Kzine Issue 7

by Graeme Hurry et al.

  Though your sins be as scarlet, I shall wash them all away, I will make them as white as snow.

  The stars glittered cold and distant.

  This is my choice.

  Kit got up unsteadily, moved towards the edge of the roof until she was right up against it, stepped up onto the low bordering wall, her back to the three hundred metre drop. She stood on the brink, her heels slipping, but her balance perfect even now. It always had been.

  Jana was leaning from the open hatch on the underside of the ship, shouting something over the noise of the ship’s hum and the commotion below, and Bear looked around, saw Kit standing there. She stretched out her arms, let her head tilt back, the torn sleeve fluttering in the wind, fragile, wounded. Help me, come and save me.

  And he did, of course he did. Oh, my bear, my faithful bear.

  ‘No,’ Jana was shouting at him, clinging to the hatch, almost close enough to jump. ‘No!’

  But he was running towards her, with not even a thought now for the precious ship spinning out of control. Reaching for her, stepping up onto the edge to catch her before she fell.

  Kit looked up into his summer eyes before she did it, before she hooked her leg quick around his, gripped the back of his neck with her good hand, threw her weight backwards.

  Her weight, her slight weight, knife-edge balanced perfection, all that was needed to tip the balance and then they were falling, falling free.

  And oh, the lightness of it.

  IT DOESN’T SOUND TOO GOOD

  by Edward McDermott

  Sitting across from the doctor in his office, I leaned back on the chair and said, ‘Come on Doc, spit it out. I’ve spent the last forty years taking the worst this city’s scum could dish out. I can handle whatever’s stuck in your craw.’

  Doctor Matt Telson looked over his glasses. We’d been friends for practically all our lives, growing up on the same mean streets. The Doc had the brains, while I had the brawn. He went to college, while I enrolled in the army, then the police. Finally, I hung out my shingle as a shamus.

  ‘Come on Doc,’ I continued. ‘You’ve patched me up more times than I can remember. You’ve done more stitching on my hide than most women put in a quilt. Heck, I even let you cut out my appendix. Now give me the lecture and write me a prescription for something to take care of this cough.’

  ‘Yeah, Mike,’ the doctor said. Instead he stood up and walked around his desk. ‘Do you have any family, Mike?’

  ‘What sort of a question is that? Sure. I’ve got you and Harry down at the bar and I send Thelma a card every Christmas. It doesn’t seem that long since she married the accountant and moved out to the suburbs. Family. You know a guy in my racket shouldn’t get hitched. Too much chance of catching lead and leaving a pretty woman widowed. Come on, Doc. spit it out. You’re beginning to make me as nervous as a stoolie inside the cooler.’

  ‘Mike, I may be wrong. I’d like to send you for some more tests. There’s a specialist at Central Hospital I want you to see.’

  ‘What the…? Is this all over a cold? Don’t kid a kidder. Give me the lecture about stopping smoking and cutting down the drinking and give me a prescription. You know the way I make enemies. I won’t die in bed. I admit I’ve lasted better than any bookie would have given odds on.’

  My cell phone rang. ‘One sec. Slammer investigations. It’s your nickel. No honey, I don’t need a new long distance plan but you sound kind of cute. Doing anything after work? Well you have a good day too.’

  I closed the phone, looked back at the doctor, shrugged and grinned. ‘You can never tell. I’ve picked up my share of girls that way. Now, where were we?’

  ‘This is serious Mike,’ the doctor continued. ‘I’ll have my secretary set up the appointments for you. Promise you’ll go.’

  ‘Sure Doc, whatever you say. You’ve always been a straight shooter. But you know how I live. If I’m on a case, sometimes I can’t just drop everything in the middle to see a sawbones. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?’

  The Doc hesitated for a second. He pulled out a chest X-Ray and put it on the light screen. He started talking, retreating into medical lingo. I listened to the first couple of sentences but lost the rest.

  ‘Sorry Mike. I wish I had some other news to give you.’

  ‘Amen to that brother.’ I didn’t catch the next thing, lost in my thoughts. When I realized the Doc had stopped talking, I jumped up, shook his hand and thanked him.

  Doc must have it wrong. A gum shoe like me wasn’t slated to end up in the hospital from some little speck on an X-ray. It’s not that I didn’t expect someday my number would come up. I just expected it would be a ‘work related injury’, so to speak. Oh well, I’d play along with Matt and let him set up his specialist. I’d give him a good teasing about it. Boy, would he look funny when it turned out to be a mistake.

  I laughed at that and started walking down the street. Still, it did make me wonder. Hell, if I’d stayed with the police force, I’d be retired today, provided I hadn’t eaten my gun out of boredom. Nah.

  A lot of cops married. Of course, over the years they tended to marry and marry and marry again. Something about it didn’t stick. That wasn’t for me. They put the stamp hard on your soul at Our Lady of the Sorrows. Sister Bernice had a heavy hand, although I felt it more than Doc did. Sure, some of that stuck. Not that I was a regular attendee.

  Matt had a wife and three kids, all grown up and making their own way. Maybe, if I hadn’t been addicted to the smell of gunpowder. Too late now. It just seemed a shame that I’d never noticed the opportunities that had come my way.

  I stopped on the street. Where was I going? Home? That was a rented room with an old television and not much more. The P.I. work didn’t pay that well and the benefits stunk.

  The office? No. After Thelma married, I’d let go of the office and relied on an answering service. That was cheaper but lacked that personal feel. No. Harry’s, the closest thing I had to a private club.

  There had been women in my life. I had felt love and had it returned. A new case would come along and the girl wouldn’t play second fiddle and wouldn’t wait. I guess I thought there would always be time for that in the future.

  Maybe I should go down to Our Lady of the Sorrows and give my confession and clean up my tattered soul. Not that I did much wrong, but forty years of sinning was bound to add up to a long time in the confessional and a load of prayers.

  Aside from work, what life did I have? Who would miss me when I went my way? Matt and his wife would. They had me over for dinner once a year. Thelma would but she had her own life now. I wasn’t going to cry on my friends’ shoulders.

  I walked down the street, picked up a paper from Gimp and strode into Harry’s. Maybe he and I could talk about baseball, or read the racing form and pick some nags to bet on.

  ‘What’ll it be, Mike?’ Harry asked, rubbing the bar with a dirty rag.

  ‘A double, Harry.’

  ‘You don’t look so good. Get some sort of bad news?’

  ‘Harry, did you ever think about retiring?’

  ‘Nah, I’ll be behind this bar as long as I can pour a shot. Say, a dame was in here a while ago. Said she was in trouble and heard you were good. Nice gams.’

  ‘Suddenly’, I thought, ‘it doesn’t look so bad after all.’

  EDITORIAL

  by Graeme Hurry

  Marketing Ploys

  This issue I thought I’d let the world in on my attempts at self-marketing over the years. First of all I have to say that these have all been largely unsuccessful in generating sales. Probably because I am not much of a salesman so I indulge in stealthy advertising because it’s more fun.

  Way back in the nineties I ran mini campaigns at conventions all aiming to raise the name of my old print magazine called Kimota. The first attempt to get the name of the magazine out into the world was the free pen strategy. I had a number of ballpoints printed with the Kimota logo and the aim was to hide these
in the Eastercon hotel with a luggage label saying ‘Take me’. These pens were put in plant pots, on tables and ledges. They did disappear, though I’m pretty sure sales of the magazine was unaffected. It may well have been conscientious cleaners! The next strategy was to print some tiny books. It just so happened that I was publishing Neal Asher’s short stories and managed to get agreement to collect three connected stories called Mason’s Rats into one A6 booklet and hide them round the next convention hotel, I can’t remember which though. These little booklets became quite collectable as Neal got more famous, again however their marketing potential proved limited.

  Then there were postcards and obviously brochures.

  For the launch of Kzine issue One I wanted to make a splash so I got a polypin of real ale (1648 Signature bitter, I believe) and secreted it in the Fantasycon convention hotel in Brighton. I hid it in plain sight on a windowsill on the stairs, along with Kzine brochures and plastic glasses and a ‘Drink Me’ label. I had a bad cold and could only try to spread the word about the beer before I headed for bed. In the morning most was gone, so I assume it worked. Am I just too cheap to pay for a room and hotel wine? Well, yes, but also no-one really remembers the product at launches, just if the wine was good or not. I think trying for something more memorable is better, even though it is just as likely to fail.

  This year it is going to be flexible fridge magnets with the cover of this very issue emblazoned on them. The target is The World Fantasycon Convention in Brighton. So if you’re attending look out for business card sized magnets hiding in plain sight on whatever magnet friendly surface that can be found.

  REVIEWS

  by Graeme Hurry

  This issue Kzine is starting an occasional Reviews section of novels published by current and past Kzine authors.

  THE WORLD BELOW by Mike Philips (published by Damnation Books LLC) ****

  Like the mutant sequel to the movie Labyrinth this novel similarly features a world of goblins and monsters with a lively humour which sets it above many other Fantasy stories. The opening introduces the reader to the Junkyard goblin king of The World Below, but is he all he seems? The novel really starts with the humans introduced in our contemporary world where Mitch has a horrifying accident burning half his face. Shunned and ugly in this world such a mark can be viewed as heroic in a monster world. The plotting is strong and the characterisations well defined making this glimpse into a fantasy land co-existing with our world a rip roaring ride. Although I found a few typos I’m sure these can be sorted to make this an even better fun and thrilling read.

  THE APPRENTICE JOURNALS by J. Michael Shell (published by Dog Horn Publishing) ****

  The Apprentice Journals documents a future after environmental catastrophe. But this is a devastated world which has found itself pushed back into a medieval way of living which seams much more idyllic than the real dark ages.

  Within this world people with special talents can talk to elemental spirits and request favours. Elementals of fire, earth, air and water all can bestow gifts to these special “apprentices”, as long as they keep on good terms with them.

  In the spirit world “physical love” is highly regarded and when apprentices join in it is an ecstasy they find it difficult to come back from. Free love seems to be a theme and the biggest evil is compulsion. Slavers and forcing elementals to do things against their will are the evils apprentices must avoid and sort out if they can.

  Apprentices are super-men and women among humans but weak compared to the firey lightning of the fierae. When Spaul, the apprentice of the title, hooks up with Pearl, a girl with a natural apprentice talent, human involvement with the fierae become explosive.

  The beginning of the book is a little disorienting but after that it settles down to be a magic and strangely non-violent story. One of the main punishments is sexual stimulation, as is the main rewards. It’s well worth the read even if physical love of an innocent in an adult body might raise doubts initially, it does seem like love is a panacea in this brightly coloured fantasy world. Hippy sentiments perhaps, but all to rare these days.

  CONTRIBUTOR NOTES

  Louise Hughes lives in County Durham and has had short stories published in Strange Horizons, Newmyths.com and Shelter of Daylight.

  Simon Kewin is a Fantasy and SF author, writer of Engn, Hedge Witch, The Genehunter and a fair few short stories and poems. Devourer of worlds. No, wait, chocolate, that was it. www.simonkewin.co.uk

  Steve Conoboy has had stories published in Polluto and Voluted Tales.

  Graeme Hurry edited Kimota magazine in the 90s and a horror anthology called Northern Chills in 1994. Now he has branched out by editing this kindle only magazine, Kzine.

  Forrest Roy Johnson is a Minnesotan exiled to Iowa. His fiction has been featured in The Whole Mitten, Miracle Ezine, Fiction365, Fiction Vortex and HelloHorror. facebook.com/ForrestRoyJohnson.

  Mike Phillips has written a novel called The World Below as well as numerous short stories.

  Sarah L. Byrne is a computational biologist in London. Her short speculative fiction has appeared recently or is forthcoming in various publications, including Stupefying Stories, The Future Fire and Ideomancer. She can be found online at http://sarahbyrne.org.

  Edward McDermott was born in Toronto, and has pursued a professional career during the day, while taking writing courses, joining writer’s groups, and writing at night. When not writing, he spends his time sailing and fencing, and working as a movie extra. He has had stories published in: Midnight Echo, Well Told Tales, Mouth full of Bullets, paperplates, T-Zero, Wild Child Publishing, Hereditas, Murderous Signs, The Oklahoma Review, Carousel-University of Guelph and Future Mystery Anthology Magazine. He has also had a short story published as an eBook published by Damnation Books called “On the Lake Where the Loons Cry”.

  Dave Windett is a professional illustrator and comics artist, his work has been published in Britain, Europe and America. He has drawn comics featuring licenced characters including Inspector Gadget, Eek the Cat, Ace Ventura, Daffy Duck and Korky the Cat. For the Scandinavian market he has illustrated educational books, business manuals and comics. He has also designed original characters for a variety of publications and provided illustrations for everything from magazines and websites to mobile phones, games and children’s shoes. Samples of his work can be seen on his website at www.davewindett.com and on his blog.

  Table of Contents

  Contents

  A Room in the Sky by Louise Hughes

  Lord Lion’s Design by Simon Kewin

  Call Hold by Steve Conoboy

  Kid Sister by Forrest Roy Johnson

  Blood of the Sacrifice by Mike Phillips

  Every Step You Take by Sarah L. Byrne

  It Doesn’t Sound Too Good by Edward McDermott

  Editorial by Graeme Hurry

  Reviews by Graeme Hurry

  Contributor Notes