A Christmas Horror Story (6 page)

‘My book. It’s in the fire.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid it is,’ Katie replied, confused and worried for him.

‘The fire, Katie, we have to keep the fire burning. Or he’s getting in…he’s getting in.’

The two went down the stairs, creeping one step at a time, while holding each other as well as the torch. It shook in the dark. Dust specks and cold breath floated in the light of the beam. They reached the living room. Slowly, oh so slowly, Katie opened the door with Jake holding on to her. From the dark room the fire still burned in the fireplace, albeit reduced to glowing embers. Katie breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Here,’ she said, passing Jake the torch. ‘Hold the beam to the fireplace while I get more wood into it.’

Jake nodded and did so while Katie crouched nearby. She took the small hand axe that stood by the hearthside. Katie took two sizeable logs and, with a couple of swishes of the hatchet, reduced the wood to splinters. She threw the debris into the fire and blew a few times until it caught hold and the flames rose up. Katie went to collect more wood, but the torchlight had dropped lower to the floor.

‘Lift the light higher, Jake’. ‘I can’t see the kindling.’

The light didn’t move.

She turned.

Jake stood in the doorway trembling. The torch rocked at his feet. The boy was so tiny compared to the tendril of shadows that shimmered around him. A thin, veined and gaunt hand, black with silver scales, wrapped its long fingers around Jake’s mouth, preventing him from crying out. His eyes were wide with utter fear. Katie screamed an ear-splitting ‘NO’ and in that second, the creature and boy melted into the shadows and were away. From the wall in the living room, the clock struck midnight. It was Christmas day.

Chapter Six

Moorside, Glossop, Christmas Day, 25 December 2014

Katie’s heart pounded and her veins throbbed in rhythm with the blood pumping through her body. There was no way to comprehend the terror that kept her going, for to acknowledge its existence would be to embrace madness, which she knew would have to wait until she had found her brother and sister. She tried to run, but could only manage an awkward lope. Her clothes, padded and heavy, dragged her into the snow, and the weight of the rucksack strapped to her back made balancing a near impossible task. She stumbled and gripped her legs, helping them to escape from the snow. And just like in a dream, her legs were left with no strength against the relentless clutch of the snow. She fell again and again, and each time she struggled to drag herself up, she screamed with frustration and wept through fear of never seeing her brother and sister again.

She forced herself on through the grey evening, gasping for sharp air. On and on she pushed herself. The sky was a cloudless map of bright crystals. At another time, in another life, she might have stopped and appreciated the beauty. But without her family there was no beauty in the universe, though she was grateful for the moon and the stars, which lit her way with white and silver almost as well as a summer’s day. She crossed fields, and when she came to barbed wire fences she crawled over them through the snow.

As Katie made her rough progress, there were times when her waist disappeared below the snowline, the cold and wet seeping through her layers of clothes and freezing her skin sore. She could feel herself turning blue. Onward she forced herself, each step exhausting her muscles while, inside her mind, fear and desperation did their best demoralise her, to make her lie on that cold frozen ground deep below the snow, silent and still evermore. She ignored her nagging hopelessness and continued on her slow progress.

Through fields she trudged until she arrived at another barbed wire fence. Beyond it she could see the beginning of the forest. Between that, the flocks of birds they had discovered the day before lay dead and solid, a grim marker indicating where to go to follow Emily and Jake. But before that there was the wire, held by rotting wooden posts and disappearing into the distance on either side of the forest. Katie peeled her left glove back and peered at her watch, seeing under the stars’ reflections that a couple of hours had passed.

She busied herself with removing her rucksack and rummaging inside. She produced a blue blanket and folded it, placing it over the barbed wire. Fastening her rucksack again, she paused for a moment before climbing on the blanket. Underneath the material she could feel the razors sticking into her skin. It was painful, but she was numbed by the cold and her layers of clothes. She fell and landed on the embankment of snow on the other side of the fence, her jacket and thermal trousers ripping as she did. The tear went deep, and blood trickled from the scratches. As she moved across the field, droplets of blood followed, leaving tiny red stains against the white snow. The trees, although mourning the loss of dead leaves, were tall and thick enough to block out the moonlight, leaving only shadows.

It was then Katie realised that any fear she had previously felt was only a rehearsal compared to how she felt now. Now, she was truly held in terror’s grasp. She dropped her rucksack to the ground where it landed with a dull, soft thud. As she knelt by the bag, Katie couldn’t help but cry uncontrollably at the prospect of facing the creature that lay in wait for her inside the forest. So far none of this had seemed real but had been like a nightmare. But now, with the snow seeping through her clothes and blood trickling down her legs, her whole body screaming in protest, it suddenly felt real.

‘I have to go on,’ she said. ‘For their sakes, I have to go on.’

Wiping her stinging cold tears from her eyes, Katie took the large black heavy-duty torch and a hatchet from the bag. She stood and turned the torch on and instantly the beam cut into the trees. It was so cold here that white fog rose from the ground, covering the forest in a freezing mist, every bit as ghostlike as the breath leaving her mouth. Katie gripped the handle of the hatchet tightly for fear of it slipping away, and she stepped between the trees.

The snow was thinner here and easier to walk on. Her boots held to the familiar crunching ground with each step. The woods, however, were as quiet as a deadly secret and the only other sound was her own gasping breath. Katie’s nerves tickled unpleasantly with an eerie feeling that she was not alone. As she walked through the dark, slumbering trees, the feeling grew. However, she held onto that uneasy tingle, following the strength of it, using it like a sixth sense. She allowed it to take her into the maze of trees, until finally the beam of misty light from her torch fell upon her destination.

There was no mistaking this to be the grotto of the Child Eater. She gulped at the sight of it, not wishing to go further but knowing there was no turning away now. The torchlight formed a circle around the gaping, yawning maw of the tunnel. The dirt and snow, piled and overturned, made a mixture of twigs and soil, root and worm, scraped together with deep frozen claw marks in the frosted mud. She stepped closer and saw how the tunnel’s darkness consumed the light and gave no clue as to what waited in that miserable dark. Her eyes, however, were drawn as, in the entrance of the awful chasm, the torch illuminated discarded festive decorations. Moving into the cave, Katie stepped over sad and jagged baubles, crushed into the dirt, while dead fairy lights and filthy tinsel lay on the ground.

The entrance was huge and Katie was swallowed into it. Soil fell from the gouged ceiling that was riddled with tree roots and cobwebs. Mist swirled and danced around Katie’s boots like ghosts trying to trip her. She breathed in the dank air as thud, thud, thud went her heart, and the beam of light rattled in her glove, not from the cold but from the icy grip of fear. She thought back to when she was a child, when the dark held terrors created by her imagination. She was there now, dark and scared and alone. But her childhood memories also held her mother and she remembered being held and kissed. It soothed her, listening to the memories of her mother’s kisses and her father’s voice calling her name.

She sang to herself now. Her voice was timid, but the distraction helped.

‘
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.
’

The tunnel, although wide, was low and Katie hunched as she walked deeper underground with only the thin beam of light keeping utter darkness at bay.

‘
Oh what fun it is to ride, on a one horse open sleigh.
’

The tunnel stopped its descent and opened into a chamber, with burrows cut into the earth. Again the beam of light flickered this way and that, wondering which way to go.

‘
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way
.’

There was a smell in there that overwhelmed the damp mustiness of the underground. It was an unmistakable aroma, one she had experienced many times. It was roasting meat, cooking in the heat of its own fat. Dread filled her heart as she followed the smell into a chamber. It was almost overwhelming as she entered. From the little light she brought, she could see a wooden table, the type found in a butcher shop. A stool was set at the end. A fireplace had been cut in the wall and dried twigs crackled on an orange flame. Above that, a large black iron pot bubbled and boiled. This was the least of it, for Katie’s attention was drawn to the table. A platter was set for dinner. A silver tray and dome cover twinkled in the dark. It was large and reflected Katie as she approached it.

She laid her hatchet on the table and pulled her glove off with her mouth. She had to see what the tray held. She had to see. She gripped the handle and closed her eyes and lifted the lid. She peered and the sight was as horrific as anything she had ever seen or would ever see again. Hog-tied and red like roasted swine, the meal was not her brother or her sister but someone else’s loved one, reduced to a recipe for the Child Eater. She gasped in horror and relief in one sickening mix. The dome lid fell back to the tray with a loud clatter that echoed into the tunnels. She held her hand to her mouth, biting on her fingers until they bled. There was no pain as the cold had taken it away, but she sobbed, tears rolling down her cheeks uncontrollably. She sobbed so much her sides ached. As the noise fell into the silence and the darkness, the echoes carried on into the dreaded tunnels.

To Katie’s horror, the chimes of sleigh bells answered the call. She listened, shaking and not daring to breathe. Yet the jingle bells heard her anyway and followed her fear, coming closer and closer. Slowly and precisely she turned to the entrance to see the shadow of der Kinderfresser sailing along the wall. The torch…the torch was still lighting the room. She fumbled for the button. The light refused to go out until the last moment and the room filled with merciful darkness. The shadow became form and entered the room. Katie ducked to the dirt; she crawled under the table and sat there with her arms around her knees, unable to move.

From her hiding place, she could see the Child Eater flow through the room with unnatural movements, but she could only see it from the waist down. This was enough for Katie to realise that the noise, the Christmas jingle that tempted children to their fate, came not from bells but from the set of cruel blades hanging from the creature’s rope belt. She could see in that horrific gloom the Child Eater’s leathery legs and its feet of sharp nails moving towards the boiling, bubbling pot.

Katie slowly reached her hand up and over, reaching for the hatchet on the table above, her fingers seeking the handle. She caught it and slipped into her hand, just as the Child Eater returned to the table. The creature sat on a stool. Katie could see its legs, mapped with boils and white pustules, and the scales covering its skin. Its legs were wrapped in black rags. She gripped the axe handle, shaking. The creature above began to attack the roast ravenously. As a smell like cooked and basted chicken filled the air, Katie knew that the ripping of cooked flesh and cracking of bone, the slurping of marrow that churned her stomach, was not from a fowl at all. She again held her hand to her mouth to stop herself from gagging.

Her gloveless hand. Her gloveless hand because her glove lay on the ground next to the Child Eater’s horrid foot. Katie spotted it as the chewing stopped and everything went still. Only her eyes moved. A chewed bone dropped to the dirt. The Child Eater reached for the glove with a long sinewy black arm. Its dark hair was bristled like that of a dead porcupine and its black beard fell to its feet. As it reached down, the Child Eater turned towards Katie, hiding under the table. As the white orb eyes took Katie in their glare, she was aware of her voice screaming, her body pushing itself out from under the table and standing to run. In one fluid movement the nightmare rose behind her, grasping and hissing. Katie spun, swung the hatchet and buried it in the Child Eater’s head, sending the creature writhing. It spun, trying desperately to grasp at the axe, but twisting and turning up the wall and along the ceiling like a poisoned spider.

Katie ran the tunnels, guided by the torchlight, until she tripped and fell into a larger chamber. The torch went spinning, as did Katie, falling into what she first thought to be twigs. They crunched and cracked as she crawled and rescued her torch, only to find she was sitting on a bed of bones. Some were chewed and snapped. They prickled her skin and tore her clothes in places. She frantically whipped the torchlight around the chamber. Skeletal parts and small human skulls covered every inch of the ground. There was a cold, cool smell to the area. The kind that fills the air when the freezer door is open. ‘All those children,’ she thought. ‘All those children in just one night.’

It was then that she heard weeping. Shining the torch in the sound’s direction, she came face to face with Jake, tied around the wrists and ankles with red ribbons, like a Christmas turkey. Next to him was Emily, tied similarly. All fear and exhaustion and madness in that moment left all three. Katie desperately untied them, pulling at the bindings. They cried and kissed each other and said prayers. Said how much they loved each other. With that done, they sobbed again and held each other more.

Katie pulled away. She wiped her tears and those of her brother and sister.