Childhood Fears
Page 34
“Keep him steady,” he told Anna. “Let’s get him home.”
Anders took Jake’s and Nick’s hands and started walking, his mind already on what the morning would bring. The boys—and their parents—would be changed greatly by the events of the night. Would Anna forgive him for everything that happened? Or would she blame him for all the boys’ problems down the road too?
Did he deserve that blame?
I did what I promised. I brought them home alive. Whatever happens—
A long, rumbling growl echoed through the streets. Anders looked back, expecting to find a truck or plow heading toward them.
Instead, he saw a large shadow slide between two houses across the road. A bloodcurdling wail followed a moment later. No. Not here.
“Run,” he told the boys, letting go of their hands.
“Grandpa?” Nick looked up at him, his eyes wide.
“Run. All of you. Run!”
Anders swatted Jake in the rear and he let out a yelp.
“Now! It’s the Jólaköttur.”
Anna pushed Paul forward. “Listen to him!”
“What?” He looked around.
“The Yule Cat.” As if in response to its name, the angry yowling pierced the night again.
“Take Nick.” She grabbed Jake in her arms and started to run. Paul lifted Nick and followed.
“Grandpa,” Jake shouted. Anna stopped and glanced back.
“Go on,” Anders said, waving for her to keep moving. “I’ll lead it a different way and meet you at the house.”
Anna appeared ready to argue but then nodded and dashed after her husband.
Anders turned his attention back to where he’d seen the shadow. Where had it gone?
The cat leaped out from behind a garage, larger than the car in the driveway, larger than Anders remembered it. Six feet tall at the shoulder, decked out in the gray and brown of a common tabby, mouth open to show teeth capable of tearing a man in half. It covered the length of the driveway in one bound and hit the road at full speed, heading towards the street Anna and the others had taken.
“Over here, katze! Remember me? I’m the one you want.” Anders waved his arms. “Come finish what you started.”
The cat skidded to a stop and sniffed the air. It turned its head, pinning Anders with eyes that glowed like alien gemstones. It lowered the front half of its body. Anders saw the tail twitching back and forth, the muscles tensing in its forequarter.
Anders took off down the road, his heart already thumping too hard. Please, not now. Not until they’re safe. The roar of the Yule Cat shook the air and Anders was transported back in time, no longer running down a Pennsylvania street but a cobblestone road in a German village, a young boy sprinting for his life while the demon cat killed his friends.
For the first time in many years, Anders remembered what it meant to truly be alive, to experience the world with every fiber of his being. The burn of subzero air in his lungs, the crackle of mucous freezing inside his nose. His legs screaming with every stride but nowhere near ready to give up. His pulse pounding in his temples, a liquid drum that drowned out all other sounds except the howling of the beast bearing down on him. He remembered the cat’s foul breath, stinking of blood and raw meat and old, rotten flesh. He remembered the way he’d pissed himself that long-ago night and wondered if he’d do it again.
Terror heightened his senses to those of an animal. He smelled snow and chimney smoke and gingerbread and his own sweat. He tasted the winter night on his tongue, a taste so very different from any other season, bitter and almost metallic, like gaseous blood. He experienced exquisite needles of pain in individual teeth as freezing air rushed over old fillings and across receding gums.
Through it all, the diesel-truck growl of the Yule Cat bounding behind him, drawing closer every second. A race he knew he’d never win, but that didn’t matter.
They just need to get into the house. We have presents there. Anna will remember what to do with them.
Still, the will to survive remained too strong for him to just stop and let the beast rend him to pieces. Dying was not something he wanted to do, although he’d been prepared for it since the moment he made the decision to summon the Yule Elf and go to Winterwood.
A wave of hot, putrid air washed over him, letting him know his manner of death was about to be decided for him and it wouldn’t be pleasant. Despite the inevitability of getting caught, he dodged to his right, turning down a side street in the futile hope of finding a house with lights on or someone with an early morning job getting into a car.
Instead, an icy puddle waited for him.
His feet slipped away from the road and he went airborne. His body twisted around, giving him an unwanted glimpse of the Yule Cat only ten feet behind him. Then he hit the ground hard on his shoulder and thigh. Explosions of pain went off throughout his body and the air whooshed out of his lungs. Brightly colored stars clouded his vision while he slid across the pavement before coming to a stop against the curb.
By the time his sight cleared, the Yule Cat stood over him, ears pinned back, eyes narrowed, lips drawn back in a snarl. It held one paw up, and again Anders found himself traveling back in time.
The cat raising its paw, exposing claws as long as a boy’s hand. Shreds of bloody cloth hanging from them.
The cloth was brown. I didn’t notice at the time, but now I remember. Only one person had been wearing a brown jacket that night, Otto Spreckels. Although he hadn’t thought of his old friend in more than seven decades, Anders saw him clearly now through the reverse lens of time, a skinny boy with teeth like a horse and hair that refused to stay combed. No one had ever found his body or that of Heinrich Meier. No one had looked for them, either. There’d been no need. Everyone knew what happened.
There’d been no celebrating in Kappelsbad that year.
A massive blow to his ribs sent Anders tumbling across the road. So intense was the pain that it constricted his throat, rendering him unable to scream. He grabbed at his side and felt warm liquid already seeping through the torn cloth.
The Yule Cat lifted its paw again.
So like a verdammt cat, toying with its food.
“Finish it, you fotze. I’m not afraid of you, and I’m not afraid to die.” Anders wanted to say more, to antagonize the monster into delivering a merciful death blow, but he couldn’t capture enough air for the rest of his words. Instead, he lay there, sucking in wheezing breaths befouled with the bestial odors of the cat. The paw lifted higher, and Anders closed his eyes.
Please, Gott, let this be the end.
“It’s not often I hear those words spoken.” A jingling of bells accompanied the unexpected voice. Anders opened his eyes and found the Yule Elf staring down at him from atop his goat.
“You.” Anders fought for more air. “So, you’ve come to have the last laugh. Go ahead, say it. You warned me.”
“Yes, old man, I did, and you didn’t heed it. ’Tis suicide to try and rescue folk from Winterwood. Yet here you are, back from that place, your family safe and warm again. Twice you have saved them on this night.”
“And now I pay the price.” Anders coughed. “So please, let me die in peace.”
“I think not,” the Yule Elf said, and Anders groaned. So he’s going to hold a grudge after all. How fitting.
The elf pointed a tiny finger at the cat. “Leave this one alone. My protection he has.”
The cat snarled and aimed its paw towards the elf, whose eyes lit up bright red. “Go, or face my wrath.”
To Anders’s surprise, the cat acquiesced, still growling but slinking back several paces before turning and running down the street, where it disappeared into the dark.
Anders looked at the elf. “Why?”
The Julenissen lifted its shirt and vest, exposing a mass of scars that crossed each other on his ribs a
nd back.
“No love is lost between the King and me. You defeated the Wild Hunt tonight, and so earned your life. Next time, you might not be so lucky.”
“There won’t be a next time,” Anders said. “We won’t be venturing outside at night to give them—or any from Winterwood—an opportunity.”
The Yule Elf nodded. “Then I hope our paths never need cross again.” The elf slapped the goat’s neck and it sprang into the air, galloping up into the sky.
Anders watched his savior shrink to a dot, and then vanish among the twinkling stars, before pushing himself to his knees. His wounds ached something fierce, but after prodding at them, he felt confident the cat’s claws hadn’t even reached bone. He’d have new scars to match those on his other side, but he’d live.
Moaning with each step, Anders began a slow walk home.
Dec. 23, Present Day
“And that’s how we defeated the Wild Hunt and saved both your fathers.” The old man rolled down his sleeve, covering the jagged, white scar that twisted up the loose skin of his upper arm. A matching one still marred his thigh. The three girls sitting on the floor by his feet “oohed” and “ahhed” and covered their mouths, blue eyes wide above their hands.
Across the room, Kristina Willis shook her head and frowned. “I hate those stories your father tells. He turns every holiday into something dark and gloomy.”
Tammy Willis nodded her agreement with her sister-in-law’s words. “He scares them. They have nightmares. Can’t you tell him to stop?”
Nick Willis exchanged a glance with his brother, Jake.
“No, I can’t. Sometimes being scared is a good thing.”
About the Author
A life-long resident of New York’s Hudson Valley, JG Faherty is a Bram Stoker Award® and ITW Thriller Award finalist and the author of five novels, seven novellas, and more than 50 short stories. He writes adult and YA horror/sci-fi/fantasy, and his works range from quiet, dark suspense to over-the-top comic gruesomeness. He enjoys urban exploring, photography, classic B-movies, good wine, and pumpkin beer. As a child, his favorite playground was a 17th-century cemetery, which many people feel explains a lot.
You can follow him at www.twitter.com/jgfaherty, www.facebook.com/jgfaherty, and www.jgfaherty.com.
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The light of a full moon reveals many secrets.
Blood and Rain
© 2015 Glenn Rolfe
Gilson Creek, Maine. A safe, rural community. Summer is here. School is out and the warm waters of Emerson Lake await. But one man’s terrible secret will unleash a nightmare straight off the silver screen.
Under the full moon, a night of terror and death re-awakens horrors long sleeping. Sheriff Joe Fischer, a man fighting for the safety of his daughter, his sanity and his community, must confront the sins of his past. Can Sheriff Fischer set Gilson Creek free from the beast hiding in its shadows, or will a small town die under a curse it can’t even comprehend?
One night can—and will—change everything.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Blood and Rain:
Stan Springs stared at the curse in the night sky. His curse. He clenched his jaw, and bit back the grunts that demanded release from within his sweat-covered body. His muscles tightened and took turns throwing fits. He could feel his heartbeat’s thunderous barrage at work inside his heaving chest. It was only a matter of minutes before the changes would come.
He ripped his gaze from the clouds, moved away from the window and knelt down next to the bed against the concrete wall. He slipped one shaky hand beneath the mattress and found the small incision he’d made when he first arrived at the institution. He had traded a guard, a heavyset fella by the name of Harold Barnes, his prized Ted Williams rookie card in exchange for a copy of the key. Parting with this gold mine had been necessary. Stan Springs had nothing else of value with which to barter. Harold trusted him enough to make the swap; he told Stan there were crazies here by the dozen, but he could tell that Stan was not one of them.
No, Harold, I’m something far worse.
Key in hand, Stan stepped to the unlocked door and cracked it open. The hallway was clear. He moved down the corridor, as stealthily as during his heydays working on the force in New York. Hearing footfalls ahead and to his left, he fell back and pressed his large frame against the custodial door. Hidden by the entryway’s shadow, he watched Nurse Collins—a tall, thin woman with a dark complexion—pass fifty feet from where he stood, before she disappeared into the nurses’ break room.
Barefoot and dressed in only a Red Sox T-shirt and his sleeping shorts, Stan made a break for the staircase across the hall. His breaths were coming faster now. If he didn’t hurry, he wouldn’t make it outside. He crept down the steps leading to the main hallway.
Through the small window on the stairwell door, he could see Harold Barnes’s haunted jowls illuminated by the laptop screen in front of him. The old man’s eyes were closed, his mouth open. Harold hadn’t even made it an hour into his shift before he was out. Stan knew Harold also ran his own antique shop in the neighboring town of Hallowell. He’d told Stan that working both jobs on the same day, which was sometimes unavoidable, made it difficult for him on the night shift. It was another shared nugget Stan had stored away for nights like this one—the nights the beast in him needed to get out.
Easing the door open, Stan skulked his way along the shadows on the wall, and tiptoed to the main entrance door. Despite the cramps now rampaging through his calves and thighs, he slipped the procured key into the lock, slow and steady. The door clicked open, and he stepped out into the night.
As the cool breeze brushed against the sweat of his brow, the tendons and bones in his face began to shift. The rest of his body followed suit. He dropped to one knee and cried out. His skin, his scalp, his eyes, his muscles were all too tight. He reached behind him and managed to push the door shut.
If you could see me now, Harold.
The private roads out front were deserted. He launched from the building’s stairs and landed on the lawn below, making a beeline for the woods to the left of the large property.
He was twenty feet from the forest when the change hit him like a massive wave, crashing him to the ground. His muscles clenched and squeezed and tore, while the bones of his face continued to crack and grow. His teeth began to fall out in place of the monster’s. Down on all fours, he crawled to the tree cover and vomited. A mix of last night’s cafeteria meat loaf, black coffee, loose teeth, and blood splashed the ferns before him. Stan’s fingers extended as his claws dug into the soft soil of spring’s floor. He moaned and grunted his way through the rest of the fluid process.
In full beast mode, Stan Springs stood and howled at the cloud-covered sky. The creatures of the night became ghosts among the trees. He felt the strength flowing through him and the hunger begging to be sated.
He burst forward, headed north. Despite Stan’s best effort to control the beast’s killing zone, he found himself heading home.
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Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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Childhood Fears
Copyright © 2015 by Anthol
ogy
ISBN: 978-1-61922-613-5
Nightmare in Greasepaint Copyright © 2015 by L.L. Soares & G. Daniel Gunn
The Bear Who Wouldn’t Leave Copyright © 2015 by J.H. Moncrieff
Scarecrows Copyright © 2015 by Christine Hayton
Winterwood Copyright © 2015 by JG Faherty
Edited by Don D’Auria
Cover by Scott Carpenter
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: October 2015
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. print publication: October 2015
Nightmare in Greasepaint, ISBN 978-1-61922-903-7
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: May 2015
The Bear Who Wouldn’t Leave, ISBN 978-1-61922-900-6
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: May 2015
Sacrecrows, ISBN 978-1-61922-901-3
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: May 2015
Winterwood, ISBN 978-1-61922-902-0
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: May 2015
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