A Christmas Horror Story (3 page)

When Mary opened her eyes, there was an uncomfortable, oppressive silence. Her ears rang in time with the throbbing from her temple. She coughed up a dustball. Her mouth was dry. It was snowing and from her prone position on the concrete, she could see the world had turned a grey, dirty white. She forced her aching body to sit up. The world was a mist, a huge ghost swirling with the odour of fire. The snowflakes fell in hot ashen chunks and a faint yellow glow filled the unseen skyline.

For a moment she was lost in the slow motion of it all and the confusion from her painful thoughts.

‘Wiglet?’ She gasped. ‘Wiglet?’

A cold feeling of panic froze her, as her brother’s absence replaced her pain with terror. She pulled herself upright against the wall behind her before standing, somewhat unsure of her legs. A step at a time she wandered. Shadows moved in the smoke and the silence was broken by a scream that quickly died as fast as it appeared.

‘Paul, Paul,’ s’he croaked as loud as she could, her face a guise of ash and tears.

‘Mary,’ came the soft reply; it floated in the air gently and clutched a hint of excitement.

Despite the pain, despite the confusion, it was all worth the relief of hearing her brother’s voice. Although through the swirling snow she could not fathom the direction and peered for clues. There were only the dark shapes of crumbled burnings and the orange glowing mist.

‘Where are you? I can’t see you,’ ‘she moaned.

‘I’m here,’ he replied with even more excitement in his voice, like a child with a secret to share. He called to her, ‘This way, this way. I’ve found Santa. He’s here, he’s here.’‘

Mary limped in a circle to find her brother. Her eyes were becoming red blotches in the snow and dizziness kept her off balance. Her tracks were quickly covered by the falling ash, along with any tracks her brother may have left. She had become as pale as the sinister, falling snow.

‘This way, this way,’ the voice called. ‘This way!’ And finally, the mist parted and formed a walkway through the white, revealing a fiery orange-coloured sky.

As she walked through the mist, she heard the sound. A jingle of bells, Christmas chimes calling and reaching out with hope. Bleary-eyed, she could see dark figures within the veil of snow. An adult and a child holding hands, except somehow, the proportions seemed wrong, and the adult figure was elongated, not unlike a late-afternoon shadow.

‘Wiglet?’ she murmured, and her relief at finding her brother was replaced with a creeping anxiety. It lurched from her stomach, like a nightmare from the shadows or crawling from under her bed.

Her eyes widened at her brother, who was only a few feet away. Covered in the grey powder of the snow, Wiglet smiled, holding the hand of the thing beside him.

‘I’ve found Santa. Look.’ He beamed the smile of a child finding he had Christmas day to himself. But to Mary, the thing holding her brother’s hand in its own black scaly claw was the utter antithesis of everything that was joyful and full of cheer. Try as she might, no sound left Mary’s mouth as she attempted to scream. A hand snaked through the fog, unfurling shining black claws and holding out its hand for Mary to take. In that black palm lay the gift of a piece of coal, wrapped in a red ribbon.

Chapter Three

Moorside, Glossop, England, 23 December 2014

Katie crept into her room so as not to wake her sister. As the house had three bedrooms, Katie and Emily had to share. They had a bunk bed, and Emily preferred to be in the bed below while Katie slept above. The room was not large enough for two teenage girls, being just a tight space of wardrobe and chest of drawers and bed. Their clothes lived mostly in piles and since Mum was so busy at the hospital, the arrangement worked quite well, as she was simply too busy to tell them to tidy up. Katie changed into her nightgown in the dark, letting her clothes join the others on the floor. It was getting cold, and she shivered as she climbed the ladder to her bed. Snuggled under her quilt and fighting back the winter air, which seemed to seep straight through the walls, she thought of what she would do when she had to go to university.

Her GCSE results had been exceptional, and her college had told her that the world was her oyster. But could she really leave Mum, Emily and Jake? They needed her, that was obvious, but at times Katie felt like home was choking her. The responsibility of being the eldest in a single-parent family was sometimes a heavy burden to carry. But if she thought on it now, she would never sleep, so she relaxed and cleared her mind and tried not to worry. It was easier said than done. Still, Mum would be home soon and she would sleep easier then.

Katie had barely closed her eyes when she realised that she was no longer in the comfort of her bed. Now, she stood shivering to death in the middle of a white field surrounded by the falling snow. It covered the horizon and the nearby landmarks with a static white film, making it impossible for Katie to get her bearings. The wind and winter soaked her flimsy nightclothes and turned her skin purple, wet and bloodied through frostbite. Her fingertips and her toes were numb with cold and were turning hardened black. She would have screamed but the wind and weather choked her as soon as she opened her mouth.

With little choice before hypothermia claimed her, she tucked in her arms as best she could and began to trek. Each step was akin to walking on broken glass, sharp and painful to the bone. Into the frozen waste Katie went, when suddenly through the storm she spied a figure, a large blurred man shape, as faint as a pencil drawing being erased. He was calling, waving, wavering. The shouts were lost to the air and the waves were a blur but Katie still had little choice but to try to reach the figure. With each step her heavy frozen legs did not bring her any closer to the stranger. For with each step the figure seemed further away, until the shape became one with the snowflakes.

But suddenly and without warning, Katie was no longer lost to the storm, for the wind had turned to a whisper. Her surrounds had changed. There were still the great hills and mounds of snow, but now there were buildings, old buildings in crumbled stone. Then was a tower of steel, a hundred feet tall if it was an inch. A skeleton of rusting white and reddish cold metal. Around the structures stretched a chain-link fence. Katie now knew she was dreaming, for this was Moorside coal mine. This was where her father died. She saw him now, dressed in his black police uniform and long black winter coat. He walked amongst the dead buildings, calling out to the missing hikers lost in the snow.

She called his name. ‘Stephen, Stephen, Dad, Dad.’ But he didn’t so much as look her way. She screamed for him until her voice was hoarse and dry, then changed tactics and ran to her father across the snow, but slowly as her legs were stone and the snow glue. And as he turned to her, she saw his blue eyes looking back, and he waved at her as the ground collapsed around him, and with a gust of dust and filth he was swallowed into the sinking black void of the mine.

But Katie was not the only dreamer. Emily also murmured in her sleep.

Chapter Four

Our Sweet Lady Orphanage, England, Christmas Eve 1833

Henrietta was fast asleep in a comforting blanket of darkness when someone shook her awake. Tiny hands pushed her in a rocking motion, causing her to groan and retreat further into her thin blanket.

‘Go away, Alice. Go back to sleep’,’ Henrietta protested. She knew it would be Alice of course. There had been many times when the five-year-old girl had woken Henrietta from one imagined night terror or another.

‘No wake up, Henri. You have to see this’.’ Alice shook Henrietta as hard as she could, and although this was hardly anything at all, it was enough to make Henrietta throw back the blanket and give Alice the meanest of looks.

‘Yes?’ she said through gritted teeth. Alice pulled a sulking face, her bottom lip drooping as much as her dark eyes, and with her blonde hair in pigtails, Alice looked cuter than ever. Henrietta had always considered Alice to be a sister. Henrietta was ten years old, hair as black as raven feathers, skin as pale as snow. She had always felt obliged to look after the younger ones coming to the orphanage. Their sad and fretful faces pulled on something deep within her. So when Alice walked through those large, foreboding doors into the hallway, flanked by the nuns and wearing rags, Henrietta’s heart melted.

It was dark in the dormitory and the gas lamps on the ornate wooden walls only cast the dimmest of shadows. Henrietta’s eyes adjusted to the gloom. She peered at row upon row of tiny beds disappearing into the shadows; each one had dishevelled blankets and empty pillows.

‘Where is everyone?’ Henrietta asked.

‘I told you, you have to come and see. Father Christmas is here!’ Alice explained, grinning a missing-teeth smile.

‘Is this some kind of joke? Because if Sister Madeline finds everyone hiding then it will be the whip for sure’.’ All of the two hundred or so girls in Our Sweet Lady Orphanage had at one time or another felt the whip, a metre-long piece of cane used to punish any unladylike or ungodly behaviour. Offences were anything from not curtsying when a nun walked by, to forgetting to wash behind the ears.

‘It’s not a joke. I swear on my mother’s soul, whoever she was’,’ Alice promised, holding her hand in the air. ‘Father Christmas came and promised us all we’d have parents, for Christmas.’

Of course Henrietta didn’t believe in Father Christmas or miracles of any kind. According to the teachings of the nuns, Christmas was for remembering God’s sacrifice and not for praying to mythical beings for selfish reasons such as presents and gifts. Being abandoned by parents and being dragged up in an orphanage as unwanted children, the girls were taught that they were orphaned because of sins of past lives. That they had been cruel and thankless, so now they were unloved and only by hard work and punishment could their souls be cleansed. This had given Henrietta a less than magical view of life.

‘All right, Alice. Show me where everyone is.’

‘I told you—’ she smiled ‘—with Father Christmas’.’ And she took Henrietta’s hand.

Both children walked, in their nightgowns, through the dark corridors of the orphanage. Paintings of Mary and baby Jesus looked down at the pair, illuminated by the gas lamps. Past where the nuns slept they crept, until finally they walked into the dining room. The dining room was huge with a large wooden table that ran the length of the room. Huge dark velvet curtains kept out the moonlight; however, more sets of gas lamps lit the room with their flicker.

Alice and Henrietta, bare feet padded the length of the room.

‘So some girls heard Father Christmas calling them. They woke others and followed his voice here,’ Alice explained.

‘How do you know it was Father Christmas?’ Henrietta enquired.

‘Because he’s in the fireplace silly, and we heard bells. They jingled. Some girls went to get goodies from the larder.’

At the end of the room, there sat a large white marble fireplace. Its hearth was dark and cold, darker than Henrietta had ever seen before. Alice let go of her hand.

‘Everyone else has gone in there.’ ‘She pointed. ‘Father Christmas took them to new families.’

‘I’m not sure,’ Henrietta replied, looking into the gloom of the fireplace. There was something about that that deep darkness that felt unnatural. It had shape and shined as if it had scales.

‘Alice?’ Henrietta whispered. ‘I don’t think that is…’

‘
Kommen nach der Weihnachtsmann, Kleinen,
’ hissed the voice, echoing from the fireplace. And it chilled Henrietta to the bone.

‘Father Christmas,’ giggled Alice, and she went skipping over to the fireplace, reaching it before Henrietta could protest.

Henrietta could only look on as her tiny companion was engulfed by the dark, still giggling as she disappeared into the chimney stack. Her eyes did not betray Henrietta; something had taken Alice, something with a dark, dark purpose. Henrietta stepped back, every instinct telling her to run. But her eyes, her eyes would not leave the sight of the fireplace and her ears were enchanted by the black magic of the jingle bells oozing into the hall.

‘Alice?’

She ventured forward as dust fell from the fireplace, and in her despair Henrietta saw something unfurling in the hearth. It was Alice, somewhat dirtier, with soot and coal coating her as she emerged from the fireplace. She stood awkwardly and her head flopped to one side as if she was being playful. She moved towards Henrietta in an almost fluid, floating motion. Alice spoke with a high-pitched voice that had a strange accent to it, and when she spoke her body shook as if she were a ventriloquist’s dummy. Any relief that Henrietta had for that moment was replaced by an uncontrollable horror that gripped at her nerves.

‘
Herkommen, kleines Mädchen, herkommen,
’ it said.

‘Oh Alice, oh Alice,’ cried Henrietta seeing that Alice was not Alice at all, but was held aloft and moved by a puppeteer—a creature smirking from the dark. She could see the reflection of the lamps in its white orb eyes and the shine of saliva on a lengthened toothy grin. It leered down over Alice, her pale limp form held by string rather than dark fingers.

‘I knew Father Christmas would not come here,’ whispered Henrietta, and she closed her eyes.

Moments later, from the orphanage roof, a creature made of Christmas nightmares and holding a bulging sack that looked to hold doll-shaped toys made its escape through the silhouette of the city, not to be seen for another year.

Chapter Five

Moorside, Glossop, Christmas Eve 2014

Emily’s face was staring back when Katie opened her eyes. Emily stood by the bunk bed, level with her sister. She was blowing on Katie’s face to wake her. Emily immediately stopped when Katie became aware of her. It was light and the sun beamed through the opened, curtained windows. The World War Two metal shutters had been rolled back into place. Katie wiped the sleep from her eyes and noticed that Jake was standing next to Emily.

‘Something is wrong,’ Emily said.

‘What is it?’ Katie asked sitting up.