Season's Bleedings: Two seasonal short horror stories Read online

  He saw distant lights, which he took to be his village, but they were much too far away for him to imagine reaching.

  As he span, trying to figure out where he should head in the crisp white world before him, he saw a few spots of red in the snow at his feet. They looked almost black in the light of the pale moon and were in startling contrast to the vast expanse of white that stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction.

  He weighed up the pros and cons of trying to get home and following the blood trails to try and find Willy. He had been dead, no question of that, but he had sat up and smiled at him. There was no doubt in his mind that it had really happened, it wasn’t a nightmare or a terror-induced hallucination.

  ‘Just what the hell is going on?’ he muttered aloud in a vain attempt to make sense of the baffling and terrifying situation in which he found himself.

  The thought of finding Willy and putting him out of his misery occurred to him and he knew immediately that he must put his fear aside and do what was right for his mother and brother.

  He gulped, took a handful of wet snow to stave off the raging thirst that had come over him, and set off along the trail of blood spatters.

  The trail was fresh, the dark, almost black, spots impossible to miss in a world where pretty much everything else was white.

  He found himself at the foot of Skull Mountain and pulled his clothes tighter round himself to stave off the cold that permeated every cell in his body. It was a waste of time; there was a chill that was bone deep, and it had nothing to do with the biting cold.

  Those red eyes seemed to bore into his mind. He’d only seen them twice, for a combined total of ten seconds at the very most, but he felt like they were going to be with him until his dying day.

  He shivered a little as the brutal wind blasted his pale skin.

  He felt like curling up in a ball to conserve his heat. This would be suicide, but still much kinder than the fate that awaited him at the end of his journey.

  A noise from around the next corner tore him from his defeatist thoughts. The path sloped up towards the mountain which loomed over him, its tip hidden in the snow laden clouds.

  His heart lurched up into his throat.

  He swallowed hard and took a look round the corner.

  There was one of the hessian sacks lying on the path. A few spots of dark blood seeped through the material and stained the snow crimson.

  His eyes widened as he saw that the form in the bag was moving. The noises from it were low whimpers, the sound of something in agony, wishing for death’s merciful embrace.

  He found himself hoping that it was Willy, to cut short his quest.

  But he doubted this nightmare would be over so quickly.

  With the horrendous, forlorn, wishing-it-was-dead cry that came from the poor soul in the bag in mind, Nicky scanned the terrain for a weapon.

  The fact that he had not considered this before made him realise how out on a limb he was here.

  Most of the mountain path was snow, but he managed to find a loose chunk of rock on the cliff face to his right.

  It fitted perfectly in his hand and had a nice weight to it. He approached the writhing figure slowly, trying to summon the courage he knew he would need to put the wretch out of its misery.

  He pulled the short length of rope that secured the sack, loosening the knot. He readied the stone in his shaking hand.

  Quicker than he’d expected, a blood-soaked head shot out of the bag, like a dying foetus struggling loose from an obscene fabric womb.

  He wasn’t ready, it turned out, but he still managed to land a hard blow to the back of his assailant’s head.

  The kid let out a low moan and looked up at him with glazed eyes. Like Willy, the kid was clearly dead yet somehow still walking. Blood ran from slashes across his throat, adding to the slick mass of stains that plastered his nightgown to his chest.

  His lips twitched in a sickening parody of a grin. Nicky hurled the rock with all of his might, shattering the perfect teeth in the dead kid’s mouth with a horrid crunch.

  He ran past the kid, his feet skidding wildly in the slush beneath the bloody hessian sack.

  He cursed his idiocy when he realised he was unarmed once more.

  There was a section of cliff to his left. He managed to pull two chunks of rock loose from it, and kept one in each hand.

  The kid was still letting out a low moan, his feet scrabbling for purchase on the snow in much the same way as Nicky’s were.

  Nicky couldn’t stomach the idea of seeing him again, so he kept low behind the rock wall and crept up the path. He found it hard to keep quiet, but the kid seemed to be having his own problems just walking.

  Nicky picked up the pace a little and got almost to the top of the path before he slipped and had to grab the rock to avoid falling. His feet slid from beneath him.

  He landed hard on the path, catching his head against the floor. The world spun. He saw the dead kid making his way towards him, his legs moving in an extremely uncoordinated fashion.

  Then darkness overwhelmed him.

  When he awoke, he was in his own bed back at home.

  ‘What the?’ he muttered through a mouthful of cotton wool and blood.

  ‘Shh,’ Mama said. ‘Old Gus found you wandering out on Skull Mountain. He said you were muttering something about wolves and Willy.’

  ‘Did I dream it, Mama?’

  ‘I wish you did, my lad. I wish you did. But you getting yourself killed too ain’t going to help us now, is it?’

  ‘What do we do, Mama? He took Willy. I saw him and he was dead.’

  ‘Shh, my lad. Ain’t nuthin’ we can do for him now. The devil in the red suit took him and he’ll be gone before morning anyway, ain’t no time to get back up there, even if we did have some silver to kill him with.’

  ‘What the hell is he?’

  ‘Had your cussing, lad, lest I smack you one.’

  ‘He had wolves pulling his sleigh.’

  ‘I know, lad.’

  ‘Is he a man?’

  Mama didn’t seem to want to answer this question.

  ‘Is he a man?’ Nicky asked again.

  ‘He’s the devil hisself.’

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘We pray and make sure we give the offering next year.’

  By the time the next snow began to fall, Mama had almost succumbed to the wasting disease that had begun to consume her.

  With the loss of one of her beloved sons, she seemed to have lost the will to fight the disease. She rarely got out of bed now.

  Nicky had already made his peace with this. He’d no doubt be joining her in the afterlife soon.

  At least once a day Mama came out of her comatose state to remind him to ensure he had enough money to pay the debt that would keep the devil from the door.

  Nicky humoured her and promised he would do so, but he had no intention of performing the ritual.

  The first flakes of snow darkened the sky above their home.

  Nicky had already told most of the village of his plan to avenge his brother by taking down the devil in the red suit, but they all laughed at him and told him he was crazy.

  They’d given him silver pieces and practically begged him to observe the ritual. Instead he’d melted the pieces down into arrow heads and spent the majority of his time learning to fire the crossbow that his father had bequeathed him. He had gotten to be a pretty decent shot.

  He fitted the ten silver tips to the arrows he had, keeping the remaining arrows to one side.

  Now that the snow had begun to fall, he knew that the worst part had begun. This was doubtless the last sunset he would live to see, so he took the time to savour it, marvelling at the way the crimson spread across the sky like a vast bleeding wound.

  He heard Mama struggling to get out of bed. She hadn’t left the eiderdown for weeks, but he knew she would die before she let the ritual go unobserved.

  Too bad he’d slipped tranquillisers i
n her water.

  He heard her slump to the floor outside her bedroom door and he rushed up to help her back into bed. He knew she’d be out for a while, so he made her comfortable and went back downstairs.

  He left the lights off, wanting to maintain the element of surprise over the fat fuck in the red suit. He kept the crossbow in his lap, the silver-tipped arrows in his left hand. The normal arrows were under his right leg.

  Though he tried to keep himself awake and alert, he found sleep’s embrace irresistible. His head slumped down onto his chest a number of times only for him to jolt himself awake.

  He fell asleep for the last time and was snoring soundly when there was a thunderclap of sound from above him.

  His eyes shot open, his breath heaving into his chest in a frantic gasp.

  It was time.

  He sat up, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, angry at himself for falling asleep, but suddenly focussed on the grim task at hand. He shucked one of the silver arrows into the crossbow and went along the corridor to Mama’s room.

  The window was open, an icy torrent blowing in through the gap.

  Mama could have cared less.

  He heard the baying of the wolves on the roof, and could picture the blood-slicked muzzles, yellowing teeth and blazing eyes as if it was seconds since he had seen them rather than months.

  The footsteps above him sounded monstrous and he gasped in a breath as he realised it was time to confront the devil and send him back to hell.

  Instead something arguably more frightening happened.

  Mama’s bed sheets moved in the icy gale that poured in through the open window and it took Nicky a good few seconds to notice that there was a pale figure crouching over her bed.

  ‘It ain’t so bad, Nicky,’ the figure said.

  His eyes widened as he noticed it was Willy crouching at their mother’s bedside.

  He was torn, but still he raised the crossbow and levelled it at the putrefying mass that had once been his brother.

  Willy’s mouth drew back, his yellowing teeth showing amid bleeding, rotten gums.

  ‘We can just take her this year. Long as you keep the ritual next year you’ll be fine.’

  Nicky racked one of the normal arrows into the bow and shot it right between Mama’s eyes.

  ‘There’s your answer,’ he spat, racking one of the silver arrows into the bow.

  Willy shrugged, sending the left side of his blood-stained blonde hair sliding away from his skull.

  There was gleaming, bloody bone exposed by the section of missing scalp and Nicky could see that he was doing his brother a favour.

  Still, he hesitated just for a second before he put the arrow through Willy’s left temple.

  Willy’s skull spat blood. His lips spewed gore as his jaw worked to articulate words that weren’t there to form. Willy hit the floor with a wet thud and Nicky’s feet were soon drenched in the cold blood that seeped from his brother’s riven skull.

  He bent double and puked on the floor.

  The gale through the window intensified, becoming so hard that it pinned Nicky to the back wall.

  Through the haze of snow, he saw two glowing red eyes that looked like twin pools of glistening fresh blood.

  He saw the red suit, torn in places where thick white bristles poked through.

  In the thing’s clawed hands were what looked like two limp, ivory ropes, which upon closer inspection were spines torn loose from their bodies. The skulls were draped casually over his arms, bare except for the dripping coating of gore that coursed from them, forming a pool beneath the figure’s feet.

  The creature opened its jaws and Nicky saw a long pink tongue poke out of the mass of white hair surrounding its mouth and lick the blood off the skull.

  The blood red hood it wore hid its true countenance. It shed it and its chest muscles clenched, tearing away the thick red fabric like it was tissue paper.

  The man in the red suit was not a man at all; his body was covered in thick white hair, his face a long snout that had previously been hidden behind the hat. Its mouth opened and revealed blood-stained teeth that were as sharp and long as butcher’s knives. Its hot breath bore the scents of blood and rotten flesh.

  Terror rooted him to the floor as it took a few steps towards him.

  In the dim light of the moon, he saw it properly for the first time.

  It was roughly eight feet tall, three feet wide.

  Must have been three hundred and fifty pounds.

  Its steps shook the floor beneath his feet. He looked at Mama, at the wound which still vomited her blood out onto the bed, then he looked to Willy, the walking abomination of his corpse still twitching in its death throes even though he had died a year ago to the day.

  He raised the crossbow and fired.

  The beast let out a snarl as the silver arrow hit it in the left eye, sinking into the bulging orb with a sickening squelch, sending rivulets of blood down its face and staining its thick white fur with dripping crimson.

  It let out an ungodly howl and charged at him. The world did a flip as his head pounded the floor. Three hundred and fifty pounds of furry hatred landed on his chest and crushed the breath out of him.

  His ribs creaked beneath the strain. Its muzzle dripped blood onto his face. Up close the stench of its breath brought tears to his eyes.

  Its jaws opened and stinking saliva ran down onto his face. He retched and blood-tinged bile stung the back of his throat.

  His vision of the huge white wolf blurred as tears flooded his eyes.

  He heard it snarl, at this range the sound deafening and terrifying enough to send the contents of his bladder scurrying down his leg.

  He raised the silver-tipped arrow in his hand, uttered a brief prayer and slammed it into the creature’s blackened heart.

  Blood rained down from the wolf’s open jaws, but he could tell it wasn’t even close to dying.

  Its teeth sought his throat, goring his arm as he brought it up between him and the enraged beast. He cried out in agony as the teeth penetrated his forearm.

  The wolf tore a chunk of his flesh loose and greedily swallowed it down. Its right paw came down hard, almost taking his head clean off his shoulders. His neck cracked and it took a second he didn’t have to right it. The claws carved four fiery paths across his face, scarring him to the bone.

  He cried out with the pain and wondered how much more of it he would have to endure before he was reunited with Mama and Willy.

  Then suddenly the room was full of villagers who had also lost friends and children to this monster and refused to live in fear of it for a second longer. The hatchets and axes and knives they held glinted in the moonlight.

  Their faces were grim but with an undeniable joy to them. Nicky’s eyes picked up the reflection of light from their silver-tipped blades as they came in closer.

  He thrust his arms hard around the creature’s waist, using his last reserves of strength to grip it and hold it steady. The creature bucked, slamming his head into the floorboards hard enough to make his whole world swim, and make blood creep up into his mouth, but he kept his hold on it.

  Its jaws sought his throat and sunk deep, tearing his windpipe loose in a torrent of warm blood.

  But it was too late for the beast, the villagers were upon it, the silver-tipped weapons carving, slashing, stabbing until its white fur was a dripping coat of gore.

  The creature lashed out, opening the throats of a few of the villagers, but the power of their grief for their lost loved ones was immense and they refused to stop until the giant wolf was carved open and bleeding out.

  Its death throes shook the entire room, and the last thing Nicky’s dying eyes saw was the huge beast let out a pitiful cry as the severing of its head unleashed an ocean of blood onto the floor at his feet.

  The townsfolk closed Nicky’s bulging eyes, and repeated over his corpse, ‘Blood for the blood god. Love, yes, we love God. Take from us this gift of gore. Keep the devil from our doors.�
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  One of the villagers suggested they bury the bodies of the dead children that were found in the sleigh. To stave off the bitter cold, one of the men took shreds of the wolf man’s red suit and wrapped it around himself.

  After a second’s debate, the same man cut off a section of the wolf man’s fur and wrapped it around his face and neck.

  The rest of the villagers followed his lead.

  Clad in red, with their white beards, they buried their dead beneath the pines.

  When this was done, they feasted together and drank late into the night, mourning Nicky and all of the villagers who had been lost to the wolf man in the red suit.

  The villagers vowed that they would get together and celebrate the snow fall each year, to keep alive the memory of Saint Nicky – as he was posthumously awarded by the town mayor – and the way he had united the whole village with his plan to defeat the wolf man.

  The next year, every home bore a brightly-decorated pine tree, as a symbol of their lost loved ones and the sacrifice Saint Nicky had made for all of them.

  The silver pieces that had previously been used as an offering to the blood god were spent on gifts for their neighbours.

  One of the villagers, still clad in his red suit and white beard, used the wolf man’s magical sleigh to deliver presents to neighbouring villages, to allow them to share in the memory of Saint Nicky’s selfless and heroic deed.

  And the rest, as they say, is history…

  MERRY CHRISTMAS!

  The Curse of Harry Land

  1

  ‘It’s Hallowe’en, time for a scare,

  If you trick or treat you’d best beware,

  Don’t knock on the door of Harry Land,

  Or the devil will come and chop off your hand,’ Miss Hopper sang in an ominous sing-song voice while rolling her eyes up into the back of their sockets. In the dancing flames from the freshly carved pumpkins she looked the wrong side of insane. In fact, she looked positively demonic.