deathlings.com: The Norwegian Women's Auxiliary Laughed, At First

The Norwegian Women's Auxiliary Laughed, At First
by Greg Beatty

"No, no. We've still got a lot of pancakes, one--no, two--slices of kringlas, and I can see if we still have any saus--"

"No! Not for the pancake breakfast. For the community ballet performance." Jeff bunched and twisted the oversized paper bag he carried.

Jeff's shoulders slumped. He turned to leave, then stopped. "Well, what did they do without a troll?"

The older woman's face lit up. "Why, the troll was the best part of the performance. The little girls were dancing, over here, near where we were serving, and over there, where those papier-mâché trees are. They're supposed to be a forest, you know? And every time they got near the forest, the troll would pop out and chase them!"

"There was a troll." Jeff's voice was flat, caught somewhere between doubt and challenge.

"I said so, didn't I?" The woman's voice turned a little sharp. "He'd spring out and chase them, waving his ridiculously long claws, and how they'd squeal. I think the littlest girls, the four and five year olds, really were afraid. I don't know if it was the size of his teeth, or if they'd just been forced to listen to too many Scandinavian myths in the name of cultural heritage. Then they'd remember that in this dance, the little girls are supposed to win. They'd gather their white skirts in their hands and dance at him, their faces all fierce, and he'd run away, all dumb and scared."

She smiled then, and her face softened with the memory. "And then he'd stumble and slip, and fall right on his behind, like he wasn't used to walking on linoleum. All of us in the Norwegian Women's Auxiliary laughed. Becka was snorting so hard I thought she'd drop the whole tray of lingonberries. He was so male, you know. So threatening. So clumsy."

"Then they finished the dance, and those tiny, lovely ballerinas curtseyed, and everyone applauded. Really, you should have been here."

"Well, if you must know, the troll let out another one of his wonderful maniacal laughs. He picked up Mimmi Barnhard with one hand, and flung her over his shoulder, and sort of capered out of the room, through that door there leading to the basement where the Sons of Norway keep their costumes. With his free hand he was slapping her on the rump the whole time." The woman's hair was white, but the lust in her voice was as full and naked as any Jeff had ever heard.

As if she knew how fully she'd exposed herself, she added. "Listen, who are you anyway? And why are you so concerned about the darn troll?"

"I overslept," Jeff said. He opened the paper bag, exposing a pair of oversized fake eyebrows, plastic fangs, and a makeup kit that would turn his face blue. "I'm Jeff Baker. I was supposed to be the troll."

"Ruthie Hansen," the woman said. Her hand extended itself automatically to shaken his, then pulled back. "If you were supposed to play the troll…"

Turning away from the tray of cooling pancakes, Ruthie walked briskly to the door to which she'd gestured earlier.

She opened it and recoiled. Even though he was halfway across the room, Jeff could smell the coppery reek of fresh blood. A laugh floated up the stairs, mixing with frantic sobbing and the moist snapping sound of meat being pulled from the bone. Maniacal was no longer harsh enough to describe it, Jeff's actor mind noted.

Ruthie's hand went to her throat. "Mimmi's little granddaughter went down to check on her after the dance. I thought…"

Jeff felt rather than heard something slam into a basement wall, and one of the papier-mâché trees fell with a final, hesitant thump. Jeff and Ruthie didn't start to scream until they heard the sound of the oversized claws on the steps, and by then it was too late.

Greg Beatty has published hundreds of short non-fiction pieces, including over a hundred related to genre fiction. Many of these can be found in The New York Review of Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, and Tangent Online. He attended Clarion West in 2000 which reawakened his early desire to write fiction. Greg's been writing away ever since, and much happier for it. He's had over 100 stories accepted for publication since then, with stories appearing in SCI FICTION, 3SF, HP Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror, Ideomancer, Fortean Bureau, and a number of other venues. His genre-related poetry has appeared in Astropoetica, Star*Line, Abyss & Apex and Strange Horizons. He funds his writing habit by teaching for the University of Phoenix Online. When not at his computer, he enjoys cooking, dabbling in the martial arts and spending time with his lovely girlfriend Kathy. He's currently working on a children's picture book titled The Man Who Gave Orders to Cats.