The 12 Terrors of Christmas Book Tour & Giveaway

Terror
Nine:

 

In
her very scant spare time, she enjoys watching Japanese Anime and
reading vampire stories…along with other genres of great fiction,
as well as riding every roller coaster she encounters in both her
hometown and away at signings. An advocate for good health and
ketogenic eating, her favorite foods are bulletproof coffee,
cashew-flour crust pizza and treats made with xylitol and almond,
coconut or cashew flours.

Future
dreams include a cabin boasting a roaring fire, isolated inside a
snow-filled wood in the Yukon—the perfect writing spot—and the
completion of dozens of future novels and stories. A Rabbit Rescue
fanatic and loving bunmom, she also hopes to help rescues all over
the world save many innocent lives.

The date was December 1 st , twenty-two long, boring days before school let out for Christmas break, and
it was snowing like hell. I’d never admit it to anyone, but I was slightly creeped out by the murderous
details in the story I’d just been listening to. For some reason, watching little Lamia creep off into the
woods alone disturbed me even further. I yanked the red-and-white Beats earbuds—an early present
from my dad, who was equally proud of my Audible habit—from my ears only to find myself surrounded
by the eerie soundlessness which always seemed to accompany a heavy snowfall. I felt like all the
normal noises had been sucked away from the air around me, completely.
All I could hear as I continued toward the spot where Lamia had disappeared was the soft groan of my
boots sinking into the thick carpet of icy fluff beneath me. “Hey, Kid!” I called out, but she ran on as if
she hadn’t heard me, the snow muffling my voice as it had all other sound in our little corner of the
world. She hadn’t turned her head in response or even slowed the pace of her run a tick. When I
reached the line of trees, I hesitated. Must’ve been the dread the story I’d been listening to had
inspired, I told myself, but I was angry in the space it took my heart to pump out another beat.
“Shit, really?” I mumbled under my breath. “That kid’s not even old enough to go to school, and she ran
in there like she was the one born with the nuts… Awwww, to hell with it.” I slid the backpack from my
shoulder so that I could enter the woods as unhindered as possible and dove in. I’d never admit I did so
with my eyes closed.
As the squeak of the snow under my feet became the only sound—I’d lovingly packed my precious
earbuds into a special pocket reserved only for them—echoing softly off the damp-dark tree trunks, I
tried to brush off that tickle of fear which had begun to climb each individual vertebrae in my back like a
lizard inching along a palm frond. After all, I’d always wished to see something scary, gone in search of
ghosts on more than one occasion. Always hoped to find some kind of proof to turn all those journal
entries into truth. So many of the early settlers had written accounts of seeing or hearing things that
didn’t belong in the realm of the living. How could so many of them have been wrong? But as much as
I’d searched the woods ringing the whole of Whispering Woods Drive, and even the deserted, burnt-out
shell of the Henderson place which stood waiting for the insurance money to come through so they
could rebuild, I’d never seen a whisper of vapor, never heard so much as a whisper that couldn’t be
explained away by the logical or mundane thing which had made the sound. Of course, everyone in
Moon had seemed to stop writing about ghosts, abruptly, in 1890. Our history teacher had told us this
happened because that had been the real beginning of scientific advancement, bringing about all the
means to discover those logical explanations I mentioned previously to explain away all the strange
things they couldn’t before. The end of superstition giving way to the birth of rationale. Still, I’d always
hoped…
It was the weird smell which stopped me in my tracks. Earthy…savory…familiar. My mother burned sage
incense often in our home; it was one of her favorite scents. It had irked me for years because I’d justknown she was chasing all the ghosts away with the smoke even though several people on the internet
were of the opinion you could only use a sage smudging stick to cleanse a house. I’d seen where one
person commented on Yahoo Answers that three or four incense sticks bound together could be used in
place of one, so I’d tried to console myself with the fact my mother only burned one at a time.
Before I laid eyes on her, I heard her. It was really bizarre to hear a child chanting…like something out of
a ChildrenoftheCorn-esque horror movie.
“Air, fire, water, earth. Cleanse, dismiss, dispel.” She repeated the prayer over and over, and I must’ve
listened to it twenty times before I calmed enough to peek out from behind the large tree trunk I’d been
resting my back against. Lamia held an actual smudge stick… I’d seen enough of them on the internet
and my favorite shows to know what one looked like.
“You little bitch…” I growled under my breath. No wonder I’d never seen so much as a parlor trick
performed by a poltergeist. Between Lamia and my sage-burning mother, no self-respecting ghost
would come within a mile of Whispering Woods Drive. But what had Lamia seen or heard that would
prompt a four-year-old to ghostbust the woods surrounding her home?

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