Kzine Issue 5 Read online

  I was out of shape and starting to feel it. I had graduated from high school only three months earlier and had jumped head first into a life as an unemployed couch potato. It was a lifestyle which did not provide me with the cardio I needed to lug a fifty pound astronaut suit of fur through the forest while being pursued by a horde of angry fourth-graders with firearms. Life as an unemployed couch potato did, however, provide me with plenty of time to read bad sci-fi and watch the Discovery Channel. I realized that if I was ever going to survive, I would have to use all of the knowledge that I had obtained over the last three months to get out of this mess.

  That’s when Charlie shot me in the back. I knew from watching an episode of ‘Modern Marvels’ that it was going to hurt, but goodness! It was like being hit by a bag of hammers fired out of a medieval trebuchet… approximately.

  All I could see was white, and all I could smell was the smoke from my singed fur. I rolled in the leaves for several seconds trying to catch my breath. When my sight came back, I saw smears of blood on the leaves beside me. I panicked. Had the bullet cleared the Kevlar? Was I bleeding to death in this monkey suit? That’s when I realized there was a beeping in my left ear. It was a system message from the suit. I stuck my hand in the front pocket (yeah it even had pockets; it was an awesome suit) and pressed the first little button I could find. A soft female voice spoke in my ear. ‘Damage to rear upper panel. Decoy blood and excrement deployed.’

  Excrement? I sat up and looked around. Sure enough, there it was. ‘Decoy blood and excrement.’

  ‘Danger detected. Evasive maneuvers are recommended. Possible cloaking is suggested.’ I was still struggling to catch my breath, but I was able to muster a grunt of regret for not reading the manual to this thing more thoroughly. We got it in the mail without warning. Pop’s old suit was war-torn and rough. It was dirty, tattered and the fur was mangy. It was getting to the point that anytime Pops went out in it campers tried to kill him out of mercy rather than an adventurous sense of slaughtering the unknown. There was a letter attached that said the following:

  I would like to thank you for your family’s dedication to this top secret project. Your monthly excursions into the woods have made America a safer and better place to live. We anticipate that the enclosed items will help you to perform your important task more efficiently.

  Then, honest to God, it was signed by the President of The United States of America. I read it over Pop’s shoulder, and he looked up at me and shrugged. ‘What is he talking about?’ I asked.

  ‘Hell if I know.’ Said Pops. ‘I’ve never understood it. But as long as they keep sending the checks we’ll keep going out there every month.’

  It had all started with Uncle Ray. Ray was somewhat of an eccentric fellow. He had called my Mom and Pops up to the cabin seventeen years ago with a proposition. He said that it began as a little hoax. He had heard about it on the TV in other states. They were calling it a ‘Bigfoot’. People were spotting them in the forests all over America. Ray thought it was funny, so he decided to fake a ‘Bigfoot’ sighting himself. He made a suit out of some shag material he got from a thrift store and wandered out in front of a bunch of hikers. They screamed, he laughed, end of story, right? Then two weeks later Ray got a check in the mail from the US government for $2000. It had brief letter that basically said: Do that Bigfoot thing once a month and we will keep sending checks. Ray didn’t understand it any more than we did, but the checks never bounced so Ray kept going out. That was until he broke his leg in a barroom fight. So he called my Pops to take over for the month. Ray would use the time to take a little vacation to a tropical island, and we would get the check for that month. Pops agreed, Ray donned a flowery shirt and limped aboard a plane to Hawaii. We never heard from him again.

  So Pops found himself in a cabin in the woods with a wife and a hungry, screaming one-year- old. And the check never bounced even once. Momma died when I was fifteen; rabies. And then earlier this year Pops developed lung cancer.

  And that’s how I ended up lying face up in a pile of leaves and government-issued excrement while a tribe of blood hungry children charged a hill to skin me and hang my head on a wall. Damn you Uncle Ray.

  The computer voice was still chiming in my ear. I needed to do something before the children topped the hill, but it takes a few seconds to recover from a gunshot wound. I had watched Pops test out the suit when he first got it. And one thing came to mind: the grappling hook.

  I was really into Batman comics plus I had recently watched a documentary about ninjas, so I was excited when Pops discovered the suit had a built in grappling device with a winch. But that had been two years ago, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember how to activate it. I started clicking buttons in the pocket, and nothing happened. I could hear the platoon climbing the hill. Charlie was yelling a battle cry. But none of the buttons worked. What had Pops done to activate it?

  I remembered that he was constantly talking to himself in the suit. Maybe it was a voice command. ‘Grappling.’ I said. Nothing happened. ‘Grappling hook?’ I tried again. Nope. ‘Shoot Grappling Hook?’ They were almost to the top of the hill, and I wasn’t sure I could take another shot to the back.

  ‘Go Go Gadget Grappling Hook.’ I said. And wouldn’t you know it if a projectile didn’t come shooting out of the top of my forearm. I guess some government programmer had a sense of humor. But I wasn’t pointing my arm upward into a tree; I was pointing it through the center of the forest. I heard a distant thud as the hook connected with something and then the winch whined into life. Next thing I knew I was being dragged through the forest floor at about twenty miles per hour.

  When I woke up I was in a cave. The hook must have lodged itself into the cave wall and pulled me in there, I thought. I could smell a putrid, dead odor but couldn’t see anything. With a little more time to think, I tried other voice commands. Finally, ‘Activate night vision’ worked. Unfortunately, it allowed me to see what was in the cave. Of course, it was a bear. A large sleepy black bear covered in a rotting leftover lunch. I decided a stealthy evacuation was my best option. I slowly tip-toed to the mouth of the cave trying to make as little noise as possible.

  Night had fallen outside and although I was an adult, I had watched too many true-life haunting documentaries to feel comfortable in the woods at night alone. A second thought came into my head. Charlie wouldn’t just give up because of night fall. He was probably out there right now waiting, in the dark.

  ‘Activate infrared,’ I said. This suit rocked. I could see a field of blue with the occasional scurrying, tiny blotch of red in the top of a tree. But to the left of me was a large clump of small, prepubescent red blotches as well, each holding blue sticks containing blue projectiles that would pierce my red heart.

  Well that sucks, I thought. They were blocking my way out of the woods. To the right, about 100 yards, was a river. It was not extremely deep but it was very violent rapids and I knew I could never make it across alive. My only escape was being blocked by the little hunters.

  It was a trap. But I had one up on them, I had the suit. I could see in the dark. So I would work my way around them. I would not turn left. I would go straight forward about 200 yards then turn left and leave the forest. I edged slowly out of the cave and made a run for the first available tree. After safely hiding behind it for a few seconds, I made a mad dash for the second tree. I was under the second when I realized I had finally mastered the suit, and I was going to get away. I smiled.

  Then a net fell from the tree, and I was caught. Damn you Uncle Ray.

  The little red blotches stepped out of their hiding place, and I reverted back to night vision. As they approached, led by Charlie and an elephant gun, I realized my error. They had night vision goggles too.

  ‘You are a tricky one huh?’ Said Charlie. ‘But you weren’t tricky enough to escape the likes of me, were you ape man?’ He pointed to a short big-eared boy and gestured toward the side of me. ‘Tango, cover his flank. W
e aren’t going to take any more chances with this one.’ Tango? Tango? Surely someone didn’t name their kid Tango. Was Charlie just making these up?

  Then the beeping in my ear started again. It was the suit. I snaked my hand into the pocket and pressed the first button I could find. The soft voice spoke into my ear. ‘Warning. Imminent Danger.’

  Wow that really helped, thanks computer. Maybe you could tell me what time it is in Tokyo while you’re at it? I thought frantically while Charlie rambled on with his monologue. He was saying something about ‘useless to resist’ and ‘world domination’. I hoped he was full of himself enough to give me time to think.

  ‘Advise.’ I whispered to the computer.

  ‘Stun charge’ was the only words the voice said.

  ‘But now that I have captured this legendary creature I will show the world that they can’t underestimate a person just because of their size.’

  So what did ‘stun charge’ mean exactly? Was the battery on the suit low? I could activate it and find out, I thought. But for all I know it would detonate a small nuclear device.

  ‘But now I will take my rightful place in history.’ Charlie said as he raised the monster gun toward me. ‘The name Winky Allbutt will go down in history as the greatest hunter of all time.’

  Who was Winky Allbutt? I had no time to think about it, and I was out of options. I knew the Kevlar wouldn’t stop a bullet at that range and caliber. So I did the only thing I could. I said, ‘Activate stun charge.’

  A noise, like a giant dog sneezing, erupted out of my belly button region. A shock wave emanated from me and traveled throughout the woods for as far as I could see. Charlie… er… Winky fell over along with all his little maniacal cohorts.

  I thought wow that’s a lot of bodies to hide. But after looking at Winky more closely I could tell he was still breathing. They were just knocked out.

  It took me several minutes of fighting with the net before I freed myself. And then I walked out of the woods, leaving the tiny savages sleeping in the leaves.

  Afterward, the newspaper had a write up about the events. This is where I finally learned where they all got their nicknames. Charlie, Foxtrot and Tango were characters in the military alphabet. The news story told of how the courageous Winky found his camp leader slain by some wild animal. He led a party to find and destroy his mentor’s killer. Late that night they tracked the killer to a cave deep in the woods. They slew the wild black bear that had killed Butch and dragged it back to Camp Kilwatchawana, where they ate it raw and wore its skin while they danced around a fire. The camp custodian found them the next morning, covered in blood and sleeping in a large heap. Their parents were called to come take them home. After reading the article three times, I realized that either Winky did not remember our encounter or was lying to save face. I felt sorry for the bear though.

  Pops read the news story over my shoulder and shook his head. Then he laughed. ‘My first day was a tough one too,’ he said.

  The following week we received a box in the mail. It contained two smaller packages. The first contained replacement blood, excrement and an additional grappling hook to replace the one I lost in the cave.

  The second package contained a small bottle of pills. Neatly printed on the bottle were the words “Cure for Cancer”. On the bottle was a small post-it note that read ‘Please don’t tell anyone that we have this.’

  SCAARAK STORM

  by Paul Miller

  As usual, Ra’vihd was hard at work in the tomb-like tunnels of the radicite mines when they came for him. He could tell right away that something was seriously wrong. The foreman wore a deep frown and, far more telling, was flanked by a peace officer in full gear. Ra’vihd sighed deeply. He would wager a week’s wages that his worthless father lay at the heart of whatever the trouble was.

  When there could be no doubt it was him they were coming for, Ra’vihd straightened as much as he could in the cramped tunnel and pulled off his breather. ‘You guys looking for me?’

  ‘Yeah,’ the foreman said. ‘It’s about Zaried, your father.’

  Of course.

  The peace officer stepped forward. ‘Over a dozen witnesses saw him beat one of the new miners to death at Yaz’s Bar last night.’ He hesitated. ‘We’ve been lenient with him in the past, for you and your brother’s sake, but somebody died this time. It’s murder. You know what the punishment is for murder.’

  Yes. They took you out and abandoned you in the wastelands to face the scaarak. In other words, the punishment was death.

  ‘So be it,’ Ra’vihd said. ‘Do what needs to be done. Why are you bothering me anyway? I have work to do.’

  The two men glanced at each other. ‘The thing is, somebody has stepped forward to take the punishment in his place.’

  Icy fear clutched at Ra’vihd’s chest. Only one person cared about Zaried enough to do something so foolish.

  ‘Your brother says he will find a way to survive the scaarak and regain your father’s lost honor.’

  Kal was only sixteen years old. The only way he’d be allowed to take his father’s place was if Zaried agreed to it, but Ra’vihd knew his father was just the sort of man to do such a thing. He realized his fists were clenched, and he was breathing heavily. He forced himself to calm down, to ignore the anger surging inside him. It was something he’d grown very good at over the years. He supposed he should be happy that his work ethic and kindness had earned him somewhat of a good reputation. Otherwise he may not have known of this until it was too late.

  ‘Thanks for bringing this to me,’ he said. ‘I need to speak to my father. When you’re ready to leave this evening, one of us will be there.’ He pushed past them and started picking his way out of the labyrinthine tunnels.

  Always, it came back to his father. Something had needed to be done about the man for a long time. Unfortunately, Ra’vihd just didn’t have it in him to do what was needed. His shoulders slumped. Now it might already be too late.

  Ra’vihd strode briskly through the residential district of their humble city, squinting against the bright reddish glare of the twin suns reflected off the thick fog of radicite dust. Hundreds of identical dome-topped residences surrounded him, each barely large enough for a single family. Children watched him pass with haunted eyes, all clothed in the same gray rags. There was no such thing as luxury on Purgatory. It was truly, as its people were known to say, the toilet-bowl of humanity.

  Ra’vihd smiled. Despite everything, he took great pride in what had been accomplished here.

  When humanity’s centuries-long flight from a dying Earth aboard their massive city-ships finally ended, they were fortunate enough to run into a coalition of far more advanced species that were kind enough to take them in. They were taught faster-than-light travel, given the now-mandatory chips that let them easily communicate with the other species in the coalition, and they were given a handful of small worlds.

  By far the least habitable of these was Purgatory. In fact, it was so bad that nobody at all had wanted to live there. The decision was eventually made to use it as a place to exile humanity’s worst criminals, of which their were many. No doubt it was assumed the criminals would die there. Instead, they banded together and over dozens of years forged some semblance of a society. Ra’vihd had even heard rumors their leaders were trying to find a way to communicate with the other human worlds and ask to be accepted as equals.

  So it was that he walked proudly through the humble city, a descendant of the worst of humanity but stronger for it. Before long, he reached the dome belonging to his family. He knocked, listening to the metallic echo fade completely away before he finally heard Zaried’s gruff voice.

  ‘Come in.’

  Ra’vihd wasn’t surprised to find his father and brother both waiting for him in the cramped space. He nodded to his lanky brother and stepped forward until his chest nearly touched his father’s. He was a large young man, but Zaried dwarfed even him. His father’s smirk was infuriating.


  ‘So you’re willing to let your son die for your mistake?’ Ra’vihd asked.

  ‘Kal understands that a son’s duty is to protect his father’s honor.’

  ‘And here I thought it was a father’s duty to protect his son.’

  ‘You watch that mouth of yours, boy. You still aren’t too big for me to beat the hell out of you.’

  Ra’vihd shrugged. ‘If that makes you feel better about sending your son to die in your place, so be it.’

  Zaried’s face darkened.

  Kal watched them uncertainly. ‘It’s all right, brother. I will find a way to survive.’ The quiver in his voice betrayed his brave words.

  Ra’vihd glanced at his brother. He loved the boy fiercely, despite the fact that love wasn’t exactly an encouraged emotion on Purgatory. He even loved him enough to forgive the boy for never giving up on their father. His eyes snapped back to Zaried’s.

  ‘Coward,’ he whispered, for he knew no amount of talking would change his father’s mind. He wondered why he’d even bothered to come.

  ‘How dare you?’ the larger man roared. He balled his hand into a fist and took a wild swing. It’s clumsiness was undoubtedly the result of his shaiz-smoking habit, and Ra’vihd easily leaped away from the blow. Zaried stumbled a few steps, then collapsed on his rolled-up bed-sleeve.

  ‘Not today,’ Ra’vihd said quietly. ‘I’ll need to be at my best if I’m to have a chance to survive the scaarak.’

  Zaried started to climb to his feet and advance on Kal—planning to make good on his constant threat to hurt the younger son if the older one ever refused to endure his abuse—when the words finally registered. He smiled. ‘So you’ll go. Great. Much better to lose you than my good son.’

  In that moment, Ra’vihd wanted to survive the night not because he wanted to live, but to wipe that stupid smile from his father’s face.