New Years Eve

A horror about new years Eve

The wind howled a mournful dirge around Blackwood Cabin, a fitting soundtrack for the dying hours of the old year. Inside, Liam tried to project warmth, coaxing a reluctant fire in the stone hearth while Chloe, draped in a chunky knit sweater, sipped champagne and watched the digital clock tick towards midnight. Their friend, Mark, ever the optimist, was already halfway through his third glass, babbling about resolutions he almost certainly wouldn't keep.

"Another year, another chance to pretend we're not just hurtling towards oblivion!" Mark slurred, raising his glass.

"Eloquent as ever, Mark," Liam chuckled, though a shiver, unrelated to the draft, traced its way down his spine. The cabin, rented for a 'rustic New Year's escape,' was more isolated than advertised. Snow had been falling relentlessly since dusk, blanketing the narrow dirt track leading in and out, burying it under a thick, impassable white shroud.

"Did you hear that?" Chloe whispered, her eyes wide, staring at the dimly lit window. A faint scratching, like branches against the glass, had cut through Mark’s boisterous laughter.

"Just the storm, babe," Liam said, but he too had heard it. It wasn't the rhythmic sway of branches. It was sharper, more deliberate.

The lights flickered, plunged them into a brief, terrifying darkness, then stuttered back on. "Power grid must be feeling festive too," Mark joked, but his voice lacked its usual conviction.

"Maybe I should check the generator," Liam suggested, already feeling the dread curling in his stomach. The generator was outside, around the back of the cabin.

"No! No, stay here," Chloe pleaded, her hand gripping his arm. "It's freezing, and it's probably fine."

But then, a heavy thud echoed from the attic directly above them, shaking dust from the old timbers. It sounded like something large, something heavy, had fallen.

"Right. That's not the wind," Liam muttered, grabbing a heavy iron poker from beside the fireplace. "Definitely not the wind."

"Maybe a squirrel? Bear?" Mark offered, though his face was pale.

Another thump, closer this time, followed by a dragging sound. A low growl vibrated through the floorboards. It was deep, guttural, and utterly inhuman.

Panic seized them. "We need to go," Chloe stammered, scrambling for her boots.

"Where?" Liam bit out, gesturing to the blizzard visible through the windows. "We're trapped."

A splintering crash exploded from upstairs, followed by the sound of something tearing, like cloth, or perhaps... flesh.

"It's in the house," Mark whispered, his face ashen. He fumbled for his phone, but the screen remained dark. "No signal. Liam, the landline!"

Liam remembered seeing an ancient rotary phone in the kitchen. He dashed towards it, poker still in hand. The kitchen was a shadowy space, the fairy lights from the living room barely reaching. He found the phone, but the cord had been ripped clean from the wall, leaving jagged wires exposed.

From the hallway connecting the kitchen to the bedrooms, a grotesque silhouette filled the doorway. It was tall, impossibly thin yet powerfully built, with head hunched low and limbs that seemed to bend at unnatural angles. In its grasp was a long, dark object �" too thick to be wood, too flexible to be metal.

Before Liam could scream a warning, the creature moved. It was impossibly fast, a blur of darkness, covering the distance to Mark in the living room in a single, horrifying bound.

Liam heard Mark’s gurgling scream, cut short as the dark object in the creature's hand �" now horribly clear as a section of exposed spinal column, vertebrae still glistening crimson �" arced down. The sounds that followed were sickening: wet thuds, tearing meat, the splatter of liquid. Liam didn't want to look, but he couldn't tear his eyes away. Mark's body slumped to the floor, dismembered, his head lolling at an impossible angle, a New Year's party popper still clutched in a severed hand, its festive paper stream now stained dark.

Chloe let out a strangled cry, backing away, tripping over a rug. The creature turned its head slowly, no discernible face but a gaping maw of sharp shadows, towards her.

"Run, Chloe! Run!" Liam roared, uselessly. He charged, poker raised, a primal scream tearing from his throat.

The creature met his charge with an eerie silence, deflecting the poker with an arm that felt like solid stone. It lashed out with its free hand, not striking, but grasping. Liam felt impossibly sharp talons sink into his chest, tearing through his sweater, then his skin, then his ribs. He felt the sickening pop as his bones gave way, and a searing pain erupted as something clamped down on his heart. He gasped, blood bubbling at his lips, as he was lifted bodily, dangling like a rag doll.

He saw Chloe, huddled in the corner, eyes wide with terror, utterly paralyzed. He saw the creature's dark form, the gleam of his own blood on its unnatural limbs, and felt the life drain from him, fast and cold. The last thing he heard was a faint, distant chime �" the eleven o'clock news report from a neighbor's house, carried on the wind, mentioning the approaching midnight.

Chloe watched, frozen and silent, as Liam’s eyes glazed over, his body going limp. The creature let him drop, a heavy thud echoing Mark's earlier demise. Then it began its slow, deliberate approach towards her.

She tried to scream, but no sound came. Her mind raced, a frantic animal searching for an escape that wasn't there. The cabin suddenly felt like the smallest, most suffocating space in the world. The creature paused, its form indistinct in the flickering firelight, but she felt its presence, a tangible wave of ancient, ravenous malice. It seemed to savor her terror, drinking it in like fine wine.

The digital clock on the mantelpiece clicked, the numbers flowing inexorably forward. 11:59.

The creature took another step, its movements fluid and silent. Chloe could smell the metallic tang of blood, the faint scent of something rotten and earthy, like grave dirt. Its hand, ending in claws that looked like sharpened bone, reached out, not to strike, but to touch.

A horrifying, guttural sound, almost a chuckle, rumbled from its chest. And then, at the very moment the digital clock flipped to 00:00, and the distant, muffled hoots and hollers of New Year's revelers could just faintly be heard carried on the wind, the creature moved. It snatched Chloe, not violently, but with a horrifying intimacy, dragging her deeper into the shadows of the cabin. Her scream, when it finally tore free, was a raw, primal sound of absolute agony and despair, abruptly cut short as the clock chimed midnight.

The howl of the wind outside swallowed the last echoes of her demise. Inside Blackwood cabin, the fire continued to burn, casting flickering shadows over the two mangled forms on the floor. On the mantelpiece, the digital clock glowed an indifferent 00:00.

Another year had dawned. And in the silent, snowbound depths of Blackwood Cabin, something ancient and terrible had fed, preparing for the next one.

Reviews

[Rachid Amrani]

Very beautifully written, Mark. It's obvious that you took advantage of your wide stock of vocabulary (my guess is you started reading at a very young age). Your narrative style is very poetic and you pumped an abundance of sensory details into the story to give us vivid details of the unfolding events (there are moments where I felt I was watching a movie). I feel sorry for Chloe after being snatched by the predatory creature. (Do we know how old is she and would that make a difference?)
On another note, the story could be expanded into a novel/novella. Ideas might include the hunt for the predator which would set off a whole chain of events.
Well done.
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