Kzine Issue 1

by Graeme Hurry et al.

  ‘You lot seen any more worms?’ he asked halfway through his third beer when the conversation got quiet.

  ‘You and them fuckin worms!’ Teabag muttered.

  ‘No – serious. I dug up loads today. I think it’s interesting…’

  ‘Don’t you let Wee Dougie hear you saying that,’ Tez laughed.

  ‘He ain’t coming back,’ Jonno muttered. ‘Not after we all seen him pissing his kilt!’

  ‘You reckon?’ Teabag got up to pour himself another treacly brew.

  ‘Stands to reason. He wasn’t going to stick round here once he’d lost face—’

  ‘He’s a Scot – not a fuckin samurai,’ Dazzler chipped in. Jonno flipped a bottle cap at him.

  ‘Same fuckin difference…!’

  ‘A Scot wouldn’t piss off two days before he gets paid,’ McCain said.

  ‘He’s got a point,’ Yamyam admitted. Dougie really had been a tight-arsed bastard.

  Teabag sat back down again. ‘He’s getting his caber polished in some Brasov knocking shop – any money. He’ll be back when he’s skint.’

  ‘And sober…’ McCain added.

  ‘Away,’ Dazzler said as he got to his feet. ‘Delightful as this conversation is, I’ve got a couple of pounds of lettuce to get rid of.’ He walked towards the door, grabbing the spade Dougie had left behind. The only downside to being stuck out here was the Portaloos filled up in no time, and it didn’t look like they were going to get replaced any time soon. So the crew had fallen back on older practises.

  ‘Dig it downwind this time, you dirty Geordie bastard!’ Tez yelled.

  Dazzler turned round, spade half-raised. ‘For the last time—’

  ‘—Don’t call me a fuckin Geordie!‘ they finished in chorus.

  He never came back either.

  The next day they searched right up until one of the foremen – a Frog who seemed to hate Brits just on principle – yelled them back to work again. Dazzler had vanished just like Wee Dougie – except Yamyam hadn’t thought Dazzler the vanishing type. Dependable, like.

  ‘He had a couple of kids back home,’ Teabag told him later as they took a fag break. Yamyam hadn’t known that. ‘Pretty bird, too…’

  ‘Think he buggered off back to her?’

  ‘Dazzler? Nah!’

  Just before siesta, Teabag found the ring; they recognised it as one of Dazzler’s. It was half-buried among some scuffed-up leaf litter.

  ‘Bandits,’ Tez suggested back at the hut.

  ‘You what?’ Yamyam wasn’t sure he’d heard right.

  ‘Bandits,’ he repeated. Teabag laughed, and McCain just sort of snorted.

  ‘This ain’t fuckin Mexico,’ Jonno muttered.

  ‘Yeah – but they still got em, ain’t they? Ex soldiers – guerrillas, like – left over after the war…’

  ‘They didn’t have a war, yer dozy fecker,’ said McCain. ‘Yer thinking of Yugoslavia.’

  ‘I bet Yamyam thinks it’s them worms,’ Teabag grinned.

  ‘Bollocks.’

  Back on the job, Yamyam fairly tore into it – ripping up as much earth as tree stumps. He left the ground gouged – huge pits where the trees had once been. Only three times did he come across a nest of worms; in each case, the squirmy buggers pissed off into the ground so fast they must have known he was after them.

  Once he’d ripped up every stump he could see, he turned off the engine and just slumped in his cab. Teabag drove up and looked the mess over.

  ‘Fuck me, Yamyam,’ he yelled. ‘Looks like world war three round ‘ere. You feelin all right, mate?’

  ‘Me? Right as fuckin nine pence, son. Couldn’t be fuckin better.’

  ‘That’s okay, then – cause anyone other than me might think you was takin something personal.’ He steered his dozer past and started levelling the earth. Yamyam keyed his ignition and drove the digger back.

  They were all twitchy that night. Soon as they’d finished ramming down dinner, the booze came out with a vengeance. Yamyam wished it was payday so they could all fuck off into town and get rat-arsed. When the last beers had been dragged out of the fridge, McCain surprised them all by flashing a litre bottle of vodka.

  The bottle did the rounds; the party grew louder. In the end it was Jonno who kicked off. He took a huge slug of the cheap vodka, swallowed and kept staring at the bottle. Teabag reached towards it.

  ‘You hanging onto that fucker all night?’ he muttered.

  Jonno let the booze go without a word – like he didn’t know it wasn’t there any longer. He just stared into the bottle-shaped gap in front of him – his eyes all glassy and unfocused.

  ‘I think I’m gonna have a piss,’ he said after a while.

  ‘Don’t let me feckin stop yer,’ McCain said, taking his own turn with the vodka. ‘Fuck me, ye’ve drunk the lot!’

  ‘Try squeezing,’ Tez suggested.

  ‘I am definitely goin to have a piss.’ Jonno lurched to his feet and stood for a moment on dodgy ankles, glaring around the hut.

  ‘Outside, I hope,’ Tez said.

  ‘Yeah – fuck off outside before you piss yerself!’ Teabag shouted.

  Jonno’s eyes quivered in their sockets – then grew hard and flinty. He turned and headed for the door – grabbing a shovel as he went. The door slammed behind him.

  ‘Christ,’ Tez muttered. ‘How big’s his fuckin bladder?’

  Yamyam peered at the floor, not really listening.

  ‘Do you think we ought to follow him?’ Tez was saying.

  McCain laughed. ‘Wanna hold his prick, do yer?’

  ‘He’s a big boy,’ Teabag groaned as he levered himself to his feet and headed towards the kettle. ‘And you can take that any fuckin way you want!’

  Yamyam just sat silently, letting the vodka do its work. The empty bottle had made its way back to him and he held it up carelessly, watching a small trickle of booze inside wriggle up and down the glass. He thought about the way the worms always disappeared when you dug them up; because they’d been all over Wee Dougie that night. Not squirming back into the ground at all.

  He was on his feet and through the door, flashlight in hand – out into the warm night and yelling for Jonno. Because he’d figured out what the stupid twat was going to do, and he knew the worms weren’t going to just burrow out of sight. Not this time.

  It wasn’t hard to find Jonno – he was making more noise than Teabag’s dozer. About fifty yards away from the hut, among the trees, he was slashing at the ground, flailing the spade like a pickaxe, chipping hard lumps of dry clay into the air.

  ‘It’s the worms!’ he was wheezing. ‘The fuckin worms!‘

  There weren’t any worms that Yamyam saw. Jonno froze: was he listening, or staring at the other man. It was too dim to be sure.

  ‘Come back, eh?’ Yamyam suggested lamely. ‘Have one of Teabag’s disgusting cups of tea, like…’

  Jonno’s face was picked out by flickering beams of light. Everyone else was coming up behind, waving torches. Jonno’s pale and sweaty features glowed in the stark light – but shadows round his eyes and cheeks made his face like a skull.

  ‘There’s no worms,’ Yamyam tried pointing out. ‘Look. You ain’t found one…!’

  ‘Not yet!’ He starting attacking the ground again - using the light from the torches to pick his targets.

  ‘Jonno, you twat!’ Teabag yelled.

  ‘I thought Yamyam was the head case!’ Tez added.

  McCain pushed forward and tried to snatch the spade out of Jonno’s hands. The flailing blade smashed across his face. He collapsed flat on his arse; blood – black in the night – flooded from his forehead, coating his features.

  Jonno was off then: into the darkness, shouting some bollocks or other. They tried to follow him, but the jogging torch-beams – stabbing in every direction at once – just confused their eyes. Every time Yamyam thought they’d spotted Jonno, it was just another tree.

  Eventually they had to stop. They were all prett
y fit, but the vodka, combined with chasing round like headless chickens in the dark, got to them. Gasping for breath – each of them leaning against a tree – they stared helplessly at each other and the surrounding black woodland. Yamyam was waiting for his heart to stop jack-hammering and for someone to come up with a half-decent idea.

  Jonno made it easy for them. He suddenly started yelling – screaming so loud it sounded like he was about to rupture his throat.

  He’d found his worms. Standing at the foot of a tree, Jonno was ankle-deep in them. He was gouging great lumps out of the ground and bark, chucking around earth, wood and wriggling bodies like he didn’t give a shit. Teabag, McCain and Tez pinned him with the light from their torches. The worms’ slimy bodies flashed and sparkled in the beams. And this time they weren’t burrowing their way back into the ground – just like with Dougie, some were slowly oozing their way up Jonno’s legs. The rest were climbing the tree.

  ‘Fuckin gross…’ Tez mumbled.

  Teabag took a couple of steps forward, half-blocking Yamyam’s view. ‘Shouldn’t we … you know … get him out…?’

  ‘He can sink in the feckers,’ McCain said. His voice sounded far away and, to Yamyam’s ears, kind of scary. ‘Teach im to smack me in the face!’

  ‘Don’t be a cunt, Paddy,’ Teabag said. He took a couple more steps and had more luck than McCain – actually snatching the spade out of Jonno’s hands before he got brained. ‘Give us that, you fuckin moron!’ he yelled in Jonno’s ear, and tossed the spade away.

  ‘Just wait till I get you back to the hut, yer little gobshite,’ Yamyam heard McCain snarling from behind.

  Teabag grabbed Jonno by an arm and dragged him forward – out of the worm-nest. As Jonno took a couple of steps, the worms oozing up his jeans dropped away. Yamyam watched as they wriggled painfully towards the tree and started to climb.

  ‘Nasty little fuckers!’ Jonno mashed his boot down on a knot of worms that were writhing on the ground. A moment later something fell across his face, and he went down heavily.

  ‘What in feckin—?’ McCain aimed his torch at Jonno. He was on the ground, jerking and writhing, as something long and fat and slimy glided across his head.

  ‘It’s a fuckin worm!’ Tez muttered. They all saw it – but didn’t believe it. The granddaddy of all worms – as thick as McCain’s thighs, well over six foot in length, blotched red and white… It was more like a snake – an anaconda – than a worm.

  Yamyam caught movement in the corner of his eye. In the light reflected from the flashlights, he saw another worm – even bigger than the first – hit the ground and rear up. Its pointy, slimy end turned – aiming straight at the group. Two more flopped to the ground right next to it – sounding like sacks of mud as they slapped onto the earth.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ McCain breathed.

  ‘Help me get Jonno up!’ Teabag was saying. Yamyam glanced down. Jonno was still thrashing on the ground, the revolting thing smothering him. Teabag tried to lift it off – but his hands didn’t seem to be able to get a hold. ‘Tez! Gimme a hand!’

  Tez stooped down next to him, leaving his torch on the ground. As both of them failed to grab the huge worm Yamyam heard the wet mud sound as more of the things slapped down nearby.

  He swung his torch-beam in a circle: they were surrounded. It was like the tree and five men were the axle, and something like ten or twelve of those giant worms the spokes of a huge wheel. Yamyam heard Jonno’s muffled yells turning to wet choking; Tez and Teabag swearing helplessly at each other, getting more desperate each second. McCain was almost silent – except for an odd rattle in his breathing that sounded like snoring.

  ‘Think they can outrun us?’ Yamyam whispered. He wasn’t sure why.

  ‘You ain’t runnin!’ Teabag said, breathless and angry. ‘We can’t run with Jonno!’

  ‘Bollocks to Jonno!’ Yamyam swept the beam of his torch about, looking for a gap. The worms didn’t move, but they were watching. Somehow. Even without eyes – he could feel them watching.

  He bolted, leaping over a worm. It reared up, but Yamyam was already away. Heart and breathing almost drowning out McCain and Teabag’s yells at his back. It made it easier not to listen.

  After about fifty yards, Yamyam dared to stop. He turned round – aiming his torch back down from where he’d run. He could see Tez, Teabag, McCain and Jonno – picked out by their flashlights – still surrounded by the worms; nothing seemed to have moved.

  ‘Come on!’ he yelled. ‘Run! They ain’t that fast!’

  Maybe his shout startled the huge worms, or they felt the vibration – but all of them were suddenly rearing up. Tez and Teabag looked up from Jonno, who didn’t seem to be moving; McCain waved his torch like a club.

  The worms’ smooth, pointed ends peeled back – exposing huge, gaping mouths. They struck like snakes. One grabbed McCain by his head and yanked him into the air; the Irishman was engulfed past his shoulders in a second, his feet thrashing and kicking. The worm reared up further – and McCain slipped out of sight. The creature dropped heavily back to the ground. The bulge that had been McCain wasn’t moving, Yamyam told himself – it was the flickering torchlight. Playing tricks on his eyes.

  Three worms went for Tez and Teabag. One caught Tez by a leg, swallowing him slowly. The second grabbed Teabag by an arm and snatched him up from Jonno’s body; the third swallowed him up to his hips. There was a brief, bloody, tug of war. The thing that had fallen on Jonno stirred, widened its huge gape, and wriggled itself over and around him. Yamyam guessed Jonno was already dead by then. He hoped so.

  He turned and ran again – in what he hoped was the hut’s direction. But as long as it was away, he didn’t much care either way. The torch beam flailed wildly around in the darkness, less than useless. He fell over exposed roots and mounds of earth, crashed into trees. Eventually he smashed his head against a trunk and hit the ground.

  Shaking his pounding head he clawed his way back onto his feet, using the tree trunk as a crutch. His heart was throbbing almost as hard as his head. The torch was several feet away, its beam pointlessly lighting up a streak of ground. Limping over he picked it up, aiming it towards the tree he’d run into.

  There were worms wriggling up the trunk. Hundreds of them. In his torch’s light he picked out a few of the slimy bastards weaving up his jeans.

  Overhead there was a muffled sound: two rapid-fire, wet pops. He raised his torch – up towards the branches hidden in the darkness, and the pointed, glistening thing that hung down, blindly aiming for him. Yamayam had just enough time to see the twin rows of long spines splaying out on either of the tubular body, and the glistening membranes stretched over them, before the worm swooped, gaping wide.

  LEILA

  by Martin Owton

  Frankly I would be hard pushed to think of a worse lover for Lazarus than Leila, and it was my doing that they met. Stuck for a partner for a dinner at the Institute, I invited Leila to accompany me, and she readily agreed. People have said many things about Leila, the mildest being that she is a flirt, and even though she is a friend of mine, I will accept that that is being generous to her. She is also easily bored so I was surprised when Leila fastened on to Lazarus, as his dinner party conversations usually ended up with equations scrawled on the tablecloth long before coffee was served. He also looked as if he had come directly from the lab, wearing a ruinous old hairy tweed jacket and with his hair standing up in tufts. Leila gave every indication of finding Lazarus fascinating, and indeed said as much as I drove her home. She had a mercurial intelligence that had been the despair of her teachers, but I truly doubted that it reached the distant realms of Lazarus’s work.

  She was, as you might imagine, a beauty; tall and buxom with rich dark hair and wicked blue eyes, and intoxicating company when she chose to be. I knew her too well to be drawn in by her spell, having been a playmate from childhood. She saw me, I believe, as the brother she never had, and thus off-limits. From beyond this bounda
ry, I witnessed her behaviour with those who were not. She seemed to delight in tempting men to the brink of madness and then abandoning them there without mercy. It was therefore a matter of deep concern when she took up with my colleague from the Institute, Dr Lazarus Andrews.

  Lazarus is undoubtedly a genius; his early work in quantum electrodynamics is clear proof of that, and he suffered from that instability of mood that so often accompanies brilliance. He was completely entranced by Leila. Awkward and tongue-tied in the presence of women with whom he could not discuss magnetic field theory, he had not to my knowledge, had a girlfriend since he left Cambridge. But now his hair was neatly cut and combed. The unironed, frayed at cuff and collar, shirts disappeared, and the hairy old jacket was banished. There was even a hint of aftershave about him. It would have been impossible to avert disaster from this point on. Like a comet caught by the gravitation field of Jupiter, Lazarus was doomed.

  The effect on Leila was unexpected though. For a while she seemed truly interested in Lazarus. He has such a brilliant mind, she said in one of our few conversations about him. You have no idea of the breakthrough he is close to. She then proceeded to give me a detailed précis of his work which completely floored me. As Lazarus’s studies on the magnetic containment of high energy plasma are about as far from my own speciality of acoustic imaging as it is possible to get in Physics, I would not have expected to understand it if he had discussed it with me. Leila’s grasp of it seemed formidable.

  But then she reverted to type and dropped him; taking up with an up-and-coming barrister, and declaring that she planned to study Law.

  For weeks Lazarus spoke to no-one, but sat in the corner of the common room looking more haggard every day. The lights in his lab burned long after everyone else had gone for the night. The hairy jacket reappeared. I was concerned, but Lazarus did not want to talk and everyone else felt that normal service had been resumed.