Kev

by Mark A Labbe

  Kev

  omgiag i

  Mark A Labbe

  Copyright 2015 Mark A Labbe

  ISBN: 9781310008979

  Published by Mark A Labbe

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Introduction

  Characters of Interest

  In the Beginning Again

  Clive and the girl

  Pnukes

  The Show

  The Nidian Connection

  The Black Cube

  Aputi’s Dream

  Surth Beta

  Jesus

  Satan

  Hell

  The Deevil

  In the Beginning Again

  Unknowing

  The Girl

  The Cubes

  Return Contestant

  The Journal

  Captured

  Galthinon

  Surrender

  The Rules

  About Me

  Foreword

  I have written this story before, or some version thereof, in a different style, but with the same voice. However, that tale confused some people, and I suppose it would have, given that the narrator and supposed protagonist, Kev, has some serious memory problems. Still, the story didn’t have to be confusing.

  Yesterday, in a fit of frustration, I erased all copies of the previous book. Madness, for sure, but the kind of madness necessary for me to be able to rewrite this book and get it right.

  If you have read the old version, you will see that some elements of the story have changed significantly. I say that now, knowing they will, prior to rewriting the story, if that makes any sense at all. I say that because I see the story now, the way I would have written it if I had the patience to do it the right way, or, at least, this way.

  I am toning some things down and ramping some things up, building a more fleshed out universe (not really) and maybe even putting some science behind things (highly unlikely), despite the fact that this is in no way intended to be a hard science fiction story. In fact, it is not meant to be a science fiction story at all. It simply has some science fiction elements. So, if not science fiction, what is it?

  This is the story of a man, a man who has forgotten, who is thrust into an unrecognizable world, surrounded by beings that all seem to know him, beings who would help him if they could. However, the rules are quite strict, and Kev is going to have to figure out most things on his own.

  I have many people to thank, and I thank all of them. Early readers really helped me figure out where I had gone wrong. In particular, I would like to thank Alan Rinzler for reading something that wasn’t in his wheelhouse and taking the time to answer my questions. While his answers were quite concise, they revealed more about the early version of this book than any other feedback I had.

  Introduction

  Kev is the first book in the six or seven or maybe eight book omgiag series. It will definitely not go beyond nine books, but if it does, it will surely stop at eleven, a nice prime number, but not the nicest prime number of all, thirty-seven. If it does not stop at eleven, a distinct possibility, then I believe it will stop on a prime number, given that I really like prime numbers (if you don’t know what a prime number is, feel free to ask someone.)

  I have, in fact, written other books in this series, books I will probably never publish, primarily because they are works of a man who has come unhinged, who has found himself and has found that he is not who he thought he was before he wrote these books, a fact that brings him great pain and embarrassment, a truth that has led him to encrypt all of the other books and throw away the password, because he is not who he was and he is worried that these books are not what he thinks they are, a possibility that makes it highly unlikely that he will publish these other books. Do you understand?

  Other books in this series that have been written (and encrypted) include Barflurgle (a direct sequel), Arag (a direct sequel), Nigel (a direct sequel to Arag), Clive (a direct sequel), and the girl (a direct sequel).

  Books that have not been written but might be written include Chot (a direct sequel to Barflurgle), Ralf (a direct sequel to Barflurgle), Carly (a direct sequel to Ralf), Booger (a direct sequel to Nigel), Aputi (a direct sequel), B24ME (a direct sequel), Timmy (a direct sequel to Clive), and many others. You see, there are many characters in these books, interesting characters who would really like to have a go at being the main characters of their own books, maybe even protagonists (some of them really shouldn’t be protagonists.) They are all willful and strange and worthy of some level of attention, and I think they might be of interest to you.

  Characters of Interest

  Kev - A wonderful, memory-impaired fellow

  The voice – Claims to be Kev

  Kev’s mother – The best mother ever

  Kev’s father – The best father ever

  Uncle Joe – The best uncle ever

  Aunt Helen – A strange lady

  Clive – Kev’s best friend

  the girl – The girl Kev loves

  Brok – The bartender on Uthio Minor

  Chit – A Canadian (Not a North American Canadian)

  Aputi – An Inuit/Bladrithian

  Doug – A nihilistic Canadian (North American variety)

  Bob – A nihilistic Canadian (North American variety)

  Max – A bartender in Vermont

  Barry – A barfly

  B24ME – Host of The Show

  Bok Choy – An alien who wants to be part of this story

  Ruby – A charming Nidian who loves being a mother

  The Kev’s – Kev’s sons

  Soph – Kev’s daughter

  The Proth Sphere – Sometimes co-creator of the infinite universes

  Bri – Sometimes co-creator of the infinite universes

  Grall Tok – Possibly the ugliest being in the infinite universes

  The brain in a vat – Quite an enabler

  Jesus – Jesus

  In the Beginning Again

  “Wake up, Kev,” said the voice that had been talking to me for as long as I could remember, a voice that told me many things, things that often disturbed me, things I often forgot. It claimed to be me, my own voice, but I didn’t quite believe it.

  It often told me I would know everything if only I could remember, although I rarely remembered it telling me that.

  I rolled out of bed, my eyes barely open, changed out of my pajamas and went out to the kitchen. My mom had prepared breakfast, my favorite, French toast, berries and bacon.

  “Are you excited, Kev?” said my mom as I sat at the counter.

  “Excited?” I said.

  “You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?” she said.

  “I guess.” I forgot many things, my conversations with my parents and others often full of reminders. I forgot names and faces, places and events. Sometimes I forgot who I was.

  “It’s your ninth birthday, Kev. Don’t you remember? We’re having a party.”

  “Oh, right,” I said.

  The voice told me I was forgetting something else, but wouldn’t tell me what. Sometimes the voice spoke in riddles or dropped hints, and usually when it did, things happened that it claimed I should have known would happen.

  “Uncle Joe is coming. So is Aunt Helen,” said my mom, sitting beside me at the table.


  That perked me up a bit. Uncle Joe gave the best presents. He had given me a model airplane on my eighth birthday that I had taken apart and put back together many times, maybe an infinite number of times. Aunt Helen also gave great gifts, though they were often strange. For my eighth birthday she gave me a clear cube about three quarters of an inch on a side. When I asked her what it was she said, “I don’t know, but it’s yours.” Sometimes when holding the cube, sometimes when I had thoughts about who I was or what I was doing, the cube would vibrate or pulse. I kept it with me at all times and would often sit with it for hours seeing which thoughts would elicit a response. The voice once told me it would save me one day.

  I finished breakfast and left the house to go out to my fort, a small hut my dad helped me construct out in the woods behind our house. As I left the house, I saw my dad on a ladder, wrangling with the same testy gutter he had been wrangling with for weeks.

  “Hey, Kev,” said my dad.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Going to the fort?”

  “Yeah,” I said, not stopping to talk.

  I had named the fort Uthio and imagined it a tropical home on a distant ocean world, the most beautiful world in the universe, my refuge from the dark lord, B24ME, an evil robot bent on my destruction. Inside I had a small table and a chair, and on the table lay a journal and some colored pens. I often wrote in that journal, often after the voice told me to write something in it.

  I sat down and opened the journal, turning to a random, blank page. I very rarely turned to pages I had written, primarily because I knew there were things in that journal I did not want to read, things that I knew I would find disturbing. The voice would often complain about this, telling me that I would never remember things, important things, unless I read the journal entries I had written. Most of the time I ignored the voice, an annoying presence that wouldn’t leave me alone.

  I picked up a red pen and wrote, “Today is my ninth birthday. Having a party. I don’t know who will come. Do I know anyone?”

  “Write ‘Beware of Clive,’” said the voice.

  “Why do you always tell me to write that?” I said, not writing the words as instructed.

  “Because you need to remember it,” said the voice.

  “Why?”

  “Just write it. I’m sick of reminding you.”

  I wrote, “The voice wants me to beware of Clive.”

  “You should have written, ‘I want me to write beware of Clive,’ or just ‘Beware of Clive,’” said the voice.

  “Whatever. I wrote it,” I said.

  “Something is going to happen today, and I can’t stop it,” said the voice.

  “What is going to happen?”

  “Something terrible, but you are going to be okay.”

  “So, you’re not going to tell me what?”

  “I don’t remember what, but I know it will happen today.”

  “Great. Maybe you shouldn’t have told me anything. That way, I wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

  “I think you’ll find, dear Kev, that knowing ahead of time will save you from terrible things.”

  I wrote, “The voice is annoying and I wish it would go away.”

  “Not nice,” said the voice.

  I wrote, “I guess wishes don’t come true.”

  “Brat,” said the voice.

  “You are going to meet Clive soon,” said the voice.

  “When?”

  “I’m not sure, but you will.”

  “I don’t know if I believe you. Most of the things you tell me will happen haven’t happened.”

  “Well, they will happen. In fact, some have already happened. Is that right? It is probably right. Some have happened and others might happen. Some might happen again,” said the voice.

  I flipped back through the pages of my journal, not heeding the warning in my mind, and found an entry that read, “He says I will be on a deadly game show. B24ME is evil,” and read it out loud.

  “That happened and will most likely happen again,” said the voice. “Beware of the blue cube.”

  “I think you’ve told me that already,” I said.

  “Yeah, but you need to write it down so you don’t forget.”

  “Well, I’m not writing it. Go away.”

  I found my page again and wrote, “Who are my friends?”

  This time, the voice said nothing. It had departed, but for how long it would be gone I did not know.

  I continued writing, “Do I know Clive? If not, when will I meet him? Should I beware of him, or is the voice playing a trick on me?”

  I paused for a moment, trying to remember other things the voice had told me, remembering something rather odd. I remembered the voice telling me who Clive was. I couldn’t believe it, putting my pen to paper and writing, “Clive is,” and then pausing, pausing because I couldn’t remember who the voice had said Clive was.

  After a few minutes trying to recover the memory, I gave up, realizing I would not remember by trying to remember. I almost never remembered things I tried to remember. Frustrated and in no mood to continue writing, I decided to go to my room.

  As I left my fort, I noticed two small cubes on the ground, a red one and a black one. I picked them up and examined them. The red one had no markings of any kind. The black one had a small blue button and a digital display that read, “2005,” which happened to be the current year. The two cubes were identical in size to my clear cube. Who had left these cubes on the ground? Had I? “What are these cubes?” I said to the voice. I received no answer.

  I pressed the button on the black cube once and let go. Nothing happened. I pressed it twice and nothing happened, and then, figuring it was just some useless toy I had previously discarded, possibly something Aunt Helen had given me, I put it and the red cube in my pocket.

  I returned to my room to continue work on my airplane, now almost completely disassembled. How many times had I taken it apart and put it back together? It seemed like an infinite number of times, though I knew that wasn’t possible, or at least not probable, although I harbored some amount of suspicion that I had, in fact, taken it apart and put it back together a near infinite number of times, a strange thought for a young boy to have, perhaps, but the thought I had.

  Some time later, my mother called out to me. It was time for the party. I went into the kitchen and saw my mother and two kids I recognized, although I couldn’t put names to their faces. Of course, they knew I wouldn’t remember and had a little fun with me, claiming to be Smelly Pockets and Dung Beetle. We went outside and started a game of pig. Soon after that, the rest of the guests arrived, including Uncle Joe and Aunt Helen.

  A truck pulling a horse trailer pulled into the driveway, and the driver and another guy unloaded two ponies, leading them out into the front yard. Both of the guys unloading the ponies wore black t-shirts imprinted with red maple leafs. Printed on the backs of the shirts were what I presumed were their names, Bob and Doug. I looked at the ponies as one of them relieved itself on the lawn, and in that moment, I saw that event played over and over countless times. I turned and looked at my parents who were chatting with Uncle Joe and Aunt Helen. How many times had they had that conversation? What were they talking about? Was it the same every time? Uncle Joe saw me and waved for me to come over, which I dutifully did.

  “Kev Kev Bo Bev,” cried Uncle Joe reaching out to give me a hug. “How you doing, buddy?”

  “Good,” I said.

  “Just good?” said Uncle Joe, a playful frown on his face.

  “Better than good,” I said. “Are those men going to clean the poop up?” I pointed to the men who had brought the ponies.

  “No, you’re going to have to clean it up, Kev,” said Aunt Helen in her serious silly voice, the voice she used when she made some wisecrack.

  “Really?” I said, remembering having this conversation before, but thinking that not possible. Déjà vu to the infinite degree, it seemed. .

  The party commenced,
all the kids taking turns riding the ponies, the other kids chasing around in the yard or playing basketball. I took my turn on one of the ponies and was immediately bucked off. How many times had I been bucked off that pony?

  After a while, we all sat down to lunch, another favorite, barbequed chicken and rice. Some of the kids had hoped for pizza, a regular enough offering for a birthday party, but I didn’t really like pizza.

  After lunch, my mom brought out the cake, candles lit. Everyone sang the obligatory song, and then I blew out the candles, forgetting to make a wish when I did.

  I heard something and looked up, just in time to see a large object falling from the sky, trailing a long contrail of smoke, fast approaching and heading our way. I remembered something and froze, unable to say the words that might have made a difference.

  Seconds later, the body of the airplane crashed onto our next door neighbor’s house, and the tail of the plane landed on my parents, who had been off to the side talking, killing them instantly. Images of this event in an infinity of forms flashed through my head, and then my mind shut down.

  What followed, confusion, chaos, screaming people and, eventually, police cars and fire trucks, was lost on me. Uncle Joe and Aunt Helen had taken me inside my house, perhaps to protect me, and were doing their best to reassure me that everything would be all right, although I didn’t understand why they were acting this way, given that I had completely forgotten what had happened.

  The next day, I still didn’t remember what had happened, and didn’t remember my parents. Uncle Joe and Aunt Helen didn’t tell me what had happened, nor did they tell me anything when I asked why I would be living with Aunt Helen going forward. Despite the fact that I had completely forgotten my parents, I had not forgotten my home and thought it strange that I would leave it behind.

  Clive and the girl

  I moved in with my aunt, although I would have preferred to live with Uncle Joe on his farm. Sometimes, I wondered where my parents were, or more precisely, wondered who they were, but most of the time I didn’t think about them at all. The few times I asked my aunt about them, she simply told me they lived in heaven, a place she said all good people went to in the afterlife.