Enjoy my original short
Christmas horror tale. It is copyrighted, so please just share the link with
your friends so they can come and read it here.
By Midnight (Copyright
by Pamela K. Kinney)
You
better watch out, you better not cr. . . .
A
strange jabbering woke her from her nightmare. Mrs. Piers sat up and switched
on the lamp on the bedstead by her bed. Light flowed over her and the bed,
banishing the darkness back to corners of her bedroom. The only other
light came from moonbeams stretching fingers through the glass of the window.
Nothing.
Must have been a revenant from the nightmare. She stared at the clock. Shoot! She’d overslept. The woman leaped out
of bed, showered, and dressed in her custodial uniform.
It was
Christmas Eve, but that didn’t matter, as she was scheduled to work tonight. It
had proven to be the only way to get Christmas Day and night off. As she walked
into the eat-in kitchen, her daughter, Jenny, brought their dinner, bowls of
chicken noodle soup, to the table. Both sat and began to eat, though Jenny only
ate a few spoonfuls of soup.
Mrs.
Piers lost her husband a year ago and had to go to work to pay the mortgage on
the house, besides to support both her and Jenny. Luckily, she saw the ad for
someone to clean the local hospital during third shift and when she applied,
she got it. That meant leaving her daughter alone in the house at night. A
pretty teenage girl going through changes due to puberty could get into
trouble, least what she had heard.
So far,
nothing happened. Knock on wood.
Tonight
though was Christmas Eve. Though Jenny promised she would go to bed early after
watching It's
A Wonderful Life on TV, as she admitted to feeling ill all day. Still, Mrs. Piers
felt uneasy. Jenny handed Mrs. Piers her purse and bagged lunch, and followed
her mother to the front door.
Mrs.
Piers said, “I feel uneasy about leaving you alone tonight. Don’t know why
either.”
“Night, Mom.”
Jenny threw open the door. “I’ll make sure the place is locked up tight,
besides, I’m sixteen! Geesh!” She shook her head. “What do you think could
happen?”
Mrs.
Piers reminded her. “There have been those people that vanished.”
The girl
snorted. “That was last Christmas and they were homeless people that
disappeared from a shelter downtown, not teenagers. There’s been nothing since.
The police even said they think the men just snuck out of the building and took
off for parts unknown.”
Mrs.
Piers needed to get to work, so she stepped out into the night. The moon and a
few stars sparkled up in the black velvet of the sky. Many houses had Christmas
lights and other decorations. The whole street was lit up. Some people strolled
along the neighborhood, only stopping to view the lights. Everything looked
innocent and Christmasy. Nothing scary.
She
whistled to the Christmas music that sang from the radio as she drove to the
hospital.
****
As Jenny turned to go back
indoors, a tease of jabbering reached her from the darkened area beneath a tree
on the side of their home. A
squirrel? This late though? With a shrug as she heard nothing further, Jenny locked
the door and ambled into the living room. Raps resounded on the glass of the
sliding doors that led to the back yard. Her friends and the guys they brought
were here. Thank God, her mother had left already. Unlocking, she let in two
girls and three boys. They strolled past her into the house, carrying bags of
snacks and drinks, along with stuff for entertainment. Jenny shut the door and
stared as they began to set up. One of the boys put two bags in the living
room, while Lisa and other set bags on the kitchen counter and began taking
things out. Things like bags of chips, cans of nuts and microwave popcorn
overflowed the counter. Jenny thought back to the last day of school, just
before Christmas vacation.
Jenny’s friends, Lisa and
Debbie, had approached her as she was taking things out of her locker at school
and jamming it all into her bookbag.
“Hey,” said Lisa, leaning
a shoulder against the ,locker next to Jenny’s. “Your mother works all
night—right?”
Jenny slammed the door on
her locker and slung her bookbag over one shoulder. “Yeah, but you knew that.
So?”
Debbie grinned. “Well, our
parents will be out at a party that night until two o’clock. Be kinda cool to
have a party without adults staring over our shoulders. There are these three
guys—”
Jenny finished for her,
“and you two have the hots for two of them. Guess the third was dug up for me?
An incentive to have the party at my house?”
Lisa shrugged. “Well, your
mom is gone all night—”
Jenny sighed. The other
girls looked at her. She nodded. “I don’t feel good about this, but all right.”
She shook a finger. “Not all night, okay. Just ‘til midnight.”
Lisa grinned. “Of course,
we don’t want to do it all night. Christmas is the next day and we want to be
rested for that. Besides our parents will be home by 2 a. m., so midnight is
great.”
Jenny had been worried
about agreeing then. Wore, all day today, she had not been feeling good.
Couldn’t eat and stayed in her room most of the day, as her stomach twisted
into tight knots. Least the need to barf had calmed down. It was only until
midnight. She could handle that. Surely?
She chided herself. It’s
not as if there would be alcohol. . . One of the boys, a tall, gangling one,
laughed as he lifted a six-pack of beer out of a grocery bag. Another boy,
dressed all in black and sporting earrings in his big ears, nose, and even his
lower lip, laughed too, braying like a donkey.
Jenny’s stomach boiled as
she fought not to run to the bathroom. She stomped over to Lisa and Debbie who
were opening packages of cookies and bags of chips as they gossiped.
She grabbed Lisa’s arm,
snarling. “You didn’t say there would be alcohol!”
Lisa glanced with
disinterest as the boy withdrew another six-pack of beer. “Wellllll. . .I never
said there wouldn’t be. John’s adult brother got them for him at the liquor
store tonight.”
Debbie piped up. “It’s not
like we’ll all get drunk on twelve bottles of beer, Jenny.”
Jenny blinked. Debbie
wasn’t the brightest girl in town. Remembering the incident with Debbie and the
horse last year, well, not even in the whole world either.
She sighed. “All right,
but be forewarned, first time anyone starts to act drunk, the party is over and
everyone goes home.”
Lisa shrugged a shoulder.
“Sure. That’s doable.”
Lisa popped in a DVD of a Christmas
comedy she brought and both she and Debbie settled on the couch, a boy each
nestled against them. Lisa got John, who was the tall, gangling type with the
beer, while Debbie got Roy, plump and dumb. Jenny ended up with Spider on the
floor. Spider was the goth who brayed like a mule earlier. She had thumped down
in the chair that matched the couch, but Spider had slithered in like a snake
about to snatch its next victim, sliding his arms round her so Jenny got down
on the floor. Unfortunately, so did Spider, looping an arm over her shoulders.
“You know why they call me
Spider?” he whispered into her ear. “It’s like I got eight arms.”
It felt like he had eight
hands too. They slid up and down her body, searching for permanent places to
nest. Like her breasts, and other unmentionable spots.
She hissed in his ear,
digging an elbow into his ribs. “Hands to yourself. I don’t know you enough for
you to do that. Honestly, in my opinion, that will be never ever. Understand?”
He glowered as he grabbed
the bottle of beer beside him. “Your friends didn’t say you be a class A
bitch.”
He took a swig of beer and
ignored her after that, staring at the television. Which was fine with her.
Jenny rose to her feet and headed for the kitchen to get herself a bottle of
soda and some snacks.
Alone, she opened the
fridge and peeked in when she heard a sound. Closing the door, she listened and
heard it again. It sounded like someone saying something, except so slow that
Jenny couldn’t catch the words. It came from the back of the house. Jenny
stared down the shadow-dark hallway. A chill skittered up her spine. The only
people in the house were her and her guests.
The jabbering grew a
little louder. Now, it sounded like there was a crowd back in wither hers or
her mother’s bedroom.
She jumped when something
touched her shoulder. Her pounding heart slowed when she realized it was
Spider. His bottle hanging limp from his fingers, the boy’s brow knitted
together.
“What’s going on?” He
peered down the hall. “I thought we were the only people tonight? Your mother
working, right?”
Jenny rubbed her arms with
her hands, as she felt cold. “She is. We are.”
“Hey, what’s going on?
Sneaking off to do some neckin’?” Lisa and Debbie plus their guys joined them.
Spider pointed with the
neck of his now empty bottle at the hallway. “No. Doesn’t that sound like
people are talking back there?”
Debbie bit her lip.
“Really?” She turned to Jenny. “Thought you said your mom was at work.”
Jenny spat out. “She is.
We’re supposed to be the only living bodies in the house tonight.”
Debbie giggled. “Cool.
Maybe it’s ghosts.”
Lisa snorted. “There are
no such things as ghosts, dummy. It’s just Jenny playing a trick on us.” She
merged with the darkness as she walked down the hallway. “I’ll prove it. Hey,
John, coming?”
John asked, “You sure you
want me? I mean, I doubt there’s anything back there.” He gave Spider a nasty
glance. “Spider watches too many horror flicks, you ask me.” But when Lisa told
him to come with her, he hustled to join her..
Jenny heard the rustling
of their clothing, their footsteps barely audible on the carpeted floor. All
sound quiet as even the voices stopped. She back stepped until she found
herself against Spider’s front. His odor flowed over her. He stunk of sweat,
some male cologne and . . . . fear? How would she know what fear smelled like?
Lisa called out. “Hey,
there’s a glow coming from a bedroom back here. It looks like—“
Silence. Nothing from her
or John.
Debbie said, “Lisa? Lisa?”
Roy yelled,
“Yo, John?”
Lisa didn’t answer. John
neither.
More chills skittered
along Jenny’s nerves. She was ready to turn around and get her cell lying on
the coffee table in the living room, then dial 911. But she didn’t as Debbie,
along with Roy
and Spider tiptoed to where Lisa and John were. Spider hadn’t wanted to, but Roy dug his fingers into
the thinner boy’s shoulder and forced him along.
Jenny called out. “Come
back. I’m going to call the—“
Suddenly, screams and
growls rent the air. Frightened, and not even looking back, Jenny bolted,
snatching her cell phone and the house keys. She ran out of the house, not even
shutting the door behind her.
Breathing heavy, she
stopped in the street and stared back at the looming darkness of the open
doorway. Nothing surged out of it, not the others or whatever had gotten them.
With a shaking hand, she called her mother at the hospital. After she got off
the phone, she felt pain wash over her. Smells rushed at her. Iron-like, like
when there was bleeding. She drooled. Confused and still in agony too, she
leaned against a car parked on the street. Until she realized it was Lisa’s car,
then she stumbled across the street. She stayed there.
Thirty minutes later her
mother drove up and after parking the car on the street, joined Jenny who
hugged her, crying. “Mom, something’s in the house, and it got Lisa and
Debbie.”
Her mother patted her
back. “Did you allow them in the house?”
Jenny sniffed. “Yeah. I
allowed them and three guys to have a party of sorts at our house. Now
something has got them and it’s my fault.”
Her mother nodded. “It is,
Jenny. Mine too.”
Jenny looked at her mother
and noticed how strange her face looked in the light of the moon. A kind of
blurring. “What do you mean?”
“After your father died, I
was called back to my people. But they wouldn’t allow you to come with me. I
couldn’t leave you. Oh no. They said you’re a halfling. That you couldn’t
survive in my world. But I noticed you had some of my powers, something most
Halflings never inherited from their few parent. So staying here, I had to get
a job to support us, but still worried about leaving you alone as you were
entering puberty and with puberty for a fey, the changes come. Some of my
people came to stay with us.”
Jenny backed out of her
mother’s arms. “What do you mean? I never saw anyone but us in the house since
daddy died. And what’s a fey?”
Her mother sighed. “That’s
because of the glamour. Like what I use to keep me appearing human to humans,
like your father. A fey is another word for what humans call fairies. I am part
of one race of the Sidhe. We can change shape with will, besides having other
powers.”
Jenny saw with shock as
her mother’s form shorted out like a television reception. Where her mother had
stood, a tall, pale being with shimmering hair that fell to its feet towered
over her. It gave a parody of a smile, revealing a mouthful of cannibal sharp
fangs. “I saw your father from a distance when he was hiking with friends in
the mountains and I fell in love with him. So I stepped from my world into his,
changed my looks, and made him fall in love with me. I don’t need to feed most
of the year on what my kind subsist on normally, but on Christmas Eve, before
midnight, the hunger calls to me. So I would sneak out to hunt my prey as your
father slept deeply due to enchantment. It grew worse when I became pregnant
with you. I had to feed for two then.”
Her mother snatched her up
and they flew to the house, entering. The door slammed shut behind them without
a sound. Jenny was let go and she found herself standing over Spider. A crowd
of beings like her mother surrounded them, blood on their lipless mouths and
bare skin. Her mother pointed at the scared boy.
“You’re half fey, dear,
and you must eat the right food tonight to survive. Just as our relatives had
gnawed on your friends. Just as I fed on a dying person at the hospital earlier
tonight. Your magic is growing stronger each day and if you don’t feast on
human flesh before the first strike of midnight, you will burn up. Don’t you
feel the heat in you now? It’s our particular type of fairies’ Christmas
curse.”
Jenny did. It felt like a
roaring fire centered in her. It hurt. She stared down at Spider and saw how
large and rounded his eyes had become. Even smelled his fear like an
overpowering perfume. The pulse at his throat drew her eyes. It teased her,
begged her to take a bite. But his hands interested her more. Spider had wanted
his hands on her earlier that night. She had said no then. Why not be in a
place they should? Like her mouth? Yes.
With a smile, Jenny leaned
over, her jaws popping to accommodate the feeding. She grabbed Spider’s hands
as he tried to screamed, but couldn’t, thanks to the magic she used.
His hands tasted so good
when they were in the right spot. Like down her throat and in her tummy.
