On a Dark and Snowy Night...

By Zimbell House Publishing

On A Dark and Snowy Night...is how twenty-one short stories, by seventeen international contributors, begin.

This simple prompt began a journey that culminated in this unique anthology with tales that run the gambit of humor, fear, happily-ever-afters, regrets, mystery, and joy.

Curl up with your favorite beverage, a comfy blanket, and a warm fire, and prepare to enjoy tales that happened...

On a Dark and Snowy Night...

Featured Contributors:

Bruce Markuson ♦ Charles Frierman ♦ Christopher 'Irish Goat' Knodel ♦ Cynthia Morrison ♦ DJ Tyrer ♦ David W. Landrum ♦ Diane Arrelle ♦ Edward Smith ♦ E.W. Farnsworth ♦ James D. Fischer ♦ Matthew McGee ♦ Rayna Bright ♦ Roy Miller ♦ Sammi Cox ♦ Tony Wayne Brown ♦ Tyson West ♦ and Wendy Steele

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zimbell House Publishing
• Release date: Mar 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781942818625

Zimbell House Publishing

Zimbell House Publishing is an independent publishing company that wishes to partner with new voices to help them become Quality Authors.Our goal is to partner with our authors to help publish & promote quality work that readers will want to read again and again, and refer to their friends.

Book preview

A Long Winter’s Sleep

Diane Arrelle

On a dark and snowy night, Verity slept and dreamed the dream she dreamt every winter. It was a wonderful dream, full of warm sparkling sunshine, singing birds, buzzing insects and of flying on whispering wings through the blue, blue sky.

But, it was only a dream, and one broken by a sudden sound.

Verity opened her eyes slowly and wondered why she was awake. She turned her head back and forth and tried to peer into the cold, deep darkness of winter. Then she heard the noise again and knew why she was awake. A loud thump on her roof, a mysterious and very, very wrong sound indeed. Fully alert and all traces of her winter nap gone, she curled her wings tightly against her back. She wrapped herself in the heavy blanket and got out of bed. The room was inky dark, the floor was cold and she heard it again, footsteps from above. The cold shocked her feet and she wanted to find her slippers but she was afraid to turn on the lights.

On frigid tiptoes, Verity went to the window and looked out into the ebony night. As her night eyesight adjusted, the world outside took form and she saw the snowflakes swirling and the silhouettes of the trees bending in the wind. The footsteps continued above. She shivered at the thought of someone on top of her abode. Stay calm, Verity, she said to herself. It can’t really be footsteps and anyway who would be out in the forest on a night like this?

She tried to relax, after all, nobody had ever found her cottage before, for she had made very sure that it was well hidden and protected. She looked around the dark living quarters and sighed. She’d hate for anything to happen to her house, she’d lived here ever since she’d come to this continent. This was her special place, her home and she dreaded ever having to move again.

The noise above stopped. Verity held her breath, but there was only silence. The intruder, if it had actually been an intruder at all, was gone. She looked out the window again and wondered, was she going to have to go out in the storm to investigate, or just go back to sleep.

Her feet had turned numb and the ache of the cold was starting to creep up her calves. Her bed was calling to her all warm and soft, a winter cocoon in a raging blizzard. But there was something outside, something trying to disturb her perfect world. She had to be strong, she told herself. "You have to protect your home.

She hobbled on unfeeling feet to the fireplace and lit a single, small log. If her home had been discovered, then she needed to be alert and warm. She finally found her slippers and her feet slowly came alive again sending stabbing pains from her toes to her heels. She gasped, tears spilling from her round blue eyes as pins and needles brought feeling back. When she could walk again without pain, Verity added a second log to the fire and slipping off the blanket she had wrapped herself in, she stood naked enjoying the warmth.

She started to relax and unrolled her glorious iridescent wings enjoying the heat and flickering light. She wondered if she’d been discovered that she’d have to flee into the night and build a new cottage again. She often worried, just like everyone else, about the humans coming and tearing down the woods. But it was night and a storm was howling beyond her doors and on one, human or otherwise, would be out and about. For now, for this winter, she decided she could feel safe.

Drowsiness started to overtake her, being awake just wasn’t a natural state on a bitter, winter’s night. Probably it was only an animal looking to hide from the blizzard, she mumbled and yawned. I’m going to bed, she announced and had just gotten under the blankets when she heard a light thump outside.

Mumbling, annoyed and more than a little fearful, she got up and marched over to the front door, then stood like a statue unsure of her next move. Finally, Verity squared her shoulders, put on her most fearsome expression and swung the door opened.

Who is it? Verity screamed into the wind. What do you want? The storm stole away her words, the snowflakes swirled and the cold lashed her cheeks. She looked in every direction and saw only snow and whipping tree limbs. Looking down, she discovered a small pot with tiny white flowers. Despite the blasting cold on her bare body and the fear she’d had for the last half hour, she smiled. Snow Drops were her favorite flower, although she so often missed them, never going outside until the winter weather had fled.

She stooped and picked up the plant, then saw the hoof prints blowing away in the snow. She smiled and unfurled her large, delicate, gossamer wings. Aidyn! she called into the wind.

As she waited, she read the note on the stalk. I grew these for you and couldn’t wait until you woke, Sorry, I disturbed you.

She felt so much safer knowing Aidyn was about. He didn’t need to sleep all winter because with all that wooly hair, he was well protected.

Aidyn! she shouted at the top of her lungs as his footprints became covered over. Come back!

She stood shivering just inside the doorway, hoping he’d heard her when suddenly there he was in front of her, a smile on his handsome bearded face. Sorry to wake you, he said. I tried to be quiet up there.

She sighed with relief, That was you on my roof?

He grinned, Sure it was me, I moved a fallen tree from up there. Seriously, who else could see your house? What, did you think it was, a human?

Well…

Verity, you have more charms on this cottage than any other fairy I know. Go back to bed and when you wake, the flowers will be there to greet you.

Verity smiled back, relaxed and happy. You’re right, I’ve got to get my beauty sleep. They both laughed because Verity loved to remind him that fairies are always beautiful not to mention vain. She never mentioned that fairies, or at least that she, found this half-man-half-goat very beautiful as well.

OK, Aidyn said. See you in March.

Verity, hesitated for a moment, knowing she was treading on new ground. Aidyn, if you can keep those hooves to your side of the bed, I’d love to have you by my side, until I fall asleep.

Aidyn smiled, rubbed his short goat horns and brushed at the long fur covering the bottom half of his body. Madam, he bowed, A Satyr never says no to an offer like that. I’ll be here when you start dreaming and I’ll be back here when you awaken. Just don’t expect to fall asleep too soon.

A Very Special Christmas

Tony Wayne Brown

On a dark and snowy night, Bob arrives at eleven p.m. on Christmas Eve like he has for the past seven years. He is very surprised to find that her car is not parked in her driveway like it always has been, especially since mounds of snow still linger from a rare wintry blast in Greenville. Maybe she’s gone to get a bottle of the Duplin Carolina Hatteras Red wine they've always enjoyed so much over the past seven years, but if so, it is highly likely that she will come back empty-handed. Surely no store stocking it will be open this late on the night that Santa Claus must make his rounds.

Upon reflection, Bob shivers, even though his car is well-heated from the coldness of the night. Sue would not...could not do such a thing. She has been deathly afraid of driving at night all that time, so he is very worried. He is sure she will be back soon, though, even though their relationship has been odd, to say the least. They meet just once a year, but it means everything to him. Today is her 25th birthday and the tenth anniversary of the horrific event had changed her life completely. He thinks back to her eighteenth birthday when he’d called her as he always had on her birthday. Instead of the elation he’d expected, he heard sonic waves of sobbing.

I cannot make it through one more hour, she'd said. It's been three years and my face is just as awful as it was the day I got out of the hospital. You should have seen the way a woman stared at me this morning, like she thought I was a monster out of a Stephen King novel. Every time that happens, every time I see myself in a mirror, it seems like it happened yesterday. I feel as if I am in eternal limbo.

There is no reason in this world that a woman as wonderful and loving as you are should feel so low, he remembers telling her. I’ll be there in a few minutes to help you get by this. You should not be alone at a time like this. Don’t you remember that old Dean Martin song, ‘everybody needs somebody sometime. Everybody needs someone somehow.’ It had taken a lot of convincing that he had no ulterior motive, but finally, Sue had conceded that having his strong shoulder to lean on would ease her mind. He’d been true to his word, lying on top of her comforter while she was beneath it, the hours passing until sleep arrived for them both, and a tradition born that meant the world to both of them. The short time spent with her each year since then is not enough for Bob, but it is beyond his control. He loves her as much as any man loves a woman, but she's never been able to bring herself to believe he could love someone who looks the way she does. Bob laughs as he thinks of the expression Sue has when she talks about her appearance. Her scars were never really all that horrible at all, and they have faded over time. Besides, her scars have no significance to him. Their presence pales compared to her personality, which, unfortunately, only shines for the briefest of moments while they are together.

Memories of the cherished hours spent with her since then flood his mind as he waits for her in his truck. The radio station playing oldie after oldie only reinforced his feelings of how everything could have been so different if only she had accepted his love. I Got You Babe, her very favorite song made him smile though, thinking how beautiful Sue was to him. After more than half an hour, he begins to worry more. Opening the back door of her house with a key she keeps hidden in a planter of rose bushes at the corner, he hears its familiar creak.

Eyebrows arched, he sees an envelope on the kitchen table with a big red heart drawn with crayon, Bob is written on it, with his initials on one side of an arrow and hers on the other. Opening it, he begins to read and learns he’ll never see her again:

My darling Bob, I’ve come to know you love me and have for many years. I can only tell you this because this is the last time you'll hear from me. Mother is right. I am a sinner. I have made love to you many times in my mind and I know I would give myself to you if we met again. I cannot allow you to go through life with people talking behind your back about me. I'm going to finish the job my father started, the way he wanted it to be. Think of me the way it was, not the way it ended. When my car goes off that bridge, the scars on my face will be erased forever.

She writes that she is driving to the spot where her father had deliberately run the car they were in off a bridge on her fifteenth birthday. He had only killed himself, though, the gas tank set afire by the bridge's concrete abutment, leaving Sue melting in a ball of flames crashing down into the river. She knows now, she says, that if she meets Bob again, she'll give in and do the unchristian things her mother has accused her of. She has often wanted to make love to him. In the intervals between their meetings, it is all she thinks of. She apologizes for lying to him, knowing all along that he loves her. She just can't burden him. The way people would talk. She didn't want him to go through life with whispers behind his back when people wondered why he was with an ugly old crone.

He doesn't even know what that is, but it's obviously not good. Why now, when she knows my love is real? Why now, when we could have been as one so long ago?

The time on her note means that it is too late to intercept her and prevent her from carrying out the message in her note. He will not lay with her this year or ever again, her firm, inviting body close against his. His hope that she will eventually realize he loves her has come true too late.

The light is blinking on her answering machine. He presses a button and hears Mrs. Aiken's severe voice, talking about her daughter and him. She says she knows he spends the night with Sue on her birthday and what a terrible person he must be to do such a thing. Evil personified, she calls him. A tool of the Devil himself, come up from the depths of Hell to drag you down into his evil empire.

Cast not your spirit upon the waters of the damned, Sue, but be saved once more and go to the Promised Land where your sins will be forgiven if only you repent your misdeeds, Mrs. Aiken says. God will punish you all the more for sinning on the day of the birth of our Lord and Savior, she continues, railing on. She says she knows she upset Sue when she phoned earlier and called her a worthless piece of humanity peddling herself like a common whore and the worst kind of sinner bound straight to Hell, but she just had to call again to make sure she was not dancing to Satan's siren song with that perverted man who was just taking advantage of her because her scars look so terrible.

And that is just one sentence.

It is so eerie in Sue's house, hearing the woman's lunatic ravings. He had no idea Sue had ever told her anything about the rendezvous the two of them had shared. All these years he had been sure it was a secret known only by the two of them. How ironic, he thinks, as he listens to the steely voice preaching hellfire and damnation to her daughter, who was still as chaste as the day she was born. The venom in Mrs. Aiken’s voice makes him feel like an Artic blizzard has swept over him.

For seven years, starting three years to the day of the crazed actions of her drunken father, they'd done nothing more than sleep pressed together, Sue wearing an unsexy red flannel nightgown that just about shouted STOP! and him in long-sleeved woolen pajamas. For hours, they had talked about how much better a place the world would be to live in if everyone only treated others as they would like to be treated themselves, if kindness and consideration of others became the norm, rather than the exception.

Mostly they talked about love, and how much better off the planet would be if love could only take the place of hate; if hugs took the place of thugs. How wars would then cease and armies turn to the plow rather than wielding the sword. Usually, the love they spoke of was that of historical and literary figures, however: Romeo and Juliet; Paul and Linda McCartney; John Kennedy and Jackie; Sonny and Cher. Especially Sonny and Cher. Sue had cried herself to sleep the night they'd been together after Sonny Bono skied into a tree and died. She had kept talking and talking about how Cher had been devastated by his death. Surely, she'd said, Cher could never have loved another man as much as she still loved Sonny at that moment, even though she had been married to Gregg Allman and had been linked with so many other men.

That is the kind of love I have for you, Bob remembers telling Sue as he'd held her tightly and tried to make the tears go away. He had wanted so badly to make love to her at that moment, but her sole transgression had been to let him cup her breast in one hand until they fell asleep. That slight indiscretion, that one slight indiscretion, had been the extent of her sin. If her mother had only known, maybe things would not be as they seem. It was too late to matter. His love was gone. Damn Mrs. Aiken! Driving such a caring person to do such a tragic thing.

Made a spectacle—much more so in her mind than by her actual appearance—as a result of her disfigurement, Sue had become a teacher for the mentally and physically impaired because she recognized her own unattractiveness and thought she could disguise herself in the background of her students. She regrets losing her children, she’s written, but is determined to go through with her plan to end her life of constant pain and bad memories once and for all.

She had been beautiful, but that was before her father had been arrested by a Pitt County sheriff’s deputy for throwing scalding water on her mother. Her mother's face was burned on the same side as Sue's was the next day in the wreck, making it look like their scarring was hereditary. Every time Sue saw her mother, she saw herself.

Bob had been Sue's only date in junior high and high school, taking her to the eighth grade Junior Cotillion dance, then the Rose High School Senior Prom. He’d given her a corsage of white carnations both times and she’d never forgotten how kind he was to her. He wanted more in the relationship, but she was so convinced she looked much worse than she actually did that she could never consider such a thing.

I will not allow you to be an object of ridicule, she’s written in her note. I see the way people stare at me, but that’s just me they’re looking at. I feel no shame because my scars are beyond my control, but when you come into the picture, it hurts me too much. I feel the depth of my ugliness then. I could live my life alone. I had my children at school and they have no concept of ugliness.

You have been my one beacon of light. I will always remember you for that. You were kind when others were cruel. You were blind while others could do nothing but see. I’ve loved you all these years, but I cannot let this become what my mother thinks it is. I hope you’ll understand. It hurts too much to be without you from one Christmas to the next. I know that if I see you one more time I can’t resist saying yes when you ask me again to be your wife. My love will always be with you. Just remember that. Love, Sue.

Bob's mind is numb, his eyes closed. The letter flutters to the floor.

The red light of a second message penetrates his eyelids. Mrs. Aiken again. Bob thinks how wonderful it will be when he strangles her until she turns purple and begs for mercy. How her eyes will bug out as he relentlessly tightens his grip. The next message only intensifies that desire.

Mrs. Aiken’s severe voice booms out in the darkness again. Sue! Evil is as evil does. Ask His forgiveness and you shall be walking in the path of righteousness once more. It will be good news to the Lord to find you’ve seen the error of your ways, my child.

The answering machine clicks off again. Bob's jaw tautens; his eyes narrows in anger. He can’t bring himself to believe Sue has actually killed herself because of her mother's crazy, vicious, false, words. He'll make Mrs. Aiken pay for her real sins, and enjoy every minute of it, even if it means life behind bars.

The clock next to the answering machine reads 10:55. Something compels him to turn the TV on. A woman promoting the news says, Coming up next at eleven... the tragic story of a Greenville woman involved in a serious crash for the second time in ten years. Stay tuned for the latest.

The phone rings, making Bob jump. Sue! No, not Sue. It’s Mrs. Aiken, the murderess. It’s her damn voice coming through the speaker. He doesn't answer. He knows cursing her for her stupidity will not bring Sue back. Mrs. Aiken's voice is completely different now. Calm, urgent. Pleading.

But not for Sue.

Bob, I know you're there, she states matter-of-factly. Please, please pick up the phone. I have something important to tell you. It's...about Sue.

The tone of Mrs. Aiken's voice lessens the firmness of his jaw. The venomous rasp of a rattler is now a mother’s softness. His eyes squint as he decides.

The phone is in his hand.

This is Bob, he replies in a monotone.

Thank heaven you're there! Turn on the Channel Nine news.

It's already on, Mrs. Aiken. They're about to say your daughter is dead...and it's all your fault.

No, no! Mrs. Aiken says. I've just talked to Trooper Brown of the highway patrol and he told me Sue survived! He said she seems to have not even been badly hurt. It's a miracle from God! Praise the Lord!

Bob's vibrating with joy. His heart feels like it's going to explode. He sinks to his knees, his mind numb. But as the blood flows back to his brain, he remembers who put Sue in that position to start with.

I heard the awful things you told her, Mrs. Aiken. None of it's true. You're the one responsible for her doing this. She never did a single thing you accused her of.

You don't understand, Bob. I've called to plead for your forgiveness for what I've done. Sue left me a message telling me how you've kept her sane all these years…how you were always there to comfort her at her greatest time of need. I am so…so...ashamed of myself. She's being operated on now, but, I beg you, go to the hospital and be there to comfort her when she gets out of surgery. She's not going to want to see me, and I don't blame her one bit. Please, please tell her I know now how wrong I was and that I can only hope one day she'll forgive me. I am the sinner, for I have cast the first stone; 'judge not, lest ye be judged,' so sayeth the Lord.

The Channel Nine news opens with a view of a man standing by a river, holding a microphone.

A near-tragedy struck here a short time ago as a Pitt County Special Education teacher was injured when the vehicle she was driving smashed through the concrete railing of this bridge spanning the Tar River next to the Falkland Wildlife Access Area, as you can see above us here, the reporter says. The victim of this grinding crash has been identified as Sue Aiken, a beloved teacher of physically-challenged youth in Pitt County. The apparently relatively minor extent of her injuries from such a violent event can only be described as 'a miracle,' rescue workers say. The gas tank ruptured and burst into flames before the car crashed through the tops of several large oak trees, then landed on the riverbank. Pete Pipkin, Chief of the Falkland Volunteer Fire Department, is standing here with me. Chief Pipkin, tell our viewers what happened here if you will.

The camera pans to a man wearing a fireman's suit and helmet, blackened by smoke.

At this point, we haven't determined what caused the accident. There doesn't seem to be alcohol or drugs or another vehicle involved and there's no skid marks, either. It looks like she just went straight into the railing. Maybe a deer was in the road...at this point, we just don't know. An off-screen voice calls for the chief and the camera swings back to the reporter.

Chief Pipkin told me moments ago that this is one of the extremely rare times that not wearing a seatbelt probably saved a life. He said that if she'd not been thrown clear of her vehicle and hadn't fallen into the river, there would have been little hope for her survival. From what he said, the water is usually very shallow at the spot where she landed, but it's still well above normal due to Hurricane Floyd. That extra depth kept her from hitting the bottom.

That's truly remarkable, Fabian, the anchorwoman responds. Do we know how she got out of the Tar River?

Standing with me is Paul Hanson of Falkland. Paul, can you tell everyone what you told me moments ago.

A man wearing a Bass Pro Shop cap nods. "Well, I was celebratin’ the birth of Christ here with my family like we done for the last fifteen years or so when I heard a car run through