The Trouble with Perspective: The Lost Gods Cycle

By William Thomas Maxwell

A startling short tale about a group of researchers and what happens when they prevent a disturbed man from completing a ritual off a lonely shoreline in England.

Included with this short is an excerpt from the novel SHADOWPATH.

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Thomas Maxwell
• Release date: Oct 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536589078

Book preview

Dedicated to the quiet, mad dreams on eternity's ocean

The Trouble with Perspective

By

William Thomas Maxwell

I know. I understand. It's a lot to ask. But please forgive us. We had no idea at the time of what was to come. After all, who really can tell what's the difference between a banishing and a summoning. Who can? Not me. Not us. Not then.

I can't say it was the most unusual thing we'd ever seen. After all, this rocky, biting cold, miserable little piece of coastline had been on our radar for years. Well, that's more of a truism than you know; that's literally why we discovered it. Radar had been brand new and the Home Office was having fits. Every time a plane or balloon or flock of birds flipped over that stupid spit of land, it was blip off the radar. They thought they had a failure. Or a hole. Or who knew what. They just got concerned that Jerry would find out and a fleet of Nazi bombers would somehow take advantage of the phenomenon and flit in to wreck the dreams of freedom, liberty and all that trap.

So, they co-opted a bunch of birdwatchers, too flat-footed to be on continental duty, and threw in a D-grade scientist or two to oversee the bunch, and set up Project Finch. Day after day, they'd go over to the coastline and run their little tests and watch for the fighter wings that never came. It would be delightfully ominous to say that the original scientists went mad or that there was an unexplained murder or two, or horrible mutation. Sorry. Nothing of the sort.

There were some lights. Certainly. Could have been the local equivalent of marsh gas. The smell of rotting sea was certainly notable.  And a couple of the early folks got the screams. Nightmares, they