DreamsofGods&Monsters

For Jim, for the happy middle Once upon a time, an angel and a devil pressed their hands to their hearts and started the apocalypse. 1 NIGHTMARE ICE CREAM Nerve thrum and screaming blood, wild and churning and chasing and devouring and terrible and terrible and terrible— “Eliza. Eliza!” A voice. Bright light, and Eliza fell awake. That’s how it felt: like falling and landing hard. “It was a dream,” she heard herself say. “It was just a dream. I’m okay.” How many times in her life had she spoken those words? More than she could count. This was the first time, though, that she’d spoken them to a man who had burst heroically into her room, clutching a claw hammer, to save her from being murdered. “You… you were screaming,” said her roommate, Gabriel, darting looks into the corners and finding no sign of murderers. He was sleep-disheveled and manically alert, holding the hammer high and ready. “I mean… really, really screaming.” “I know,” said Eliza, her throat raw. “I do that sometimes.” She pushed herself upright in bed. Her heartbeat felt like cannon fire—doomful and deep and reverberating through her entire body, and though he......