Shock Totem: Holiday Tales of the Macabre and Twisted 2011

by Jennifer Pelland

  “Krampus,” Santa Claus nodded, patted the beast on the shoulder and moved past. He began to fill Evelyn Errichson’s stocking with all manner of toys and trinkets.

  “Santa?” sobbed Eric. “Help me?”

  “Can’t do it, ho ho ho!” laughed Santa Claus. He wheeled around with a list in his hand, pointed somewhere in the middle. “See? Eric Errichson, not on the nice list.” He quickly finished stuffing the stockings that didn’t belong to Eric Errichson and disappeared up the chimney.

  “Hello, Eric,” rasped Krampus in a voice better suited for something dead.

  “Hello.”

  Krampus swung a rusty chain, struck Eric in the jaw.

  “Mom! Dad! Mom!” Eric tried screaming, but more blood spilled from his mouth than sound. Before he could count the teeth that fell on the floor, Krampus scooped him up and dropped him in an iron basket the giant goat-man had slung on his back.

  Soon they were outside, and cold air helped put out the fire Eric felt inside his swollen mouth.

  “Saint,” Krampus rumbled. Eric could feel hatred reverberate through the iron. “Where now? Where next? Check your list!”

  “Ho ho ho!” Eric heard through the howling wind.

  “Check it twice!”

  “Ho ho ho! Well, right over there! Another naughty one!”

  “Good,” replied Krampus, and they were off.

  “Hey!” Eric mumbled, trying his best to speak through the sun-hot pain. “I want to go home!”

  Eric didn’t know how to describe Krampus’ laughter, but he’d never forget it, as long as he lived—which he decided may not be very long.

  “I’m taking you to hell,” Krampus chuckled, “Where they’ll hurt you. Put things in your mouth and make you stand on things and fall off things. Stay in places and not let you in others. Say things to you or not say anything at all.”

  “Cause I’m not on the list?”

  “Cause you’re not on the list.”

  “Well, what about Bryan Jacobi?”

  “Bryan Jacobi?”

  “Yeah, the real ass! Says mean things ‘bout the sisters when they’re not around. Poisoned a dog earlier this year, but he wasn’t caught. Bragged to all of us about it, though! Beat up a first-grader, too. But he did it behind the dumpsters. Kid told his folks he fell or something. Hell, he even went around the neighborhood breaking mailboxes. Ain’t that a federal crime or something? He on the list?”

  “Where does he live?”

  Eric popped his upper half out of the basket, pointed to a house at the end of the street. “That’s his dad’s house, he’s there on the weekends—and it’s Sunday!”

  Krampus changed course, began to run on his goat legs, almost skipping. “Bryan Jacobi!” he screeched, “I’m coming to take you from people you love! I’m taking you to the place where they hate you!”

  “See that? They got a gate that’s locked. How you getting in?”

  “Simple.”

  Krampus droned off a few words Eric didn’t understand. He blinked and was inside Bryan Jacobi’s living room.

  “Whoa,” whispered Eric.

  “Yes, whoa,” agreed Krampus. “Bryan Jacobi!” he screamed. Krampus tore through the house, knocking over chairs and kicking pictures off of tables. He ripped down stockings and punched holes through walls, running through every room until he reached the last bedroom on the left. Then he stopped, sniffed the air, and began jangling his chains and bells. “Bryaaaaan Jacooooobi?” he sang. “Wheeeere is Bryaaaaan Jacooooobi? Under the beeeeeed, I wageeeeeeer!”

  With only a simple look from Krampus the bed flipped over, revealing Bryan Jacobi, trying his best to dig himself into the solid wooden floor.

  “Hello,” rasped Krampus. He went to work with his chains, breaking Bryan’s feet first, then the rest of his legs. That’s when the screaming really started.

  “Look how fat he is!” yelled Eric over Bryan’s escalating cries. “What a fatty!”

  “He will do well when they starve him and feed him to men that are dogs that are men but snakes.”

  “I ain’t never seen a kid so fat! Or mean-looking!” Eric shouted. “Can you believe it, Krampus? Look how easy his fingers break! What a screamer!”

  Krampus dropped his chains on top of Bryan’s shrieking, broken form. He used his cloven foot to kick Bryan’s ear a few times until it started leaking blood and other things.

  The house fell silent

  “Krampus?” Eric asked quietly.

  “What is it, damned man-boy?”

  “Well, Bryan there is really fat. I don’t know if he’ll fit in this basket with me.”

  “I’ll make him fit. I’ll break his bones, and yours. I’ll smash him until his eyes are gone and his guts are gone and he’s nothing but hair and teeth. Then I’ll take you where the sun never rises and never sets. Where the moon never rises and never sets. Where I laugh.”

  “Krampus?” Eric asked again, softer, “I mean, look at him. He’s really fat. I really think you gotta make up your mind on this one. Me? Or Bryan Jacobi—poisoner of dogs and destroyer of first-graders. I mean, worst I did was steal my sister’s diary, right?”

  Krampus growled, stamped his feet on Bryan’s knees. He reached inside the basket and hurled Eric to the floor.

  “He’s way worse than me!” Eric screamed and braced himself for a goat-leg to the face.

  Krampus continued to stamp, threw his arms in the air. He grabbed one of his horns, cracked it and threw it across the room. “Very well, Eric Errichson! The naughty, mighty Jacobi is mine!”

  Eric scrambled for the door, looked over his shoulder in time to see Krampus stuffing the twisted, torn remnants of screaming Bryan Jacobi into his iron basket.

  “Merry Christmas, Krampus!” Eric called.

  “Merry Christmas,” replied the thing that crawled out of Eric Errichson’s fireplace on Christmas Eve. He hoisted the basket securely on his back. “Merry Christmas.”

  And then Krampus was gone.

  —//—

  Ryan Bridger is the kind of guy who gets sad when somebody reminds him the dinosaurs went extinct. He's also the kind of guy who doesn't like focusing on the sad stuff, so he set out to write happy little stories about happy people where nothing bad ever happens to anyone. Unfortunately for Ryan's characters, most times he fails miserably. When Ryan isn't working on various projects of his own or with his writing group, The Illiterati, you might find him playing drums around Sin City or contributing to the horror magazine Shock Totem.

  Ryan's blog, www.bewarethebears.com, is where you can experience his ongoing epic saga, 20 Bears.

  HOWLING THROUGH THE KEYHOLE

  The stories behind the stories

  “Heartless”

  “Heartless” is a story that I've had in my head for quite a while. While it is, of course, a play on Eros and Psyche, which is one of my favorite tales, it's more a tentative exploration of loss. Could a woman be so consumed by her depression, so mired in her apathy that she wouldn't care if a demon came to her every night? And what of this nameless demon, who is so lonely that he is willing to cross worlds in order to do nothing but sleep next to a broken slip of a human woman?

  The story itself is quite brief, but I'm intrigued enough by the underlying motivations of the characters that I might follow their journeys, possibly separately, and see where they end up. I'm very drawn to dark things in love.

  —Mercedes M. Yardley

  “Streamer of Silver, Ribbon of Red”

  The catalyst for creation is often of an absurd nature.

  Prior to the “light-bulb” moment that spawned “Streamer of Silver, Ribbon of Red,” everything I’d come up with for a story was mined from that dark, emotionally thick vein I typically hack away at, and none of it was very appealing at that. I wanted to write something lighthearted, but was drawing a blank.

  And then two words popped into my head: Santa Clown.

  I couldn’t begin to tell you why those words popped into
my head, but they did. And I immediately saw a disheveled down-on-his-luck clown, walking the streets in a Santa suit. It was just the right kind of weird meshing of worlds I was looking for, so I welcomed the very ironically named Lucky the Clown into my head and set out to explore where he’d come from and where he was going.

  The story itself came out quickly, in one sitting, and I thoroughly enjoyed writing it. More importantly, I think, when we prepared this special issue of Shock Totem, I enjoyed reading it again. After having not looked at it in a year, I didn’t hate it, so maybe I did something right, eh?

  I set the tale in Bridgetown, a fictional Massachusetts town I’ve set a few other stories in. Jimmy and James, the son and father of this story, can also be found in “Goddamn Electric,” my zombie story from The Zombie Feed, Vol. 1. They fare much better in “Streamer of Silver, Ribbon of Red.”

  —K. Allen Wood

  “Santa Claus Is Coming to Get You!”

  For many years, myself and several writer friends—including Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Jerry and Kathy Oltion, and others—would each write a special story for Christmas Eve, to be read aloud and shared before opening presents.

  What does happen to the kids who don't show up on the "nice" list anyway?

  —Kevin J. Anderson

  “Tinsel”

  This was a difficult tale to tell. I’d say about 95% of the details described in this story, mainly in the courtship memories, are true. They pertain to things my wife and I did. Our first date was to see the remake of Night of the Living Dead, we did leave love notes on time cards, I did give her a bottle of rain, and I still tell her stupid jokes.

  So many memories. And then there were the ferrets...

  See, when I was a kid, we had a pair of ferrets. Cool but stinky rodents. The ferrets had been together since they were babies. We had them for years, and then one day one of them took ill and died. The remaining ferret would no longer sleep and kept us all awake at night, rattling the cage and making a racket. My Mom filled a soda bottle with warm water and wrapped it in a towel, then placed it in the cage as we went to bed. The ferret curled up against it almost immediately and went to sleep. She was lonely and missed the warmth of her sister.

  And I’ve never forgotten how fucking tragic and sad that was.

  —John Boden

  “One Good Turn”

  I pretty much loathe serial-killer stories, and yet the only idea that jammed its talons into my brain for this theme was a serial-killer Santa tale, which made me roll my eyes something fierce.

  But then I thought to myself, Wouldn't it be cool to put together a scenario where the serial killer chose the wrong house, a place where an immortal family of blood-drinking demons lived, and then got his just desserts?

  So I took that idea, added a suitably ridiculous backstory, gore, and disturbing imagery, and this tale is what emerged on the other side.

  —Robert J. Duperre

  “Christmas Wish”

  Being the one member of Shock Totem who isn’t a writer can sometimes make me the odd “man” out. They’re always writing something for this, a review for that, or working on an interview with so-and-so, and I’m quietly sitting there reading slush.

  Last year, Ken said, “Let’s write Christmas stories!” So while everyone else was talking about it, discussing how they were going to make them available to readers, I decided that I would write a story too, if only just to amuse myself.

  The rules were simple: Write a story about Christmas or the holiday season and, somehow, incorporate Shock Totem into it. Simple enough.

  I banged away at the keyboard for a short time and came up with “Christmas Wish”—which no one but Ken was ever supposed to read.

  Sending it to him might have been my biggest mistake, since he then edited it and posted it online for the world to read. I guess I should be happy he at least edited it first.

  It’s been heavily updated for 2011, but the core of the story remains the same.

  And for the record, you’ll note that I was the only one to incorporate Shock Totem into a story. Just saying...

  Anyway, I hope you enjoyed “Christmas Wish,” at least a little bit.

  —Sarah Gomes

  “‘Twas the Night”

  I've always tried to write the kinds of stories I would like to read, and for my money, some of the most satisfying tales are those that pull the rug out from under you at the very end. I'm always impressed when the last sentence makes me want to turn back to the beginning to try to spot the clues along the way and see whether or not the author played fair with the twist at each step along the journey.

  I tried to be fair here while doing everything I could to encourage the reader to think something else was going on. I think I was successful in that, but the true success of any story lies with the reader, not the author.

  —Nick Contor

  “A Krampus Christmas”

  In the writing group I belong to, The Illiterati, we have a rule: If you don't have something new to share that week, don't bother showing up. Usually I'd use that as an excuse to skip out, but when your group is comprised of some of your closest friends, it's something you don't want to miss.

  That rule is responsible for “A Krampus Christmas” accidently coming into existence.

  With time running short before our weekly meet-up, I had to come up with something on the spot or face the very real threat of banishment and ridicule. Luckily, I'd read an article about the various incarnations of the whole “Santa Claus” mythology that had developed around the world and through the years. I found out that Santa wasn't always the lone wolf we know him to be today. Turns out, he used to have a partner named Krampus: a goat-like creature who visited naughty children and took them to Hell while Santa did his thing.

  Joyous holiday cheer meets horrific nightmare creature? Yeah, that's right up my alley.

  So with visions in my head of a Rankin & Bass television special gone horribly wrong, I went to work on a story that's convinced it is a holiday fairytale, completely unaware as it derails and starts to get...messy.

  —Ryan Bridger

  THE SHOCK TOTEM CONNECTION

  Shock Totem 1

  Shock Totem 2

  Shock Totem 3

  Shock Totem 4

  Featuring...

  K. Allen Wood

  The Zombie Feed

  52 Stitches: Horror Stories, Vol. 2

  Epitaphs: The Journal of New England Horror Writers

  Mercedes M. Yardley

  52 Stitches: Horror Stories, Vol. 1

  52 Stitches: Horror Stories, Vol. 2

  The Gate: 13 Dark and Odd Tales

  Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer

  Werewolves and Shapeshifters: Encounters with the Beasts Within

  Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes: Zany Zombie Poetry for the Undead Head

  Demons: Encounters with the Devil and His Minions, Fallen Angels, and the Possessed

  John Boden

  52 Stitches: Horror Stories, Vol. 2

  Nick Contor

  52 Stitches: Horror Stories, Vol. 2

  Robert J. Duperre

  Silas

  The Fall: The Rift Book I

  Dead of Winter: The Rift Book II

  The Gate: 13 Dark and Odd Tales

  ARTIST BIO

  Silent Q Design was founded in Montreal in 2006 by Mikio Murakami. Melding together the use of both realistic templates and surreal imagery, Mikio's artistry proves, at first glance, that a passion for art still is alive, and that no musician, magazine, or venue should suffer from the same bland designs that have been re-hashed over and over.

  Mikio’s work has been commissioned both locally and internationally, by bands such as Redemption, Synastry, Starkweather, and Epocholypse. Shock Totem was his first book-design project.

  For more info, visit www.silentqdesign.net.

  SHOCK TOTEM SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

&n
bsp; What We Want: We consider original, unpublished stories within the confines of dark fantasy and horror—mystery, suspense, supernatural, morbid humor, fantasy, etc. Stories must have a clear horror element.

  We're interested in journalism, well-researched and emotionally compelling nonfiction about real horrors—disease, poverty, addiction, etc.

  We're interested in dark poetry on a limited basis.

  What We Do Not Want: We're not interested in hard science fiction, epic fantasy (swords and sorcery), splatterporn (blood and guts and little more), or clichéd plots. Clichéd themes are okay. No fan fiction.

  What We Will Consider: Reprints not published within the last 12 months. Author must retain all applicable rights.

  Average Response Time: 2 months.

  Payment Rates: We pay 5 cents per word for original, unpublished fiction. We pay 2 cents per word for reprints. There is a $250 cap on all accepted pieces.

  Rights: We claim First North American Serial Rights and First Electronic World Rights (not to include Internet use) for a period of one year. After which all rights revert to the author.