Plugs

Kat Beyer’s Cabal story “A Change In Government” has been nominated for a BSFA award for best short fiction.

Angela Slatter’s story ‘Frozen’ will appear in the December 09 issue of Doorways Magazine, and ‘The Girl with No Hands’ will appear in the next issue of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.

Trent Walters, poetry editor at A&A, has a chapbook, Learning the Ropes, from Morpo Press.

Ken Brady’s latest story, “Walkers of the Deep Blue Sea and Sky” appears in the Exquisite Corpuscle anthology, edited by Jay Lake and Frank Wu.

Catch a Slug!

by David

Note: passing reference to nudity.

Fillmore was stuck again, and the slug was due any minute. Stupid dog! Elle pulled on her boots and gloves and stepped off the curb, squelching into a good 10 cm of slime. Stepping carefully, she made her way out to where the beagle was completely plastered with mucus. Elle suppressed a shudder. How could this be better than diesel? (Whatever that was.) This was why she usually walked to school on the pedarch. She heard the slug’s horn sound two short blasts. It was a block away.

“Come on, dummy,” she said, reaching for Fillmore’s collar. How could he hang his head and squirm away at the same time? The collar slipped out of her hand. Fillmore turned over to expose his belly. He knew she was angry. “It’s ok,” she shouted, “just come on!” Elle grabbed the collar again and dragged him to his feet. A loud “WHOOT!” blasted from the air horn on top of the slug’s head. Fillmore gave a panicked lunge and Elle bellyflopped into the goop. The slug was braking, but sliding right for her, slime making a bow wave half a meter high at its front. She shut her eyes and mouth, curled into a ball. Imagine doing this for fun, like some gangbangers did.

She was airborne.

—

Somebody was washing her face. “Enough, already!” She put up her hands and pain shot through her left elbow. She screamed.

“Get that dog away from her,” someone said.

Elle opened her eyes. She was lying on her back, ringed by strangers, thoroughly slimed. Fillmore was howling somewhere nearby. Her arm was broken. “Leggo my dog,” she mumbled. A moment later Fill was nosing and licking her face. He bumped her left arm and her vision went out for a moment.

—

Or so it seemed, but when she opened her eyes again she was clean, in a hospital bed, and a cast covered most of her arm. Her mother stared at her from an armchair in front of the window. She took a deep breath.

Elle winced.

“What were you thinking, young lady?” Mother began. Ma probably meant well, but she didn’t stop. Finally, Elle couldn’t take any more.

“Ma! I wanted to get in the Rollers. It’s part of the initiation. You know, slime rolling? Now I just have to get the tats.” She pointed at her chest. “What do you think—a bug-eyed purple monster right here? It would match my thong beach suit.”

As a way to shut her mother up this was spectacularly unsuccessful.

end

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