Bleak midwinter, p.1
Bleak Midwinter, page 1
BLEAK MIDWINTER
THE DARKEST NIGHT
EDITED BY
DAMON BARRET ROE
WITH
CASSANDRA L. THOMPSON
Bleak Midwinter: The Darkest Night (volume one)
Edited by Damon Barret Roe, Cassandra L. Thompson
Published by Quill & Crow Publishing House
While some of the stories included in this anthology are based on historical fact, the stories in this novel are works of fiction. All incidents, dialogue, and characters, except for some well-known historical and public figures, are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Although real-life historical or public figures do appear throughout the story, these situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning them are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events nor change the fictional nature of the work.
Content Disclaimer: Please be advised that the stories included in this anthology fall under the genres of cosmic horror and Gothic fiction. As such, there are elements and themes that may be triggering. You will find an index of triggers at the end of the book should you wish to apply your own personal discretion. We have done our best to identify potential triggers, but we apologize deeply if we missed something. We understand the importance of communicating transparently with our readers and establishing our community as a safe space.
Copyright © 2022 by Cassandra L. Thompson. Stories by R.A. Busby, Robyn Dabney, Aliya Bree Hall, Sarah Hozumi, E.M. Linden, Amelia Mangan, Mason McDonald, K.R. Wieland, KB Willson, and Trevor James Zaple.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Cover Design by Damon Barret Roe
Interior Design by Cassandra L. Thompson
ISBN: 978-1-958228-13-5
Printed in the United States of America
Publisher’s Website: www.quillandcrowpublishinghouse.com
CONTENTS
Foreword
Cassandra L. Thompson
The Utburd: A Finnish Folk Tale
Robyn Dabney
The Forest’s Call
Aliya Bree Hall
Don’t Say a Word
K.R. Wieland
Where Ghosts Walk
Trevor James Zaple
All Her Little Bones
R.A. Busby
Fading
Sarah Hozumi
Relke of the Russet Hair
KB Willson
New Moon Through Glass
E.M. Linden
The Prisoner and the Robe
Amelia Mangan
Arno
Mason McDonald
Acknowledgments
Author Biographies
Trigger Warning Index
About the Publisher
FOREWORD
CASSANDRA L. THOMPSON
While darkness descends upon the Earth at harvest time, and reigns during our late October celebrations, the darkest night of the year falls on December 21st. Many cultures celebrate the “return of the sun” with subsequent solstice festivities, but for those in the Northern Hemisphere, the long days of winter are yet to come. When considering a winter anthology, I knew I wanted to do something other than “Black Christmas/Krampus” style stories that I’d seen previously published. I wanted to do something that would capture that eerie silence on a winter night, the isolation of snowy days, and the deep foreboding worry that spring may never come.
Like the frigid wind, Bleak Midwinter came forth, but what took me by surprise was the evolution of a double feature. This was perhaps one of our longest submissions calls, so we received more stories than ever before. As we sorted through hundreds of tales, it became clear that there were two distinct types of stories: unpleasantly dark horror and fiction with a lighter, more hopeful tone. I thought, what if we did two anthologies to feature both styles?
I’m sure you can guess what happened next, as you hold the first volume of another one of my crazy ideas. I do have to warn you: a few of these stories are extremely grim, so please take note of the Trigger Index we’ve provided for you at the end of the book. But if you like your literature as dark as I do, I hope you will find some enjoyment in the dreadful tales you are about to behold.
Dreadfully Yours,
Cassandra L. Thompson
THE UTBURD: A FINNISH FOLK TALE
ROBYN DABNEY
Jaska jerked the wheel of the Nissan, sliding across the snow-covered road into what would’ve been oncoming traffic in Helsinki. In the Lapland province of Finland, however, between Skalluvaara and Patoniva, traffic came only in the form of a sauntering reindeer herd or an overturned vehicle that took a curve too quickly on the winding road.
Jaska loosened his grip on the wheel and corrected back into his lane, dropping the phone he’d been looking at onto the passenger seat. Nothing from Inka. She was probably in bed with her husband, not thinking of her lover now that he’d left town again. Spotty service anyway.
Shadows draped themselves gently over the all-encompassing sheet of snow. Fresh flakes drifted from the sky, caught in the headlights, falling like stars against a black curtain. He glanced at the glowing clock on the dashboard. 14:05. Winter above the arctic circle was impervious to the sun. One either embraced the long, dark night or stayed in the comforts of the cities many kilometers south.
Jaska liked comfort. He also liked to be able to eat. As a disgraced nature photographer searching for a rare albino reindeer with jet black horns in the woods outside Skalluvaara, he didn’t have the luxury to pine for sunlight.
Fucking Thomas. Jaska had been sent to the United States six months before to photograph Bighorn sheep in the armpit of west Texas. In a bar across the border, he’d met a man—a drunk American named Thomas—who dabbled in drug running and amateur photography. On his final day, Jaska had borrowed one of Thomas’s Bighorn photos and had turned it over to Nat Geo as his own. The photo was published and somehow that illiterate redneck from the other side of nowhere had seen it. No one had bought Jaska’s work since. He was a shit smudge on the breeches of the entire photography community.
And then the call came. The white reindeer. Jaska was the closest photographer on payroll. “The best option,” his editor had said through gritted teeth. This was his final chance, the only redemption he could hope for. He had less than forty-eight hours to find the beast, take the shot, and get back to the airstrip at Ivalon.
He’d had enough of the snow. Enough of the deep darkness and shitty beer he’d picked up at Skalluvaara’s only excuse for a pub. It was really just someone’s—Inka’s husband’s—plywood garage with an old workbench and a few rusty stools. The Lakka was diluted with water. The whiskey may as well have been diluted with piss. The beer was likely brewed in a boot someone pulled from the sewer.
“Show yourself, you damn poro,” Jaska whispered in the empty vehicle. “I’ve got to get the fuck out of here.”
A black and white world lurked outside. Snow clung to the trees in heavy clumps, turning them from sentinel conifers into wicked winter shadows. The Aurora Borealis would not show itself for another few months, so the only light came from Jaska’s headlights and a frozen moon hiding behind a veil of wispy clouds.
His cellphone beeped. He lunged for it and cradled it in his palm against the steering wheel.
Mulla on ikävä sua. I miss you.
He ran his free hand across his forehead, trying not to react too much to Inka’s words. He had a headache; too many hours trudging through the frozen north in search of an animal that didn’t want to be found; too little sleep. The darkness made it difficult to know day from night. Up from down. Anger from hurt.
Valehtelija. Liar, he wrote back. His finger hovered over ‘send.’ His anger was temporary. In a few minutes, he’d want to say that he missed her too. Jaska had a problem of falling in love too quickly with the wrong women. He’d been called sensitive. Needy. Desperate. But Inka had been sad and lonely too—carrying some silent burden that could only be relieved by lying with another man. She’d needed him like he’d needed her.
He’d first met her six years earlier, when he’d been sent to Lapland to photograph the northern lights. Their relationship had been the same then. Sneaking off into the woods. Bending her over the frozen woodpile. Laughing drunkenly as he made love to her behind the entire town’s back. They hadn’t seen each other since. Until this trip.
The tires hit a bump in the snowy road. His finger touched the screen. Send. Another bump and the phone bounced from his hand into the passenger footwell.
“Paska!”
He glanced at the road. Clear. Straight.
With his right hand, he reached for the phone. He’d already changed his mind. She wasn’t a liar. He missed her. She was the only person in his life who didn’t treat him like a crook.
The phone was too far. He peered back up at the dark road. Still nothing. A white lane. Jagged pine limbs extending over it. Jaska removed his seatbelt and scooted closer to the console. The lights illuminated a vacant stretch ahead. He bent down, snatched the phone, and sat up. The road was still clear. An endless stretch of—
The Nissan smashed into something solid. Steel bellowed and cracked. Jaska registered something spiked outside. Darkness consumed the headlights. He left his seat. Floating, weightless, in a void. Flesh met the glass. A flash of pain. An eye like an obscure marble watching him.
Then nothing.
Jaska sucked at the air but there was nothing to inhale. His cheeks burned. His mouth ached. And his head. Oh, God, his head. His eyelids scraped against something cold and stiff as he tried to see. He tasted iron—warm, wet, sticky iron. He ran his tongue along the front of his mouth. It caught on something jagged. Blistering pain rippled through his skull.
“Jumala,” he whispered through cracked lips. God help me.
Something touched him. A soft nudge in his side. Waves of agony rippled from his ribcage.
“Argh!” His hand scraped across the cold wetness to grasp his side. Slowly, he rolled onto his back. He could breathe. He could see. But he must have been run over by a train. Or a car.
The car.
He raised his head. The muscles in his neck throbbed as they fought to lift what felt like a five-kilo bowling ball. Nearby, his shattered cell phone lay darker and more silent than the night sky. At his feet lay a crumpled heap of steel and shattered glass. It hissed and smoked like a ripe volcano. Ten kilometers from the nearest village. A light-year from a fucking hospital. Jaska dropped his head back into the snow and tried not to pray for death.
Something grunted. Blew out a breath of hot, stale air. Stomped the ground centimeters from his ear. Jaska opened his eyes and tilted his head back. Blood slid from the corner of his lip, across his cheek, and into his eye. He swiped it away with a cold hand and found himself gazing at a hairy leg and a coal-colored hoof. He followed the leg to an enormous body and beyond, to the head with a pair of glassy eyes and a massive, jet-black spread of antlers. White. The reindeer was whiter than the snow around it.
“Bastard.” His words gurgled with the blood in his throat. Lisped out across a swollen tongue. The deer’s body had destroyed his car, yet the creature wore no blood, bore no signs of broken bones or torn flesh.
“Hiisi?” Jaska glared at the reindeer and felt foolish for letting himself believe in fairy tales. Finland had no shortage of eerie creatures crafted by the imaginations of old hags centuries before. He’d heard the tales from his mummo. The hiisi were spirits of the forest, orcs or goblins, who controlled hoofed animals like horses and reindeer. Of course, he believed in them as much as he believed in the utburd, the ghostlike apparitions of dead children who’d been abandoned in the woods and sought vengeance on unfortunate travelers. The fairies and elves, trolls beneath the bridges…rubbish, all of it.
The reindeer watched him but didn’t move.
Even as Jaska rolled onto his stomach and crawled along the icy road toward what was once his vehicle. He glanced back. The poro remained in place. It watched as he wriggled like a worm through the snow, trailing behind him a smear of blood and vulgarisms. The word hiisi popped into his brain again but was quickly replaced by a wave of nausea.
He reached the car’s trunk and used the handle to pull himself to his knees. Leaning his forehead against the frigid metal, he took stock of his situation. Some of his teeth were chipped, some missing. His ribs were bruised, if not worse. Two twisted fingers on his left hand. Certainly a concussion. Contusions galore. A completely fucked car. No phone. It was well below zero degrees. And it would continue to drop.
He needed help. A miracle. The frozen ground whispered threats of death and eternal slumber as he knelt upon it. But the reindeer he’d been searching for, that goddamned reindeer, had practically been waiting for him. Had caused all of this. Maybe that was the payment for a good photo. Comeuppance for plagiarism.
Your life for this magnificent shot. Your life for your reputation.
He slapped his forehead and regretted it as the pain flung vomit up his broken body and out onto the car. Jaska wiped his sleeve across his mouth and crawled around to the door. He pulled on the handle and the door squealed open. On the floor, wedged behind the buckled driver’s seat and the back bench, was the camera box. Thank God he’d splurged on the indestructible box for his adventures to mountain summits, over waterfalls, across barren deserts…
Tears trickled down his cheek, though he didn’t want to cry. Weakness now would kill him.
Darkness consumed the shattered headlights. With a deep breath that seared his insides, he forced the rest of the tears back into their ducts and jerked the box out into the snow.
“Please,” he hissed, dropping to his knees. “Please, please, please.” He unsnapped the lid and slowly raised it. With shaking hands, he lifted the camera, removed the cap, and stared into the lens. It didn’t look cracked. He peered through the viewfinder and didn’t see a fractured world. Relief came out as a misty sigh and he stood.
Jaska heaved his heavy down coat, gloves, and beanie from the back seat. Gingerly, he pulled them on, crying out as he tried to force crooked digits into the promised warmth. He stood on trembling legs. His tibia—or maybe his fibula—caught fire. His knees quaked and threatened to buckle. Jaska took a shaking step toward the front of the car and peered around the heap of inoperative metal.
The reindeer hadn’t moved.
Not a drop of color blotted its white fur, the only break in its pallid body from shiny rounds of coal for eyes and the black velvet coating its antlers. It stood nearly two and half meters high and looked like it weighed as much as a loaded dumpster.
Just as Jaska lifted his camera, the deer leapt, taking several bounds off the road until it was masked by the pines. He could see the white fur of its rear, but it wouldn’t be good enough to get him off professional life-support.
He limped toward the forest. The deer moved again, a slow, steady trudge through the snow. Jaska glanced at his cargo pants and waterproof boots. A few minutes in deep snow and he’d be damp. A death sentence out here. But he couldn’t go back without this photo. This was it.
At least when they pulled the camera from his frozen hands, they’d have the perfect print. They’d speak his name with reverence instead of disgust.
He stepped into the snow, into the forest, behind the reindeer. It walked on, unperturbed by his ambling. Almost as if it wanted him to follow.
Hiisi.
Every berm of snow Jaska crossed felt deeper, trickier to maneuver. His broken fingers had lost sensation beneath the gloves. Still the deer kept its distance. Kept moving. Jaska’s breath guided him through the tall slender pines and the scraggly birches. A misty trail beckoned him. His broken teeth chattered. Each time a nerve ending crashed against ivory, he flinched, until he reached the point of perpetually chattering, wincing, and softly crying out.
Deeper into darkness. Deeper into a wood he knew nothing about.
The blood on his cheeks began to freeze. Jaska followed the animal, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something followed him in turn. Something as dark as the darkness, blending into the gloom at the edge of his vision. Another of Mummo’s creatures maybe. Perhaps a side effect from the concussion.
“It’s just the cold,” he told himself. “I am cold and broken.” Still, he jumped at every cracking twig or sudden flap of wings. The farther he walked, the tighter his nerves coiled. The lower his core temperature dropped. The harder it was to focus on white fur and black velvet bone. The trees tightened around him. Their limbs scratched his flesh and poked his wounds. He wanted to turn back, but he kept reminding himself there was nothing but an empty road and ten kilometers between him and any reprieve from the pain, the cold, and the emergent fear.
Eventually, the deer stopped. A soft beam of moonlight filtered through the canopy, illuminating the creature in a halo of light and falling snow.
It turned its large head and met Jaska’s gaze with steely eyes. Jaska lifted his camera. The animal. The lighting. The eerie contrast between shades of white and black. The heavy flakes cascading in silent urgency. This was his photo. His finger moved over the shutter release and he pressed down.
