Dead of Winter

by Kealan Patrick Burke

Genres: Holiday books; Horror

Synopsis

Winter isn’t coming…it’s already here, and with it comes a horror no door can keep out.It’s there in the yard, in the faces of the snowmen a young boy doesn’t remember building. It’s in the oddly empty streets below Santa Claus’s crumbling sleigh. It’s in the unnatural movement of the snow that suffocates a widower’s town, and in the cold eyes of a lonely man’s estranged children. Here, there is no holiday cheer, only spine-chilling fear, in the DEAD OF WINTER.Featuring seven stories, an introduction by the author, and a list of recommended books for the winter season.

 

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Release date: December 11, 2018

Publisher: Independently published

Print pages: 96

Sample

s n o w m e n

 

THE TWO MEN STANDING IN RYAN’S BACKYARD were like irises in the eyes of winter.

And they were looking right at him.

The boy stood in his bedroom, the cold licking his wrists and ankles. He shuddered. His bed stood only a few tantalizing feet away. The window was even closer.

But he couldn’t move. Not yet.

It was as if those faceless men playing statues in his back yard wouldn’t let him look away. Wouldn’t let him call his parents.

Not that that would do any good anyway. Dad had come home drunk enough to fill the entire house with the smell of sweat and whiskey. Mom was asleep on the couch, exhausted after carrying his father up the stairs and roaring abuse at him. They wouldn’t be in any mood to entertain Ryan now. Just your imagination, they’d say.

But it wasn’t his imagination. Nor a dream. He had blinked his eyes once, twice, three times. He’d pinched his arm hard enough to force him into stifling a yelp and there would be an angry red welt there tomorrow. He’d gone to the bathroom to pee and splashed cold water on his face...and when he’d returned, they were still there.

Two of them. One large, one small.

Faces in shadow, staring at him. He knew they were staring at him, could feel their eyes on him.

It was snowing again now but that didn’t seem to bother them. They simply stood, unmoving, watching him with fierce interest. Waiting for something maybe. But what?

Again, he thought of rousing his parents. So what if they didn’t believe him or got angry? At least he wouldn’t be alone. At least then he could drag them in here and let them see for themselves that he wasn’t lying or imagining things. ...