Sundays were relatively quiet in Valhalla, but only in the sense that fewer people had been known to end up dead or in hospital. Statistically speaking.
That didn’t mean the club itself was dead. On the contrary. In fact, this particular Sunday night crowd might have been even larger – if less unruly – than the Saturday night zoo.
Noddy was at the bar. The band wasn’t on stage yet, so where else would he be? Janine stood across from him, a solid metre of polished mahogany separating them.
“I won’t visit him in hospital. I don’t care what Dirk says. I just won’t.” She carried on pouring shots of caramel vodka into glasses lined up on a tray in front of her. “He can think what he likes. They both can.”
“It’s still a bad idea, Girlfriend. Bad bad bad. He’s a raving psychopath. He’s three mental illnesses stacked on top of one another, wrapped in a black leather trench coat. What happens when he finds out the truth? When he remembers? He’ll snap. You know what he’s like.”
“I’m more worried about what he’ll do to himself right now. Dirk said he was really serious about me being the only good thing he’s ever had in his life. His only reason for coming back from the dead.”
Noddy snorted. “It’s not like he’s making the world a better place by coming back, is it?”
Janine gave him The Look. One eyebrow shot up, and she uttered the dreaded word, feared the world over by men and beasts alike. “Really?”
“I’m just saying… He hit you. Shit, he hits everyone. I won’t let him hurt you again, Girlfriend.”
Janine laughed. “He wasn’t that bad. Not to me. But I won’t let him hurt me again either. Don’t worry about it. He’s behind us now.”
“Can’t we just leave? Go down to the coast, get away from all of this, start over, together, before he gets out?”
“We talked about this. Remember? The print shop has had a good year. The boss is looking at maybe paying bonuses next month. We need that money to survive down at the coast, until we both,“ she raised a finger and pointed meaningfully, “yes, both, find a decent job.”
Noddy reached for one of the vodka shots. Janine sighed.
“You know, alcohol is not always the answer.”
Noddy shrugged as he tossed it back.
“Girlfriend, you’re obviously not asking the right questions.”
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What happens when reality TV ventures out into space and awakens ancient gods who would really rather be left alone?
Watch the human race tear itself apart in the face of cosmic forces unleashed after millennia.
Let Sleeping Gods Lie – my new science-fiction horror novelette – is available on Amazon and various other online retailers. I have some paperback copies if anybody wants one, or you can find them at Curiosity, in the Railways Cafe.
Finally, catch Big Day Out, a mad mercenary romp through the dystopian nightmare that Covid-19 might have become. Might still become, if we don’t keep our self-appointed leaders on a very short leash.
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