by Graeme Hurry
KZINE MAGAZINE
Issue 6
edited by Graeme Hurry
Kzine Issue 6 © May 2013 by Kimota Publishing
cover © Dave Windett, 2013
Editorial © Graeme Hurry, 2013
A Bedtime Chocolate © Nicole Tanquary, 2013
Real Predictions © Regina Clarke, 2013
The Judgment of the Peacekeeper © Diana Docherty, 2013
Requiem for a Rodent © Gef Fox, 2013
Seeding Day © Michael Siciliano, 2013
When It’s Ajar © G.A. Rozen, 2013
Self-Aware and Living in Bradford © J.Y. Saville, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written pemission of the copyright holder. For editorial content this is Graeme Hurry, for stories it is the individual author, for artwork it is the artist.
CONTENTS
A BEDTIME CHOCOLATE by Nicole Tanquary
REAL PREDICTIONS by Regina Clarke
THE JUDGMENT OF THE PEACEKEEPER by Diana Doherty
REQUIEM FOR A RODENT by Gef Fox
SEEDING DAY by Michael Siciliano
WHEN IT’S AJAR by G.A. Rozen
SELF-AWARE AND LIVING IN BRADFORD by J.Y. Saville
Editorial by Graeme Hurry
Contributor Notes
A BEDTIME CHOCOLATE
by Nicole Tanquary
The chocolates were a tradition between me and Dad. Since he works… worked… a night shift, he never had time to say good night to me when I was little. Instead, when he got home and I was asleep, he left a chocolate on my bedside table. He got them from this old-fashioned confectionery down the street that specialized in truffles, they must have had a million flavors… a chocolate is like a kiss wrapped up in paper Dad told me once. A suspended kiss, that you can have whenever you want.
When I got up in the morning, I would eat the chocolate, then tiptoe into his room where he was collapsed in bed. I would kiss him on the forehead in the darkness, and wish him pleasant dreams. Then I would go eat breakfast. We got to talk more on the weekends, but in the middle of the week, the chocolate was the only way we could have a conversation.
My Mom was the only other person who knew about the tradition. She thought it was silly that it lasted as long as it did, years and years after I had stopped needing a “good night” at bed time. But I always thought it was… nice. Something to look forward to in the mornings. I would go to sleep thinking about what flavor the next morning’s chocolate would be; pumpkin, rum, coconut, pineapple? I would dream about them, sometimes. Dream up funny flavors that didn’t exist. Like Mars Star Wars, or Cherry Berry Jubilee…
But one morning I woke up, and there was no chocolate there.
I stared at my bedside table for a moment. Then I got up, pulled the covers back, and searched for a pair of fuzzy socks to pull over my feet. I got up and crossed the hall to my parent’s room. I peered at the bed; empty. One half of it was rumpled, but the other half was smooth, unslept-in.
I went to the kitchen, where Mom was bent over a pot of coffee, drumming her fingers as she waited for the water to finish brewing. “Where’s Dad?” I said. Mom glanced at me, blinking slowly. There were deep reddish circles under her eyes.
“I… huwm. I don’t know. He never came home. I figured he’s working overtime, or something.” I raised my eyebrows.
“You don’t think you should call him? It’s morning already.”
Mom shook her head, then turned to a cupboard and started rummaging around for a mug. “He can take care of himself, sweety. I’m not going to be the Devil Wife harping on his back all the time. I bet he’ll come home while you’re at school and I’m at work. You can ask for your chocolate then.” She rolled her eyes at me, then smiled, just a little.
For breakfast I fixed myself an English muffin with cheese and sausage. Mom was probably right, I told myself. Maybe he went over to a buddy’s house for some drinks after work and crashed on a couch before he could get home. Dad was a pretty straight-and-narrow guy, but he had to be allowed to let loose sometimes.
Still, I was unsettled. I couldn’t remember the last time I had woken up to no chocolate waiting for me. I couldn’t remember a morning when he wasn’t there in his bed, smiling in his sleep. His absence was a sharp pain in my chest. It felt like there was a hole where he should have been, a big hole with ragged edges, that you could feel more than see.
The uneasiness stayed with me the whole school day. I kept looking at the clock; the teachers gave me irritated looks. Usually I don’t say anything, but that day I was antsy, and kept asking to go to the bathroom so I could walk around the hallways and use up the energy in my legs. After the third time, Mr. Adler snapped at me. He said I needed to be focusing on Chemistry and ionic bonds. But I couldn’t focus.
When I got home, I found Mom standing in the kitchen, leaning her hip against the counter. Her arms were folded, tightly. She was chewing her bottom lip, her eyes staring ahead at nothing.
I dropped my backpack into a chair and gave her a hug. She looked at me, startled; she hadn’t heard me come in. “No Dad?” I asked.
She stared at me for a moment, then returned the hug, squeezing me close to her like she was afraid I would disappear if she let go. “No. He still he isn’t home.”
We stood hugging each other for a long time. Then we ate dinner. I forget what we ate; leftovers, maybe. Maybe a frozen dinner that the microwave cooked up. Whatever it was, it had no taste for me.
*
Finally, when Dad didn’t show up the next day, Mom called the police. They sent an officer to our house, one with a belt that seemed too bulky. First thing he did was interview Mom: where did you last see your husband, where did he say he was going, where do you think he might be, any friends and family members in the area, has he disappeared like this before. He asked me one or two questions, too, but he ignored me as soon as he realized that I had no clue what was going on, no more than Mom.
He told us that they would find Dad soon, not to worry, this thing was more common than you would think, us men are stupid like that, sometimes we get the urge to do something reckless, forgetting that it makes our wives and children worry.
There was no reason to worry, though. They would find him. Everything was going to turn out fine, he said.
The policemen kept saying that for a week. Then they quit saying that. Everything wasn’t going to be fine, after all.
*
Before long, me and Mom had matching circles under our eyes, matching un-brushed tangles of hair, hers mousy-brown, mine dark, like Dad’s. On the third night of no Father, I listened to Mom crying herself to sleep, dry, weepy sobs that I could feel through the wall, if I put my hand against it.
I think the break was cleaner for me. I never did get to see him much; it was a small part of my life he had occupied, and the hole he left wasn’t quite as big.
Still, it hurt every morning that I woke up and saw the absence of the chocolate that should have been there. No kiss wrapped up in paper. Nothing.
*
Two weeks after my Father disappeared, a Gray Man came to me, and told me he was dead.
That night, Mom had popped a frozen lasagna into the oven, and left it cooking until it got melty and soft. We ate in silence. Sometimes Mom asked me how school had gone. Sometimes I asked her about work. Maybe we would exchange a few comments about the weather, how it was getting colder, and how strange that was for late April. The conversation never
went beyond that.
Finally Mom went to bed. I stayed up, drinking peppermint tea and looking over some Algebra problems that were due the next day. I couldn’t concentrate… my mind felt too muddled to be playing around with numbers. I set the papers aside, rubbing at my eyes. Maybe it was time for me to go to bed, too.
I got up and shuffled down the hallway to my room. Behind Mom’s bedroom door, I could hear the rustlings that meant she was pulling on her pajamas.
I opened the door to my room and flicked on the light. My eyes moved, absently, to the bedside table.
A chocolate sat there.
I froze. Then I went to the table and picked up the chocolate, turning it about in my hands. It was a Hershey Kiss, covered in silver foil. It was still warm… like someone had bought it from a convenience store, and stuffed it in their pocket and carried it here. It wasn’t my Father’s kind of chocolate. Not from the special confectionery.
There was the sound of a man clearing his throat. Slowly, I turned and stared at the corner of the room where the Gray Man was standing, awkwardly. He stood at maybe seven feet tall. He wore a crisp black suit, with dark shadows beneath his shoes. My eyes lingered on his face, which was… colorless, somehow. Stone-like, with a watery kind of eyes. He’s a Gray Man, whispered a thought, and I blinked, unsure where the phrase had come from. Something about him seemed familiar.
The Gray Man stared at me, squinting, examining the structure of my face. I could see the thoughts running through his eyes, the things he was comparing me to; my Mother, and my Father, since he knew them both. Though I didn’t know that yet.
I held the chocolate up. I should have asked why he was there – that would have been the logical reaction – but to me, the chocolate was far more unexpected. “How do you know about this?” I asked.
Startled, the Gray Man bowed his head a little. After a moment he spoke in a voice that seemed heavy, each word dropping like a tombstone. “I… I knew your Father. You could say I was his coworker. Or his boss… oh, this is going to be complicated.” He reached one hand up to his face and began to massage the space between his eyebrows. I could see now that he wore gloves over his fingers. Black leather gloves, as crisp as his suit. “See, the organization I work for decided to contact you, and sent me to do the introduction. I’m supposed to invite you to our headquarters for a more in-depth explanation. I remembered your Father saying something about giving a chocolate to you every night, so… it seemed like the best thing to set a friendly tone between us. Was I right?” he added, his voice worried now.
I stared at him. I wondered how he had gotten into my room, then remembered that the lock on my window was broken. Probably through there, then. But why not just come through the front door, if he was one of my Father’s friends? Wouldn’t that have been slightly more normal? I shook my head to clear it, which didn’t entirely work.
“You work for the Hospital?” I said, finally. St. Justine’s was where Dad did his graveyard shifts… he worked an orderly position there, for the patients that needed emergency service during the night… but I had never met, or even heard stories about, the other orderlies or nurses. Dad didn’t like talking about his work on the weekends, the only time we had non-chocolate conversations. He used to say that he wanted to put it out of his mind until Monday.
The Gray Man barked out a sharp laugh that cut off almost immediately. “Your Father never worked for any Hospital. He didn’t want to involve you or your Mother, so he used St. Justine’s as a cover… it’s only in light of recent events that we even decided to contact you. It was against his wishes, but…” A wince came into the Gray Man’s face, and I saw him fidgeting, flexing his fingers inside his gloves. “See… the reason I’m here, is to tell you that your Father-”
“Is dead,” I said, before he could finish.
The Gray Man jerked back, his mouth open. After a moment he closed it again. Then he turned his head away, his eyes on the floor.
I closed my eyes. For me, Dad had died the moment I woke up two weeks before, and the chocolate was missing. So I wasn’t surprised. Yet… the emptiness in me was somehow more final.
Still not looking up, the Gray Man stretched out a hand to me. “I’m called Szürke; the group I’m part of, collectively, calls itself the Gray Men. We are in desperate need of your help. So… would you do us the honor of coming to speak with us?” His voice was barely louder than a mutter. Between his gloved pointer and middle finger was a card, an index card with something scribbled on it in blue ink. He wanted me to take it, then.
There was a cough from my Mother’s room. I turned toward the noise. “What about Mom?” I asked. Szürke followed my gaze, to the wall that separated our two rooms. The outstretched hand started to tremble a little.
“We… your Mother and our organization are not on the best of terms. She didn’t appreciate the risks your Father took on our behalf. To her knowledge, he stopped assisting us years ago.”
“Hm,” I said. So. This guy was telling me that they were the reason Dad had died. And now he wanted to give me some card? I wondered what was on there. A telephone number to call? An address to go to? Maybe it’s a secret password that I need to enter their clubhouse, I thought, and swallowed a bitter laugh before it could leave my mouth. A clubhouse. Dad had told me about a clubhouse once, hadn’t he? When he was growing up, how he had gone into the back woods and built a shelter out of broken-off sticks…
Szürke shifted his feet, and his shadow flickered, unsure of itself in my presence. He was uncomfortable here. Here in my room, here in my territory. Here with Mom nearby, getting ready for bed. If I shouted, she would come running in, and this would all be over. “How about you explain things to me right here, right now?” I asked. It sounded like a better idea than going off to find his friends’ clubhouse.
The hand was still stretched towards me, but now the fingers were curling around the edges of the card. There was a tear in it, I could see. Kind of like something had bitten off one of the corners. Staring at it, I thought I could see a spot of yellowish drool. Though maybe it was my imagination.
“I’m not allowed to talk to you here,” said Szürke. “There’s a chance that they could be listening.”
“Who?”
“Look, I can’t tell you that!” Anger creased his forehead, then fell away, leaving behind an almost sheepish look. He hadn’t meant to yell.
I narrowed my eyes. Then I looked down at the Hershey Kiss in my hand. It had lost its shape, now, and was more of a mushy ball than a cone. It should be a truffle, I thought to myself. One of Dad’s truffles. Orange-flavored, or mint-flavored, or blackberry-flavored, made with cocoa butter and dribbled with lines of white chocolate on the top.
I set the Kiss on my bedside table. Then I turned to Szürke. “Fine. I’ll think about it,” I said, slowly. “But if… if you come here again, don’t bring a chocolate. Just don’t.” The creases in his face disappeared, melting into an expression of surprise.
I leaned forward and snatched the card out of his hand. “Now get out of here,” I said. Szürke bit his lip, looking at me unhappily.
Ignoring him, I went to my closet and began rummaging around for a fresh set of pajamas. I found my fuzzy blue set, covered in pictures of cartoon igloos and penguins ice-skating and eating ice cream.
When I turned around, Szürke was gone.
But… but how? There had been no noise, no window opening, no slipping out into the night… I hugged the pajamas to my chest, letting out a shuddery sigh. Maybe I had imagined it all. The counselor at school said grief could do strange things to people. Not that I entirely trusted her judgment… she was a blond, smiling woman named Ms. Byrd, who always had a jar of green apple Laffy Taffy on her desk. People went to her because of the Laffy Taffy. That was the only reason.
The card was warm in my hand. After a hesitation, I flipped it over and examined the writing. The pen marks had the blurred, choppy quality of someone with a lot on their mind.
353
Seneca Av.
East Side
Come Alone
“Couldn’t they have come up with something slightly less cliché?” I murmured, rereading the line ‘Come Alone’ with something like amusement. I say ‘something like’ because it was really a more bitter feeling. More negative.
I threw out the Hershey kiss. Then I changed into my pajamas and went to bed.
*
I put off thinking about the card for as long as I could. But I must have been thinking about it, in the back of my head. Because a week after Szürke came to talk to me, I dreamed of the black water place.
My feet sank into something with the consistency of heavy mud. My hair and arms floated in the water, free, easy movement. Far above, a surface shimmered with a kind of light I could not name. Orange, like candle-light, with the same flickering quality.
A silhouette broke through the surface above and began to fall towards me with slow, swimming movements. It was a Gray Man. He seemed taller in the water, eight feet of clean black suit, bending and twisting. His pale face was frightened. Almost sick-looking.
He reached a hand toward me, and I strained my arm out, trying to grab his glove. Something was rearing behind him… tentacles of shadow reaching down, slowly, like swaying kelp…
I woke up shivering.
*
That morning was slow, a Saturday. I got up and walked around still dressed in my penguin pajamas. It was 7:30, early for me, but I hadn’t slept particularly well after the nightmare.
The first thing I did was find the card Szürke had given to me a week earlier, and stuff it into the recycling bin. I was sure now that I wanted nothing to do with the Gray Men. Whatever they were.
Mom took up a large part of my thoughts that morning. She had taken a few weeks off from work to try to sort out her grief, but that wasn’t such a good thing. At least at work she was surrounded by people who could keep an eye on her, talk to her, keep her company. During the week when I was at school, she was alone in the house – and though she never said it, I could feel her pain when I got home, almost as clearly as I feel mine.