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

  But it started to… fizz?

  The vampire did choke

  On Santa’s gag gift!

  Just when his spirits

  Had started to lift!

  It wasn’t elf blood

  In that little glass tube;

  Old Chaunce had been had;

  He felt like… a boob!

  It was candy Santa’d left him

  Under the tree;

  And now the fat man

  Did cackle with glee.

  “It would be too easy,”

  Santa called from his sleigh.

  “If I gave you my blood;

  Just tossed it away.”

  And then Santa drove

  Quite far out of sight;

  As his sleigh disappeared

  On this cold Christmas night.

  And Chauncey retired

  To his coffin downstairs;

  For some much needed

  Old bloody vampire repairs.

  And he thought as he nestled

  Quite snug in his coffin;

  How next year old Santa

  He’d better be offin!

  * * * * *

  Zombies Don’t Pop:

  A Living Dead New Year’s Eve Poem

  I’d never liked parties

  At the end of the year;

  Since it meant back-to-school time

  Was drawing more near.

  But this year was different

  As the clock did ding-dong;

  And out of the graveyard

  Bodies soon were long gone.

  They roved and they wandered

  As midnight drew near;

  It was clear they were shuffling

  Why, right over… here!

  The dead had arisen

  From their burial plots;

  I’d say there were dozens

  I’d say there were lots!

  Their movements were jerky

  Their feet they did scrape;

  But the street was too crowded

  To make my escape.

  Our party was outside

  As the confetti flew;

  And the revelers shouted

  As the party it grew.

  The whole street was blotto’d

  Quite high off of champagne;

  As the zombies grew closer

  Inflicting their pain.

  They chomped on the grown-ups

  And then every kid;

  It wouldn’t be nice

  To describe what they did!

  But maybe I’ll try

  To give you a taste;

  Of what happens when

  Some zombies laid waste.

  They cracked open noggins

  And scooped the brains up;

  And then on their torsos

  They started to sup!

  They chomped on their shin bones

  And nibbled their toes;

  As blood spewed all over

  Like H20 from a hose.

  The street grew quite bloody

  Yes it was soon red;

  As all of my neighbors

  Grew terribly dead.

  And there I stood trembling

  As the zombies approached;

  Yes on our street party

  The dead did encroach.

  I could find no weapon

  To fight the horde off;

  As I started to cry,

  To sputter and cough.

  And as 20 zombies

  Reached in for a bite;

  I grabbed for the first thing

  That came into sight.

  The cork popped right open

  And knocked three dead down;

  As the rest of them stood there

  And started to frown.

  I looked to my left

  And then to my right;

  Thank God they’d attacked

  On New Year’s Eve night!

  My back to the bar

  I’d stumbled upon;

  A case of champagne

  That wasn’t quite gone.

  I handed the bottle

  To the first zombie in line;

  She tipped it into her mouth

  And thought it… quite fine!

  She sucked and she swallowed

  The bubbly all down;

  It fizzled and fuzzled

  All over her gown.

  The rest gathered round

  Waiting their turn;

  For those quite undead

  How quickly they learn!

  I popped all the bottles

  And gave them all out;

  As the zombies grew drunker

  And started to shout.

  They were lively and merry

  Those living dead ghouls;

  And in no time at all

  Were acting like fools.

  I left them all there

  Quite torn up and twisted;

  As I made my escape

  Why, all of them missed it!

  So I no longer hate

  That old New Year’s Eve;

  Since from a zombie attack

  It allowed me to leave.

  And I do have one lesson

  I’d like to impart;

  As your next cocktail party

  Is about to start:

  To see a mean zombie

  Get all troubly-wubbly;

  Skip brains for a change

  And give him… some bubbly!

  * * * * *

  The Vampire’s Valentine:

  A Vampire Valentine’s Day Story

  Prologue

  I always hated Valentine’s Day.

  Even before I became a vampire.

  The cards?

  Well, I never got any.

  The candy?

  It always made me break out.

  The dances?

  No one ever asked me.

  Through the ages, it’s only gotten worse.

  Now seeing all the hearts in the high school halls, on candy wrappers and sweaters and bulletin boards and invitations, only makes me think of how my heart no longer beats.

  The couples kissing in the halls, figuring no one will care since it’s nearly mid-February, only makes me think of the passionate blood rushing through the veins beneath their skin.

  The smell of chocolate sickens me.

  But this year, this one year, for the first time ever… someone gave me a Valentine:

  * * * * *

  The Vampire’s Valentine

  I’m staring out the classroom window when the soft ruffle of paper, more like cardboard, clatters inside my empty mailbox.

  Most days of the year I don’t have a “mailbox” on my desk, but this is Valentine’s Day, so… desk?

  Meet mailbox.

  I don’t turn right away because I can see her in the midday reflection of the window.

  Tall, black hair, black sweater, black skirt, red and white stockings, black shoes; her Valentine’s getup.

  Hilda McGregor?

  She’s my valentine?

  My first-ever, in 145 years, valentine?

  I turn, at last, to see her fidgeting nervously in front of my desk.

  “Hilda?” I ask, voice low as our classmates giggle and coo over their endless, towering, so-big-they’re-teetering-off-their-desk stacks of red and white and gold foil greeting cards.

  “Hey Chester.”

  She has that crooked smile I see so rarely but, sometimes, from across the room when I catch her looking at me.

  “Did you… just… slip a Valentine into my box?”

  She bites her lip and nods, looking around self-consciously.

  The only thing worse than one loser drawing attention to herself is two losers enjoying themselves.

  Nothing draws attention like that.

  I’m no fool; either is she.

  Time is running out before someone notices.

  “Thank you.”

  “No biggie,” she adds, clutching her shoulders the way she does.
/>   “I… I… don’t know what to say.”

  “You just did,” she giggles.

  And somewhere, deep in my cold, dead heart, the temperature rises just a little.

  Not enough to matter, but a little just the same.

  “I don’t have one for you,” I apologize.

  She shrugs and says, “I didn’t expect you too, Chester. No one ever does. It’s cool. You can… can… get me back someday, okay?”

  And she flees, quickly, without another word.

  I flick my eyes left and see why: Char Brighthouse is shooting her daggers, all the way back to her desk.

  She looks from Hilda back to me, then back to Hilda and sneers; I smile back.

  Groaning, Char turns to her friends Brazen and Splenda and leans in for a monumental whisper-slash-bitch-fest.

  I smile, wondering if I haven’t already just found a way to repay Hilda.

  I lurk in the shadows for the rest of the afternoon after our midday Valentine’s party in Mrs. Hutcheson’s Home Ec class.

  Hilda is easy to shadow, so tall and hulking in the halls, always dressed in black, that limp blond hair like straw as she twirls a single strand endlessly around one bitten-to-the-quick nail.

  We don’t have many classes together, but now that she’s shown me a small ray of kindness in this mortal world, I shadow her from room to room just the same.

  I stand outside her Biology class, ear to the wall, using the powers I’ve honed over nearly two centuries to eavesdrop through the cheap, cinderblock walls.

  Aside from a boring lecture from Mr. Haines and a few catty asides about Hilda’s stockings from Char and her gang, not much happens.

  Outside the gym during 7th period, though, everything changes.

  There are windows here, and what I couldn’t see in Biology I can see clearly now.

  Hilda, hang dog and hunched over in her brown-on-brown gym shorts and matching T-shirt, tube socks yanked up to her bruised knees and knotted shoestrings bunched around her battered hi-tops, standing awkwardly while Char and Brazen and Splenda circle her like sharks in a tank.

  I can feel the fangs flicker at my gums, like wounds healing – or being torn open.

  I can feel the claws itching to slip from my fingertips, and stow them deep in my jeans pockets just in case.

  I turn, eyes closed in anger, and slip unnoticed into the girls locker room.

  I ignore the showers, the heat, the naked bodies as they pass beyond my cloaked presence a few minutes later.

  In my anger I feel the invisibility begin to wane, but manage to focus even as Char continues to taunt Hilda standing, half-naked, at her open locker.

  “Fess up, Hilda,” Char spits. “You dig that Chester dude, don’t you?”

  “Not like you think,” Hilda insists, and I can tell her voice is sincere.

  “I think you’ve got the hots for the creep,” says Brazen, tossing her long, red locks as she shoves Hilda into the lockers.

  The sound echoes off the slick, wet walls as the other girls – cowards, all of them – quickly dress and scramble out of sight.

  “So what if I did?” Hilda squeaks, defiant – if hopeless – to the end.

  The other girls laugh, harpish shrieks that grate on my ears.

  And I’ve heard werewolves howl in the fresh moonlight, so I should know a thing or two about shrieking!

  The air in front of my face sizzles to life as the power of invisibility threatens to tear apart in my rage.

  And still the insults hurl, the abuse continues.

  The girls taunt Hilda, and push her, paying no heed to the ringing bell or the empty hour.

  They have all day, it would seem, to make Hilda their special project.

  The locker door slams every time they shove Hilda into it, her pale, bare shoulders peppered with bruises; some recent, others long since trying to heal.

  Her peach colored bra struggles to stay on from the constant abuse, even as her black skirt from earlier in the day hangs loosely around her pale, concave stomach.

  And she never wavers, never gives an inch.

  In her eyes I see not fear, but the revulsion – the rage – of a thousand vampires.

  And I know, if only she had the powers that I possess, she would grind these girls under her boot and leave without a frown.

  But she is too good to fight back, too hemmed in by the consequences of what might happen if she broke Char’s nose, yanked out Chaz’s earring or chipped one of Splenda’s perfect, white teeth.

  Years of being outcast have ground her down and made her fear the repercussions both real and imagined.

  Char raises an open hand to strike and I drift from my cloud, fully visible and stop her slap in mid-air.

  She shrieks, but no more loudly than Brazen and Splenda.

  Brazen tries to run to Char’s aid but, at last, Hilda is spurred to action, reaching out with one long, nearly endless arm and yanking the back of her bra until Brazen’s brassy red head yanks back, all the way back into the nearest locker.

  She slumps, conscious but shamed, to the floor in a blithering heap.

  Splenda rushes to her aid and, on the way past, Hilda extends one bare foot, sending the blond slipping across the wet locker room tiles, her head landing face first in an open locker full of damp, moldy socks.

  She lies, semi-conscious, where she lands.

  “You witch!” Char spits at Hilda when I finally release her.

  Hilda is tugging on her black sweater, pulling her limp blond hair out the opening and across her shoulders.

  “Me?” Hilda asks, keeping her distance. “You and your girls rushed me, Char. How am I the witch?”

  “You planned this,” Char accuses, inching away from me and closer to Hilda. “The two of you, I saw you at the Valentine’s Party earlier, getting all chummy.”

  “Nonsense,” I correct. “Hilda here was just giving me a Valentine.”

  I smile at Hilda.

  Uncertain, she smiles back.

  Hesitantly at first and then, when it’s dawned on her that I’m here, really here, the smile at last gets bigger.

  Char looks suspicious, her pug nose turned up as she rifles two hands full of bright red fingernails through her raven black hair.

  “Yeah, so… what are you doing here then, Chester?”

  “I suppose,” I say, just now realizing what I am doing, “this is my valentine to Hilda.”

  Hilda smiles, standing a smidge taller all of a sudden.

  “Whatever,” Char spits. “You’re both a couple of freaks anyway.”

  “So what?” Hilda barks, slipping into her candy cane striped tights before we get down to business. “So we’re freaks, big deal. Just… leave us alone. We’re not bothering anyone.”

  Char snorts, an ugly sound; worse even than the sound zombies make when sucking brains from a fresh skull.

  (And, yes, I’ve heard that too.)

  “Yeah, like that’ll ever happen.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Hilda asks.

  “Yeah, like after what’s happened here, I’m ever going to leave you two alone. Ever! You both just bought yourself a one way to ticket to Mean Girls Heaven.”

  As Char and Hilda face off, I chuckle easily, the fangs sliding effortlessly from my gums.

  Char is turning around slowly as Hilda shakes her head at me.

  I make a quizzical gesture but close my mouth just the same.

  Only then does Hilda smile.

  “What’s so funny, sourpuss?” Char asks, finally looking me up and down.

  I smile behind closed lips until my fangs retract and then ask Hilda, “Yeah, Hilda. What is so funny?”

  “Just this!” Suddenly, Hilda grabs Char’s hand and yanks her backward onto the nearest bench.

  Char’s head bounces off the varnished wood but Hilda leaps onto her waist, pinning her down with crab-like thighs that are obviously much stronger than they appear, all sickly and skinny like.

  “Left or rig
ht?” Hilda asks, gripping Char’s hands to keep them from flailing.

  “Left or right what, witch? Let me up or I swear I’m going straight to—”

  “Left it is,” Hilda says, finding Char’s pinky and, with a crooked smile, bending it back until we both hear a sickening “snap” sound.

  Char cries out in pain as Splenda and Brazen huddle together in a corner.

  “Keep screaming,” Hilda hisses into Char’s ear, “and I’ll keep snapping.”

  Choking back tears and swallowing snot, Char does as she’s told.

  Hilda shoves her off the bench, onto the floor, and takes her spot, sliding out her battered hi-tops and slipping them on casually as she looks at Char, whimpering, snottily, on the wet locker room tiles.

  “Don’t ever talk to me again, Char,” Hilda says, brass in her throat. “I mean it. For every word you say to me from this day forward, I’m going to break a finger. And if you say more than nine, I’ll start on your toes.”

  Char whimpers, nodding nervously.