The Thirteenth Day of Christmas and Other Tales of Yuletide Horror

By David Allen Voyles

Remember that line from "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year"? "There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago." Telling ghost stories during the Yuletide season was a popular tradition during Victorian times, and David Allen Voyles revives the tradition with his collection of twelve original, frightening ghost tales and one novella, all set in the Christmas season. You'll find a wide array of supernatural entities within The Thirteenth Day of Christmas and Other Tales of Yuletide Horror, from traditional ghosts to modern twists on familiar Christmas characters like Santa and Krampus. You'll travel to a modern hotel in the Arctic Circle that's made entirely of ice, as well as to a nineteenth century village in Bulgaria whose citizens have a unique yearly ritual with an enigmatic toymaker. There are ghostly mysteries to be solved, wicked children to be punished, haunted graveyards, possessed dolls, and even a humorous account of Santa's visit to a haunted house on Christmas Eve. So turn down the lights, grab a cup of eggnog, and light the Yule log as you prepare to read these Christmas ghost stories. Just remember as you read them, you can cry and you can pout, but one thing is for sure--you better watch out!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gestalt Media
• Release date: Nov 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781951535155

Book preview

The Thirteenth Day

of Christmas

and Other Tales of Yuletide Horror

TEXT COPYRIGHT © 2019 by David Allen Voyles

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, stored in a database and / or published in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-951535-14-8 (print)

ISBN: 978-1-951535-15-5 (ebook)

First paperback printing July 2019

Second paperback printing November 2019

For Ann.

I couldn’t do this without you.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

The Christmas Present

The Toymaker

Christmas Eve in the Graveyard

Last Minute Shopping

The Haunted Belfry

You Better Watch Out

Up on the Rooftop

In the Flesh Appearing

The Bloody Wall

A Promise Kept

O, Christmas Tree

Santa and the Haunted House

The Thirteenth Day of Christmas

A Word from the Author

Preface

I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE probably thinking. You wrote a collection of horror stories for Christmas? Are you serious?

Well, to be honest, it's not an original idea. Telling ghost stories during the Yuletide season was a popular tradition during Victorian times. And if you're a fan of horror, you've got to hand it to the Victorians. They embraced death like no other age.

They photographed their dead loved ones, including children, in poses as if they were alive. Locks of hair from the beloved dead were sometimes incorporated into pieces of art and jewelry. The desire for contact with those who had died led to the popularity of seances that often included actors posing as spirits, elaborate methods of creating fake ectoplasm, and of course, floating objects. (Remember the tambourine, harp, and other musical instruments dangling in the air in Madame Leota's familiar scene in Disney's haunted mansion?)

It's no wonder then that one of the favorite Victorian pastimes during the Yuletide season was telling scary stories. Perhaps you've wondered about that line from It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year? You know the one. There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is primarily a ghost story, after all.

So in that wonderful Victorian tradition, I offer The Thirteenth Day of Christmas and Other Tales of Yuletide Horror, a collection of twelve original short stories plus a novella. Why twelve stories, not counting the novella, you might ask? To correspond with the familiar twelve days of Christmas immortalized in song. So instead of giving your lover a ridiculous gift like eight maids a-milking, on the eighth day of Christmas, you can read the eighth story in this collection together. Or you can read all of them by yourself on the Fourth of July for all I care. I'm just a sucker for tradition.

You'll find a wide array of supernatural entities within these tales, from traditional ghosts to modern twists on familiar Christmas characters like Santa and Krampus.

You'll travel to a modern hotel in the Arctic Circle that's made entirely of ice (that's actually a thing, look it up), as well as to a nineteenth century village in Bulgaria whose citizens have a unique yearly ritual with an enigmatic toymaker. There are ghostly mysteries to be solved, wicked children to be punished, haunted graveyards, possessed dolls, and even a humorous account of Santa's visit to a haunted house on Christmas Eve.

So turn down the lights, grab a cup of eggnog, and light the Yule log as you prepare to read these Christmas ghost stories. Just remember as you read them, you can cry and you can pout, but one thing is for sure—you better watch out!

DAV, 2019

The Christmas Present

JACKIE GRINNED AS HE spied a glimpse of telltale red and green wrapping paper in the darkest corner of his parents’ closet.

What amateurs!

Jackie delighted in finding the Christmas presents his parents hid from their children, but it was hard to tell whether he took greater pleasure in discovering the contents of his own presents or in spoiling the surprise for his younger sister. This year was going to be special, though. This year he planned to reveal the great parental hoax of Santa Claus.

He had it all planned out. Jackie knew that simply telling Sara that there was no such thing as dear ol’ Saint Nick would likely result in three things: a tearful display of childish denials, her flight to their parents for reassurance and confirmation of the myth, and in the end, punishment for him. No, the best method by far would be to discover Sara’s present from Santa and reveal its existence (and of course, its contents) before Christmas Eve. And here was this year’s Christmas cache—discovered in the very first place Jackie looked!

As Jackie gathered the shiny packages marked from Santa into a cleared space in the center of the closet, he almost overlooked one package altogether. The dark package, wrapped entirely in black paper and ribbon and sitting slightly apart from the other gifts, was almost invisible in the gloom of the closet light.

Awesome!

Forgetting for the moment the traditionally wrapped presents in red and green, he picked up the small, black package and examined it carefully.

To Jackie,

with wishes for a truly special Christmas

And for once they got someone else to write the tag, Jackie thought with a rare sense of appreciation.

Normally Jackie patiently unwrapped and re-wrapped the presents with such skill that on Christmas morning not even the suspicious eye of his mother could detect that the presents had been opened previously. This time, however, Jackie’s fingers trembled slightly as they sought a tiny bit of protruding tape with which he might begin his secretive task. When he found exactly the right spot, he took a deep breath and slowly released it to steady himself, and then expertly pulled on one side flap of the gift so that the adhesive tape came loose without tearing the black paper. Once that flap was released, it was relatively simple to open up that side of the present. Jackie lifted the gift with one hand, and tilting it, slid the box out of its paper, leaving most of the wrapping so that it retained its shape even without its contents.

Perfect! I can check out my gift, slide the goods back in, tape it up, and no one will ever know.

The wooden box was as black as the paper covering it except for the gold flowing script on the lid which read Nightmare Box.

Very cool! Much cooler than the lame gifts they usually get me. But what the heck is a nightmare box?

Jackie's heart pounded as he tilted the box and eyed it from every side, and he reveled in the excitement the mysterious box offered him. With a strange mixture of hope and dread, Jackie lifted the lid from the box and frowned as he saw only darkness within.

At first he thought that he couldn’t make out what was inside the package due to the gloom of the closet and the dark interior of the box, but when he turned it over to dump its contents on the floor before him, nothing fell out. Looking more closely, he could see that the box was empty.

What a rip-off!

Jackie threw the box against the closet wall so hard it left a dent in the drywall. His anger still unabated, he grabbed the black wrapping paper with both hands, wadded it into a ball, and threw it as hard as he had thrown the box even though its contact with the wall was not as satisfying.

Once his tantrum had subsided into mere anger, he gathered the paper and the box and carried them to the large garbage can in the kitchen and plunged them beneath a mound of coffee grounds, cantaloupe rinds, and wet paper towels.

He returned to the closet and stood before the pile of red and green Christmas presents that he had slung out of way before. His anger began to grow within him again, and he drew back his foot ready to give them several vicious kicks, but then stopped at the last second.

If I smash the other gifts I won’t get anything for Christmas. Ever.

He gathered up the presents and shoved them back to the corner of the closet with none of the caution he had used previously, not really caring if his parents suspected he had been snooping or not. He didn’t care any longer about spoiling his sister’s belief in Santa Claus; instead he merely nursed his anger, believing that he had been made the butt of his parents’ cruel joke.

What kind of sick jerks would do this their kid? I hope to God I was adopted.

That night when Jackie fell asleep, he learned that the Nightmare Box had been anything but empty.

WITHOUT REALIZING HOW he had gotten there, Jackie found himself walking down a street that was eerily familiar. The details of the buildings and shop window displays seemed sharper and clearer than they should have been. Every tiny pockmark in the mortar around each brick stood out in the bright, clean sunlight. Even the tiny iridescent droplets on the recently watered poinsettias caught his eye. It was as if every object had received a coating of magic Technicolor paint from the brush of a Disney artist.

Like the vacation resort, the town streets were almost too perfect. No trash littered the sidewalks; no graffiti was sprayed on the walls of the tidy alleys he passed. The awnings projecting from the fronts of the shops were in pristine condition. The people Jackie passed as he walked down the wide sidewalk all smiled pleasantly as they walked or chatted politely to each other, although none of them seemed to notice Jackie at all.

Jackie walked along in a daze, uncertain of where he was going but not uncomfortable with being swept along with the flow of people around him. As he looked ahead of him down the seemingly unending sidewalk, Jackie noticed a dark figure far in the distance. It appeared to be a man dressed all in black with an old-fashioned top hat.

A tingling crept up Jackie’s spine as he noticed that the man advancing toward him moved at an unnatural pace—one out of synch with the townspeople walking beside him. He walked in slow motion, as if he were enveloped in a bubble of time that separated him from the environment around him. As the figure approached, Jackie could discern his dark features. Small, black eyes peered intently beneath arched brows that met in the center to form a winged V. A dark goatee framed grinning, thin lips. The rich, red lining of the full black cape billowing behind him caught the sunlight as he walked in purposeful, long, slow strides.

The people walking toward the dark figure, engrossed in their own conversations and thoughts, did not appear to notice him but instinctively flowed around him as a school of fish might effortlessly glide around a rock in the middle of a stream. The man’s gaze seemed to be locked on Jackie, for he looked neither right nor left but peered without blinking directly ahead. A sense of panic seized Jackie. He knew that he had been singled out of the crowd by this menacing figure and that this recognition was not good.

Jackie stopped abruptly and turned around, looking behind him for a possible means of escape. A street to the left offered some promise. As he ran against the flow of the crowd, people seemed totally oblivious that a boy was running for his life right past them. They chatted with each other or walked pleasantly along and parted smoothly as he approached without noticing him, just as others had streamed past the ominous, caped man previously.

Jackie ran at full throttle around the corner, glancing behind him to see if his pursuer had increased his own speed. He turned back to face forward and just barely stopped himself before smashing into an A-shaped sidewalk sign positioned right in the middle of the sidewalk that announced FREE MAGIC SHOW INSIDE in garish red letters set against a gold background.

Jackie realized that he had stopped in front of an old-fashioned movie house, the kind he had seen in black-and-white movies on TV. No one sat behind the ticket booth window, so he yanked open both of the black doors to the theater entrance and ran into the darkness of the small lobby, hoping that the caped man had not turned the corner in time to see him.

Oddly enough, Jackie’s eyes needed no time to adjust to the dark interior of the movie house in spite of the bright sunshine he had just left. He winced and wrinkled his nose at the sharp smell of rancid butter and burnt popcorn. The black, red-trimmed carpet and red walls possessed the same surreal quality as the dream-world outside; they glowed with a richness seen only in films. The silent lobby was empty of both customers and employees; the candy bars and drinks in the unattended concession stand were there for the taking. On either side of the lobby a pair of matched, curving staircases led to the balcony.

Jackie ran up the stairs to the left, his footsteps making no sound on the worn black carpet. Upon reaching the second floor he saw a black door before him.

A dark balcony—maybe he won’t look up here!

Jackie saw in the dim light that shot upward from dragon-shaped sconces along the walls that the empty balcony was divided by two aisles into three sections, the center section being the largest. He walked to the front of the balcony, eventually coming to a brass railing that ran along the top of the parapet from which he could survey the seats on the first floor.

Below him people sat perfectly still, unnaturally still, in groups of twos and threes about the auditorium, waiting with extreme solemnity for the show to begin. Jackie heard the familiar sounds of people laughing softly and talking in the low voices one expected before a movie or play, but everywhere Jackie looked, the men, women, and children sat as still as statues. With his skin crawling and a sick feeling in his stomach, Jackie chose a seat in the first row of the middle section.

At least from here I can see nearly everything and make a quick escape if I need to.

The walls of the theater were papered with a deep red background that was given texture by a raised pattern of ornately curled black shapes. Jackie had never cared about wallpaper designs before, but his eyes were drawn to these figures. Suddenly he realized that the red spaces within the black shapes resembled skulls.

The closed crimson curtains at the front of the theater displayed an excessive amount of gold fringe that seemed gaudy, even to Jackie. Two sets of steps on either side of the stage provided access to the performing area from the audience, or a way for performers to come into the audience if so desired. The dragon sconces on the wall gave off a soft, golden light, enough to reflect off the metal railings and illuminate the gargoyle faces that projected over the heads of the audience below from the front of the curved balcony wall.

Suddenly the lights in the sconces went out and a single circle of brilliant, white light appeared in the center of the curtains. As the curtains slowly parted, a glowing, light blue fog rolled outward revealing that there was no movie screen, just a stage. The fog crept along the floor of the stage spilling into the audience so that soon the observers below appeared to be sitting on a cloud. Even in the balcony, Jackie could feel the cold wave that accompanied the bank of fog and he shivered from nervousness as much as from the sudden drop in temperature.

The stage was not bare but was set for what appeared to be a graveyard scene at night. Blue light accentuated the black silhouettes of menacing bare trees and tilted crosses and headstones scattered about the stage. From either side an iron fence ran a few feet, suggesting that the audience viewed the entrance to the cemetery. These props were enhanced by images of tombstones and trees cast on a screen that served as the back wall of the stage. The projected images created the illusion that the graveyard went miles into the distance, much farther than the back of the stage.

A small dark shadow of a man appeared on the distant horizon, as if it were cast from behind on the screen. A man with a top hat.

Goosebumps broke out on Jackie’s arms.

The man seemed to be a great distance away, yet he was moving slowly towards them. Impossibly slow. But somehow with each step, the figure grew larger and closer at a speed incompatible with his pace.

Just like the man with the top hat on the street!

Jackie wanted to jump from his seat and dash to the safety of the stairways leading out of the balcony, but he feared movement might draw the dark man’s attention. Fear, though, was not the only thing that kept Jackie in his seat.

I wonder what he is he going to do?

When the dark image of the man reached what one would expect to be the back of the stage, he increased his stride as if he were stepping over a threshold, an invisible membrane. The blackness poured down off him as if a wash had rinsed him of shadow as he stepped into Jackie’s world. His steps to the front of the stage then appeared as normal as any man’s. He took off his top hat and holding his arms wide so that his cape framed his body theatrically he said in a booming voice, Good evening.

Applause filled the theater, but when Jackie looked down, he saw that no one in the audience had moved a muscle. In fact, they sat in exactly the same trance-like poses they had assumed while waiting for the presentation to begin.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a special show for you this evening. A very special show... The dark magician turned his gaze upward to the seats in the balcony, making eye-to-eye contact with Jackie, and he grinned. Tonight you will be entertained beyond your greatest wishes, for I, The Great Mephisto, will present the most exciting experience possible, the most frightening terrors imaginable...

The performer paused for effect. Your own heart's secret desires. Jackie felt a chill run throughout his body.

For my first act, I will need an assistant.

With these words, a young girl who had been sitting on the front row rose and walked up the left set of steps onto the stage. Jackie’s heart beat even quicker, something that he wouldn’t have thought possible, as he recognized his sister walking innocently to the sinister man’s beckoning call.

Don’t we all have someone in our lives we’d wish would simply disappear? Watch closely, and perhaps you, too, can master the mysterious arts of the Dark Realm.

From out of the air itself Mephisto snatched a white sheet and draped it over the girl so that only a small covered figure stood beside him on the stage. Waving his arms dramatically, Mephisto then clapped his hands once and the sheet fell to the floor leaving no trace of the child on the stage. Applause filled the theater, but Jackie noted again the absence of any movement in the crowd.

Wouldn’t it be convenient to whisk your bothersome brothers and sisters, your tyrannical bosses and unfaithful spouses into oblivion so easily? boomed the ominous magician.

Yeah, it sure would.

While the thought of seeing his sister on stage frightened him at first, the disappearing act was such a common trick for magicians to perform that his fear for her subsided and was replaced with a growing curiosity as to just what Mephisto would do next. Still it was obvious by the magician’s manner that in spite of the familiarity of the disappearing act, Mephisto was no common illusionist.

But what might be even better than making them disappear, continued the performer, would be to control every action of these pests, don’t you think? Let’s bring our subject back and I’ll show you what I mean. Mephisto waved his arms at the rumpled sheet on the stage and clapped his hands together again, twice this time, and instantly the sheet rose and assumed the shape it had held when it concealed Jackie’s sister as she stood beside the magician. Mephisto gripped the sheet and in one fluid motion pulled it away and tossed it into the air where it vanished.

Standing there, as one might expect, was Jackie’s sister. But something about the tilt of her head seemed unnatural. In fact, her whole demeanor was just not right. Her smile seemed vacant, and her unblinking stare was disturbing. As Jackie looked closer, he noticed that her complexion seemed unreal, as if she had assumed heavy stage makeup. And then Jackie noticed the dark seams running from the corners of her mouth to just below her ears. Her elbows and knees had been replaced with pins, the kind of mechanical contrivances that allow marionettes to move.

Mephisto snapped his fingers and a simple, straight-backed chair appeared behind him. Placing one arm around her shoulders and the other behind her knees, he picked the girl up, sat in the chair, and set her on his knee. It then appeared to Jackie that Mephisto slowly pushed his right hand into his sister’s back, as if struggling to pierce through bone, skin, and tissue where he finally reached her controls.

Hello, Amber. Did you have a nice trip? he asked his improvised dummy. No, Mister Mephisto, she answered.

That’s Amber’s voice!

Of course, the magician’s lips didn’t move as she spoke.

I didn’t like that place. It was dark. And scary.

What? You didn’t care for the journey I so thoughtfully arranged for you? Mephisto asked with vaudevillian exaggeration. Amber’s head turned from side to side, her wide-eyed grin grotesquely mismatched with her speech like a poorly dubbed foreign film.

No. Please don’t make me go back there again.

Well, Amber, I certainly wouldn’t want you to be unhappy. Would you rather stay with me just as you are?

Oh, please, I just want to go home. I don’t want to go to the dark place... and I don’t want to be here either, she pleaded.

Jackie recognized the tearful tone of her voice, for he had certainly heard it enough, but while her lower jaw moved woodenly with her words, her puppet-like grin remained fixed.

Well, you ungrateful little brat! Be gone with you, then!

With those words Mephisto stood, and gripping her left arm, he pulled his right hand from her back. Jackie grimaced as he thought he saw that Mephisto’s hand glistened with a wet, red sheen. But only for a fraction of a second, so briefly that Jackie questioned whether he had seen that at all.

Dragging Jackie’s sister by her right arm, the magician strode in mock anger stage right to the wing and threw Amber’s limp form like a rag doll off the stage and out of the audience’s view. Laughter rang out through the hall in eerie contrast to the absolutely still figures in the audience as Mephisto turned back and smiled broadly. Tears stood in Jackie’s eyes—tears of sorrow and anger, but also, of fear.

Before Jackie could sort out all of his emotions, Mephisto had resumed his position center stage, this time standing beside a solid black coffin that had mysteriously simply appeared. It stood upright with its back to the audience.

For my next trick, the dark magician said in a loud voice, I will demonstrate the magic of the Mystic Swords of the Far East. Mephisto gripped the side of the coffin and turned it slowly so that it would face the front, revealing, since there was no lid in place, that a body had been placed in the coffin. The body, Jackie realized with some relief, was alive, but that relief was replaced immediately with horror as Jackie saw that the man in the coffin was his father.

Three panels rested on a small table beside the coffin that Jackie realized would ultimately make up the coffin lid once Mephisto slid each piece into its proper place.

With great flair and showmanship, Mephisto silently slid the bottom two panels into place, blocking most of the body inside from view but leaving the top open so that the audience could see the victim’s face. With a grand flourish of his hands, he produced a long sword seemingly out of thin air.

This sword is for not buying your son the bike he wanted on his eighth birthday, Mephisto said, and after carefully selecting a place for insertion about half-way down, he slid the sword into the side of the coffin. Twice, either for dramatic effect or because it was indeed difficult to pass the sword through the coffin and body, Mephisto appeared to pause in order to summon all of his strength before pushing the sword all the way through. Gasps and murmurs could be heard throughout the motionless crowd as Jackie’s father grimaced and blood poured out from the bottom of the coffin.

Are you all right, Mr. Wingate? the magician asked with a vaudevillian expression of exaggerated concern.

Yes, Master Mephisto, I am all right, he replied in a voice devoid of all emotion but in direct contrast with his previous expression. After another flourish, another sword appeared magically in Mephisto’s hands as he walked behind the coffin.

And this is for missing your son’s championship Little League game. Mephisto made a great show of force as he plunged the sword into the coffin from the rear. Once again Mr. Wingate grimaced and blood gushed down the front of the coffin when the sword point jutted out. Are you absolutely sure you’re fine? the illusionist asked, feigning even greater concern.

Yes, Master Mephisto, I am fine, he replied in precisely the same monotone as before.

Then we shall proceed.

Another flourish, another sword, and Mephisto intoned dramatically, "And this is for going on holiday to Europe with your