Festive Frights

by CW Publishing House

  “Mom, can you unlock the car for a sec?” Edward called out, and Grace agreed after a short pause. A few moments later, Edward returned with an old green scarf which he placed over the snowman, and Grace locked the car.

  “You do realize that sooner or later it’s going to melt, right?” Grace turned to Edward, but he didn’t care. He had already placed his own beanie hat on the snowman’s head.

  “I’m gonna call him Eddie, like me!” the boy said cheerfully.

  “He needs more friends,” his uncle observed.

  “He’s only ten.”

  They stood in silence for a while.

  “It never stops snowing around Christmas, here, does it?” Grace asked, pulling her elegant coat tighter around her.

  “Nope. Let’s go inside,” Jonah suggested.

  “Aren’t you going to give your uncle a hug?” Grace called out from inside the house.

  “I’m busy!”

  “He got that from his dad.” Grace spoke mostly to herself. “So, how have you been, Jon?”

  “Well, you know. Fine, mostly. Let me just finish something in the kitchen first, then I’ll make us some coffee.”

  Before Jonah reached the kitchen, Edward screamed from outside, and both Jonah and his sister rushed out to find the boy crying a few feet away from the snowman.

  “He moved!” Edward pointed.

  Grace and Jonah looked at the snowman. To them, it seemed unchanged.

  “Honey, don’t do that. You scared us to death!” Grace yelled.

  Edward ran towards his uncle, but right before reaching him he tripped over a rock. If Jonah hadn’t caught him midair he would have fallen on the ground. Concerned, holding his crying nephew in his arms, Jonah threw a last look at the snowman before they all went inside.

  That same snowy night, Jonah parked his car in the driveway of his front yard after a long but quiet patrol. Since the latest changes in the department, deputies were no longer allowed to take their patrol cars home, so he owned a small, used hybrid. Once he reached the front porch, he turned to look at Eddie the snowman. Another object seemed to have been placed next to it, but he couldn’t make what it was in the dark. Pulling the flashlight from his belt, he looked around then carefully approached the object and bent over it. It was a slingshot.

  Jonah jumped to his feet and punched the snowman in a state of frenzy. Big chunks of snow, along with every item they had used for decoration that day, scattered all around the soft, white ground. It had only taken him a few seconds to make Eddie disappear. Cold and out of breath, his knuckles hurting from having landed a punch on one of the stones, Jonah stepped back inside.

  On Christmas, Eve Jonah woke up to his cell phone ringing on the nightstand. As was his habit, he answered without checking the caller ID.

  “You’re not still in bed, are you?” Grace asked in his ear.

  “Uh, no,” he said sleepily with his eyes still closed. After the incident in the yard, he’d hardly slept at all.

  “We’ll be over in a couple hours to pick you up. Start getting ready”

  Instead of getting out of bed, he rolled over and went back to sleep.

  Jonah wasn’t sure if he had slept much, if the phone rang right after he hung up, or if it was ringing in his sleep, but he answered anyway. This time it was a nurse calling from the hospital. His old friend’s injury had been more serious than they had initially assessed. They had done all they could and there had been nothing more they could have done. He was gone. Bad luck, the nurse said, unaware of Jonah’s relation to Craig.

  Unable to go back to sleep, Jonah got out of bed and went straight to the kitchen. After he finished the remaining ready-made eggnog, he rested his hands against the sink and looked out the window. Eddie the snowman stood at the very spot in which Jonah had destroyed him the night before, in the same apparel, as if nothing had happened. The only difference was a metal miniature ambulance, half-covered in snow, which had replaced the slingshot.

  Frowning, Jonah grabbed a small shovel from a cabinet, put on his boots and coat, and rushed outside. As he marched down the yard, he found a path of snow leading up to Eddie had melted and turned to ice. Not wanting to risk a fall, Jonah was forced to halt thirty feet away from his target. Unable to use the shovel as he wished, he dropped it on the ground.

  Having come up with a new idea, Jonah went back inside, removed his service pistol from its holster, and returned outside. Facing Eddie, he raised his arm and placed a finger on the trigger.

  “What are you doing?” Grace called out from the street. She sat on the passenger side of the family SUV with the window down, her husband in the driver seat and their two small children in the back. Edward waved a gloved hand at his uncle, who looked back at them, frozen on the spot. “Go get dressed. We’re going to wait with the engine running. Hurry, and don’t forget out presents!” Grace added. Jonah lowered his gun and prepared to spend Christmas Eve at his sister’s.

  Grace dropped Jonah back home later that night.

  “You know, sometimes I’m worried about you,” were her last words before she drove away, leaving him behind with snow falling on his head and coat. He hadn’t said anything back, only let her disappear into the white night.

  When Jonah turned to his yard, he saw that Eddie was still in his corner of the yard, and the shovel had been covered in snow where Jonah had left it. In an attempt to ignore the snowman, he turned to the house, then noticed something new. At the base of Eddie’s body lay a black ribbon. Jonah proceeded inside the house, leaving the door open.

  The house lights lit up. Outside, the silence was deafening. Seconds later, Jonah appeared from within, wielding his grandfather’s axe. With fierce hatred on his face, steam puffing out of his nose, and not caring whether he stepped on ice or solid ground, Jonah walked up to the snowman and raised his arms as high as he could. Without a moment’s hesitation, Jonah brought down the axe, chopping Eddie in half.

  On a white Christmas Day, Jonah jumped out of bed swiftly, got dressed, and grabbed his car keys. He grabbed a duffel bag and stormed out to his car. He placed the bag inside the car trunk, then walked up to Eddie, whom he was certain he’d find at the same spot. On the ground beside the snowman lay a picture of himself in his deputy uniform, taken on the day he graduated from the academy. Jonah frowned and tore the photo into several pieces, letting them fall all around him. Then he looked up and down the street. He didn’t want to be seen talking to a pile of snowballs.

  “What do you want from me? I don’t know what you are or where you come from, but it’s time you left me alone!” Jonah didn’t know what to expect, although he secretly hoped for the snowman to move, talk, or perform some type of trick. Nothing happened. Eddie stood still, smiling back with his stick-for-a-mouth, unmoved by the man’s breakdown. Jonah shook his head and turned around.

  It did not take long for the engine to warm up. Jonah maneuvered his car to face the snowman head on. With white-knuckled hands on the wheel and foot on the gas, he drove into the snowman. Nothing could possibly have prepared him for what happened next.

  The snowman rose greater and stronger; he grew roots that held him fast to the ground, and his smooth skin of snow became an armor of stone. Instead of the snowman breaking into a million pieces, the front of Jonah’s car broke into a million pieces of metal.

  Jonah saw his last moments pass him by as though in slow motion. He flew through the windshield and landed in an abnormal position on the ground. Lying motionless with his eyes wide open, a pool of blood emerged beneath his lifeless body and trickled towards the snowman, who absorbed it all with his newly grown roots. Once there was nothing left, a light wind blew against the snowman’s head and small whirlwinds appeared on the ground around him. Content, the snowman began to melt.

  Ten years ago

  At last, school was out for Christmas. Mount Gordonville children of all ages looked forward to Santa Claus, made snow angels in the park, decorated their rooms with paper snowflakes, wrapped g
ifts in the clumsiest way possible, learned to ice skate, met the strangest relatives in the family, and forgot all about their homework. Above all, they enjoyed themselves, no matter how the grownups complained about the snow every single year.

  A group of teenagers had agreed to meet at a small park by an intersection; the place they usually went when they had a lot of free time to kill. Due to school and other activities, from extra classes to new video games, they could not meet every week like they once had, but that made their time together even more valuable. Especially during the holidays.

  “Gotcha!” Fletcher laughed, having hit his slow-moving target.

  “This game is stupid. I wanna do something else.” The boy, wearing his long black hair in a ponytail, brushed the snow off his hooded, goose-down jacket.

  “Like what, dummy?” The third boy threw another snowball at his friend and adjusted his hair.

  They traded throwing snowballs for wrestling in the snow. The winners were always the same and always easily forgotten, since nobody kept score. Once they tired of running around, they rested their backs against a large tree, decorated with Christmas lights and ornaments.

  “Let’s build a snowman.” Fletcher had already started building one when he suggested it. At first the others refused, saying snowmen were for kids, but they eventually gave their tall blonde friend instructions on how to improve him. Before they knew it, they had all built a classic three-ball snowman together.

  “Check this out.” Fletcher aimed a snowball at the snowman but missed. The others laughed.

  “Wait, I’ll show you how it’s done.” The boy with the ponytail shaped a chunk of snow into a medium-sized baseball and hit the snowman in the head. They all cheered, repeating the process every time they landed an impressive hit. Whenever the eyes flew off or when the sticks broke in half, the boys replaced them immediately.

  Then Fletcher came up with an idea. “Yo, Pepper Face, why don’t you hit it with your slingshot, see what happens?”

  “Sure.” The boy grimaced, then pulled the slingshot out of his backpack and stood a few feet away from his friends. A perfect shot of snow landed between the snowman’s eyes. They cheered.

  “We need more firepower. Use a stone or something,” Ponytail suggested. They all looked around for a nice stone worth casting.

  “Here.” The boy with the slingshot held up a pointy, orange-black stone.

  “Is that petrified wood?” Ponytail asked.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Do you see any petrified forests around?” Fletcher laughed.

  “Watch and learn, guys.” The boy placed the object in the slingshot’s leather pouch, then folded it. He stretched the rubber band with his good hand, pulled the pouch up to his cheek, and aimed horizontally at the snowman’s arm. He closed one eye and let go of the pouch, following the trajectory with his gaze.

  The stone found its target and broke the stick, but instead of ending its journey there it travelled past the snowman and onto the street. At the same time, a matte blue sedan passed by the park, its driver completely unaware of the object flying towards the vehicle. There was nothing the boys could do but watch as the object disappeared into the open window.

  Instantly, the car skidded aimlessly on the road, then smashed sideways into the decorated tree the boys had been resting by just moments ago. Metal and rubber flew in the air and the airbags opened. Tissues, pairs of children’s gloves, a small blanket, and colorful plush toys scattered on the frozen grass around the tree. Nobody called for help from within, and nobody came out. Inside, two children, seven and three years old, would have been saved had someone gone to them. But the teenagers, in their panic to escape the wreckage they had caused, ran away in different directions as fast as they could. They ran and ran without looking back. They never looked back.

  About Elefthera Chrysochoou

  Eleftheria Chrysochoou lives in Athens, Greece.

  She started writing stories as a child and her growing love for writing eventually led her to pursue a degree in English & Literature. She has been a video game reviewer since the mid 2000’s, a translator for nearly the same number of years, and recently became a qualified English language teacher. After a year of engineering studies in England and a few years of living in Sweden, she currently lives in her home country and never takes a single day for granted.

  Snowmonster

  By Kaylee Kosakowski

  “I don’t want to go inside!”

  “Leah, sweetheart, you’ll get sick if you stay out any longer.”

  “I’m eleven, mom!” she yelled back. “And Sam is still out here.”

  “Leah!”

  “God.”

  Watching silently as Leah shot him a sad and annoyed look, Sam wanted to clench his fists. It wasn’t fair that she had to go. They had been having so much fun; he never felt happier than when Leah smiled and ran around. Despite the longer nights and shorter days, everything became brighter when she was there. Eyes watering from the harsh wind and face delicately dusted in rose from the cold, she was by far the prettiest human he had ever seen.

  Everything about her captivated him, from the way she would cutely sniffle to the way she would hum to herself as she fixed his scarf. In fact, there were times he was convinced that, even in the frigid weather, he would melt simply by being near her. She radiated warmth from head to toe, inside-out. He had seen many people in his life, and none even compared to her.

  To say that he was in love with her would be incorrect. Love implied an emotional attachment of the heart, which was something he was incapable of—his adoration of her was out of pure, unwavering devotion. He would always pick her side, always defend her, and always go after others even if she was in the wrong. His entire existence revolved around her, for she was his sun and he lusted after Mercury in hopes of being closest to her. There wasn’t a single thing about him not focused on her. He was hers, and it was his life’s mission to make her his.

  Even though he was not much older than her, he had watched her grow up. She had only been a child when she had become the center of his fixation. He could remember her small hands gently packing the snow of his body together. They had been smaller than they were now, but just as caring and just as perfect. She completed him, both literally when she dressed him in his favorite old hat and hand-me-down scarf, and figuratively. When she had named him Sam, she had brought him to life.

  It was her who had sealed their bond.

  The end of the winter brought random warm spells, but as all the other children’s creations withered away, he remained. If he were capable of laughter, he would have laughed at the confused look on faces of Leah’s parents as they found him standing tall during those random heat spells, his typical, jovial smile carefully placed on his face. Leah pronounced it was magic—that it was because the spirit of Christmas loved her that Sam existed.

  That’s what he had believed, too, until he melted for the first time.

  He had learned, once the warm temperatures came and consistently remained consistent, that he was subject to the reality of his composition. As his body had disintegrated into nothing, he had worried what would become of his memories—of his precious Leah. That first Christmas many years ago, he had been nothing more than a friend.

  The time that had passed between the winters was a dark blank, almost as if he didn’t experience the time passing from the previous winter to the next; his life began and ended with Leah.

  When she had built him that second winter, he was overwhelmed by just how much he had missed her. Every flake creating him rejoiced in happiness to see her again. He could finally see his best friend.

  But something had changed.

  It wasn’t her or her other friends—no, it had been something deep down within him. It was as if something dormant within his soul had started to awaken. It was a strange feeling, one which at that point he could only classify as “being upset.”

  With each year passing until now, it had only grown stronger. Init
ially, Sam had tried to fight off the foreign feeling. He hated the strange irritation he felt whenever Leah’s parents would call her in for the night, or when her friends would say, “let’s play at my house.” What had originally been a small flicker of annoyance had morphed into a possessiveness so innate he had forgotten what it was like to just innocently be friends.

  Leah was his.

  And he would have her.

  He had started to make her his own.

  The first time it happened, her friends had declared a snowball fight. It had been every man for himself—pretty fair odds—but when they started to tag team against Leah, he lost it. More than possessiveness had awoken within him, it seemed, for he had managed to trip the kids as they took their aim. They were only children; some small part of his being whispered that he should have felt bad, but when Leah proclaimed her victory, any inkling of guilt had been replaced by pride; he had helped her.

  And he would continue to do so.

  The next time it happened, her father had told her it was time to stop playing and go eat. Sam and Leah had been having a really good day—she fixed his hat, his scarf and his mittens. The look of devastation that had marred her face ignited a fury within him he had never known—at that point in his existence, it had been solely about making Leah happy. It had been a windy day, and with each snowflake on the lawn as an extension of his being, he cast the snow in the gusts that whipped the man. It had only gained him an extra minute with her, but he had hoped it might serve as a warning.

  It hadn’t.

  No one had seemed to learn Leah was his, and over the following years his desire to help her warped from him wanting her to be happy to him wanting her.

  His attacks became more brutal. From freezing her mother’s work car to the ground to coating the mirrors in a thick layer of ice, he wanted them gone. They served no other purpose than separating Leah from him.