If you’ve checked in on the blog lately, you may have noticed that it’s been relatively silent, and this has probably given rise to a number of questions as to what we’ve been doing over the past few weeks. Maybe we were flying over war-torn areas in our helicopter, alternately hunting terrorists and caribou, you thought. Maybe we were hard at work in Santa’s sweatshops, having been mistaken for two hapless elves. Or maybe we were just pimping out the Batcave, biding our time until Commissioner Gordon needed our help. As it would happen, however, it was none of these usually-true options, but instead, Michael and I were hard at work on some new stories, which we will be sharing with you over the next seven days.
That’s right, for 7 consecutive days we will be posting new stories on the blog, leading up to our final post of this wonderful event on December 25, a randomly chosen date of no significance whatsoever. We will be alternating posters, so you can expect a new story from Michael tomorrow. But that’s not all! We have also enlisted the help of a MYSTERY CONTRIBUTOR, who we will keep un-named until his post on a MYSTERY DATE. If you want to figure out who this contributor is, you might just have to check back in on the blog throughout the week, which is, of course, how they get you.
As always, if you have any thoughts, positive or negative, please do leave them in the comments below, but try to keep them tasteful – we break easily. Remember to check in EVERY DAY over the next 7, and now, let the event begin!
A Danger to All Mankind
That damned dinosaur has ruined me!
All I can do is stare while he swims around, mocking mocking mocking me. He’s smarter than me and he knows it. I pull the trigger a few times out of frustration, but it just makes my lack of ammo all the more evident. Even my camera is out of film! How clever of him.
Oh yes, paddle and swim and paddle some more, but I’ll wipe that smile off your face! Someday, I’ll have a round left and bang! Right between the eyes! Then you won’t be so smug.
But as it is, I’m out, so we just look at each other, me with rage and him with insufferable satisfaction. Doesn’t he know that without me, he’d be nothing? The world would never find him, and he wouldn’t be so damn happy! He likes that I know about him, likes his ability to shove it right in my face.
Such a beautiful creature! Such a terrible beast!
* * *
To all the tourists, my house is the most fascinating thing in the fjords, but they’re ignorant and naïve! They don’t realize that right now, at this very second, a bloodthirsty reptile hundreds of feet in length is swimming under their boat. I tried to tell them once. When I first found him, I tried to tell everyone! And now I’ve been labeled a lunatic! But when their ship sank and they were eaten like so much soggy popcorn, who was the lunatic, me or them? Who was blind? Not I, not I!
* * *
I can see it happening! There I stood, leaning on the back railing, avoiding the wind and the crowds and holding my hot cocoa and there, in the water, a glowing red shape. I called them all over, yelled at the captain that we were all in danger, but when they ran over, he’d hid, the coward!
They didn’t see anything but the frigid blue water and those high cliffs where my house is now hanging because he clung to the bottom, eager to start a new rivalry. Well, here I am, soon to be the winner!
* * *
At first I just took pictures, but the wonders of Photoshop and CGI made them doubt me. That’s why I now have my L96A1, the official sniper rifle of the British military. The day I bought it, I couldn’t bring myself to do anything more than look at it, slurping down its divine radiance. I could almost taste the steel victory!
I’ve only shot it a few times, but each one brings a rush of happiness. The recoil, the noise, the excellence!
When I fired at the water, it erupted, the ripples still echoing to this day. Ah, nature!
* * *
Perhaps you think, when I say I tried to tell people about him, that I wrote in to newspapers. How right you are, I say! Can you read my article, you ask? Yes, yes, yes!
Dear editor,
The fjords of Norway are no longer safe! In past years, we have had to worry about rocks jutting out, tourists falling in, and that most devious of enemies, hypothermia. But a much more serious problem has recently brought itself to my attention, and as a Yale-educated expert in the sciences, I beg you to heed this warning. In the fjords, there is a new menace, one that has accounted for all of the recent deaths in the area. I am referring to the monster that swims its depths, an ancient dinosaur brought out of its slumber with a vengeance. I urge you to help me restrict access to the fjord from all but the most skilled of hunters as we track down and eliminate this beast.
I am neither Yale-educated nor an expert in the sciences, but I was sure that would help get it published. But it never was! The editor was scared, too scared to do anything! So now I have to be the defender of the people.
* * *
If you’re one of those PETA types and are now thinking how terrible it is that I am going to cause an entire species to go extinct, I have no reason to talk to you. Go back to your caves with your lettuce and pet rocks!
* * *
The newspaper was not my only attempt to alert the world, do not think such things for a minute. Because, you see, I even worked as a tour guide to try and warn people. Most of my conversations, however, went like this:
Me: And that rock on the right, it looks somewhat like a troll.
Tourist: Ooh, how fascinating! Tell me more.
Me: Well, there are no more landmarks for a few minutes, so I would like to give you a warning instead.
Tourist, gasping: A warning? But of what?
Me: It’s terribly dangerous.
Tourist, gasping more pronouncedly: Oh God above, what?
Me: There is a beast below, an ancient force that aspires only to murder and the elimination of all mankind! A dinosaur left alive!
Tourist, laughing: You almost had me. Good one.
Me: No! This is no laughing matter!
Tourist: You slay me. Tell me more about the troll-rocks.
So I quit, and the boat I had been supposed to guide the next day sunk, the first in over a hundred years. Evidence, I tell you! Avoidable, I tell you! But also slightly deserved, I tell you.
* * *
Swim swim swim swim swim swim swim swim swim swim swim swim swim! I will put an end to that!
* * *
Now my days consist of me on my balcony, in my home hanging precariously off a cliff, looking down at the waters below, waiting for him to surface so that I can put my L96A1, the official sniper rifle of the British military, to use. No such luck!
* * *
I was spreading jelly on my toast when I heard a splash and ran out to the balcony just in time to see him turning the corner out of sight! What a malicious, taunting animal!
* * *
Once, I was interviewed for a major Norwegian magazine, and how glorious it was! There was a knock on the door and I started, because at my home visitors are more rare than prehistoric aquatic dinosaurs. I opened the door and a sweaty man stumbled in, holding out a tape recorder, and I knew that here was the access to the public I’d been looking for!
I answered his questions, and he was very kind. He talked with me about the beast, and I gave him all the information I could. I showed him a picture, and he said it was too blurry, but he took it anyway to put it in the article. I asked if he could get me on television, and he seemed doubtful, but you never know! Then I showed him my rifle and told him my plan, and he said that it sounded like a good way to spend a life. Mock all you want, I thought!
When he left, I knew I would be famous soon, and the people would crowd around, thankful for their new safety! But then, on the way back down the cliff, he slipped and fell to his death. No other reporters have knocked yet.
* * *
I slept on the balcony for the past week, staying outside permanently, and I could sense that I was near to my goal. But he never appeared! How strange that his skin is bright red when he’s so yellow!
* * *
My family did not approve of my venture. They said that I could have gone to a good college back in America and been a lawyer if I wanted to protect the innocent. They said that the dinosaur wasn’t real and that I was fueling my insanity by searching for him. They said that I was a disappointment.
But then I won the lottery! And I don’t say that as some sort of a metaphor; I actually won it! Now I have millions of dollars and a scenic house overlooking the fjords of Norway and an L96A1, the official sniper rifle of the British military.
Now they say, can they come visit?
* * *
Such a troublesome bump in the road has occurred!
There was another knock, so I went running, hoping not to waste any time in my hunt. I opened the door and there was a policeman! I never see policemen in Norway, but here was evidence that they are real!
He told me that he’d come all the way out in his police dinghy, and I was surprised that I hadn’t seen him come in. He said that two hikers had been found with bullets in their brains, and that those bullets were standard ammunition for the L96A1 sniper rifle, the official sniper rifle of the British military. I assured him that it had been the underwater beast, that he had framed me as part of his game, and that as soon as possible I would take care of the reptile.
The officer said that the police force had begun to notice how I was always near “accidents” that I blamed on my slippery friend (friend! ha!), and that he had to take me away. He said that if anything happened to him, there would be an entire army here the next day!
I said that I had no control over that, and that he should worry about the monster in the fjord more than a harmless writer such as myself, but still I went with him, knowing I had nothing to worry about because of my innocence.
And then, as we were walking to the police boat, the beast leapt out of the water and promptly ate the officer, killing him instantly!
Boy, has he got me into trouble now!
* * *
They’re taking me in tomorrow. I thought about running, but how could I? How? Then they’d all think I was just some criminal, lying through his teeth about a prehistoric threat! Wrong, wrong, wrong!
So I stayed in, hoping to have one last shot at him, but as the sun rose, I yelled at it and fired off my rage into its glow! And once I was out of shots? A bright red, slimy shape emerged out of the water! It looked bloody, I thought, how appropriate, I thought.
I squeezed the trigger until my finger hurt! And he just laughed at me until the officers took me away. At least now he couldn’t intervene, though, or they’d kill him on the spot! The thought made me at least a little cheery. But the officers weren’t so happy, and they threw me into their boat, much more than just a little dinghy this time.
When we were in the middle of the frigid fjord, the ship shook, and I could tell that he was mocking me. I called out, and I said this:
Goodbye my foe, you will never touch me again! And I laughed hysterically, until the officers began to worry about me.
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