Date: Fri, 08 Nov 96 15:21:02 -0800 From: Mike Nelson Subject: SRU-The Spell Well, I've read such great things in the SRU universe, and considerin some of the topics of discussion in the last few days, I wrote this little ditty, I hope you'll enjoy. Please not a few of the comments at the end of the story! Mike Nelson ----------------------------- SRU The Spell by Mike Nelson Tom Franklin was furious. "This is the last fucking straw!" He exclaimed as he stared at his computer monitor. How many times did this make, five? Six? He was sick of it. Who did those bastards think he was anyway, some kind of pussy whipped asshole who didn't know shit from shinola? "Fuck you!!" He roared as he flipped off the computer and slammed his hand down on the dirty table top. Playboy, Hustler, and a various assortment of pornographic materials scattered to the cluttered floor, to land amid dirty cups, crusty Kleenex, cigarette butts, and dirty clothes. He kicked through the pile, strewn across his room and leaped into his soiled bed, gritting his teeth in frustration. "I'll show them." He snarled with vehemence, "They are gonna fucking PAY THE PIPER!" He exclaimed, slamming his fist into his hand. He grabbed a bottle of Johnny Black Label, and guzzled the last half of the bottle. Tom threw the bottle onto the pile in the corner. What to do. What to do. He thought, he HAD to get back at them somehow, but how? He shot up off the bed, and kicked through the clutter some more. He looked down, wondering how he could get exact his revenge. Virus? Hacking? Tapping a finger to his lips, he shook his head, no that would only disrupt their precious little Pentiums, not hit 'em where it hurts. An article glared up at him from the detritus at his feet. " . .LLS-R-US! Have problems with a boyfriend? Want to get back at a co-worker? Need to EXTRACT SOME REVENGE?" The ad screamed. He bent and examined the mag. "Come to Spells-R-Us in the Uptown Shopping Mall. We have what you've been looking for! Tom scooped up the paper, and grinned. *** "Well my boy!" The old shopkeeper enthused, clapping Tom on the shoulder. "You look like a man who is on a quest for retribution!" "You got that right, Pops!" Tom muttered, looking around the strange establishment. Crystals, lamps, old costumes, cauldrons, wands, crowns, scrolls, tablets, quills, and other assortments of arcane items met his gaze. "I think I have just what you need, Tom." The old man whispered, with a twinkle in his rheumy eye. He smelled of mothballs, old leather, and tobacco. The shopkeeper winked, as he brought out a rolled piece of parchment, that seemed to glow faintly in the dim light. "What is it?" Tom asked, frowning. "It's your ticket to revenge, my boy, a spin on the retribution highway." The old man giggled. Tom snatched the roll of paper and started to unroll it. "What's it do?" "No!" The shopkeeper placed his hand on the scroll, stopping Tom from further viewing the scroll. "There are certain precautions that I must warn you about my son." Tom stopped, and looked at the vender. "You can not view the entire contents of the spell, it works upon viewing. It is a very powerful transformation spell that will change anyone who views it. You must follow the directions at the top of the scroll exactly, it will walk you through all of the procedures. Do not ever view the entire spell, or you will also be transformed." The shopkeeper looked at Tom carefully, squinting his left eye. "Yeah, yeah, OK. But what does it turn them into?" Tom asked, snatching the scroll from the old man. "Depends on the person, my friend, depends on the person." He said softly, grinning slightly. *** Tom darted into his apartment, scattering his clutter everywhere. "Gotta clean this damn place one of these days," he muttered, sitting down at his computer. He switched it on, grabbed the nearest porn mag. and started typing. He typed with a vengeance, sweat beading from his brow, eyes, two inches from the keyboard as he pounded his frustration into the keyboard, stopping only to look at one of the pictures. Darkness settled on his small home, and he still pounded on the keyboard, fingers flying. He didn't care what he was writing, only that he wrote, and as fast as possible. He didn't bother to correct errors, spell correctly, space evenly, he just pounded out one image after another in the glow of the CRT screen. After hours at the grueling task he was done, the story was finished. After saving the file to the desktop, he wiped the sweat from his eyes, and ripped of his stained T-shirt, casting it into another pile by the door. "This is it, man, if they don't say something about this . . ." He looked at the scroll laying beside him on the table and unrolled to the first few lines. He followed the directions, typing code directly into the operating system of his computer. He couldn't see what the shopkeeper was worried about it, all it contained was line after line of 1's and 0's. After another four hours of typing code, and rolling the scroll to the next line, he finished. He followed the final instructions. As far as he could tell, if a person read the story, and did not press the reply button, a second message was sent to the receiver. This second message contained the transformation spell, and the reader would be instantaneously transformed. Tom grinned, clenching his teeth. This will get them. This will teach them to ignore Me! Maybe then they'll learn to not to reply to the finest writer OF OUR TIME! He laughed, hideously, as he pressed the SEND NOW button . . . *** "Good God, that stunk." Jack mumbled as he pressed the Delete button. It was two in the morning, and he had just finished reading the last story posted to the list. An envelope flashed at the top of his screen, and he clicked an the OPEN MAIL button. A string of digits flashed across the screen, 1's and 0's. What the hell . . . he mumbled, as a strange pain filled his body. He screamed as fire ripped through his body, stretching and tormenting him into a new configuration. He stared at his hands as they quickly hardened, the fingers fusing into a "U". His backbone arched and elongated, as his knees snapped into a new configuration, forcing him to fall on his hardened hands. Pain filled his head, as he noticed a pelt of gray fur race across his new dimensions. His lips pulled back, and he brayed his frustration to the empty room . . . *** Eddie winced as he read the last few lines, of the horribly scripted prose. "That sucked!" He exclaimed, as he scrolled to the next item on the list. A stream of numbers burned into his awareness, as he shrieked in pain and confusion. A bursting feeling centered on his chest, ballooned into his consciousness. He felt as if his chest was inflating, and at a rapid pace. Cartilage and tendons snapped as they shrank into new and different proportions. A sudden flame ruptured from his groin, as he noticed hair flowing past his shoulders and onto the floor in a blonde fall. She shrieked in pain and confusion . . . *** Tom laughed his revenge at the screen, as the display showed the course of his handiwork across the list. Men and women across the land screamed as their bodies wrenched themselves into new forms: men, women, children, horses, mules, centaurs, fish, snakes, creatures of all shapes and forms. David laughed as the images howled in torment as their secret desires took form. He staggered to the floor in jubilation at the images on the screen. He had DONE IT! He had EXACTED HIS REVENGE! It was Too PERFECT!!! Now these sorry suckers would listen to him, now they were paying for the months of ignoring him, now they were feeling the pain he had felt when he poured his heart into a story, and received no feedback. They would THINK TWICE before fucking TOM FRANKLIN again! That was for DAMNED sure! As he settled down, as the creatures began staggering out of the view of the computer screen, he noticed an envelope blinking in the left hand corner of his screen. He raced to the chair in front of the keyboard, and looked at it in amazement. Was it feedback? He quickly clicked on the OPEN MAIL button, but it was only his story, making it's way back to its owner. He deleted the message, and stripped his pants off, preparing to hit the sack after a long and glorious night. He looked back at the screen to see the MAIL icon again blinking. He clicked on OPEN MAIL . . . *** Pain screamed through Tom's body as the spell hit him. Dammit! He had forgotten to . . . He felt something tearing through the sides of his body, as his hands drew together into a single stalk. His face contorted, as his bones solidified on the surface of his body. A chittering filled his mind, as a bolt pierced each lobe on the side of his head. Legs shortened, he fell forward, shrinking. The cockroach began it's task of cleaning the apartment It scuttled into an open MacDonald's container, and began to eat the rotting contents. *** Somewhere, an old man laughed.