Attack on an Evil God
by Ásgrímur Hartmannsson
Maggi, a university student, accepts an offer to join the Lookout Beaver Club for something to do in his spare time. The club is dedicated to thaumaturgical research, which Maggi views with skepticism. He soon finds himself threatened by supernatural creatures, magical robots, and malicious goons working for a high government official who has ties to other entities not of this universe.
Chapter 1: In a Dream of Violence
Joe moved through the city in a strange haze. He thought he was being driven somewhere but was unsure. He felt nothing. He could see out the window all those ugly Bauhaus/Art Moderne edifices and figured he must be in the western part of the city.
He found himself ambling toward one of them. How he had gotten out of the car he was unsure; it was as if he wasn’t quite in control of himself, just along for the ride. He walked up the stairs to the front door of one of those three-story apartment buildings that looked on the outside like large mansions. The front door... he found himself inside, unsure how he had gotten there.
He hid from someone who came out of a bedroom. He didn’t know whether this person was looking for him or just out for a glass of water. The person was wearing a long white gown, rather ghostlike, even in the light of the summer night.
There was a king-size bed in a corner of the living room, where two people were sleeping. He hid under it while the person in the long gown did some errands in the kitchen. I have definitely not been noticed, Joe thought as he lay under the bed, as still as can be, holding his breath.
The person in the gown was not the one Joe was looking for; he was sure of that. Then the person disappeared back into the bedroom, and Joe slid from under the living-room bed and went into the kitchen. He found himself in the bathroom with a boning knife. Someone was sleeping in the bathtub: a pale woman with short dark hair, boyish features, wearing black clothes, as if she was hiding there and expecting to have to run.
Joe got a towel and wrapped it around the hand that was holding the knife. Then he unceremoniously and without any feeling whatsoever stabbed her in the eye. She twitched a bit and continued twitching while he stabbed her twice in the neck, careful to cover her wounds with the towel as he did. He wiped off the knife and left it there; and he left before the blood stopped pulsing out.
He woke up in the morning wondering about this weird dream, and what it could mean. And how come he was so bloody tired?
Proceed to Chapter 2...
Copyright © 2017 by Ásgrímur Hartmannsson
