparent
|
|
calmness as willingness to humour the game. Phil obviously didn't believe
|
|
them and was playing along. Maybe Reggie Stone had talked? It was time to
|
|
spice things up a bit.
|
|
"Time to die Nowhere Man. Ever had your head cut off before?" said Ronnie.
|
|
Philip said nothing.
|
|
"Didn't think so. Right lads, hold him down."
|
|
They pulled him down, two guys on each arm, till the soft flesh of his
|
|
throat rubbed against the cold grainy stone. Ronnie rested the blunt edge of
|
|
the sword against the back of Phil's neck. Reggie Stone had been struggling
|
|
and shouting by this point.
|
|
"Cold steel. Eh?" said Ronnie.
|
|
"Is there any last words?" said Kev.
|
|
"Victor Torus made me do it," he said calmly.
|
|
"No I didn't!" I said, but no one heard.
|
|
"Who the hell's Victor Torus?" said Kev.
|
|
"The Man In The White Boiler Suit," he said softly.
|
|
They had all heard of that character. Philip's writing was something he
|
|
bored all the other C.B radio users to death with. He sometimes called
|
|
himself The Man In The White Boiler Suit on the C.B. They all laughed.
|
|
"Maybe we got the wrong guy? What do you think guys?" said Ronnie.
|
|
"I think I'm freezing my butt off!" said Brian.
|
|
"Hold on a minute 'till I think." Ronnie quietly pushed the tip of the sword
|
|
into the ground and left it sticking there. He went back to the van and got
|
|
the plastic ruler. Previously, he'd covered the ruler with some oil simply
|
|
because there was nothing else to hand that would help to make the necessary
|
|
wet smack as the ruler struck the back of Reggie's neck. Tonight's events had
|
|
been more contrived. He had brought a bottle of tomato ketchup. "It's
|
|
amazing," thought Ronnie, "how much ketchup you can get on a ruler!" He went
|
|
back to the cold group gathered at the alter.
|
|
"I've decided to do it,"
|
|
He bent down to Philip's right ear and had another go at scaring him.
|
|
"I've heard that decapitation is painless and instant. However, I think that
|
|
it might take two or three seconds before you die. Just in case I'm right,
|
|
close your eyes cause if your head turns over as it falls you might end up
|
|
looking down your own neck. Nasty! You wouldn't want to see that. You might
|
|
get blood in your eyes!"
|
|
"Gross!" said Kev.
|
|
"Yuk!" said the rest of them.
|
|
Ronnie carefully raised the ruler behind Philip's head.
|
|
"DIE!" he shouted.
|
|
Philip was paralysed with fear. His bowels loosened. Adrenaline spurted into
|
|
blood vessels. Brain endorphines surged through synapses. Something in his
|
|
stomach moved and headed for his throat. Something?
|
|
Ronnie flipped the ruler up, turned it over and brought it down. Inertia
|
|
from the pushing ruler kept the tomato ketchup from falling to the ground.
|
|
The wet plastic struck his neck painfully...
|
|
...WE SCREAMED!
|
|
They let his arms go and he fell to the mud clutching his stomach. The thing
|
|
in there writhed. I shared the pain. It felt like dying and being reborn at
|
|
the same time. It was the endorphines. Their heroin-like effect was splitting
|
|
our mind. Driving us apart! The mind's own drug combined with the terror to
|
|
do something which in retrospect - like so many other things in my life -
|
|
should have been impossible. I was being expelled from the host. I was no
|
|
longer part of Philip King. Yet a supernatural link remained. I could still
|
|
see through his eyes. Feel his pain. And that pain was truly obscene. It was
|
|
so pure, it was exquisite!
|
|
The thing flowed up Philip's throat, out of his mouth and into the cold
|
|
liquid mud. It was over a meter long. Its thin pale warm wet body steamed in
|
|
the cold night air. It writhed in torment with us. Its coiling body struck
|
|
Philip in the face. He screamed by himself and begun to choke on the
|
|
following vomit. Is this how it ends? The same way it begun? Has my un-
|
|
natural life went full circle?
|
|
The rest of them had been watching in stunned silence. The wriggling thing
|
|
rolled in the mud and moved closer to Brian. He flinched. For a second, I
|
|
thought that he might run - I thought they all would. Brian picked up a heavy
|
|
rock and held it up high. The eel-like thing paused in its terror. One end
|
|
turned like a head towards Brian. There was no face. No eyes. No mouth. If it
|
|
could have talked, I somehow knew it would have pleaded for help. What was
|
|
it? What was going on? And then I knew. Brian started to bring the rock down
|
|
on the thing's head...
|
|
"NO! IT'S ME!" I screamed. Everyone heard. Things went black. The pain
|
|
stopped. I was dead.
|
|
|
|
*****
|
|
|
|
At that point, the ghost of Victor Torus started to cry. The ghostly tears
|
|
flowed like water. I guess he had a lot of crying to do. Since it hadn't been
|
|
my conversation to begin with, I felt I had outstayed my welcome. I slipped
|
|
away to my rooms and went to bed.
|
|
Next day, I was surprised to find Victor still in the Tavern. The ghost
|
|
seemed in good spirits (groan).
|
|
"Hello Victor," I said.
|
|
"Hi, my dearest Tony," he said enthusiastically. He hugged me and gave a
|
|
smacker on the cheek.
|
|
"You can touch me?"
|
|
"Yeah, Richard kept his word. Great isn't it?"
|
|
"It's brilliant Victor," I smiled. And it was.
|
|
"Don't call me Victor. From now on call me Sheila. Sheila Stevens. That's
|
|
the name I've picked for myself. I was never Victor Torus. He was always just
|
|
a character from one of Philip King's stories."
|
|
"But that's a girl's name?" Where had I heard that name Before?
|
|
"But, I am female! Well sort of! My kind are hermaphrodites. I've spent
|
|
years analyzing my personality type. I'm definitely female. What you see here
|
|
is a projection of what Philip King imagined me to look like. When Brian
|
|
killed me, I had no self-image other than the one Philip had given me.
|
|
Shortly after my death I realised that I was female, but didn't know how to
|
|
change my appearance."
|
|
"But you still look like Victor Torus?" I said.
|
|
"Self-image is an unconscious act. Richard has shown me how to change it,
|
|
but it will take a few weeks to happen. I can't do it consciously, just use
|
|
Richard's techniques to allow my subconscious mind to reshape my physical
|
|
form."
|
|
"What's your real self-image like?"
|
|
"I don't know. Can you describe yours? I'm sure it's female and I still feel
|
|
young. Maybe I'm wrong. Would it matter if the Tavern is haunted by an ugly
|
|
old woman?"
|
|
"Thought you were haunting Brian Jones?"
|
|
"I can haunt who I want to now. Until I came here, he was the only person
|
|
who could see me. That was the only reason I stayed with him. Death is
|
|
monotonous when you've only one person to talk to. Now I can make anyone see
|
|
me and I can touch them. If I can concentrate hard enough, I can be solid for
|
|
short periods of time."
|
|
Victor Torus was what a woman would call good looking and a polite guy would
|
|
call effeminate. Wonder what Sheila Stevens would look like? Imagine being
|
|
haunted by the ghost of a beautiful young woman! A woman who would always
|
|
look young! A ghost who could solidify so that you could touch her. Would sex
|
|
be possible?
|
|
"Watch it buster! I heard that thought!" said Sheila sternly.
|
|
"Sorry?" I mumbled and felt my face go red. It was the psionic device's
|
|
fault. I had let a thought or two slip out. Alburt Greshin had warned me
|
|
about that possibility ages ago. I thought the field off and Sheila faded
|
|
away. I thought it on again and the ghost popped back.
|
|
"Thought you didn't need the device any more," I asked.
|
|
"I don't, but its quite difficult to make myself visible. I'm using that
|
|
thing until I get some practice in. Could you leave it turned on?"
|
|
"Sure. If you can fill out the rest of your story for me. I missed the end.
|
|
You were very upset. I felt I was intruding."
|
|
"You were." He - she, I corrected myself - fluttered her eyelashes and
|
|
smiled. I felt very uncomfortable. Now that I thought about it, Sheila's
|
|
chest was rather protruding for what I'd taken to be a man's body. In fact,
|
|
when you realised that the person inside the body was female, the body didn't
|
|
look at all masculine. The face I'd taken as effeminate was kind of nice.
|
|
"Why, thank you Tony!"
|
|
The device had done it again!
|
|
I changed the subject.
|
|
"What happened after you died?"
|
|
"Oh, there's nothing much left to tell. The shock of separation was too much
|
|
for Philip. His mind was destroyed. He became a vegetable and was put in a
|
|
special hospital. Nobody ever discovered his 'collection' hidden under the
|
|
floorboards of his room. It must still be there. Brian and the others were
|
|
the only ones to get into trouble. They got their pictures in the local
|
|
newspaper with 'PRANK GOES WRONG' headline. That was when Brian first grew a
|
|
beard. He didn't need glasses then, but he started to wear shades. It was a
|
|
disguise."
|
|
"One thing still puzzles me?" I said, "If all this happened over ten years
|
|
ago, why does Brian still look twenty years old?"
|
|
"Just the worry. He went through hell after Philip's mind was destroyed. My
|
|
appearance couldn't have helped much. If you ever see someone who looks ten
|
|
years younger than they should, that person has either suffered or has just
|
|
always been a miserable sod. Perhaps that's Gods way of compensating."
|
|
"I know what you mean. Do go on."
|
|
"I hung about in a sort of limbo for a few weeks. I gradually realised that
|
|
I was still existing and took on the form of Victor Torus. I wandered about
|
|
Burlington for a few days, before it occurred to me to look for someone I
|
|
knew. I was surprised when Brian Jones could see me. No one else could. I
|
|
scared him pretty bad at first. When he calmed down enough to talk to me, he
|
|
told me what a ghost was. I told him my story much as I told it last night,
|
|
though I left the bit out about the soup."
|
|
"That was kind," I said.
|
|
"In fact, my story is kinda the reason we returned here. Brian wanted to
|
|
tell it to you to make up for 'borrowing' those bits from your journal."
|
|
"Stealing," I corrected.
|
|
"Whatever. Anyway, he chickened out, but you still got your tale. I've
|
|
probably told it better than Brian ever could. He left early this morning for
|
|
his own time. He left this!"
|
|
Sheila lent down underneath a nearby table and pulled out a half gallon
|
|
pickle jar. She put it on the bar.
|
|
"What is it?" I asked picking it up.
|
|
"A pickle jar full of alcohol," she said.
|
|
"I mean what's the thing inside it? You ninny!"
|
|
"Guess!"
|
|
"Part of a rolled up fire hose?"
|
|
"Don't be silly!"
|
|
The thing moved suddenly. I dropped the jar with a yell. It was made of
|
|
plastic and didn't break. Sheila laughed.
|
|
"Don't worry, it's dead alright. I reached out with my mind and gave it a
|
|
twitch just then."
|
|
"What on Earth is it?" I picked the jar up again.
|
|
"It's my body. Didn't you hear the end of the tale?"
|
|
"No. I told you, I sneaked away near the end," I said.
|
|
"Sorry. So you did!"
|
|
And that was when Sheila Stevens finally told me what was in the jar.
|
|
I put it on the shelf at the back of the bar next to Richard Thrum's
|
|
mirrored head. When I'd put it there, months ago, I'd hoped Richard's head
|
|
would have been an ice breaker for customers. It hadn't been. Most people
|
|
thought it was an ornament and ignored it.
|
|
There was no way they could ignore the contents of that jar. Even although
|
|
the head was bashed in, maybe a medical man would recognise the contents. I
|
|
doubt that anyone else would recognise a 'pork' tapeworm when they saw one.
|
|
|
|
(c) Bryan H. Joyce
|
|
|
|
Written February 1993.
|
|
|
|
|
|
= MAGIC POCKETS =============================================================
|
|
by Richard Karsmakers
|
|
|
|
|
|
"No! Please! Loucynda! Don't!"
|
|
Cronos Warchild, mercenary annex hired gun, heard the muffled echoes of his
|
|
own voice reflect off the fungi-stained walls. Dazed, he sat upright and
|
|
shook his head.
|
|
Ever since puberty, he had been having these dreams. 'Wet dreams' he called
|
|
them, because they usually ended with him waking up, soaked in sweat.
|
|
He shook his head again, trying to get rid of the image of Loucynda, his
|
|
betrothed, on the insides of his eyelids.
|
|
Warchild had for quite a while now not been able to cope with females - nor
|
|
with the activities most other men in the universe tended to wish to employ
|
|
with them.
|
|
All this had started when a girl had kicked him in his vital parts at one of
|
|
the few moments during a day when his multi-absorb groin protector was
|
|
switched off. He still felt the pain sometimes. He still had horribly
|
|
realistic flashbacks, sometimes in the middle of day - or in the middle of a
|
|
public place. Flashbacks that would make him go through all of it again; the
|
|
intense agony as if he was being gnawed upon by a Zarctonic Megaleech - and
|
|
the casual, satisfied grin on the girl's face. The blackness that had
|
|
followed.
|
|
"No! Please! Mel! Don't!"
|
|
He found himself looking at the square face of a man of which the rest of
|
|
his body was as squarely built as that face. Long black sideburns clung to
|
|
it. It looked confused - to say the least.
|
|
Here he was. Cronos Warchild, the man that could scare the shit out of any
|
|
living being, the man that had more enemies in the world than you could shake
|
|
machine guns at.
|
|
He had been beaten by a girl. He was now frightened of the mere prospect of
|
|
doing anything with females other than killing or ignoring them.
|
|
He launched his fist angrily at the square face with the long sideburns,
|
|
shattering the mirror.
|
|
|
|
He went downstairs, eyeing the owner of the motel with a lethal look when
|
|
the poor man brought up the subject of payment.
|
|
Not long after he had exited the establishment - if indeed it had been
|
|
anything established - he had noticed someone following him.
|
|
At first, the person following him seemed to go through considerable length
|
|
to avoid being spotted. The figure hid behind garbage cans and lamp posts,
|
|
ceased walking when Cronos did.
|
|
Maybe this day was not going to be as bad as he had thought at first.
|
|
As Warchild progressed through the early morning streets of town, however,
|
|
his tail seemed to grow less and less concerned with the possibility of being
|
|
discovered. This disconcerted the mercenary annex hired gun somewhat - the
|
|
thought that the person was perhaps not afraid at all of being seen following
|
|
the most notorious killer machine in the universe *was* rather unusual.
|
|
However, this thought did not bother Cronos' brain cell all too much - for,
|
|
indeed, he was trained to fight and not to think.
|
|
As Warchild turned around a corner he quickly turned around. The person, in
|
|
case he would still be following, would not expect to be awaited.
|
|
Nobody came.
|
|
For a short while after he had stopped around that corner, ready to strike,
|
|
footsteps that weren't his had echoed through the silence of morning rising.
|
|
They had seemed to come nearer, and then suddenly they had stopped.
|
|
He looked back around the corner to see what had happened.
|
|
He gazed straight into a pair of viciously cool shades, worn by a juvinile
|
|
in viciously cool clothes, wearing viciously cool sneakers and an equally
|
|
cool cap.
|
|
"Hi dad!" the juvinile exclaimed.
|
|
Warchild could not honour this with a reply.
|
|
"Dad? Dad?"
|
|
For the moment, Cronos heard no more. He had fainted.
|
|
|
|
It had been a long time ago. As a matter of fact, it had been so
|
|
stupefyingly long ago that Warchild even subconsciously seemed to have lost
|
|
all recollections of the event.
|
|
Now the recollection came back like rocks being hurled at him by people
|
|
yelling "Blasphemy! Blasphemy!"
|
|
She had been called Penelope Sunflower - a name quite ill fitting to a woman
|
|
of her size and character. She had been a woman whose subtleness would make
|
|
Caterpillar destruction machines seem devices made solely for the grooming of
|
|
flowers. Her smile had made rabid pitbulls seem friendly, her kiss had made
|
|
unanaesthetised castration seem alluring, her singing had made nuclear
|
|
explosions seem the united voices of one or two young virgins singing a
|
|
biblical hymn. The folds of her voluptuous flesh could have hidden a small
|
|
army's weaponry with a year's supply of ammo. Her weight would not have been
|
|
considered credible enough for inclusion in the Univeral Edition of the
|
|
Guiness Book of Records - and that's *without* her wearing make-up! Her many,
|
|
many gallons of blood had to be pumped through her vast body by means of an
|
|
enormous device that still burnt coal, discreetly hidden in one of the many
|
|
folds of her flesh. Her erogenous zones could only be stimulated by a
|
|
thousand dwarves carrying road drills that would crawl into her very pores
|
|
and bash the nerves' synapses. Her snoring had been easy to confuse with the
|
|
mating call of the Zanzobarian Tera-Whale and had virtually led to the
|
|
extinction of this remarkable species of mammal. When she had died, the only
|
|
place where she was allowed to be buried had been the Platonic Ocean on
|
|
Bulbobkov Gamma - and environmentalists had protested.
|
|
Yet, in her own peculiar way, she had loved Cronos. And, in his possibly
|
|
even more peculiar way, Cronos Warchild had loved her. When he had been
|
|
around Penelope Sunflower, he found that words failed him, that violent
|
|
feelings of love surged through his veins, and that his steel nerves and
|
|
concrete muscles turned all soft. He also got a strangely tingling sensation
|
|
all over.
|
|
They had only met briefly, much in the way ships would meet on the ocean of
|
|
life - provided that we're talking about a rather sturdily built battle
|
|
cruiser and the biggest of mammoth tankers here.
|
|
It had been a classic case of 'love at first sight'. Cronos only needed to
|
|
see her many folds of flesh move in an unconsciously seducing way to
|
|
instantly lose all remains of sense he had ever possessed. She, for her part,
|
|
needed only to lay eyes on his bulging muscles and square face and she, too,
|
|
lost all what may once have been sense.
|
|
Their bodies had clashed violently, excitingly. Apart from "Will you still
|
|
respect me tomorrow?" and "Yes, of course!", their love and devotion had not
|
|
been of many words - yet it had destroyed cities, ruptured continents,
|
|
drained oceans and shuddered the heavens.
|
|
Cronos had slept for a week. She had smoked an industry quality cigar. He
|
|
had slept for another week.
|
|
When he had finally woken up, she was just having her coal restocked at the
|
|
local mine. He had written her a letter in which he had told her he could not
|
|
possibly stay with her any longer. He didn't consider himself a family man
|
|
and, more importantly, he did not want Penelope Sunflower to be a mercenary's
|
|
spouse. She deserved better. A prince or an emperor - or a paperboy, for that
|
|
matter. He emphasized that he really, utterly and devoutly loved her but that
|
|
nonetheless her future would not be a happy one if she were to stay with him.
|
|
He had left Penelope Sunflower, the greatest love of his life. For months
|
|
after, he had not been able to cross a bridge without stopping and
|
|
thoughtfully gazing in the distance, talking to himself full of remorse with
|
|
his hands on the railing. He had not been able to look at happy couples
|
|
without a sullen growing ache in his heart.
|
|
Penelope Sunflower had not even got to reading the heart-rending letter.
|
|
When she had heard that the local coal stock had switched to gas, she had got
|
|
a stroke that had killed off her last remaining brain cells. Her last cry had
|
|
torn the skies asunder, causing global atmospherical changes on her planet
|
|
and its two moons. Her last few tears had flooded a medium-sized metropolis.
|
|
Her last sigh had wrecked a building.
|
|
Medical assistance had arrived too late, mainly due to sudden heavy weather
|
|
and a mysterious flood. Penelope Sunflower, the only woman ever to get Cronos
|
|
Warchild engaged in acts of human reproduction, had been no more.
|
|
Scientists had, however, been able to dig from her womb a foetus two weeks
|
|
old. With the latest in medical equipment they had assured its survival.
|
|
|
|
"No! Please! Penelope! Don't!"
|
|
Warchild was sweating in a rather somewhat too profuse way. Another one of
|
|
those 'wet dreams' of his.
|
|
"Dad?"
|
|
He opened his eyes, gazing straight into a pair of shades, topped by a
|
|
viciously cool baseball cap. On the bright green jacket of the youth who was
|
|
wearing these items he could see the initials "BK". Closest to his head were
|
|
a pair of viciously cool sneakers.
|
|
While he had had his eyes closed, he had hoped for it all to be but a
|
|
nightmare. He had hoped that he would open his eyes to the fungi-stained
|
|
ceiling supported by four fungi-stained walls in the cheapest of all motels.
|
|
Alas. It wasn't. Not even slightly.
|
|
"Hi," the youth said as if trying to ascertain Cronos that he wasn't
|
|
dreaming, "I am Cronos Warchild Jr., son of the late Penelope Sunflower - may
|
|
she rest in peace forever in the Platonic Ocean on Bulbobkov Gamma."
|
|
The boy seemed to have trouble swallowing something.
|
|
Cronos' lower jaw lowered itself abruptly and unconsciously.
|
|
"I am the coolest person this side of Klaxos 9," the juvinile proceeded,
|
|
"and therefore you may call me the Bitmap Kid."
|
|
|
|
Original written November 10th/11th 1991, rehashed slightly March 15th 1995.
|
|
|
|
= REVENGE OF THE MUTANT CAMELS ==============================================
|
|
by Richard Karsmakers
|
|
|
|
This piece was written after having seen "Watership Down". I also threw in
|
|
the "Men In Suits" concept. It starts, like all too many of my writings, with
|
|
a sunset.
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was misty. The mist transformed the sunset to a rare experience, an
|
|
occasion that would have enriched the lives of anyone who would have bothered
|
|
to behold it.
|
|
Alas, there was noone but one lonely rabbit to look at it. Its eyes glowed
|
|
as if it felt everything the sunset portended within the very depth of its
|
|
soul.
|
|
It startled and glanced back quickly when it heard the rustle of leaves and
|
|
branches behind it, and poised for a jump that could save its life in case a
|
|
ferret, weasel or fox turned out to have stolen up through the undergrowth.
|
|
Luckily it was but the wind.
|
|
The evening was gaining. The air grew chiller.
|
|
It hopped back in a hole that was almost invisible; a patch of black in deep
|
|
darkness. It vanished in it, its fluffy white tail last.
|
|
|
|
"Why were you outside that long?"
|
|
The voice belonged to an older rabbit, a female. It conveyed worry, not
|
|
scolding.
|
|
"I had a strange feeling, mum," the younger rabbit answered while it
|
|
continued further into the hole towards his mother, "a strange feeling that
|
|
tells me the people of the nearby farm have our kind imprisoned in cages."
|
|
Whitesocks had always been different from all the other rabbits. Where the
|
|
others had been interested primarily in gaining food and the discovery of new
|
|
holes, Whitesocks had always roamed around through the meadows, seemingly
|
|
uninterested in earthly rabbit's matters.
|
|
"I see," mother rabbit answered thoughtfully.
|
|
"Shouldn't we tell our leader, Winston?" Whitesocks wondered. His large
|
|
black eyes looked at his mother admiringly.
|
|
She was silent for a while, then nodded her head slowly, folding back her
|
|
beautifully long ears.
|
|
"Yes," she said, "we should."
|
|
The both of them wandered off through the vast maze of tunnels under the Big
|
|
Oak on Table Hill; in search for Winston, chief of the Glwad.
|
|
|
|
The smell of cigar smoke was prevalent. It made Whitesocks' eyes water a
|
|
bit, made a cough gather in his lungs.
|
|
"What are you crying for, son?" the deep, warm voice of the chief rabbit
|
|
asked, booming majestically off the soft sand walls. It sounded powerful,
|
|
authorative, yet not threatening in any way.
|
|
Whitesocks looked up at his mother, afraid to reply. She put a protecting
|
|
paw around him.
|
|
"There's no need to be afraid, son," the voice boomed again, but now softer
|
|
and more soothing than before, "I am not going to eat you. Just tell me why
|
|
you and your mother want to see me."
|
|
Whitesocks gathered courage.
|
|
"I...well...sir...Mr Winston...er...I..."
|
|
A warm, gently laugh arouse from the chief rabbit's throat. It was a laugh
|
|
that could melt hearts, build bridges and break ice. At once, it was as if
|
|
palpable love and goodness flowed from the chief's being into the other
|
|
rabbits that were present.
|
|
Whitesocks cleared his throat and explained all about the strange feelings
|
|
he had had; the visions of helpless rabbits, imprisoned, waiting to be
|
|
slaughtered and eaten on some or other festive occasion.
|
|
When the young rabbit had finished its tale, Winston nodded.
|
|
|
|
There was no moon. The sky was dark, and even blacker clouds of smoke seemed
|
|
to fall down towards the earth with the rain. The sound of undergrowth being
|
|
pushed aside indicated movement. Dark, shadowed silhouettes moved quickly
|
|
through the grass, whispering. They were heading for the farmhouse that lay
|
|
on the horizon like a giant, immobile animal.
|
|
As they came closer to the threatening farmhouse that loomed up above them,
|
|
their whispers became even softer.
|
|
"They're probably in the barn," a voice whispered slightly louder than the
|
|
others, "I think I hear them."
|
|
The barn door was ajar, but only just so. Some sturdy rabbits had to press
|
|
it open wider so that all of them could enter.
|
|
Inside it was dark, too. From a far corner, the restless soft neighing of a
|
|
horse could be heard. Straight ahead of them they could faintly see steel
|
|
grating. Behind the steel grating they could hear the breathing of rabbits.
|
|
They seemed to be asleep.
|
|
It was Whitesocks who ventured closer to the grating. As his eyes grew used
|
|
to the darkness inside, he saw that the grating made up the door of a large
|
|
cage, all other sides of which were made of wood. The hinges were at the top,
|
|
looking quite solid but sufficiently rusty. The cage was located on the
|
|
ground, so he could vaguely see the shape of five or six rabbits inside. The
|
|
imprisoned rabbits were a lot fatter than them.
|
|
Whitesocks went even closer, up to the point when he could almost touch the
|
|
grating with his paw.
|
|
At that moment one of the rabbits in the cage woke up. An eye opened, but it
|
|
was not an ordinary eye; it was almost fluorescent blue with a deep black
|
|
centre. It glanced around, almost threateningly.
|
|
"What are you doing?" the eye asked.
|
|
Whitesocks jumped back; the other rabbits all looked.
|
|
"Good," a heavy, resonating voice exclaimed, "they are awake. They may be
|
|
able to help."
|
|
The rabbit inside the cage now awoke the others. All of them came forward,
|
|
into the faltering light, looking outside through the grating.
|
|
They were all quite fat, and they all had those odd, blue eyes that seemed
|
|
luminescent. What was even more peculiar was that the rabbits wore pieces of
|
|
cloth tied around their necks. On their backs hung another piece of cloth,
|
|
that also revealed their front paws with only the claws sticking out.
|
|
"What are you doing?" one of the caged rabbits insisted.
|
|
Whitesocks went closer again, his eyes glaring with a sense of purpose, with
|
|
joy.
|
|
"We are going to get you out," the young rabbit enthused, "you can come with
|
|
us and live under the Big Oak on Table Hill!"
|
|
"Indeed," a warm, heavy voice said, "you can come with us and be welcome
|
|
among the Glwad."
|
|
The rabbit with the most fluorescent eyes reared on its hind paws and
|
|
adjusted the piece of cloth around his neck. It regarded Whitesocks intently,
|
|
then turned around and spoke to its fellow rabbits in a whispered voice.
|
|
After seconds it turned around again.
|
|
"We will come with you to your place," it said.
|
|
It looked around as if expecting the free rabbits to applaude. It cleared
|
|
its throat.
|
|
"Well," it said, its eyes scanning the gathering through the grating, "what
|
|
are you waiting for?"
|
|
"What are we waiting for indeed," the leader of the Glwad now said, "we must
|
|
get them out, save them from the butcher's knife!"
|
|
Every rabbit now went to a designated location, as if all of this had been
|
|
rehearsed many times. Two eager rabbits climbed the cage and started to
|
|
loosen the hinges. A couple went to stand guard at the barn door; the rest
|
|
stood around and watched, expecting anything.
|
|
With a clash the cage door fell down, nearly crushing inquisitive little
|
|
Whitesocks who managed to leap aside just in time.
|
|
A light flashed on outside. The horse neighed again, but louder.
|
|
"Quick," one of the rabbits at the barn door exclaimed, "I think we may get
|
|
company."
|
|
The caged rabbits now came out. They took their time, habitually adjusting
|
|
the pieces of cloth around their necks, or trying to remove dust from their
|
|
coats of cloth. Their furs were pitch black and their eyes all similar -
|
|
threatening blue.
|
|
"My God," Whitesocks' mother uttered, "they almost look like *people*."
|
|
The leader of the black rabbits lashed a look at her, his light blue eyes
|
|
almost incandescent with hot anger. Then he seemed to regain his sense.
|
|
Ignoring her, he walked up to Winston with the other black rabbits following.
|
|
"I am Aznagtoth," the black rabbit said, looking the large, wise rabbit
|
|
straight in the eyes, "Take us out of here. They will have heard the noise of
|
|
the cage door falling down. They've got *dogs*."
|
|
Winston signalled all the Glwad to get outside. The coast was still clear.
|
|
The rain had ceased but the yard was muddy, preventing fast movement.
|
|
"Go," Winston intoned, "go now."
|
|
While waiting at the barn door, he checked to see every of the Glwad and the
|
|
black rabbits make it to the corn field. When they had all made it there, he
|
|
began to cross the yard himself.
|
|
At that moment a door in the farm house opened. Light gushed out into the
|
|
courtyard. In it stood the silhouette of a man with a double-barreled shot
|
|
gun.
|
|
"It's rabbits, love," the silhouette seemed to call to someone inside the
|
|
house. A muffled voice shouted back something about dinner.
|
|
"Go!" Winston cried to the others that waited at the edge of the corn field
|
|
while he remained in the middle of the yard, "Go! Now!"
|
|
"It's surely a nice fat one," the silhouette now mused, more to itself than
|
|
to anyone else.
|
|
It aimed the gun.
|
|
The leader of the Glwad had to trust his instincts. The right leap at the
|
|
right moment. He had done it often when he was younger. But the right moment
|
|
came too fast. He was getting older. Older and wiser - but fatter and less
|
|
agile, too.
|
|
There was a short flash of light that reflected for an instant off the eyes
|
|
of the other rabbits that watched, aghast. The flash was immediately followed
|
|
by a short burst of thunder.
|
|
Winston seemed to leap, but it was no leap; it was the impact of lead that
|
|
hurled his lifeless body a metre or two across the yard. Blood coloured the
|
|
cobbles, mixed with the mud.
|
|
"Come on," Aznagtoth said, his eyes cold and calculating, "you heard him.
|
|
Run. To Oak Hill!"
|
|
Whitesocks swallowed something. There lay Winston, leader of the Glwad. Red
|
|
stains on his fur, his eyes staring glazedly into nothingness.
|
|
His mother pulled him behind her as they all ran off through the corn fields
|
|
to Oak Hill.
|
|
|
|
The scent of death hung in the tunnel complex under the Big Oak on Table
|
|
Hill; the scent of death and fear. Huddled forms scurried off in several
|
|
directions. None lingered, none talked. The tunnel walls were covered with
|
|
fungi and all kinds of other rotting substances. There was a perpetual mist
|
|
drifting through the complex. There was an uncanny silence.
|
|
Life had changed a lot since the black rabbits had been rescued, a year ago.
|
|
They had taken over as leaders of the Glwad, reigning with the instruments of
|
|
fear, terror and hatred. Strong Glwad rabbits, forming the Glwad Guard, got
|
|
food in exchange for suppressing the others - old friends and their own
|
|
families. The Glwad name that had once been revered and honoured now tasted
|
|
bitter, carrying with it the thoughts of oppression and poverty.
|
|
"This must stop," a voice whispered. Through the perpetual mist came
|
|
Whitesocks, who had just spoken. He looked beaten. Older. Determined. Next to
|
|
him limped another rabbit. Both of them looked weak and frail, with only a
|
|
small flame of courage and hope flickering in their black eyes.
|
|
"Of course it must," the other rabbit replied in a hushed voice, "but what
|
|
is there to do? If we but speak up Aznagtoth will have the Glwad Guard will
|
|
strike us down - or worse."
|
|
Whitesocks nodded. He knew the other rabbit was right. But he *had* to do
|
|
something. *Something* had to be done.
|
|
"Hush," he whispered as he heard the sound of feet nearing.
|
|
From the mist arose Whitesocks' mother. She limped, too, and looked beaten.
|
|
>From her mouth came ragged breathing.
|
|
"Mother!" Whitesocks cried, "what have they done to you?" He put a paw
|
|
around her in an effort to comfort. She sobbed, shaking. He got no answer.
|
|
Instead, more steps sounded. Fast steps, hurrying. Out of the mist arose
|
|
another rabbit. It was a member of the Glwad Guard, a magnificent brown
|
|
rabbit. It wore the uniform of the Guard - a cloth around its neck and
|
|
another piece of cloth covering its back and front paws with only the claws
|
|
sticking out.
|
|
"What are you doing here?" it bellowed, "You know that gatherings of more
|
|
than two are strictly forbidden!"
|
|
"Yes...sir," stuttered Whitesocks' mother softly between breaths, "but..."
|
|
The Guard struck her down hard, his claws leaving three parallel trails of
|
|
blood across her cheek and shoulder. She fell against a fungi-stained wall
|
|
and remained lying there, motionless.
|
|
The defiant little flame in Whitesocks' eyes flared up to a fire of fury. He
|
|
leapt at the Guard, attempting to strike him blind or otherwise hurting him.
|
|
His momentum hurled them both against the ground, tearing apart the mist. The
|
|
Guard's head collided with a rather sturdy piece of root that protruded from
|
|
the floor. A sickening crack burst open his skull. Red and grey flowed
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abundantly, soiling the tunnel.
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"You...you killed a guard," the other rabbit cried, astonished, but
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Whitesocks didn't hear. He went to his mother.
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"Mum," he whispered hoarsely in her ear, "mum!"
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When he looked at her more closely he saw that her chest didn't move up and
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down any more. She had stopped breathing. He tried to listen to the beating
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of her heart but heard none.
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He swallowed. He saw the glazed eyes of Winston again for a brief moment,
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exactly like they so often stared at him from recurring nightmares, then
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looked once again into the glazed eyes of his mother. He sat for a moment,
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then erected himself.
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"It will have to stop," he proclaimed.
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He disappeared in the lingering mist again. The other rabbit followed.
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It promised to be a beautiful day. The pre-dawn glimmer of dew covered the
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meadows, the sky was filled with early birds that danced through the air and
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sang their songs of joy. A magnificent black rabbit sat under the Big Oak on
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Table Hill, near a rabbit hole entrance it was guarding. It looked at the
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first fragile rays of the sun rising above the horizon, but it felt no warmth
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or happiness at the sight.
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The rabbit wore the Glwad Guard uniform with style, radiating authority. It
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was probably an officer of sorts. too bad there was nobody to see it but the
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blind sun that rose slowly. The Guard habitually adjusted the piece of cloth
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around his neck.
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A small black spot in the sky grew larger.
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|
The rabbit looked around, bored. He hated these early morning shifts.
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Especially since so many of his kind seemed to have disappeared on them.
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|
Something out there, something unknown to the black rabbits or to the other
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Glwad Guards under their influence.
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Some kind of instinct seemed to struggle inside the rabbit - but it
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suppressed the feeling of danger this instinct brought. No creature was more
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superior than the black rabbits and those who worked together with them.
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None, that is, except maybe for the humans. But these were far away enough.
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There was nothing to be afraid of. Fear was something for the lesser Glwad,
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the kind they got food for to keep down. Who needed instincts when you got
|
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slaves to get you the food you want, to get rich amounts of berries and
|
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stores filled with grain and corn?
|
|
The small black speck took on the form of a small bird.
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|
The magnificent rabbit in a suit adjusted its tie again. It mused about how
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great it was to be superior. To get what you want without any danger. To
|
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suppress the lesser rabbits. To be able to wear the uniform of the Glwad
|
|
Guard.
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The small bird became bigger.
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|
Nature itself was at the feet of the Glwad Guard. They could do whatever
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they wanted. Nobody could stop them. They did not need their instincts.
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Aznagtoth had said so. Aznagtoth was right. Aznagtoth was always right. They
|
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would rule supreme forever.
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The hawk struck swiftly, accurately and deadly.
|
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All that remained of the magnificent black rabbit were some pieces of cloth,
|
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lying amidst a couple of feathers. Thus nature prevailed once more.
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Original written December 1991. Slightly rehashed March 15th 1995.
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= SOON COMING ===============================================================
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|
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The next issue of "Twilight World", Volume 3 Issue 3, is to be released mid
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May 1995. Please refer to the 'subscription' section, below, for details on
|
|
getting it automatically, in case you're interested.
|
|
Please refer to the section on 'submissions', below, for more details on
|
|
submitting your own material.
|
|
The next issue will probably contain the following items...
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THE MAO-KAO HOLY WARS
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by Roy Stead
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MASTER AND SLAVE
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by Roy Stead
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LOST IN THE FOG
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|
by Stefan Posthuma
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|
OH YEAH - THE SEQUEL
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|
by Stefan Posthuma and Richard Karsmakers
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|
|
RODNEY'S RAYGUN REVENGE
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by David Henniker
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SPEEDBALL II
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by Richard Karsmakers
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ME CRONOS YOU FAM
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by Martijn Wiedijk
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AND MORE
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= SOME GENERAL REMARKS ======================================================
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|
DESCRIPTION
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|
|
|
"Twilight World" is an 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, often with a bit of humour thrown in.
|
|
Its main source 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" mostly consists of fiction featured in "ST NEWS" so far, with added
|
|
stories submitted by "Twilight World" readers.
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|
|
SUBMISSIONS
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|
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 do I reserve the right not to publish submissions. Do note that
|
|
submissions on disk will have to use the MS-DOS or 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 subscription if so requested.
|
|
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, start each paragraph with one space,
|
|
don't include empty lines between each paragraph and use "-" instead of "--".
|
|
Also remember the difference between possessives and contractions, only use
|
|
multiple question marks when absolutely necessary (!!) and never use other
|
|
than one (.) or three (...) periods in sequence.
|
|
|
|
COPYRIGHT
|
|
|
|
Unless specified along with the individual stories, all "Twilight World"
|
|
stories 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".
|
|
|
|
CORRESPONDENCE ADDRESS
|
|
|
|
I prefer electronic correspondence, but regular stuff (such as postcards!)
|
|
can be sent to my regular address. If you expect a reply please supply one
|
|
International Reply Coupon (available at your post office), *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:
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Richard Karsmakers
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P.O. Box 67
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NL-3500 AB Utrecht
|
|
The Netherlands
|
|
|
|
Email r.c.karsmakers@stud.let.ruu.nl
|
|
(This should be valid up to the summer of 1996)
|
|
|
|
SUBSCRIPTIONS
|
|
|
|
Subscriptions (electronic ones only!) can be requested by sending email to
|
|
the address mentioned above. "Twilight World" is only available as ASCII.
|
|
Subscription terminations should be directed to the same address.
|
|
About one week 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 terminates.
|
|
Back issues of "Twilight World" may be FTP'd from atari.archive.umich.edu
|
|
and etext.archive.umich.edu. It is also posted to rec.arts.prose, alt.zines
|
|
and alt.prose and is on Gopher somewhere as well. Thanks to Gard for all
|
|
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. If not...then all I can do is hope for the best.
|
|
Thanks!
|
|
|
|
DISCLAIMER
|
|
|
|
All authors are responsible for the views they express. Also, The individual
|
|
authors are the ones you should sue in case of copyright infringements!
|
|
|
|
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 and animation (you get the idea).
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
THE UNIT CIRCLE is an original on-line and paper magazine of new art, music,
|
|
literature and alternative commentary. On-line issues are available via the
|
|
Unit Circle WWW home page: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/unitcirc/unit_circle.html
|
|
You can also contact the Unit Circle via e-mail at zine@unitcircle.org.
|
|
|
|
YOU WANT YOUR MAGAZINE BLURB HERE? Mail me a short description, no longer
|
|
than 6 lines with a length of 77 characters maximum. No logos please. In
|
|
exchange, please contain in your mag a "Twilight World" blurb (like the first
|
|
paragraph of "DESCRIPTION", above). Hail!
|
|
|
|
EOF
|