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.

    Source: geocities.com/westhollywood/heights/2671/stories

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