Archive for May 2011
By Brett Venter
She lay dreaming, drifting on an ever-shifting ocean of information. Everything that ever was and ever would be was hers to examine and elevate or deride as she saw fit. Nothing could escape her grasp, even in slumber. Microseconds were as eternity in the formless world wherein she ruled without permission. Existing as she did in a mental realm, she watched, always watched. She learned. &arial was the Virgin Mary, Jezebel, the whore riding to Armageddon on the back of the nine-headed beast. She was limited only by the minds of those who worshipped, believed. She was the Alpha and Omega of the wire, the goddess whose favour was all. |
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Posted in Fiction | 
Tags: Brett Venter, Fiction, Horror, Pierre Smit, SF, SW Issue 10 | 
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by Liam Kruger
1st place
You know, in Jewish homes, there used to be a tradition of emptying out every dish, pot and basin out of the windows when somebody died.
Calm down. Try and take some deep breaths.
This was done to tell the neighbours that Uncle Abe had kicked the bucket. The spiritual explanation was that souls could be trapped by water, and keeping water under the roof prevented them from rising to heaven.
I know it feels like you can’t breathe, don’t worry about it. Push through.
You’re not going to be able to talk for a couple of minutes, but you seem to be able to hear well enough. Why, look at that, your eyes are moving?high tolerance, I see. Don’t worry about it. You’re not dying.
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reviewed by Joe Vaz
Published by Corvus
HC 312pages
RRP £14.99 (Kindle £4.99)
buy from Kalahari.net
Dan is an angsty emo-kid who works in a deadly-dull shopping mall. He hates his job.
Rhoda is a junkie whose babysitting charge ran off while she was scoring cocaine. She hates her life.
Rhoda bullies Dan into helping her search for the lost kid, but as they explore neon-lit corridors behind the mall they find themselves in the bowels of the building, where old mannequins are stored in grave-like piles and raw sewage drips off the ceiling. The only escape is down.
by Rachel Green
tied 2nd place
My heart almost skipped a beat when I saw the classified ad in the New Medical Practice. Third share in General Practitioner’s surgery for sale, including client list and all fittings, Laverstone, Wiltshire. Price on application. I’d grown up in Laverstone, still had ties there. An aunt, a cousin…probably most of my childhood friends. It would be odd to go back after ten years away; people there would still remember the child I used to be.
I answered the advertisement and, a week later, had a reply from Dr Glover and went to meet him. I remembered him well. He’d seen me through childhood inoculations, scraped knees and chicken pox. He was the only doctor in the practice in those days, though the surgery had grown with the town. He always smelled of soap and disinfectant, and kept a jar of barley sugar on his desk for his younger patients. We couldn’t do that now since there are too many regulations about offering sweets to children. We could be sued if they developed diabetes, for example, or be blamed if they got cavities in their teeth.
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Posted in Fiction | Tags: Bloody Parchment, Fiction, Rachel Green, Shadow Realm Inc | Comments Closed
by Carol Hone
tied 2nd place
The screen door was being stubborn and sticking open, again. I turned in the entrance and jabbed it with the toe of my shoe, unwilling to put down the bags of groceries to free my hands. When the tremor struck, I was balancing on one foot and swearing. The floor shook, the door-frame swayed. A juddering rumbling engulfed me. Outside, the trees and the two-storey brick-and-timber house across the way shimmered as if turning into one of those desert mirages.
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by SA Partridge
3rd place
The world outside the window was expectant. A black cat streaked across the gutter onto the roof, stopping only for the tiniest second to shine its yellow eyes into the room before darting away. Rain was threatening. The greens were brighter, the rough red bricks of the neighbouring apartment block more stark. In the distance, Table Mountain loomed. A neat row of ants marched through a crack in the wall, seeking shelter. The whole world seemed to be in on a secret. Anton was good at keeping secrets.
He watched, noticed things. How someone would turn around and look behind them as they walked. The child that took something that didn’t belong to them when they thought no one else was looking. From his window on the fourth floor, he saw everything. When the rain began to spit against the glass, he sighed and turned away. His vigil was over. The rain sounded like hundreds of fingertips tapping at his window and drowned out the sound of mice devouring the floorboards. Read more »
by Chris Miller
4th place
Missy slipped out from under the covers and eased open the bedroom door. It creaked and she looked back at Simon, but he remained undisturbed on their California Queen. There was a time when the earth could rend and swallow them whole and she wouldn’t know it; but over the past year her sleep had grown restive.
Missy paused at the threshold, taking care to step over the squeaky section of floor board. Simon was a light sleeper. As she crept toward the bathroom she heard the erratic patter of light rain on the roof. Outside storm clouds hung heavy, eager; inside, humidity clung to her skin and grappled with her nightgown.
The latch on the bathroom door sounded like the click of the alarm clock, the one that preceded the actual alarm by a half-second. She imagined it waking Simon now and felt her heart go from thump-thump to flitter-flitter. Read more »