Iskalde Grøss #4/1989

In "Dødelig tiltrekning!", a circus father tries to drive a knife thrower from his daughter’s life by tampering with the act’s setup, but when the wife leaves, the daughter steps in—drawing the knife thrower’s gaze in ways no one expected. The tension builds under the big top’s flickering lights, where every throw feels like a promise and every glance a threat.

In the quiet, uneasy town where shadows stretch long, Lionel Byrd drives his hearse past curious children and wary townsfolk, the heavy curtain in the back a constant mystery. When the truth behind his strange presence begins to surface—tied to a past buried beneath the earth and a secret that defies life itself—it’s not just the hearse that carries a terrible weight.

In "Billedlig talt!", Steven Anderson finds himself trapped in a web of betrayal when his younger brother Larry begins an affair with Steven’s wife, Helen. After a night of drinking and secrets, Steven gets a tattoo of the three of them arm-in-arm—a symbol of unity that will soon become a chilling witness. As Larry and Helen conspire to make Steven’s death look like an accident, they fail to see that the tattoo holds a hidden truth, one that could expose them all.

In "Kulemagen!", a prince obsessed with wealth and excess schemes his way to a grotesque fortune by demanding a yearly payment in gold equal to his own weight. As he fattens himself with lead shot to maximize his payout, his journey to a new castle takes a horrifying turn when sudden motion sends his body rupturing under the strain.

In "Judy, du er ikke deg selv i dag!", a young woman finds herself trapped in the body of an old crone after a dark spell reshapes her fate. As the wife of a man who knows more than he lets on, she must unravel the truth behind the switch before the line between identity and possession vanishes completely.

In "Halvveis horribel," Zachary Boxer, the town’s undertaker, arrives at an apartment summoned by a tenant whose voice trembles with dread. The man confesses he’s been battling a fractured mind—once diagnosed with schizophrenia, now convinced his darker half is a living thing, so real he fled to Haiti for a voodoo ritual to destroy it. The witch doctor made a doll, half good, half evil, and pierced the dark half with a pin. Now, as the man reveals the truth in the dim light, he asks Boxer to prepare what remains: his rotting, malevolent half.

In "Onkel Ekar!", a young boy claims he’s actually 24 and spends his days watching his uncle commit murders—something he says he’ll do when he grows up. When police question him, he leads them to a hidden location, where the man they find tries to flee and is shot dead, leaving them to confront the horrifying truth: the child wasn’t lying, and he’s not quite human. The story lingers on the unsettling aftermath, ending with a chilling wink from the boy—his third eye open, his tongue split—leaving the reader to wonder what comes next.

In the frozen silence of the Russian steppes, a sleigh carries a desperate group of travelers through a storm-lashed night. With wolves closing in and only two bullets left in the officer’s rifle, panic sets in as the driver makes a harrowing choice: one among them must be thrown to the pack to save the rest. The tension mounts as the fate of the woman, her newborn, the old man, or the officer hangs in the balance—leaving the reader to face the chilling uncertainty of who is lost to the howling dark.