Festive Frights

by CW Publishing House

Mr. Cranston approached the waiting taxi. As if he would have forgotten when presents are opened. It was never a matter of forgetting.

  “Thanks for waiting, Suhas,” said Mr. Cranston.

  “No problem, sir,” said the cabbie. “It only cost you two fifty this time.”

  Mr. Cranston wiped snow off his collar and put on his scarf. He buckled and then pulled an accordion folder out of his briefcase.

  “How much hurry this time?” Suhas backed out of the driveway.

  “None at all,” said Mr. Cranston. He turned on a hooded reading light and reviewed the most recent paperwork.

  The Office of Public Affairs had opted for the usual ‘be on alert around the holidays’ PSAs, hoping to curb the media frenzy over the Holiday Butcher. Officers from nearby counties had been requisitioned for a more thorough patrol.

  The paperwork and hearings over that request had taken a month. In the end, the saving grace had been Cranston’s testimony that, although the Holiday Butcher had only killed in Meadow Heights village, the media coverage and police presence would influence the killer to change his M.O.

  Cranston put the paperwork away. He’d been over witness statements, autopsy reports, and victimology theories hundreds of times, along with the swarm of memos folowingevery page. Suppressive snow washed over the car windows.

  “That’s twenty-two fifty,” said Suhas.

  Cranston handed him a twenty and a five. “How late you working tonight?” he asked after exiting the cab.

  “You kidding me? You’re my last. I didn’t even have to take you, but I said one more. The wife’ll be mad.”

  “They do that,” said Cranston, pulling his knit hat low over his ears. Suhas drove away.

  Entering the district building didn’t cut the chill. Cranston slipped his gloves on and waved his badge at Dave, who’s glossed eyes tracked his movement.

  The elevator took him to the third floor, right into the mouth of danger.

  “What are you doing here Cranston?” asked Supervisory Agent Krenshaw, dressed to leave with her coat collar up. Though her hands were on her hips, it was in no way as cute as when his wife did it.

  “Working.” Special Agent Cranston took off his hat.

  “There’s nothing wrong with your profile. The footwork itself will bring him in.” Krenshaw pushed the down button.

  “Then I’ll hit the streets,” he said.

  “Byczech, go with him.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” called Special Agent Byczech from his cubicle.

  “I don’t need a babysitter. I’m fully certified for fieldwork.” Special Agent Cranston stuffed his hat back on.

  “Everyone gets backup, no exceptions. Not when this monster is out there.” They watched Byczech fumble with his wallet and keys. “Besides,” whispered Krenshaw. “Were you planning to walk?”

  The elevator doors opened. Byczech jogged to catch up. They took the elevator down to the parking garage. Krenshaw drove away in a sleek black car. Cranston followed Byczech to his car.

  “Nice car,” said Cranston, not knowing what he was talking about.

  “She gets me where I need to go.” Byczech slapped the roof. He unlocked the front doors and they got in. Cranston tossed his briefcase in the backseat. Byczech took the parking garage turns at a measly ten miles per hour.

  “You don’t have to drive this slow,” said Cranston.

  “It isn’t because of…I mean…I thought you had issues with driving.” Byczech pulled equally cautiously into traffic.

  “I prefer not to drive,” said Cranston, testing his seatbelt. “I have no qualms being driven.”

  Byczech held off on the topic until a particularly long red light. “But a man your age…” he began.

  “My mental faculties are better used reviewing cases than watching for blind spots, turn signals, erratic drivers—”

  “So it’s an anxiety thing,” said Byczech.

  Cranston looked out his window. “I have a panic disorder.” He wasn’t supposed to be ashamed of it. He was allowed to tell if he felt like it. But people had a tendency to react oddly. Asking invasive, back-handed questions. Expressing extreme sympathy. Pretending they didn’t hear you.

  “My boy’s got that. We’re putting him through a bit of therapy before we agree to medicate him. Marta’s idea. Give him a chance to snap out of it. What do you think?”

  “I’d prefer we talked about the case,” said Cranston. It nagged at him that the boy’s parents expected him to “snap out of it,” but that would work itself out in time. His own parents hadn’t been understanding, either.

  Byczech only let the silence last one block. “I’m heading to the Westwood movie theatre. There’s already two units on it, but I figured—”

  “Let’s go to the movie theater in Meadow Heights.”

  “Do they even have a movie theater?”

  “A small one, Meadow Movies. He’d prefer that.” Cranston checked his watch—9:02.

  Byczech turned onto a side street and pulled over. “You testified that he wouldn’t kill in Meadow Heights again.”

  “No, I said he might change his M.O. because there’s too much surveillance. But say I’m the Holiday Butcher. I’m trying to hang onto normalcy while the media jockeys make me out to be a cartoonish fiend. I have an intense emotional connection to Meadow Heights, but I know there’s too much surveillance. I go to Meadow Movies, not to kill, but to pretend to be one of the happy fools I slaughter out of jealousy.”

  Byczech stared at Cranston’s clenched fists and wide eyes. “Fine,” he said, swinging into a Y-turn. “Meadow Movies it is.”

  They shared the freeway with a few Christmas stragglers, racing home to share the last few hours of Christmas Eve with loved ones.

  “Your son,” said Cranston, his words steeped in five minutes of silence. “Have you asked what he wants?”

  “He’s only fourteen.” Byczech checked his rearview mirror and blind spot.

  “It was just a thought,” Cranston quickly amended.

  Byczech changed lanes toward the Meadow Heights exit. He frowned as he decelerated from sixty to thirty, cruising down the off-ramp. “I’ll ask.”

  Cranston directed him through the residential streets of Meadow Heights to the village hall and Meadow Movies. Byczech parked on the corner in full view of the main entrance and side doors of Meadow Movies.

  “So, you’ve memorized every street of Meadow Heights?”

  “Yes.” Cranston pulled out his journal and flipped to the next blank page. 9:40pm. Dec. 24th. Meadow Movies, Meadow Height’s. Observation. Partner: Byczech. No other units.

  Byczech waited for him to pause. “Is there anywhere to grab a bite near here?”

  “No.”

  Byczech allowed a minute of quiet, then asked, “Why only the big four?”

  “What’s that?” Cranston set down his pen.

  “He kills on the Fourth, Halloween, Turkey Day, and Christmas. Does the Holiday Butcher not care about New Year’s, Valentine’s, or St. Patrick’s?”

  “Didn’t you read my profile?” asked Cranston, flexing his right hand.

  “I know we’re looking for a Caucasian male, age twenty to thirty. Acquaintances will speak highly of him, but he’ll have few friends and no contact with family. He’ll have graduated high school, but will have chosen not to go to college. Nothing in his work history will last more than three months, but he’ll never have been fired. He doesn’t own a car. He won’t keep trophies, weapons, notes, or any other indication that he’s killed.” Byczech paused. Cranston did not appear impressed. “We know the important facts, but no one reads the whole report.”

  “He’s killed thirty-eight people this year,” said Cranston. “Twelve children.”

  “And I want to catch him, but it’s canvasing and patrolling that’ll bring in suspects, not me reading forty pages of you droning on about abandonment theory.”

  “I drone?”

  “What d’ya think his worst kill’s been? Jones says
the edible fireworks, but Bilal says—”

  “Halloween’s the worst,” said Cranston. He knew Byczech was changing the topic, but there was no sense in forcing the man to admit his blunder.

  “No kids died on Halloween.”

  “The Fourth and Thanksgiving were artful displays, playful tricks.”

  “Carving a child on the dinner table is a playful trick.” Byczech grimaced.

  “Perhaps in his mind. But Halloween was different. He butchered yes, but he didn’t bother to present the bodies. I was hard-pressed to prove it was the same perpetrator.”

  Byczech munched on a granola bar and Cranston flipped through past entries in his journal. Elisa Newberry. Neighbor of the Donahues. Said: Bobby always had soccer practice after school, bins not taken out the night before, the lights off all night. Patricia Clemens. Neighbor of the Donahues. Said: Bobby played soccer with her son, her bins were stolen, the Donahues’ porch light was on for just a moment around midnight. Dr. Fern. Coroner. Bobby had only been deceased for several hours when found at 5 p.m. Thanksgiving day.

  Images of the crime scene flickered through his head with just as much detail as the photos in his briefcase. Bobby’s bed had been made, but not his sister’s or parents’. The sink was full of dirty dishes, but the bags of cranberries were still in the freezer, the stuffing mix and pie filling still in the cupboard, and the turkey still in the fridge.

  Cranston resisted a yawn. He had a lot of questions for the Holiday Butcher.

  “Can you imagine if he was Jewish?” said Byczech. “The seven days of Chanukah would be a blood fest.”

  “It’d be easier to catch him.”

  “How’s that?” asked Byczech.

  “It’d narrow the suspect pool, and we’d have seven chances in a row to catch him, to see his pattern.” Cranston wiped condensation off the car window. The midnight showing had just let out. Families, friend groups, and loners stomped across the snowy parking lot to their cars. Everyone looked like a suspect nowadays.

  “Easier,” Byczech said with half a laugh before slouching into the driver’s seat.

  “It’s him,” said Cranston, pointing at a heavily bundled man talking to two coatless women by the side door.

  “How can you tell?”

  Cranston exited the car, gun first. He sprinted across two rows of parked cars, Byczech still by the car.

  “Freeze,” he yelled from the curb, gun in one hand and badge in the other. The women and the man held up their hands.

  “You two,” said Cranston, pointing at the women. “You can leave.”

  “Is there something I can help you with?” asked the man as the women left. The wind loosened his scarf and carried it away.

  “You won’t be killing anyone this Christmas,” said Cranston. His heart and hands trembled. He clenched his jaw and tried to regulate his breathing. Byczech better be right behind him. Now was not the time for a panic attack.

  The Holiday Butcher smirked. “Maybe you should go home, Special Agent Cranston.”

  About Charlotte Rose Lange

  Charlotte Rose Lange is a recent college grad who edits Masters Theses in Wisconsin. Her favorite part about CWC is sorting through all the strings, tying them together, and adding her own bead. She writes best under pressure, so CWC is a perfect fit. Her work in progress is a young adult novel, ‘Ascendant’: “When a young witch harbors a newly ascended being who broke the rules, she’s thrust into a world of high magic and higher consequences.”

  CWC has accepted four chapters and two short stories from her, and she was the Assistant Story Coordinator for Project 2: ‘Ambition’. She has started a project called Horizontal Collaborative Writing (HCW), which combines collaborative writing and interactive fiction to create a “choose your own adventure” story. Request to join the HCW Facebook group for more information.

  The Nameless

  By R L Daman

  To say my town was quiet is an understatement. Brighton was one of the last such towns in the world. Nothing much happened there. Most of its youth leave when restlessness inevitably settled into their bones.

  I never minded such places. It was a calm oasis in a torrential typhoon of noise. On most days, I was content to sit in my study, read, and admire my collection of artifacts.

  With a dwindling population, holiday celebrations were generally brief or non-existent. People were happy to keep to themselves and a close-knit group of friends. Not to say we didn't like each other. We were a polite and cordial people with very little to say.

  However, this year, the new mayor took it upon herself to liven up the town with a Christmas parade. Government workers were busy putting up Christmas decorations on Main Street while I was on the way to the local grocery store. Well, at least she tried to be festive. These old codgers could benefit from a breakup in the monotony of their lives.

  I stopped by Dan's Rare Bookstore. The door rattled the decades-old bell as I entered. Dan looked up from a yellow-tinged, leather-bound tome laying before him on his Cherrywood counter. The ebony-rimmed bifocals slipped to the tip of his nose briefly before he nudged them back to the bridge. He smiled broadly with coffee stained teeth.

  "Cavender! It's good to see you!" Dan upset the resting place of his glasses again by folding them neatly and placing them inside the front pocket of his brown, tweed suit-coat.

  "Good morning, Dan." I nodded as I approached. I rapped my knuckles across the countertop. "Did you see what they’re doing outside? I'm not sure if I've seen this town with so much color since the sixties."

  "You mean the last time your outfit was in style?"

  "Well, at least it's from this century. Everything you wear could have come from a museum."

  “Not yours, though.” He picked his old briar pipe up from the counter and re-lit it with a match. Once convinced it was adequately aflame, he gave two purposeful puffs before continuing. "I'm sure you didn't come down here to quibble about the state of our attire. What brings you in today?"

  "Something has been troubling me. Since you’re the expert on the arcane, I thought I would mention it to you."

  "Oh? Expert, am I?" He raised one bushy white eyebrow in the same arc of a question mark. He puffed twice more. "This ought to be interesting. What makes you think what you found was arcane? Remember that time you brought me that chicken bone thinking it was part of a voodoo hex?"

  "Yes," I grunted with embarrassment. "It wasn't voodoo, was it?"

  "Oh, no. It was, but nothing having to do with zombies or some other such nonsense. It was for a divination. Nothing sinister. They don't even use chicken bones for that." Dan puffed jovially on his pipe. "Can I offer you some coffee? I just put some on a little while ago. It should be done."

  "Sure, as long as it's not that off-brand swill you served me last time," I said. "Perhaps I could choke it down."

  "If you don't like it, then bring in your own bag. All I have is this store, and clients aren't exactly beating down my door. My business is not as lucrative as yours. People favor trinkets over ancient knowledge."

  "What does that have to do with how bad your coffee tastes?"

  "I can't afford your frilly, girly, little lattes. This is a bookstore. A compendium of ancient lore. Not a restaurant." Dan puffed, wearing the same jovial expression on his face.

  "You should try one. They’re really delicious." His face contorted. I did enjoy goading the pompous old man. He could hold the facade of peaceful candor for only so long.

  "Real men drink dark, robust coffee." He pointed the stem of his pipe in my direction. He narrowed his right eye, glowering over the edge of the pipe bowl.

  "I'll even buy you one." I really couldn't resist teasing him. For being close friends, we argued over the most inane things.

  "Men aren't meant to parade around in fancy clothing. We are warriors. These books contain knowledge that would make the bravest of knees turn to goo. Let me know when you grow a set. Then it might be worth it for me to look into your problem."


  "About that. Here." I placed a manila envelope in front of him. His contention abated rapidly as his curiosity peaked.

  He opened the envelope and pulled a leathery, black and gray object from it. The overpowering sulfur smell emanating from it forced Dan to open several windows and let the chilly December air in. He went to the back behind the counter, to his office, and returned with two full cups of coffee.

  "And about this. Here." He handed me the cup, and I sipped on it with a wrinkled nose, but otherwise I kept my mouth shut.

  He reached into his pocket and placed his bifocals on. Once his eyes settled on the object, his face turned the color of ash. All mirth and friendliness had been swallowed up by fear. He looked up at me from the foul, tattered thing. "It looks like a bat's ear, or what's left of one. Where did you find this?"

  "I found it near my hearth this morning." It confused me that it mattered so much where I found the thing. It was horrible on its own, and I couldn't explain its origin. Dan was my only resource for matters like this.

  "It’s almost dinnertime. You should have brought this to me immediately." Dan turned it around in his hands briefly before dropping it. "Did you not notice how cold this thing is?”

  "Well, I was outside with it for the hour it took to walk here."

  "Look." He gripped the horrible thing with his pliers.

  "Ew! You're going to dip that thing in your coffee?"

  “Right. I'll dip it into yours." Dan leaned over and allowed the tip to touch the now lukewarm liquid. The ragged object squealed with a shrill scream. He laid the horrid thing down and flipped my cup over until it was upside-down over the counter. He tapped on the sides until the contents fell out. It hit the counter with a loud thud. The coffee had become perfectly frozen. “Didn't you tell me before that you enjoyed iced coffee?”

  "What the hell?" Steam rose from the iced cylinder.

  "What in hell, to be more specific. Well, out with it. What happened?"

  "This morning I woke up and noticed a horrible smell coming from the study. I stumbled on the stairs but avoided a fall. It was dark still."