Page 17 of The Krampus' Queen
“Help?”
Was that a voice?It’s my head playing tricks. I’m freaked out and imagining things. There’s no one here but me, a goat monster, and his cavalcade of kidnapped brides.
Oh shit, what if it’s the brides?
“Hello?” I call out, working my way down the stairs.
“Help?” The voice grows stronger as if it's gotten a response for the first time in years. I can’t tell who it is. Not a man, that much is obvious. It’s soft, like a kidnapped woman pleading for salvation or a…
In spinning around to find the source, my feet brush over the ominous sigil. I yelp and leap back just as the entire floor under it flips up. Down below, smoke belches through a tunnel. The crackle of a distant fire and heat rushing up my body sends me skittering away.
It’s the pits of hell.
Why does he have this under his throne?
I reach a toe over, hoping that touching the perpendicular sigil will close it. Hands spring up through the clouds of smoke. They bat at the air, shaking it away until faces stare up at me. Filthy, soot-stained, panicking, tearful, tiny faces.
The faces of children.
“Help!” they cry out.
I run.
CHAPTER 9
HE’S A MONSTER.
I deluded myself into thinking he’s some misunderstood hero who does light breaking and entering to rescue women being tortured by bored billionaires. But it is so much worse than I could have ever imagined.
Shame and fear send me skittering away from the plaintive cries for help. I can’t face them after what I’ve done. My body tumbles through the archway, my feet nearly slipping out from under me.
I dig into the corner of the wall, panting. My skin broils at the people, the children, trapped under my feet. How many…? How long…? Does he tear them from their beds on Christmas Eve and force them to mine coal for the big guy?
What the fuck is wrong with this world?
A scream tears out of my throat when I blink and spot the red door. If I go through it, all of this will vanish. I’ll forget everything, my kidnapping, theirs… How I sold my soul for a monster’s cock.
The tiny pleas for help bite through me. I jerk, realizing my hand’s already around the knob. I can’t stay here. He’s going to throw me down there too once he’s had his fun. I have to leave. I…I’m sorry.
I turn the doorknob.
A great frozen wind blasts me, tearing the robe off of my shoulders. I blink against the white light streaming not from the closed red door, but the entire back wall torn away. That was a door the whole time? Darkness marches through forming the shadow of a creature I’ve seen before.
Gnarled thorns rise from its head, the chest lumpy and misshapen as it towers a good ten feet above me. I stumble to my knees, my jaw dropping. What other horror has come to torment me tonight?
The shadow steps across the threshold. Black fur hides all of the face so I can only see a sunken pair of red eyes. It shakes, scattering blinding white snow that melts before it touches the floor.
I skitter back, trying to find my escape. I can’t go back to the throne room, and worse horrors could lurk down the other path. All that remains is the hot springs in a glass prison.
The monster heaves a shoulder and a set of antlers fall forward. I blink, realizing it isn’t one creature but two. Then he tugs back his hood and stares at me.
“Ah, you’re awake.”
Krampus stands unaware I’ve found his secret. I try to put on an assuring smile, but I can’t look away from the dead deer he’s got strung across his shoulder. Just like I was last night.
“What’s that?” I gulp, pointing to the silent head resting on his chest.
He glances toward it for a moment before smiling. “Dinner.”
