Valhalla Virus by Nick Harrow (best management books of all time TXT) 📕

closed and locked with a loud click, Gunnar dropped onto a king-size bed covered in downy blankets, stared up at a ceiling streaked with twilight hues from the mood lamps outside his prison, and passed out.

THE SMELL OF ROASTING meat and woodsmoke crawled up Gunnar’s nostrils and wormed their way into his thoughts, urging him to rise from the dead. The bodyguard ignored the smells. He didn’t want to get up, not even for a bite of whatever smelled so goddamned good. What Gunnar wanted was to lay right where he was, eyes closed, and wait for this horrible sickness to pass. He’d had the flu before, even caught a bad case of that swine shit that had gone around a few years back. That had left him feeling wrung out and more tired than he’d ever been in his life. This new crap, though, made his arms and legs feel like they were packed with broken glass, and breathing was worse than trying to suck air through a wet sheet of fiberglass.

“Get up if you don’t want to be on the menu,” an old man’s creaking voice said.

Gunnar opened one eye and saw a burly, ancient dude with a scraggly beard and ratty black patch over his right eye. The man’s remaining eyeball stared at the bodyguard from a few inches away. His breath puffed out of his open mouth in clouds of tobacco-scented condensation. Before Gunnar could say a word, the crusty dude stood up and extended a gnarled hand, the fingers knotted with angry red bulbs of arthritic knuckles. Gunnar took the offered help and was surprised at how strong the old man was.

The bodyguard was also surprised that his clothes were missing, and he was freezing his balls off.

“You’re a big one,” the old man said. He stooped with a groan to pluck a pointed hat off the stony ground. He plopped it on his head as he stood up, his remaining eye raking Gunnar from his naked feet up to his crown. “You as strong as you look?”

Gunnar certainly didn’t feel strong just then. The cold air had sapped even more of his strength, and it took more effort than he wanted to admit to keep from wobbling on his feet. But it was easier to breathe now, and the rhythm of his heart was no longer an unsteady gallop. He took another breath, cracked his neck, and shrugged. “I’m getting there.”

That brought a wet chuckle from the ancient fart, who shook his head and spat on the ground. He gestured for Gunnar to follow him, then turned and walked down a rocky trail. They were high up on the side of a mountain, Gunnar realized with a start, their path flanked by scatterings of stubby pine trees and sparse tangles of wicked thorn bushes. The night sky was littered with more stars than the bodyguard had ever seen in his life, their silvery light rivaling even the enormous, shining face of the full moon. Grazing goats clung to the steep mountainside in the distance, their occasional bleats distorted into eerie warbles by echoes that bounced from one wall of the valley to the other, then back again.

“Where am I?” Gunnar asked his guide. For the first time, he noticed the old man was clad only in a dangling loincloth, sandals, a short fur cape knotted around his neck, and that ridiculous Gandalf hat jutting from the top of his head like a crooked lightning rod. “And can I get some clothes? It’s cold as a witch’s tit out here.”

“The utangard of your innangard,” the old man said, then chuckled. He produced a lit pipe from somewhere and took a long drag from the elongated stem. “I’ve never kept up much with all the religious mumbo jumbo that comes with this gig, so that’s probably a terrible way to explain it. Think of it as the wilder places of your mind. And you don’t need clothes. Your dangling dinger gives the völva something to look at.”

A trio of shadows flickered behind the old man, their swaying feminine forms visible for a moment, then gone as a cloud clawed its way across the moon’s face.

The trail rounded a cluster of spindly pines to overlook a deep valley dotted with the dancing lights of bonfires. Plumes of dark smoke rose up toward the mountain peak, carrying the delicious smells of sizzling fat and slow-smoked meat to Gunnar. His stomach growled, and he wanted to storm down the hill and grab a greedy share straight off the roasting spit. The urge was so powerful that he took a half-dozen running steps before the old man whistled at his back.

“You go down there like that, you’re never coming back,” the withered man called. “That valley is no place for a civilized man.”

Gunnar stopped and turned back despite himself. What did he care about any of this?

“This is a dream,” Gunnar complained. “Some fever bullshit brought on by that virus.”

An enormous raven plummeted from the sky to land on the old man’s shoulder. Its claws dug through the fur cape and released trickles of blood that slithered through the wiry gray hair that covered the man’s chest. “The virus is to blame, but this is no dream,” the raven croaked. “This is the realest thing you’ve ever seen.”

The flat top of a hotel tower replaced the mountain, and a flood of neon light scorched away the valley and left behind the shining ribbon of the Vegas Strip. The fires remained, though, as did the aroma of cooking meat. Humanoid, but definitely not human, figures cavorted around those flames, dancing, hooting, and shouting as they pumped misshapen fists toward the skies. Some creatures down there were much larger even than Gunnar, their bodies twisted into strange and monstrous forms. Elaborate and impressive horns jutted from their brows, curling along the sides of their heads like living helmets. Most of them wielded weapons of one sort or another, makeshift spears