Walpurgis Hallow

Fright Christmas: A Creature Was Stirring

It was a cold December day when they took the Gravehallow Haul on the road. Frost had begun to paint its killing patterns on the windows of Walpurgis Hallow, and the bus itself, by extension. It was a grim, dark day; the sky had settled on a fine shade of slate grey that stretched on for miles. The sky was a never-ending sidewalk; an uncaring pavement that slowly shed frozen tears in spite of itself. Like cracks in the sidewalk, dark lines of black cloud broke up the monotony of the grey. The land was a pure white blanket, the halos of neon signs gleaming like nuclear gemstones on the fallen snow.

As the road beneath them roared dully under the tires of the tour bus, Cindy, Alice, and Eddie sat back as Linnea drove again. It had been a hard month of recovery since Halloween; Tori and Jacklyn had needed some help with getting their lives back together. No charges were laid against Jacklyn, fortunately; unfortunately, her mother was significantly worse for wear after Jack found that she'd been abandoned in the middle of nowhere and had managed to survive solely on the kindness of strangers and a small hospital in a backwater town. Tori had lost most of her popularity, but she hadn't cared. She was just relieved to be alive and herself. Jacklyn had barely been able to handle school with her injury (it had been a severe fracture), so she was exempted from gym and a few of her more intense classes. The gang had been both stressed and relieved since the crisis had ended.

So it was a relief, then, that they had been invited to Christmas dinner at an old manor belonging to Dr. Frank Bundy's family. They had been invited partially thanks to Emily Hoffman, who apparently had been recovering all year from the traumatic events of the past January; losing a hand was bad enough, but being tortured into acting as a deranged bodyguard for a cannibalistic serial killer was the broken glass-filled icing on the poisoned cake. Dr. Jack Bundy, the great-great-great-grand-uncle of Dr. Frank, and former brainwashed cyborg ninja serial killer, could relate to her predicament, and was more than happy to assist his nephew in helping her recover from her ordeal. Somewhat amusingly, Emily had fallen quite helplessly for Jack, who she saw as polite and dashingly handsome in spite of the many scars covering his face.

Alice wondered how exactly she would take the revelation that Jack was a 200 year old undead cyborg, and decided leaving her to figure it out for herself would doubtless be the best option.

Eddie, meanwhile, was bouncing a rubber ball against the wall of the bus and catching it. His eyes looked vaguely in the direction of the ball, but he didn't seem to care too much about it. He bit his lip and sighed.

"Eddie, what's wrong?" Alice asked, secretly suspecting what was wrong, but not wanting to say it. Eddie hated dealing with things directly.

Sighing, Eddie dropped the ball and looked at Alice.

"It's what I said at the party."

"Eddie," Alice replied, trying to be reassuring, "it wasn't your fault. You were stressed and you didn't need Tori's problems on your plate."

"Yeah, but I almost got her killed. I'm thankful every damn night that Jacklyn didn't have it in her to go through with it."

Alice put a hand on his shoulder.

"You can't let your guilt hold you back constantly. C'mon, Eddie. It's Christmas. Lighten up a little."

Eddie grinned.

"Yeah, it's Christmas, and you're dressed head to toe in black leather."

Alice winked at him.