Year's End: 14 Tales of Holiday Horror (6 page)

They set up camp and built a fire, and cooked some dinner and traded jokes and reminisced about the days when they’d first formed their unit. But none of the men were carefree. There was an unspoken nervousness among them since they all knew what they’d just seen with their own eyes and they wondered if the thing could still be lurking in the nearby grasses.

“Lillian,” Joaquin said. “I swear to you that the creature watching us had the head of a wolf but the muscular body of a half-naked man. It was a savage looking beast.”

“But couldn’t it have been just a wild wolf, a maned wolf with tall legs so that it would be possible for it to peer over the tall grasses?” Lillian wondered.

“No, and I’ll tell you why.” Joaquin re-lit his Maduro and continued, “The night was dark enough, but there was a new moon that cast a somber light over the sea of grasses and the Andes beyond. We all managed to fall asleep, but it must have been around three in the morning when we were awakened by a racket, a terrific squawking that came out of those grasses about a hundred yards away. Suddenly a flock of nandus, those wild flightless birds that resemble ostriches, scattered out of the grasses onto the plains, their big wings spread wide and acting like sails above their stick-like legs. Stupid birds they might be, but they’d known enough to run for their lives. We grabbed our rifles and left the camp, wading into the grasses toward the place where the nandus had been disturbed by the thing that had scared them half to death. I immediately thought of the wolf. The top of the pampas grasses came up to our waists and sometimes even our shoulders, and I ordered the other men to stick together so we wouldn’t get separated. Even so, all we did was wander in circles, confused in this ocean of plants, like sailors who’d lost their course at sea. Any moment I thought we might stumble on the body of a dead or dying nandu, one that the wolf had attacked. But we never did. We returned to camp disoriented by having done nothing more than go round in circles, and not having discovered the provocation for the nandus’ desperate flight. Grudgingly, as I’m a man who doesn’t like to leave a mystery unsolved, I went back to sleep. With my rifle in my hand.”

“But you hadn’t found anything terrible,” Lillian said reassuringly.

Joaquin gave her a sharp look.

“Or did you,” she asked cautiously, “see the creature again?”

Joaquin stood up and started pacing, occasionally glancing at Buenos Aires in the distance, and sometimes over at his niece. Lillian didn’t think he was really seeing either of them, but remembering that night in the pampas and seeing those tall waving grasses instead.

“I woke the next morning to a beautiful bright day,” he said. “Not a cloud in the blue sky, which stretched as far as you could see. I walked over to a nearby stream to wash up. From there I could see the faraway peaks of the Andes. I also saw the flock of nandus returning from across the plains, their fat necks like rattlesnakes and their little legs moving swiftly like peacocks. Somehow they’d sensed the danger was over. Then I caught a glimpse of my best friend, a damn good fighter pilot, Juan Cobo, in his red flannel shirt, lying on the ground next to the stream, splashing his face with water. Or so I thought, until I got closer and saw that Juan was headless. His head had been ripped off his body and carried away. The ground was covered with blood near his torso. In the place where his head should have been there was only a scattering of small neck bones and long sinewy muscles.”

“My God,” Lillian said, cringing. “That’s horrible.”

“You see,” he continued, “it was Juan who’d been the one who’d taken a shot at the creature. His morning bath had been interrupted by the werewolf, who’d bitten off his head in revenge, and now the creature had Juan’s head to toy with as his trophy back in his cave—or house.”

“How frightful,” Lillian said, pressing her fist to her mouth.

“We immediately informed the military authorities, who covered up the real circumstances of the killing. Juan Cobo’s own family was told only that he fell from his horse into a mountainous ravine, and by the time his body was discovered...well, that his head had been squirreled away by scavengers. As for the three other men and me, standing by the stream next to the spot where the torso of our friend lay, we clasped hands and swore each other to secrecy about the matter...except I’ve broken that pledge of secrecy now.”

“That may be,” Lillian said as she watched the smoke from her uncle’s Maduro drift lazily in the summer breeze that had wafted in from the garden. “But your secret is safe with me and you know it.”

“I believe you.” He paused. “I have to tell you, it was a powerful moment when Antonio Castillo, Nicholas Baer, Lucas Rossi and I clasped hands. We told each other it was appropriate under the circumstances to cut our trip short and go back to Buenos Aires for the New Year, but we swore to return to that very same camp between Christmas and New Year’s of next year. We made a pact that nothing was going to scare us away or stop us from having our reunion.”

“That’s commendable and brave, and nothing less than I’d expect from you and your squadron,” Lillian said.

“Yes, well, we toughed it out together during the war, and we’ve stuck together all these years. We’re resilient bastards.”

His words had the effect of breaking the tension and Lillian smiled with relief. She brought herself back to the present with a sense of urgency, however. “What time is it?” she asked hurriedly.

He checked his watch. “My, it’s nearly midnight. What do you say to going back into the grand hall and sharing a dance to bring in the New Year?”

“An excellent idea. I don’t want to miss the festivities.”

When they reached the hall, they waved to Roberto, who was dancing with his wife alongside the other revelers to the sprightly Cuban samba
Quizás, Quizás, Quizás
, the horns and percussion vying with each other for prominence. Lillian and Joaquin fell into step beside them. There was a lot of laughter and gaiety all around, and a keen awareness on everyone’s part of the imminent approach of the New Year. At one point, Lillian glanced up at the ceiling. Hundreds of multicolored balloons in wire baskets hung above their heads, waiting to be released at the stroke of twelve.

* * *

At the encampment that Joaquin Rojas and his fellow squadron members had recently abandoned, it was quiet. In fact, it showed no signs of life at all.

But just across the brackish stream where Juan Cobo had met his fate, hidden in a tangle of carefully cultivated thickets, was a hut that housed a hermit.

Leopold Florencia had concealed himself there for the last thirty years, eking out a bare existence from trapping and killing and selling the plump bodies of the nandus he hunted nightly in the pampas. His clientele, the only ones who dared look into his wolf-like face, were poor traders who made treks to the forgotten villages in the foothills of the Andes. He rarely ran into any other human beings—ccasionally some Querandi Indians who were a decimated tribe and now and then a few gauchos who were themselves a dying breed. Leopold Florencia was mostly left to his own devices, and he fished the streams for his dinners and, with the profit from his sales of the nandus, bought wine from the traders and sometimes potatoes and squash.

Tonight he was celebrating his New Year’s Eve in the candlelight of his hut with a bottle of wine and a freshly cooked trout. It was the happiest New Year’s Eve that he’d had in over thirty years.

He chuckled to himself as he fingered the filthy rags that covered his stinking body. His hair was long and matted, and his eyes wild. His teeth rotten and sticking out of his mouth in every direction, while his tongue was covered with a red pus from a persistent rash.

He sat back in his wooden rocking chair next to the table, the only piece of furniture in his hut besides the rocking chair and a broken down bed with a lice covered mattress. On the table was a framed photograph of his squadron from thirty years ago. It was a picture of him with Juan Cobo, Joaquin Rojas, Lucas Rossi, Antonio Castillo and Nicholas Baer. They were the ones who had reported him as a deserter after he’d refused to go on a fighter run against the British at Port Stanley during the Falklands War. They were the ones who’d made him flee to the ends of the earth and hide there, fearful of prosecution and the firing squad.

And now, all those years later, he’d seen the former members of his squadron riding on horseback through the pampas. They hadn’t been content to turn him in as a deserter all those years before, but had shot at him and tried to kill him on the spot.

Well, he’d taken his revenge. And if any of the other men ever returned, they’d meet the same fate as Juan Cobo.

Leopold Florencia took a gulp of wine to toast the rapidly approaching New Year. It tasted sweet and he savored it for a moment. Then he rummaged around at his feet and lifted Juan Cobo’s head up by the hair. He stared into Juan’s face, at his expression, frozen in terror at the unimaginable realization that death had arrived suddenly and early to claim its due.

Then, in the silence of the hut, Leopold placed Juan Cobo’s head on the table so that it faced the framed photograph of their squadron in its heyday. Juan Cobo was in the center of the photograph, his arms around two of his buddies’ shoulders, back in the old days when Juan had been a dashing, virile and handsome young fighter pilot.

Deadly Secrets

Steve Shrott

Angela stopped putting on her makeup and glared at me. “They want to see you tonight, New Year’s Eve?”

I shrugged, brushed my hair back, thinking how small a bathroom we had. “They told me it’s the way they work. Walters, the one I spoke to, said if I truly want to make my resolutions happen, I have to go there this evening around six.”

The corners of her mouth turned downward as they often did. “Okay, fine. Just make sure you meet me at the restaurant by nine. And don’t be late, Randy, ’cause…”

“I won’t be.”

“…the Bergsons are meeting us at the hotel at eleven. That only gives us two hours to…”

I nodded, opened the door and left, not wanting to hear the rest of it.

I got in my Toyota, several years past it’s prime, and began driving to “Happy Resolutions.” Angela had found it on the Internet. In truth, I didn’t really want to go, but she’d worn me down.

The place was located in the east end of town. Not my favorite location. The shops and people always seemed a bit stranger here.

I stopped at a light and watched a hunchbacked man roll a shopping cart across the road. I swear I saw a headless body inside and started to breath heavy. A moment later, however, I realized it was a broken mannequin a clothing store must have thrown out.

I’d have to watch that imagination.

I passed several tattoo parlours, gun shops and police stations. Then, above a martial arts studio, I saw a sign with the words, “Make your Resolutions Come True—Today.”

I parked, walked up the rickety stairs.

The door at the top had been left open and I found myself in a dark, empty room. I looked around, but didn’t see anyone.

“Hello? Hello?” No answer.

This was crazy. He knew what time I was coming—he should have been here. I wasn’t going to wait. I walked back toward the door.

“Mr. Lambert?”

I swivelled around to see an older man with short white hair. He was thin and seemed to almost swim in his black checked jacket. A long face made his wide smile appear almost too big, giving him an odd look—like he had more smile than face.

“Yes, I’m Randy Lambert.”

He shook my hand like he’d been waiting for me for an eternity. “I’m Harlan Walters. Today is going to change your life.”

I doubted that, but I followed him through another door to a brightly lit office.

It was small, a large oak desk occupying most of it. He sat behind the desk and I sank into a plastic Walmart-type chair in front. He removed a notebook from his pocket and scribbled something down. Then he looked up at me, and flashed that odd smile again. I cringed a little.

“First of all, a few particulars—you’re married?”

“Yes, six years.”

“How is the marriage?”

“Uh, good.”

“Any children?”

“Not right now.”

He scribbled some more and put the notebook away. Then, he learned forward on the desk, his features suddenly tightening up, becoming harder. “So you’ve decided that this is the year you’d like your resolutions to come true, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a list?”

“Not a written one. It’s up here.” I pointed toward my head.

“So you didn’t care enough to write them down?”

I was a little taken aback by that. “No. I mean, I know what they are—exercising, getting a promotion at work, spending more time with my wife, eating better. Pretty much the usual.”

He leaned back in his chair and inhaled a long slow breath. He stared at me as if I were a specimen under a microscope. “Let me guess. Your wife suggested those.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess she did. I mean, I’d like to do those things as well, but she’s kind of, uh, motivating me.”

“Motivating. Don’t you mean pushing?”

“Helping.”

Walters started laughing. A full-bodied laugh. Almost sinister. Then he stood up, came around the desk toward me. “Forgive me for being so direct. I do this with all my clients so they can see the truth. They’ve been blinded so long, they don’t know what’s real anymore.” He rubbed his hands together as if trying to get a bit of filth off them. “I have one question. Are these things that your wife suggested important to you?”

“Sure. I mean the exercise thing, not so much. I don’t really have the energy when I come home. And getting a promotion, well, I’m kind of happy where I am now.”

“And what about spending time with your wife?”

I took in a long breath. “The thing is, we already spend a lot of time together. It’s almost claustrophobic. See, she always makes these arrangements for us to go out with her friends, most of whom I can’t stand. And I can’t say ‘no’ or she starts yelling, saying I never do anything she wants. So I guess you’re kinda right, I’m not interested in these resolutions.”