"I don"t want you dead, of course I don"t. How can you think that?"
"You wore the Sensible Shoes, you put me in the box to make me go."
"Yes, but I don"t want you dead."
"He said I"d kill you, didn"t he? He said your soul would burn in h.e.l.l. But it isn"t true. I wouldn"t hurt you..." she began to cry again, "...I love you."
"You aren"t real."
"You could make me real."
"How?"
"If you loved me back, I"d be real."
"Are you telling me the truth?" Daniel said suspiciously, "You lied about your name; you said you were Lilith, and you aren"t."
"I don"t have a name. Only real things have names. Give me a name, Daniel."
"Okay," he said, "How about Rebecca? That"s a nice name."
"Call me by it, then open the box." she said.
Daniel thought hard for a moment.
"Rebecca." he said, pulling at the white bow.
The lid flew open, and a blanket of mist filled the room. For an instant Daniel regretted his action, closing his eyes tightly. By the time he opened them, the fog had cleared, and Rebecca was sitting beside him. She was full-sized, and no longer naked, but wearing a patterned summer dress, the kind you could buy in any high street store.
Rebecca looked at herself and laughed.
"I"m real." she said, as if she didn"t quite believe it.
She kissed Daniel: a real woman"s kiss; soft and teasing.
"Do you want a coffee?" she said, heading for the kitchen as if she"d lived in the house all her life.
"Later," he said, "I want you to come and meet my oldest friend. His name"s Tim."
Daniel took Rebecca"s hand, and led her out of the house. As they stepped over the threshold, they noticed that the Sensible Shoes were gone.
"You"re not sorry, are you?" Rebecca said.
"I"m not sorry," Daniel smiled,"Sometimes you have to take chances."
[Originally published in Kimota 9, Autumn 1998].
THE ABRIDGED NOSTRADAMUS.
by Peter Tennant.
Jerry had decided that n.o.body was home and was on the point of leaving when the door swung open. Standing in front of him was an elderly man dressed in a grey cardigan and grey flannel trousers, his face as dreary and washed out as the clothes he wore.
"Sandford Milligan?"
The man nodded, reluctantly it seemed to Jerry.
"Mr Milligan, my name is Jerry Perlmann. I"m a journalist." He flashed his press card and offered a hand which was pointedly ignored. "I"ve come about the book."
Sandford Milligan winced, as if he"d developed a sudden stomach pain. "I see."
"Could we talk?"
Milligan hesitated for a moment and then stepped aside, his body language conveying a weary resignation. "You"d better come in."
Jerry stepped into a hallway that was badly in need of decoration, paper curling away from the wall and threadbare carpet underfoot. The smell of boiled cabbage hung heavy in the air. Obviously his writing hadn"t made Sandford Milligan a wealthy man.
"How"d you know about the book?" asked Milligan. "It"s been out of print for over forty years."
"I"m an SF nut. I collect pulp novels from the fifties and early sixties. I found a copy in a second-hand bookshop a couple of years ago. When recent events started I made the connection and decided to look you up."
"I"m surprised you found me."
"Your publishers still had your address on file."
Milligan shrugged. "I couldn"t afford to move."
He ushered Jerry into a sitting room that looked no less shabby than the hallway. The furniture seemed very much the worse for wear, chair legs crisscrossed with scratch marks, the material faded and worn. A tray bearing a plate encrusted with grease lay on the floor in front of a desultory coal fire. At the older man"s invitation they sat on a badly sagging settee, its floral pattern adorned with unsightly stains.
"You"ll have to excuse the mess," said Milligan. "I wasn"t expecting visitors."
In the corner stood a television set, its screen aglow, the sound turned down so that it was barely audible. Every TV set in the world would be turned on today. It was the most important day in mankind"s history.
The screen was filled with an image of the vast alien craft that had hovered over New York for three days now, its underside bristling with weapons" arrays. In the United Nations building directly underneath the alien warlord Gartok was relaying his people"s demands to the governments of the world, Those demands would be rejected. Before the end of the week mankind would be at war with the Munktare. All of these events had been foretold in Millennium Mayhem, a pulp SF novel written by Sandford Milligan and published in 1951.
Of course alien invasion had been a staple of the genre ever since SF"s early days. What made Millennium Mayhem so remarkable was the number of correspondences between events in the book and what was now taking place in reality. Milligan"s description of the alien Munktare, their s.p.a.cecraft and weaponry, the actions they took, all tallied perfectly with what was happening now, Even the words of Gartok"s public p.r.o.nouncements were the same as in the book. Only the names of the people involved were different. It was impossible to believe that all this was simply coincidence.
"Perhaps you could explain to me how the book came to be written?"
"It was all so long ago." said Milligan. "I really don"t want to talk about it"
Jerry gestured at the television screen. "With respect Mr Milligan, I think that you have to talk about it."
Milligan sighed. "When I was a young man back in the fifties I used to have vivid dreams about things that were going to happen, premonitions of disaster. Usually they meant nothing, but sometimes they turned out to be accurate.
"The events in Millennium Mayhem came to me in a series of dreams over a period of six weeks. I saw no point in going public at the time. I"d been ridiculed in the past and the alien invasion was so far in the future I didn"t expect to be vindicated. Instead I decided I might as well make some money out of my talent, so I wrote the book. That"s all there is to it."
He waved a dismissive hand at his surroundings. "I didn"t make much money, as you can see."
Jerry grinned. Somebody was going to make money now, money by the truckload. He could see all sorts of angles, The first thing was to get Milligan to sign a contract.
He pointed at the television screen. "But now that you"ve been proved right there"ll be opportunities for..."
"It doesn"t matter. We"ll all soon be dead."
Jerry frowned. Given what he knew Milligan had less reason to feel pessimistic than anyone. Millions were going to die but mankind would win through in the end, as it always did. Life would go on.
"After the war..." he began.
"You don"t understand," said Milligan. "The book is a lie. My publishers had me rewrite the last three chapters. They wanted a more upbeat ending."
He reached down by the side of the settee and retrieved a stack of yellowing sheets of paper filled with black type.
"If you want to know what really happens..."
The television screen was suffused with a red glow.
[Originally published in Kimota 11, Autumn 1999].
EDITORIAL.
by Graeme Hurry.
Way back in the ninties The Preston SF Group was host to numerous guests and had a newsletter called Kimota to provide attendees information about the guests and future events. There had been various editors (Lawrence Dean, Dave Windett, Andy Greenwood and Dave Young) before I took over. At the end of the year there was a b.u.mper issue with stories, articles and quizzes.
Then in 1994 I took it one step further as a magazine and made it into a small press venture inviting external writers and selling to anyone who would buy a copy. The main aim was to publicise the PSFG. Well, there were 16 bi-annual editions before the pressure of work and the need to read through piles of stories got too much for me.
The main reason for ending the magazine was the amount of money required up-front for the printing and then the inevitable storage of unused copies in the attic - still many copies of many issues if anyone is interested.
So when I bought a Kindle for my mother"s Christmas and played about on it I hatched a plan to carry on Kimota on the Kindle. The initial costs would be far less and the contributors could be paid in royalties after I was paid. This ebook is the first part of the plan. Many of the old Kimota stories have been reproduced in Kindle format. The next stage is a magazine - Kzine containing crime, science fiction, horror and fantasy stories (and mixtures of these genres hopefully).
Hopefully you can get an idea of the type of story I"ll be putting into Kzine from this selection. Have a look at the Kzine website (www.Kzine.co.uk) and look out for the magazine on Amazon.
Thanks for your time.
Graeme Hurry.
APPENDIX A.
List Of All Kimota Stories per issue.
ISSUE 1.
The Bone Garden by Conrad Williams Mick by Caroline Dunford A Room Of My Own by Kevin Rattan Deep Blue by Stephen Laws.
ISSUE 2.
Video Nasty by Caroline Dunford Stretch of the Imagination by D.F. Lewis Johnny Never by Suzanne J. Barbieri.
Animal, Vegetable or Mineral by William Meikle ISSUE 3.
Eating Out With Mr. Benn by Caroline Dunford Tell Me Where The Lost Years Are by David Longhorn.
Blizzard by Suzanne J. Barbieri Remember, Remember by Kevin Rattan The Grateful Dead by Kim Padgett-Clarke Fallen Angel by Peter Crowther The Murder Mystery by Peter Tennant The Flute And The Glen by William Meikle ISSUE 4.
War Story by Caroline Dunford The Closing Hand by Chris Kenworthy Singing Rock by Gary Kilworth Oggy by Linda Markley The Pond in the Woods by Martin Owton.
Command Performance by Paul Finch The Fortune Teller by Peter Tennant Expressed From The Wood by Simon Clark ISSUE 5.
Odd Man Out by Alan Frackelton Views From Two Windows by Anthony Cawood.
On the Edge of Reality by Davina Marsland Andy by Jason Conway Breaking The Surface by Joel Lane Cold Comfort by Mark Chadbourn Lethal Infatuation by Mark Gale The Death Of A Man by Peter Tennant Hobyahs by Stephen Bowkett The Idiot Stick by Steve Dean.
Trouble Dolls by Suzanne J. Barbieri ISSUE 6.
Liam Brown"s Amazing Story by Caroline Dunford Last Supper by Dave O"Neill Teddington by David Longhorn G.o.d"s Favorite Creatures by Julie Travis Joe by Kim Padgett-Clarke A Matter of Blood by Martin Owton Eugene by Paul Finch The Earthly Paradise by Peter Tennant ISSUE 7.
G.o.d"s Children by Anthony Barker Horizon by Caroline Dunford Foreign Parts by Conrad Williams The Star Stallion by Katherine Roberts.
Simple Balet by Nick Royle July by Paul Finch Phlon Xi by Paul Pinn.
Alice Through The VDU by Peter Smith The Book Of Forbidden Knowledge by Peter Tennant The Fires of Summer by Steve Lockley ISSUE 8.
The Queening of Proxy D by Mark Asheton.
True Love, Once Removed by Debbie Moon Concenting Adults by Hugh Cook The Last Train in the Station by Joel Lane Breathless by Mark Gale A Time To Work by Michael O"Connor Walking The Web by Cherith Baldry Alternative Hospital by Neal Asher.
Where There"s Life by Paul Finch The Green Belt by Steve Dean Wee Robbie by William Meikle ISSUE 9.
A Pool of Ants by Christine Goody Beyond The Help Of Mortals by D.F. Lewis Amygdala by Dave Sutton Sira (or Through A Window) by Derek M. Fox Malatesta by Dom Dulley Different by Jason Conway.
Kid"s Stuff by Kim Padgett-Clarke Preacherman by Mark Gale Dare Devil by Paul Finch Home Comforts by Peter Crowther The Geller Effect by Peter Tennant.
The Healer by Stephen Bowkett Meek by Steve Savile The Shoe Box by Suzanne J. Barbieri The Stranger by Trevor Mendham ISSUE 10.