Scary Holiday Tales to Make You Scream (42 page)

Two orange balls glinted. Then four. Eyes.

"Fuckin' hoot owls." He turned back to the pond.

Black water. Sleeping ducks. Sleeping geese. A rustle in the bushes behind him. Pete spun around, drew his gun. Light speared into the dark brush. Nothing.

The owl hooted.

Pete continued down the path. Light sweeping side to side.

Fuckin' punks...I'll nail your little asses to the dirt...fuckin' punks...

Over the tree tops. Gliding. Flapping. Gliding. Flapping.

The moonlight glinted off of the pond.

Descent.

Splash!

"Huh?" Officer Pete turned his light on the pond.

"Hoooonk! Honk...honk...honk..." The large goose with the blue body, brown neck, and white face paddled toward him. "Hoooonk! Honk...honk...honk..."

Waking geese. Waking ducks. Quacking and honking. A cacophony of avian winds. The large goose cruised toward him.

Pete raised his pistol and shined his light on the gargantuan goose.

"Fuck me runnin'," he whispers. This goose is like the one he just ran down. He pulled back the hammer on his .38.

"Hooonk! Honk...honk...honk..."

SMACK!

Something jabbed him in the ass. Pete spun around. A half dozen geese were there. They lowered their heads, wagging their tails and hissing in that intimidating way that geese like to hiss.

Bullies.

hisssss...hissss...hisssss...

They charged him.

Pete fired two rounds into the closest goose. Feathers flew up like dust motes. The other geese advanced. Pete stepped back, and shot again.

Another goose tumbled backward.

SMACK!

Again! Jabbed in the ass.

That giant goose! he thought, and spun around.

As he twirled, his patent leather shoe slipped into the water and burrowed deep into the soft mud on the bottom of the pond. Bubbles surfaced. Pete tried to pull out, but he was stuck.

"Hoooonk! Honk...honk...honk..."

Pete whirled again, fell, hearing and feeling the snap in his ankle. He screamed.

The ducks and the geese all watched him. Stared at him. The hoot owl hooted. In the bushes a few feet away, Wigglesworth licked his paws. And a little ring-tailed lemur leaped out onto the trail.

Excerpt from the Timber Bay Times:

The investigation into the murder of the owner of The Peeping Turtle, Timber Bay's local strip club, took a turn this afternoon when evidence was found by the Oregon State Police linking the alleged drug trafficking and prostitution ring run by the victim, Vandermeer Stones, to the missing Chief of Police, Peter Richards.

Although the State Police have not released an official statement at this time, a source close to the investigation stated, on the condition of anonymity, that the evidence found indisputably links missing police chief Pete Richards to Stones' drug trafficking and sex for hire operation.

This could help explain the disappearance of Richards, whose patrol car was found parked at Ferry Point Park two days ago, with no sign of the police chief.

"We hope that Chief Richards is not involved in any of this," said patrolman Rusty Sparks. "But things don't look so good right now."

The Oregon State Police have issued an all-points-bulletin for Chief Richards, and are asking for the public's assistance in locating the missing police chief. Richards is described as about six feet tall, two hundred sixty pounds, with a bald head, and clean shaven face. His distinguishing feature is his right eye, which is glass.

Three prepubescent boys, hats on backwards, flannels wrapped around waists, skateboards tucked in armpits, sat on the picnic benches, watching the waterfowl.

"Man, that is the biggest fucking goose I've ever seen," said the tall one.

"No, shit," said his short brother.

The boys watched as the goose harassed the seagull, chasing and pecking. Chasing and pecking. Eventually the seagull flew over to the picnic bench, as if seeking protection from the boys.

"Why do you think he's chasing that damned seagull around?" asked the short brother. His taller brother shrugged.

The third boy, the fat one, just stared at the gull, then said, "Probably cause that fucker's got only one eye!"

The three burst out laughing.

The giant goose sat at the water's edge, seeming to dare the gull to come back to the pond.

The gull, with its one good eye, wearily watched the goose.

From the branches of a nearby Japanese Maple, a little ring-tailed lemur looked on with glee.

Excerpt from the Timber Bay Times:

The little unidentified animal that has been spotted by several south coast residents at Ferry Road Park recently has finally been identified. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has studied the photos taken by a local resident, and has come to the conclusion that the new resident is a ring-tailed lemur.

So far, efforts to capture the little leaper have been unsuccessful.

"He seems happy where he is," said ODFW's Hank Tiphefer. "We'll keep an eye on him, and see what happens." What is most puzzling to ODFW officials is how the animal arrived in Timber Bay. "Probably somebody's exotic pet that they got tired of." Tiphefer said.

Meanwhile, the ODFW urges curious observers not to frighten, or try to interact with the lemur. They have been known to carry rabies and other diseases.

In a gesture of good fun, the mayor has announced that this Friday will officially be known as Lemur Day.

MARK SANCHEZ

Since his first tale was published in September of 2001, three of Marc's stories have been recommended for the Bram Stoker Award, and he was nominated for the Literary Pushcart Prize in the Short Story category in 2001 and in 2002. He recently completed editing the FRESH BLOOD anthology due out in December from 3F Publications, and is currently editing the LINGERING DEMENTIA anthology. His writing has appeared in small press zines like Alternate Realities, Art of Horror, Bewildering Stories, the Cock-roach-Suckers anthology, Dark Legacy, Dark Moon Rising, Deviant Minds, Expressions, Gothic Gossip, The Haunted, the Horror Haven anthology, Horrorfind, House of Pain, Morbid Musings, The Murder Hole, Nightscapes, ShadowKeep, Sinisteria, The Star Chamber, Star Gate, and The Swamp. His short story collection SUNSET WITH NO TRAFFIC is currently available from Double Dragon Publishing, and his novel CTHULHU'S BANE will be available shortly, also from Double Dragon. He is also working on his new novel SKINNY LIONS. Marc lives on the Oregon coast with his wife Kari, and their daughter Acacia.

By Kailleaugh Andersson

Lugansk was lit up brightly in the early spring night. Everywhere around the city, millions of tiny, pale blue lights tinkled on the green clad branches of the hundreds of trees throughout the city's lush parks, while the overpowering fragrance of lilacs dominated the city's landscape.

Inside the city square, dozens of men were unloading large screen cages from the beds of trucks, carefully clutching their lightweight frames with their rough hands as they carried them from the vehicles for fear of dropping them, fixing them upon a wooden platform in preparation for the night's festivities. In an hour's time, at 10 'o clock, the men would open the mesh cages with a single lever to allow the flit winged prisoners to escape into the night sky to the awe of the crowd that had begun to gather throughout the evening.

Nastasia was sitting quietly in the lightweight folding chair she had brought with her. Every year, for as long as her memory allowed her to remember, she would make the long trip from Archangelsk to this city, Lugansk, in the lower Ukraine to attend this festival. Yearly the locals would hold this festival, their own official city holiday to celebrate the beginning of spring. As she relaxed in her chair, Nastasia reflected back on the first time her mother had brought her here, how it now seemed like so many years ago. At the time, she had been but a mere child, still clutching at the long skirt of her beautiful goddess-like mother. Her mother had now been gone for so many years, sleeping beneath the frozen permafrost near an isolated cavern outside of Archangelsk. Being the last of her family, Nastasia had buried her there on her own, seeing to it that her mother finally rested in the place she had chosen for herself. By then, she had finally begun to look her years of age, her long black hair turning to a color like the ice and her once gracious eyes looking tired and hollow, she remembered. How hard it had been for her to powerlessly watch her mother enter her final stage of life, the wings of her youth falling completely away until she was but a shadow of her former self.

The bustling of the growing crowd helped Nastasia to shake the image of her dead mother away from her eyes. Everywhere around her people of all ages had gathered to witness the celebratory spectacle at hand. They ranged from wild, laughing children who scurried around their parent's feet to the most feeble of the old aged who could only slump in the wheelchairs to which age had chained them, their bones barely strong enough to hold their heads up. At that moment, a light, weeping note was heard from behind a thick screen where dozens of hidden violins had suddenly come to life to signal the beginning of the night's festivities. That bleeding note, high pitched, slowly grew in its volume and clarity until it gradually became pleasing to the ears. Multi-colored lights suddenly came to life from above the large screen, sending a myriad hue of gold, blues, reds and greens, a nuance of pleasant colors, in front of the gathered people.

At that moment, a man hidden from the view of the crowd pulled a simple wooden lever attached to a series of tight metal springs beneath the platform. Immediately the mesh wire cages silently opened to liberate an army of thousands of multi-colored butterflies with stained glass wings. The cloud of tiny flit winged angels swirled upwards out of their prisons and into the myriad of colored rays streaming from the filtered lamps above, their vividly marked transparent wings creating a living rainbow of ever moving, ever changing, flashing and delicate hues. Nastasia gasped at this sight, taking in the splendor of the magical event as the awe inspired crowd around her cheered in delight. Slowly the nuance of millions of tiny colored wings ascended into the heavens like so many vibrant prisms into the night sky, only to later alight throughout the city's lush green parks.

As the townspeople of Lugansk dined and danced to their hearts' content in celebration within the city square, Nastasia walked quietly through a nearby park, admiring the glory of the city night and recalling her childhood memories of her mother as the city rejoiced in their holiday celebration off in the distance. A single lime green colored butterfly fluttered in front of Nastasia, its tiny, black spangled, stained glass wings flashing amongst the tiny pale blue lights that tinkled amongst the trees in the park, the glint of its tiny crepe paper-like wings holding her fascination until a booming laughter inside the park had gathered Nastasia's attention.

Nastasia looked up from the tiny creature to see two young men some yards away who were both giggling at the top of their lungs. The two boys couldn't have been more than fourteen or fifteen and were both ecstatically drunk, for the two were running and giggling like nine-year-old girls and held wooden switches in their hands. The two boys were waving the switches around in the air in front of them as if they were sword fighting with the air.

Intrigued by their actions, Nastasia moved closer to them, only to see that the two boys were chasing around butterflies with the switches. Nastasia looked to the ground to see the corpses of hundreds of dead butterflies scattered about the ground with their wings broken or slashed. Dozens more trembled in spasms upon the ground, while others with shredded wings crawled upon the ground.

An anger arose in Nastasia's blood, making her heart as hard and cold as marble.

Her white skin suddenly began to change. Like Nastasia's mother's had when she was alive for so many millennia, her own skin now morphed into a nuance of brilliant golden-orange with fine black edging, upon the will of her rising anger. Stained glass wings broke through the skin of her back as if they had been sown there as mere seeds, until they finally opened like four beetle-green, shiny black, ovalish sails behind her back. In the center of her upper wings, a round, red beacon of color showed against the wings like two burning eyes representing her anger.

This was Nastasia's birthright; a gift from her mother and her mother's mother.

With a simple series of movements, Nastasia rose into the air with the quick burst of her appendages and appeared above the boys with a simple blur, her ice blue eyes now a burning red like an avenging angel.

The thousands of tiny butterflies that Nastasia was calling would take care of the first boy. Of that much she was sure of, as they furiously beat their wings and swarmed the fear stricken boy.

And the other boy?

Nastasia had a daughter who would soon merge from her pupa in the cavern outside of Archangelsk.

Surely, Svetlana would be hungry after being reborn.

KAILLEAUGH ANDERSSON

was born December 21st (the longest and darkest night of the year), 1972 in southwest Oregon and presently resides in the north east of Scotland. He is married to erotic horror writer Alex Severin.

Kailleaugh Andersson had his first publishing credit in NORTH WEST UNDERGROUND MAGAZINE and has over 200 horror fiction publishing credits since 1989, despite a six year hiatus of not submitting his work. Some of his more recent publishing credits include inclusion in HOUSE OF PAIN, SHORT SCARY TALES, LILITH'S LAIR, GOTHABILLY, SHADOW OF THE MARQUIS, HAVEN OF DARK BLOOD, GHOSTBREAKERS anthology, VAMPIRE'S REALM OF DARKNESS, SPLATTERPUNK and many more. In addition, he has also enjoyed a relatively large success in writing non-fiction, where he has had over 500 published credits since 1995.

Kailleaugh Andersson is also the co-owner and editor of Massacre Publications, which is a small press company featuring titles due in 2003/04 by such rising authors as Alex Severin, Hertzan Chimera, Rickey Windell George, Anthony Beale, C. Dennis Moore and Brian W. Cooke. In addition, Massacre Publications is also working on the release of several anthologies, most notably BLASPHEMY, which is being co-published with SST Publications.
Kailleaugh Andersson is presently trying to finish a novella entitled "BENEDICTION".
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