Kzine Issue 4

by Graeme Hurry et al.

  Kaj stumbled to his feet and scrambled back from Mooki and the witch. The witche’s gaze was attracted to the motion, her head turned and her eyes focused on him. Then, to make things worse, Mooki, poor dead Mooki, sat up beside her. The look on his face wasn’t peaceful or even pained, it was feral.

  ‘Help!’ he screamed. ‘Oh please, help!’

  The strongest and bravest munchkin Kaj knew was Oko and he was back at Boj’s party.

  Mooki struggled to his feet and lurched toward him. Kaj jumped away, tripping over some bushes and landing, sprawled painfully on the pavement. Mooki waded through the bushes toward him, his face contorted into a snarl, his fingers curled into claws. He reached toward him and Kaj let him draw near and then kicked him in the chest with both feet. Mooki staggered back, and landed in the bushes.

  While Mooki flailed wildly, trying to regain his footing, Kaj jumped to his feet and raced back toward the party.

  The party was almost finished. By the time he arrived there were munchkins passed out all over Boj’s front lawn. The music had been turned down to a dull murmur and he couldn’t see anyone up and moving around. A glance back over his shoulder showed no sign of the witch, but Mooki was not far behind.

  ‘Wake up! Everyone wake up!’

  No one stirred. He ran over to the first munchkin he saw, and gave them a shake. ‘Wake up! They’re coming!’ The munchkin, who he could now see was Boj didn’t respond. His eyes fluttered slightly but when Kaj let him go he slumped back to the ground with all the spirit of a sack of potatoes.

  ‘Oko! Oko, where are you?’ Kaj raced across the yard dodging sleeping munchkins, empty glasses, bottles and plates and ran into the house. ‘Oko!’

  Then Boj screamed and Kaj felt tears prick at the back of his eyelids. It was his fault, he’d led them here, but all he’d wanted was to find help to find Oko. Outside, another munchkin, a girl, screamed.

  ‘Oko!’

  ‘What is it?’ Relief flooded through him as a familiar voice came from upstairs.

  ‘Oko! We need to help,’ another scream sounded outside, and then another. Soon there was a chorus of them and Kaj hoped they were caused by munchkins waking up to find out what was happening rather than being attacked.

  Oko came down to the landing. He wasn’t wearing anything except for his trousers and suspenders. His hair was mussed and his cherubic face pale. Kaj suspected he was beginning to feel his hangover, but no matter how poorly he felt now, he was about to feel a whole lot worse.

  There was a small, round window on the landing that looked out over the front lawn. Without a word he pointed at it, and Oko looked out. Oko swore under his breath and then became a juggernaut. He raced to the door, and where Kaj’s shouts hadn’t managed to rouse anyone, Oko’s was. ‘Everyone,’ he hollered from the doorway. ‘Get into the house. Right now. Everyone. In the house. Now!’

  From his spot by the window Kaj could see all the munchkins running and stumbling into the house. All the munchkins but Salli, Mooki and Boj. Salli and Mooki were too busy chewing on Boj’s arm while he screamed and struggled against them. When Boj’s screams ended, about the time all the other munchkins made it into his house Kaj watched him make the same transformation Mooki had. His face went slack and his eyes filled with pure hunger. Tearing himself from the window Kaj went to work boarding up all the ground floor windows.

  ‘I think we’re ready for them.,’ Oko said as they boarded up the last window. ‘All the windows are shut and they aren’t coming through that door easily.’ He gestured with his head toward the large chest of drawers pushed up against the front door. ‘What is going on?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kaj answered truthfully. He told Oko what had happened, alternating his attention between him and the window. ‘It’s like they were dead but now they aren’t,’ he concluded.

  Behind him, munchkins sobbed and murmured amongst themselves. It was as though they were afraid to raise their voices lest the creatures in the yard hear them.

  ‘Could be all those stories about her were true,’ Oko suggested.

  ‘Could be. Or maybe she cast a spell? Whatever it is, it’s not good. The witch was dead. The coroner said so. She was most sincerely dead, but she’s not now.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know. She can’t stand up, maybe she’s still crawling this way.’

  ‘Or the other way.’

  Kaj felt ill, and he didn’t think it was all due to his emerging hangover. In fact, now that Oko had planted the thought in his mind, he could almost swear he heard screams coming from the other side of Munchkinville.

  A dull banging sound startled everyone in the house and there was a chorus of shrieks, cut short and smothered as reply. Kaj looked out the window to see Mooki pawing at the doorway. He’d apparently forgotten how doorknobs worked, and was sliding his limp hand over the wood, futilely attempting to gain entrance. Salli was beside him, making the same inept petting motions on the wall. Boj struggled to stand behind them.

  ‘They won’t get in,’ Kaj said, looking back at Oko then at the cluster of a half dozen munchkins in the living room. ‘At least not yet, but the witch is out there somewhere, along with most of the town.’

  ‘You’re right. We need to get out of here. We need to gather up all the munchkins we can, and go somewhere safer. Somewhere with supplies.’

  ‘Town hall.’ Kaj said. Glancing back out the window at the once familiar faces, now slack and bloodied, he felt guilt stab into his gut. He’d led them here. ‘You take everyone to town hall and I will go to the Emerald City.’

  ‘Emerald City?’

  ‘That’s where Glinda is. She’s a powerful good witch. She’s our only hope against this black magic. With her help maybe we could make these munchkins stay dead. Plus, the wizard needs to be told about this.’

  ‘Okay, but be careful. There might be more cannibalistic munchkins out there than we know about.’

  ‘I will.’

  Oko looked at the little group huddled in the living room and then at Kaj. ‘Okay everyone,’ he said, raising his voice to cut through their fearful murmurings. ‘We’re going to town hall. We’ll go out a back window while these guys are busy up here.’

  Oko herded the group to a large back window, opened it and slipped out himself to show them that it was safe and easy while Kaj took up the rear and coaxed and encouraged each munchkin in turn until they got out. Finally, when no one was left in the house but himself, Kaj climbed through and dropped the short distance to the ground just in time to hear the last of Oko’s instructions. ‘…go door to door and get people, then bring them and all the food you can carry to the town hall. Move quickly and be careful. We don’t know how many more of them there are.’

  Kaj caught Oko’s eye over the heads of the other munchkins as they scattered, moving as quietly as possible to avoid being noticed by Mooki and company. He nodded goodbye and started toward town square, taking a circuitous route to avoid the ravenous munchkins in the front yard.

  Glinda always said to start at the beginning, and if he was going to go to the Emerald City that meant the yellow brick road.

  The sun was hot and blinding. It fed the steadily growing throb inside his head, and made his stomach swirl like the wind Dorothy rode in on. His tongue felt like it was covered by a dirty sock and his feet were heavy. What’s more, his bladder was going to explode if he didn’t let some of the beer out soon.

  Glancing around warily, Kaj stopped at a tree by town square relieve himself. He was just about to unzip when he felt an iron grip on his ankle and looked down to see Gabe, his face shredded as though by sharp fingernails. He pulled away but the other munchkin chomped down on the back of his calf at the same time. Shaking like a decapitated chicken, Kaj managed to free himself from Gabe’s clutches and stagger backward. Unfortunately, he left a sizable chunk of his leg in the other munchkin’s mouth.

  Kaj fell back in the middle of the road and scrambled backward like a crab to put some dist
ance between himself and Gabe. Gabe pulled himself out of the bushes by his arms, dragging himself toward Kaj. His lower body was almost non-existent. Only a mangled mess of meat and bone.

  With his heart drumming in his chest, Kaj scooted back further, and then used a bush to pull himself upright. His eyes glued on Gabe, who was making very slow progress toward him, Kaj pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and wrapped it tightly around his leg to stem the bleeding. His leg was still able to support his weight but it throbbed with every heartbeat.

  Kaj glared down at Gabe, who continued to inch his way toward him, flailing his arms and making wet grunting noise, and moved deliberately toward the spiral that was the beginning of the Yellow Brick Road.

  ‘I’m off to see the wizard,’ he hummed under his breath, an attempt at taking his mind off the hole in his leg. ‘The wonderful wizard of Oz…’

  He walked by farmland. The well-tended fields sectioned out with white plank fences sprawled out around him as far as he could see. Sweat beaded his brow and dampened his neck, but he kept going. It got harder as time went by. The urge to lie down and sleep grew stronger along with the heat of the sun. To make matters worse, as the shock of the undead munchkins and the copious amounts of alcohol he’d consumed the night before left his system, his hangover made an appearance. He could feel the seed of it blossoming in his stomach as nausea and in his skull as a headache. It throbbed in time with the wound in his calf, aching with each beat of his heart.

  He was worried about his leg. It wasn’t bleeding much but it hurt like nothing he’d ever felt before. Kaj stumbled over a short fence into a field of green corn stalks. Crows flew up at his appearance, their chastising voices burning into his head like a flame through straw. ‘Be quiet!’ he shouted, then immediately regretted it and clutched his ears to muffle the renewed shrieking that surrounded him.

  He sat down in the shade between the stalks, to rest for a few moments before continuing, but the image of the cannibalistic munchkins he’d left back at Munchkinville stirred him from the ground before too long. The Emerald City was still a long way away and he had to get there soon; before the munchkins ran out of food or became food themselves.

  He was weak and feverish. His mouth tasted like cotton and his stomach felt like a maelstrom. Kaj sat down on the edge of the fence and stuck out his leg. The handkerchief was bloodstained and dried in most places. He untied it from around his leg, but it remained stuck in place.

  He grabbed one end of the handkerchief and gritting his teeth, pulled it off. The pain tore through him and he screamed loud enough to startle the crows again and send them flapping off in all directions.

  The bite had scabbed over in some places but mostly it was still wet and raw. At its center it oozed yellow liquid that smelled bad enough to turn Kaj’s still-queasy stomach. The edges were puffy, swollen and bright red. In fact, he could see a fierce scarlet line making its way up his calf directly from the injury.

  ‘That’s not good,’ he said, and his voice sounded like a hoarse croak to his ears.

  ‘It’s really not.’ Oko’s voice came from behind him and startled Kaj so that he fell off the fence post. The air was knocked from his lungs and he lay there, staring up at the empty sky, struggling to pull air into his body. Oko’s worried face blocked out the blue of sky and he peered down at him on the ground. ‘Wow. Didn’t mean to startle you. You okay?’

  ‘No,’ Kaj gasped, expending some of the precious air he’d managed to inhale. Then he closed his eyes and waited for the pounding in his head to subside and his heart to stop racing like a mouse’s.

  ‘I thought I’d come, too. Got most everyone in the town center and Rin is taking over there, smart girl that Rin. Anyway, I figured two people going to find Glinda was better then one.’ Oko paused and then spoke again, his voice holding an obviously forced casualness, ‘Your leg, it don’t look good.’

  ‘Doesn’t feel good either.’ Kaj moaned and slowly sat up. ‘Gabe took a bite out of me.’

  He and Oko shared a look, and images of Mooki, Gabe, Boj and Salli raced each other around and around in Kaj’s mind. He knew what Oko was thinking. The same thing he was. If he died, was he going to become one of those things? Fear welled up inside him, he felt it clawing at his brain, digging into it and threatening to take him over. Instead, he took a deep breath. ‘I’m not dead yet Oko, I think it will take more than this to take me out.’

  ‘Of course it will.’ Oko didn’t sound confident, but Kaj wasn’t going to think about that right now. He was going to think about the people back in Munchkinville who needed him. He couldn’t let them down.

  Walking was more difficult that it had been before, even with Oko there to lean on. Not only did his leg hurt more, but his fingers trembled and his knees didn’t feel like they could be trusted to keep him upright. Abandoned by the rush his fear had brought, each step was motivated by hunger and pure willpower.

  Then he saw them, lying by the side of the road, two apples. He couldn’t think of a time when something to eat had ever looked so good. Staggering toward them, he snatched one up, cupped it in both hands and devoured it. Skin, flesh and seeds alike all got shoved into his mouth and ground up into a pulpy mess. Juices ran down his chin and he swept his tongue in a wide circle to try and lap them up again. Oko chewed on the other one, though with less enthusiasm. When Kaj was left with only the apple core, he looked at it, considering.

  Something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention; another apple. It lay on the ground beside an oil-stained tree stump. Tossing the core over his shoulder, he picked up the second apple. It was badly damaged, as though it had been thrown with great force toward the ground, but it looked far more appetizing than the apple core had.

  Kaj ate the second apple as they continued on their way down the Yellow Brick Road. He was putting more weight on Oko than he had been earlier in the day, but he counted each step forward as a victory.

  It was difficult to keep up his pace though, his leg hurt. It hurt a lot. He could feel heat emanating off it if he held his hand close, and the edges that had once been red were darkening, turning almost black. What’s more, the red line was climbing further and further up his leg. It now disappeared somewhere under the hem of his knee-length shorts. Bending his leg become painful as well, so he’d taken to leaving it straight and dragging it along behind him. That method of walking meant he made progress, but it wasn’t doing his shoes any good and it was definitely slowing him down.

  Oko hadn’t said anything more about his injury, but more than once Kaj caught him looking at it worriedly, his thoughts written plainly across his face. Kaj had turned away when he’d seen that. His own fear was barely contained, he didn’t want Oko’s to turn it loose.

  The sun was at its highest point when they came to the woods. ‘You know, my mom always told me scary stories about the lions, tigers and bears that are supposed to live in the forest.’

  ‘Mine too,’ Oko replied. ‘But they just aren’t scary compared to…well, you know.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ Kaj replied and entered the forest beside Oko without hesitation.

  After a time, the lengthening shadows told him the sun was getting lower but he kept going, determined not to stop until he saw the walls of the Emerald City. Visions of the munchkins back home who relied on him danced through his mind, coupled with the memory of him telling Mooki ‘I don’t know, why don’t you go find out?’.

  ‘I told Mooki to check out what was in the house,’ he blurted, his voice as parched as his throat.

  Oko stopped and turned to look at him. ‘You did what?’

  ‘I…well, I tried to stop him afterward, but…I mean, I thought it was just a cat…’ his words trailed off weakly.

  ‘You couldn’t have known,’ Oko said, patting his shoulder and shifting so that Kaj could use him for support once more. ‘You couldn’t have known.’

  Kaj swallowed back tears and kept going, trying to think about anything to take his mind off
what might be going on back home and the pain in his calf.

  His leg felt different. They paused for a moment so he could assess it. Heat continued to come off it in waves, the edges were black and the center was olive with pus, but the pain was different. The wound itself no longer hurt, but the rest of his calf did. His entire leg was swollen so much he feared his skin might split, and when he lifted his shirt to check he could see the red line climbing from his leg toward his chest.

  ‘I can leave you here, and come back for you,’ Oko suggested, looking at the mess on his calf.

  The idea was tempting. He could just rest. Sit down at the base of one of these trees, relax and sleep. Sleep sounded wonderful. But he couldn’t. He knew the pictures in his head wouldn’t stop until he sent help back to Munchkinville. He felt responsible. He’d sent Mooki into the house and then led him right back to Boj’s house. He had to be a part of the end of this. He had to get to Emerald City.

  He shook his head. ‘No, I can go on.’ His voice didn’t sound like his own. It was dry and rough. He was thirstier than he’d ever been in his life, with no water in sight. Still, he had to go on.

  Kaj limped along the Yellow Brick Road, whose edges blurred and swayed in his eyes, dragging his leg along with him and holding on tight to Oko. When they left the forest he could see Emerald City shimmering in front of him and briefly felt his knees sag with relief.

  I must be hallucinating, Kaj thought. The only thing between them and Emerald City was a poppy field. It stretched as far as he could see to both the left and right, but its scarlet flowers were all dusted with snow. Snow, in the middle of summer. They paused by the entrance of the field and he grabbed a handful of snow, held it over his open mouth and squeezed, but instead of the cold trickle of water he’d expected he got nothing. Nothing. The snow stuck together but didn’t melt. He breathed on it. Still nothing. He crammed it into his mouth, but it tasted like sand so he spat it out. Some sort of magic kept it cold, and kept him from being able to drink.