Archive for December, 2024
The bedroom door down the hall slammed. Now Keith could barely hear Dad’s yelling and Mom’s crying. Dad had drunk lots of the funny-smelling stuff that always made him yell and bang things around, even though it was Christmas Eve and Mom begged him to stop. He even slapped her in the face this time.
Pulling the covers up to his neck, Keith whispered to his brother in the bed on the other side of the room, “Will Santa come if they keep fighting?’
Mike whispered back, “George in my class says there’s no real Santa Claus. He says parents give all the presents.”
Mike knew things because he was in second grade, while Keith was only in kindergarten. But that couldn’t be right. “George is a liar. There is too a Santa.” Keith sat up and listened hard. Now he didn’t hear any noise from Dad and Mom’s room. “I’ll prove it. I’ll go downstairs and wait for him.”
“What if he catches you?”
Keith swallowed his fear at the thought. “So what? Maybe he’ll take me to the North Pole like the boy on the train in that movie.”
“And maybe when you get there, the abominable snow monster will eat you.”
“Will not! Santa wouldn’t let that happen.” Keith slipped out of bed and tiptoed across the room, the floorboards cold on his bare feet. He eased the door open and peeked into the hall. Everything was quiet.
He crept along the hall and down the stairs by the dim, multicolored light from the Christmas tree. In the living room, he squeezed behind the couch, with just enough room for him to hide. After a while, his legs cramped, and his eyelids drooped . . . .
The jingle of bells jolted him awake.
He peeked around the edge of the couch, trying not to show himself any more than he could help.
There was Santa Claus with his red suit and white beard, just like in books and TV shows! He paused in filling the stockings above the electric fireplace and slowly turned around. “Ho, ho, ho! Who’s there?’
Trembling, Keith held his breath.
“I know you’re here. You might as well come out.”
Keith crawled from his hiding place and stood on shaky legs.
“Have you been a good little boy all year?”
Keith nodded. Well, mostly good.
“What are you doing awake? What do you want?”
He remembered all the toys he’d told Mom to write in his letter to Santa. Then he thought about his parents’ fight. “I want to go to the North Pole for Christmas, where there’s no yelling and hitting.”
Santa said with a broad smile, “Do you want to stay there with all the toys and candy and treats you could ever dream of? And visit my workshop and help me make gifts for all the good children?”
Keith nodded again. He’d like to stay in that kind of place for now, anyway.
“Ho, ho, ho, wonderful! Come with me, then.” He held out a gloved hand.
Keith wrapped his arms around himself. “But I don’t have a coat or boots or mittens or anything.”
“I promise you won’t need them. You’ll get just what you want.” Santa grabbed Keith’s hand, and cozy warmth instantly covered him like an invisible blanket. The room turned fuzzy. In a swirl of sparkles, it faded away.
For a minute his head spun with dizziness. The next minute, he found himself in a field of snow with Santa still holding onto him.
A huge gingerbread house decorated with giant candy canes stood before him. The North Pole workshop, exactly the way he’d imagined. The wide doors swung open by themselves. Santa led him into a high-ceilinged room.
Jingle bell music and smells of gingerbread and peppermint filled the air. Colorful lights on trees twice as tall as a man dazzled him. Piles of packages from tiny to gigantic, decorated with shiny paper and bows, lined the walls. Elves in green outfits bustled around, wrapping more presents. Santa didn’t give Keith much time to stare at everything but hurried him through another door.
This room had bare walls, a concrete floor, and white light that burned his eyes. Clattering and clanging of machines hurt his ears. When he turned around, Santa said in a strange, mean voice, “Here’s my workshop.” He slammed the door, shutting Keith inside.
He scanned the room. Elves watched a row of kids hunched over long tables that moved like the checkout counter in a grocery store. Mostly wearing pajamas or nightgowns, the children worked on toys that crawled past them on the moving strip.
An elf who must be the boss waved at Keith. “Hey, you, get over here!” When Keith stumbled closer, the elf shoved him onto a stool next to a blonde girl who looked about the same age as Keith’s brother. Her dingy nightgown was full of holes “Show the new kid the ropes, and be quick about it.”
Keith glanced from side to side, confused. “What’s going on?”
“What does it look like?” the girl said. “We’re putting toys together. You’ll be fitting the heads on dolls like I do.” Headless, naked dolls streamed by. The girl picked a head out of an overflowing box and screwed it onto a plastic body. “Like that.”
“But what about the treats and toys we’re supposed to get?”
The girl said, “At every break, we have gingerbread, candy canes, and apple cider. Trust me, you’ll get sick of them. And we can play with toys at sleep time, if we’re not too worn out by then.” She handed him a doll and a head. “Start working so we won’t hold up the assembly line. The elves don’t like that.”
“Santa promised nobody would yell or hit here.”
“They won’t. They do worse things.” She shuddered. “You don’t want to know.”
“How long do I have to stay?”
She shrugged. “Maybe forever. I can’t remember exactly how long I’ve been seven years old.”
Tears overflowed his eyes. “But Santa promised.”
“So? Did he promise you would enjoy it?”
-end-
Welcome to the December 2024 issue of my newsletter, “News from the Crypt,” and please visit Carter’s Crypt, devoted to my horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance work, especially focusing on vampires and shapeshifting beasties. If you have a particular fondness for vampires, check out the chronology of my series in the link labeled “Vanishing Breed Vampire Universe.”
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
To subscribe to this monthly newsletter, please e-mail me at MLCVamp@aol.com, and I will add you to the list.
For other web links of possible interest, please scroll to the end.
Wishing you joyous winter holidays!
No interview this month.
Below is an excerpt from my 2021 Christmas e-book novella, “Chocolate Chip Charm,” which you can find here:
Stacy hears that her old boyfriend, Rob, has broken up with her best friend, whom he was dating. Wanting the best for them, she playfully decides to try a love potion recipe, which she adds to the dough of the cookies she’s baking for the church choir Christmas party. Although it probably won’t work, it can’t hurt, either, can it?
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
EMORY’S GIFT, by W. Bruce Cameron. I’ve enjoyed all of Cameron’s dog adventures that I’ve read, especially the trilogy beginning with A DOG’S PURPOSE. Emory, however, is a grizzly bear. Unlike the dog novels, this book doesn’t include any scenes from the animal’s viewpoint. At the age of thirteen, Charlie, whose mother has recently died, meets a bear that appears more than an ordinary beast, almost preternaturally so. The narrative begins, however, with a framing prologue set twenty-five years later, when Charlie has grown up to be a professional zoologist with an ursine specialty. Without this perspective, I would have found the early chapters of the main story almost too sad to continue reading. The prologue and epilogue let us know that (1) Emory definitely doesn’t behave like a typical bear, and (2) in the long run Charlie and his father will turn out all right. In the summer before Charlie starts the eighth grade, shortly after his mother’s death, his dad withdraws into depression and barely interacts with the boy. While walking alone in the woods, Charlie runs across a grizzly bear and remembers wildlife-encounter strategies he learned from his father in happier times. This animal, though, doesn’t act threatening. After Charlie introduces himself to the strangely docile beast and writes his own name with a stick on the ground, the bear scratches the name “Emory” in the dirt. As days and weeks go on, Charlie progresses from feeding the bear to sheltering him in an unused storage shed. Meanwhile, in addition to keeping this secret, Charlie copes with his strained father-son relationship and the school bully who persecutes him. Evidence of Emory’s uniqueness accumulates, eventually convincing Charlie’s father that the bear is no ordinary animal. I found it hard to suspend disbelief in a sapient grizzly bear until the introduction of a paranormal element that makes the premise plausible, at least on its own terms. When Emory’s presence becomes known to the neighbors and the sheriff, wildlife officials appear on the scene, determined to relocate the bear or even euthanize him. He becomes a local celebrity. At the climax, a newsworthy standoff develops between Emory’s defenders and the authorities trying to take him away. After he’s gone (I’m being deliberately vague to avoid spoilers) and the excitement dies down, prevailing opinion holds that Emory must have been an escaped circus bear or that the entire long episode was an elaborate hoax. Only Charlie and his father know the truth. In later years, even Charlie has occasional doubts, but not enough to undercut his faith in the miracle that got him through the worst period of his life, bridging the chasm between his father and himself. His suffering the loss, in a sense, of both parents at once and finding comfort in his strange bond with a wild animal make the story deeply moving. The vivid descriptions of their semi-rural home and the surrounding landscape enhance the emotional intensity.
MY THREE DOGS, by W. Bruce Cameron. This variation on the “lost pets finding their way home” trope contains so many heart-wrenching incidents that I sneaked a peek at the final pages to make certain everything turns out right in the long run. No worries, Cameron never lets his readers down in that respect. Still, the book puts the titular dogs through a series of harrowing ordeals. With a bachelor owner named Liam, the dogs are Australian Shepherd Riggs, Jack Russell Terrier Luna, and Labradoodle Archie, a half-grown puppy rescued by Liam from a neglectful caretaker. When the main story begins (after a prologue introducing Liam and his brother), Liam lives with Sabrina, the first woman he’s been truly in love with, Luna’s special person. Liam’s brother, Brad, who has basically taken care of his younger sibling from their dysfunctional childhood on, doesn’t trust Sabrina not to let his brother down like every other relationship in the past. Liam buys fixer-upper houses, which he remodels and resells. Sabrina, discontented with this unsettled lifestyle, longs for stability. Just as Liam decides to make a certain house a permanent home and propose marriage, a catastrophic event derails his plans. This much we learn from the cover blurb. Again, I’m leaving the details vague because they’d involve too much of a spoiler. Suffice it to say that the dogs end up in a shelter and eventually get adopted into different homes, some less successful than others. Through the heroic efforts of Riggs, determined to reunite the “pack” and return to their person, the dogs find each other. Making their way back to Liam, however, proves even more difficult. The narrative’s alternation among various human and canine viewpoints provides a nice balance between the dogs’ naïve, limited, yet emotionally gripping concept of their plight and the broader perspective we get from the human characters’ experiences. Some readers may feel the plot depends a bit too much on coincidence, but it never stretches far enough to destroy suspension of disbelief. I got the sense that the setting is geographically compact enough to make the dogs’ ability to sniff out each other and their old home credible. In this new novel, Cameron gives us another of the realistically difficult yet ultimately feel-good adventures his fans expect, with his customary deep dive into a canine view of the world.
DARK CARNIVAL, by Ray Bradbury. This book is Bradbury’s first story collection, published in 1947, long out of print, and virtually unobtainable for most of that time. The one exception, a 2001 limited edition from Gauntlet Press, is almost entirely sold out, and the publisher’s website lists a price range of $500 to $1,000. The new release from HarperCollins is an affordable trade paperback. My one disappointment consists of the absence of any editorial material – no introduction or other commentary, not even bibliographic information about the individual stories’ original publication dates and venues. Still, I was thrilled to finally obtain this long-coveted, almost mythical work. Many of the twenty-seven tales, but not all, were reprinted in THE OCTOBER COUNTRY, the collection that made me a Bradbury enthusiast in my early teens. Some stories in DARK CARNIVAL were completely new to me. My favorite in this volume, however, remains “The Homecoming,” the debut of the delightfully creepy Elliott clan of vampires, werewolves, and witches. Like the Addams family, they share a strong kinship bond and project an impression that they consider themselves, rather than mundanes, the normal ones. To my surprise, this originally collected version contains unfamiliar material deleted from the reprint in THE OCTOBER COUNTRY. DARK CARNIVAL includes several other Elliott stories (but not one of the most poignant, “April Witch”). Every Bradbury fan will want to own it, and most devotees of the supernatural and fantastic unfamiliar with his short fiction will surely find something to please them here.
SOUTHERN FRIED CTHULHU, edited by James Palmer. As you might guess, this is an anthology of Lovecraft Mythos stories set in the American South. From the title and the cartoonish cover illustration, I expected mostly humorous tales. On the contrary, very few are, although many of the dark stories contain quirky touches. “The Dukes of Azathoth County,” by Michael Gordon, is one of the funny pieces. Another is “Off the Eatin’ Path,” by Mark Finn, in the form of a restaurant review. An installment in the “Bubba the Monster Hunter” series, by John G. Hartness, set in a sewage-treatment plant, is apparently meant to be funny; I found the scatological alleged humor more disgusting than amusing. Among the dark stories, I especially like “Deep Roots,” by Clay Gilbert, a variation on the archetypal Gothic trope of inheriting a strange old house with dark secrets. I was mildly surprised not to find a single work based on the Louisiana portion of Lovecraft’s ‘Call of Cthulhu.” Two complaints about the format of this trade paperback: Oddly, the authors’ names aren’t listed with their stories in the table of contents, and the typeface, in my opinion, is both too light and too small. However, most HPL fans would probably find this anthology worth reading.
For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
*****
Excerpt from “Chocolate Chip Charm”:
The page was labeled, “To Awaken Love.” She scanned the list of ingredients. Nothing harmful or likely to ruin the taste of the cookies, just ordinary kitchen supplies such as cinnamon for heat, ginger for spiciness and protection, honey for sweetness, and cardamom to allegedly make the user irresistible. Sounds like flavoring for a mince pie. In fact, it sounded too simple to be magic, if there was such a thing. Reading on, she found a note at the bottom stating that passionate intention and a firm will were the most important components. The instructions finished with a charm to recite while mixing the potion. For best results, she should brew it in spring water. Okay, she had a plastic jug of that on hand.
The directions admonished the spellcaster to work with pure motives, seeking the best for the other person, not applying coercion. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m not trying to force them into anything. I only want what’s best for them.
With that mindset, trying a magic spell couldn’t be evil, could it? Besides, her grandmother wasn’t the type to dabble in anything morally dubious.
Stacy reread the whole thing once more, searching for any hidden trap of the kind that always seemed to lurk in fairy-tale enchantments. From all she’d read or heard, magic, like gaming, law, and computer programming, followed rules. This example of it looked safe enough, guaranteeing that the one who consumed the potion would fall in love with the next suitable person he or she saw. Suitable. Good, she’d run no risk of Rob’s developing a mad crush on the church office’s resident cat, like Titania and donkey-headed Bottom in Midsummer Night’s Dream. On the farfetched assumption that this enchantment worked, it couldn’t do any harm. Furthermore, the spell manual claimed the charm would wear off after seven days. In that time, the magical kick-start, if any, should revitalize Rob and Doreen’s mutual affection.
The recipe said to heat the water and pour it over the other ingredients to steep them. Unfortunately, the directions failed to include amounts. Filling a one-cup measure with bottled water, Stacy wondered how much of each spice went with a cup of liquid. I’ll just have to guess and hope the exact proportions aren’t critical. While the water heated in the microwave, she returned to the cookie dough. By the time she’d combined the dry ingredients and chocolate chips with liquid components, then stirred the mixture to even, lump-free thickness, the water for the potion was near boiling.
Deciding on a teaspoon of each flavoring, she scooped them into a sturdy mug and poured in the hot water. The aroma of the spice blend blossomed in the air. After stirring in a spoonful of honey, she inhaled a deep breath of the fragrance.
Pure intentions, she reminded herself. Strong will. She stared into the receptacle with the fiercest concentration she could muster. Okay, I will this magic to give Rob and Doreen the happiness they deserve.
With both hands cupped around the mug, she recited the prescribed incantation, altering the pronouns to invoke the charm on her friends rather than herself: “Be still, clear water. Bring tranquility to their love. Send them understanding of their true wills. Immerse them in the depths of their oneness, so that their troubles may end. So mote it be.”
A wave of lightheadedness swept over her. Her vision blurred, and her fingertips tingled. Rob’s image floated before her mind’s eye…tousled black hair, blue eyes with laugh wrinkles at the corners. A glow like noonday sunlight on a hot beach at midsummer suffused her, with a melting sensation in the pit of her stomach. Whoa! Just good friends, remember? Seconds later, her head cleared. She carefully set the hot cup on the counter. Did something just happen? Glancing around, she saw only the same old cream-colored walls, which needed repainting, the twenty-year-old stove and refrigerator, and the water-spotted sink. Doesn’t look a bit magical, does it? Those sensations must have come from the steam blowing in my face.
-end of excerpt-
*****
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“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter