A Long Winter's Fright: 13 FREE YA Holiday Poems & Stories Read online

  Like they’re crossing the street!”

  “Now that they’re gone,”

  Mom said with a grin.

  “Our real Thanksgiving dinner

  Can finally begin!”

  Dad helped clear the table

  Sis set it again;

  As I asked Mom about

  Her backup turkey plan.

  “Why everyone knows,”

  She grinned from ear to ear;

  “To cook a second Thanksgiving dinner

  When zombies are near!”

  * * * * *

  The Werewolf on Thanksgiving:

  A Thanksgiving Poem

  I sit at the table

  Tapping my feet.

  As chomping and slurping

  My family, they eat.

  They are clueless, you see

  That a wolf might be here.

  As I try to sit still

  And smile, ear to ear.

  For if the wolf thinks I know

  That he’s in our midst;

  He’s bound to get angry

  And huffy… and pissed!

  So I play it all cool

  On this Thanksgiving Day

  And hope that the werewolf

  Will just… go away.

  I know that he’s here

  Only in human form.

  ‘Cause the vibe at this table

  Is well past the norm.

  I can smell him, all ugly

  And snarly and gross.

  As my brother burps loudly

  And grunts, “Pass the toast.”

  I cannot; I will not.

  For to move is a crime.

  I know if I do

  He’ll be on me in no time.

  Or it could be a she.

  I’m clueless, I know.

  But I can’t spot who’s Wolfie

  ‘Til his fangs start to grow.

  It could be my mother

  (Who’s quite quick to anger.)

  Or maybe my Dad.

  (Whose toenails spell danger.)

  It might be Aunt Fannie.

  (Who smells rather… odd.)

  Or poor Uncle Chuck.

  Or my big brother, Todd.

  My sister’s been angry

  Ever since Halloween.

  (And has the hairiest mole

  That I’ve ever seen!)

  But wait, what’s that snarling

  And huffing and puffing?

  Oh wait, it’s just Todd

  Who’s wolfing down stuffing.

  The mood it grows tense,

  As the temperature drops.

  The snorting, it’s starting

  And then it just… stops.

  But why are they looking

  At my dinner plate?

  Could it be ‘cause the size of

  The helping I ate?

  Or is it my fingers

  As they split right in two?

  Or the veins in my neck,

  All bulging and… blue?

  Is it ‘cause my nose is turning

  Into a snout?

  And what used to be in

  Is now bulging out?

  Could it be that the hair

  Is starting to grow?

  No, not on my head

  But where hair shouldn’t grow?

  Like out of my ear holes

  And out of my nose;

  And under my fingers

  And over my toes!

  At last, that old Wolfie

  Has shown his true face.

  As my family, it scatters

  All over the place.

  It isn’t my nephew,

  My sis or my aunt.

  I can’t face the truth;

  Oh no, I just can’t.

  The werewolf is neither

  A he or a she.

  The werewolf on Thanksgiving

  Is little old… me!

  * * * * *

  Oh, Tannenbrain:

  A Living Dead Christmas Poem

  The zombies were ready

  For the first reindeer hoof

  As it padded and pawed

  On the house’s pitched roof.

  They grumbled and groused

  And gurgled and drooled;

  They’d waited so long

  They wouldn’t be fooled!

  They weren’t mad at Santa,

  Not hardly, no way.

  In fact he’d be President,

  If the zombies had their way.

  No, the zombies were hungry

  For stuff other than brains;

  They wanted to play

  With stuffed dolls and toy trains!

  Though their hearts were quite empty

  And their souls long past dead;

  They still got excited

  For the green and the red!

  Their lives were so boring

  Their mealtimes mundane.

  They looked forward to playtime

  After another serving of… brain.

  It got boring gnawing on

  The neighbor’s fat head;

  When they’d rather be playing

  With Big Wheels instead!

  They’d hatched their plan

  While watching the Grinch!

  “We’ll capture Santa,” one burped.

  “It’ll be a cinch!”

  And now the fireplace rumbled

  As soot fell to the floor

  And boots did appear

  Where there were none before!

  The zombies were hiding

  Behind the Christmas tree

  Their rotted teeth smiling

  Green faces covered in glee.

  When the fat man stepped out

  The zombies did roar.

  Oh, what a playtime

  They all had in store!

  But Santa grew frightened

  As mortals they will

  And ran to throw open

  The nearest windowsill.

  The zombies they trampled

  The zombies they ran

  And quickly surrounded

  The jolly fat man.

  They did try to reason

  With good Old St. Nick.

  But nothing they grunted

  Did quite do the trick.

  The window it opened

  And before he could run

  The zombies dragged Santa

  Back for more fun.

  He tasted quite fleshy

  That jolly old man;

  The zombies just quite

  Couldn’t stick to their plan.

  It wasn’t that Santa

  They wanted to frag;

  It was really quite simple:

  They wanted his bag!

  And now they sit scattered

  All over the floor

  The toys and the dolls

  And oh so much more.

  For it’s Christmas morning

  And the zombies all smile

  As they play with their toys

  In the best zombie style.

  And no zombie is smiling

  More than Santa himself

  Who is having a ball

  As a living dead elf!

  * * * * *

  Zombies Don’t Carve:

  A Living Dead Christmas Story

  Echo sits in the car, pale fingers clutching the seatbelt still clicked firmly into place.

  The engine idles, exhaust pluming in the rearview mirror as we sit, parked in front of my house.

  “Babe,” I murmur, caressing his cold skin with my warm hands. (Ooohh, I hope I never tire of that sensation.) “Seriously, it’s going to be fine. They’re not bad people, trust me.”

  “I know they’re not ‘bad’ people,” he says, voice a little on the gravelly side. (Just the way I like it!) “They don’t have to be ‘bad’ people to hate zombies. Haven’t you heard? Apparently, it’s America’s last acceptable prejudice!”

  He fumes, staring down at his slick brown shoes.

  They�
�re new; I helped him pick them out after the last day of school before Christmas break.

  From the looks of it, he’s been polishing them ever since.

  I don’t have an answer to that, so I just kind of sit there for a few seconds, willing myself not to look at my watch; we’re already six minutes late.

  Not a stretch for most families; for mine, well, we might as well bring Twisted Sister’s Christmas album for the evening’s listening pleasure.

  Speaking of, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” oozes from the radio, some old lady from a long time ago really belting it out; he gives me an ironic smiley face, so I turn it down; then off.

  He turns it back on, quietly, and explains, “I was hoping there’d be some news on the latest outbreak before we go in.”

  “Last I heard,” I tell him, ignoring the knot in my stomach from the live newscasts I’ve been hearing all morning, “the checkpoints from Thanksgiving were still holding and the governor has doubled the reservists at each hot spot.”

  “That’s good,” he says by rote, knowing as I do that what they say in news accounts and what’s really happening on the ground don’t always mesh.

  “10 minutes, Echo,” I plead. “Just give them 10 minutes and if you’re not digging it, if they’re even the least bit rude – aside from my little brother Zack, he can’t help it – then we’re out of there, promise.”

  “You say that,” he says, sighing and reaching for his seatbelt. “But you don’t really mean it.”

  He’s right, of course.

  We step out of the car, feet crunching on the mushy snow sliding down the street toward the gutter halfway down the slight hill we live on.

  He reaches in back, like the gentleman that he is, and grabs the gaily-colored presents we’d spent hours fighting over in the mall just the other day.

  Despite the pasty pallor, he looks downright gorgeous in his thick turtleneck – it hides the bite marks from his run-in with a true zombie on Halloween – and starched wheat-colored chords that hug every curve he’s got, and some even I’ve forgotten he had.

  He smells of some musky, spicy cologne he must have bought when I wasn’t around (which could be any day ever since they kicked him out of school for catching “the Z disease”), and as I reach for the gourmet food bag behind my seat, I nuzzle his neck as he stands beside me.

  “Stop,” he giggles, breaking his stern mask for the first time all night. “It tickles.”

  “Tickles?” I gush, excited by the temperature of his freezing cold skin. “I thought you zombies couldn’t feel anything?”

  “Well, I can feel that,” he growls suggestively, forcing me to step away before we start something in the backseat we can’t finish before dinner.

  I blush slightly at the ridiculously expensive front lawn display Echo has never seen before, but I’ve been embarrassed about ever since it went up the first week of December.

  Mom went all out (again) this year, adding Santa hats and candy canes to last year’s imported-all-the-way-from-Spain life-size nativity set.

  “Wow,” says Echo un-ironically. “That is… major.”

  I still can’t tell if it’s a compliment, or a diss.

  I guess at this point it doesn’t really matter; meeting my parents for the first time, he’s entitled to a few sour grapes.

  “So this is where you live, huh?” he asks, unable to hide the slight sense of resentment in his tone.

  I shake my head and say, “Hon, you know how it is. I’ve been meaning to bring you over, introduce you to the fam it, just, with school and volleyball and college prep, I just… where does the time go, you know?”

  He nods before smirking, “Funny, you always seem to have enough time to hang out at my place.”

  “Okay, you got me,” I admit, boot heels crunching on the freshly-cleared stoop as we stand in front of the front door, a fresh evergreen wreath tickling my nose. “I’m a jerk, all right? Happy?”

  He smiles at my discomfort.

  “Getting there,” he oozes, standing nervously next to me as I reach to ring the bell.

  While the fading strains of “Jingle Bells” echo in our heads – Dad ordered the custom-made door chime special online – I hear footsteps and Jimbo’s barking in the long front hall.

  The door opens and immediately the scent of fresh-baked pie and basting turkey shoots out of the house like fresh balls from a cannon.

  “Yumm,” he says instinctively as I watch the faces of my family closely.

  The door wide open now, nothing to hide, my zombie boyfriend standing right by my side, Dad frowns sternly, as if I’d shown up at the front door with a tattoo-covered biker named “Booger.”

  Mom, naturally, keeps her “It’s the holidays, I must maintain my composure at all costs” face plastered on, blinking rapidly and clutching tight to Dad’s bright red Christmas sweater.

  My younger brother, Zack, smiles in a way that says, “Wow, this night just got a whole lot funner.”

  And Jimbo, our intrepid German shepherd who’s been known to bark nonstop at our 6’ 7”, 300-pound mail carrier without ever once backing down, takes one look at Echo and promptly puts his tail between his legs, scurrying into the den.

  “Mom? Dad?” I begin nervously, hating the catch in my throat. “This is Echo, my… boyfriend.”

  He grins despite himself behind the tower of presents and croaks, “Merry Christmas!”

  The house is alive with fireplace glow and flickering candles and the 7-foot, pre-lit tree.

  Echo takes it all in; it’s quite a contrast from the two-bedroom apartment he shares with his workaholic Dad, who even seven weeks after the attack still doesn’t know his own son is one of the living dead.

  “Wow,” he says while my family stands around looking speechless. “You have a great place here, Mr. and Mrs. Kersey.”

  “Why, thank you… Echo,” says Mom as he sets the presents down at the border of the huge stack already under the tree. “And you’re so kind; you didn’t have to bring anything.”

  Echo and I wink at each other; wait until they open the presents and see what’s inside.

  But then, hopefully, we won’t have to.

  I shut the door uneasily behind us, taking one last look into the street for any signs of rampant zombie infestation.

  So far, so good, although I notice extra locks and plenty of high security house lights on the neighbor’s homes.

  The dinner table is already set and Dad busies himself making sure everyone is in the right spot.

  Old school ‘til the end, I can’t even sit next to Echo, but must face him from across the decked out table as Zack pokes his fork into my thigh under the table and whispers, “He doesn’t look that bad, for a zombie I mean!”

  I shoosh him as Mom pours me a half-sip of champagne.

  Mom pours some for Echo, too, who politely says, “Thank you, ma’am,” even though of course he can’t drink it; can’t drink anything, that is, except for the rare sip of brain juice that runs off his main dietary supplement.

  “Oh please,” she blushes to hear such manners – my last boyfriend used to honk the horn at the curb and never even lasted ‘til Christmas – and says, “Please, call me Trudy.”

  He smiles and I know, if he could, he’d be blushing right now.

  Dad sits while Mom fusses around finishing off the last minute fussing.

  I spy the frilly white gourmet bag sitting on the kitchen counter and excuse myself to join her.

  “Mom,” I say, reaching for one of her fancy china plates. “FYI, Echo can’t eat, like, normal people food so I was just going to serve him this, if you don’t mind.”

  “What, you mean he’s a… vegetarian?”

  I look at her lined face, her Christmas sweater, her tightly wound hair bun and sputter, “No, Mom, he’s a… a—”

  “I know what he IS, dear,” she snorts, reaching for a mostly empty glass of wine; I can tell by the syrupy voice it’s not her first. “I’m just kiddi
ng. Let’s get a look.”

  I untie the golden, gilded bow keeping the two wicker handles of the gift bag together, then slide out a waxy white box filled with fresh brain pate from that ritzy gourmet store in the mall.

  It cost me two weeks’ worth of allowance, but it was worth it; I wanted Echo to have something he could enjoy on our first Christmas together.

  “Uhhm,” she says appreciatively as I slide it onto a plate. “Smells better than my boring old turkey. I wish your father would loosen up a bit and let us have something different for a change.”

  I smile and pick up the plate and she grabs my shoulder.

  “Here,” she says, adding a sprig of fresh holly to the pate. “Why should his plate look any different from ours?”

  I smile to myself and walk into the dining room, where Dad and Echo are in the middle of a heated debate over the whole zombie “right to life” issue.

  “I mean,” Dad is saying. “Why should my taxpayer dollars go toward educating a zombie like yourself when you have no hope of finishing high school or, for that matter, even getting a college degree?”

  Echo, who I’ve personally seen break bad guys in half with his pinkies, to say nothing of what can happen when he uses both of his hands, has his temper in check; if only for me.

  “Sir, with respect, the latest Reanimation Bill states that zombies can, indeed, go to college—”

  “That’s IF they complete their high school equivalency, son,” Dad barks, knuckles white around his half-empty beer mug.