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In 2020, Haunted MTL brought you the 13 Days of Krampus. Now we offer another exclusive series of holiday horror stories: The Twelve Nightmares of the Holidays. It’s day 8 of 12 Nightmares of the Holidays. If you missed it, check out the others so far: here for Jen’shere for Nicole’s and here for Phil’s. Enjoy.

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Once upon a time in a faraway land, there was a kingdom ruled by a king and a queen. There wasn’t a single person in their community that had a bad thing to say about the royal couple. There wasn’t a single person without a meal on their table or without a warm home. Their life ran like clockwork, everyone existing together in perfect harmony. 

Well, except for one thing. 

Every year, as the leaves fell and withered, followed by snow burying the ground underneath its embrace, without fail the queen would retreat inside the castle, assisted only by her most loyal servants. Only very few had witnessed her during those times and they had all said the same thing – that she looked like death itself wanted to wrap its arms around her and never let go. 

In what could only be described as the search for hope in dark times, the king would host a Winterfest ball. No expense was spared; the best quality meats, fruits, and custom baked cakes; the grandest decorations of sparkly garlands and wreaths made out of fresh pine branches. There were even presents for the townsfolk under a giant tree in the corner of the ballroom, the biggest ones for the children. Orchestra would play music for people to dance to through the night. For most, it would be the most looked-forward-to event of the year, despite the unfortunate circumstance. 

Yet for some, it would not turn out so great. 

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The king himself hosted a lottery during the ball for girls eighteen years of age and below with a grand prize of spending the night in the best suite in the palace. As one would expect, the girls of the kingdom were delighted to have a chance to feel like a princess, even if just for one night. To make it fair, the king settled for the simple method of writing all their names and putting them in a box. Whoever’s name was picked out would be the winner. The girl would be given a crown and a cape as well as the key to the suite. 

However, the girls would never return home. 

No one dared to say anything. After all, it would always be the depth of winter. The snow, the wind, the treacherous paths from the castle back to the town – it would be easy, even likely for the girls to get lost on the way home. No rulers would ever hurt their own loyal subjects, and if anyone ever dared to suggest such a thing, the punishment would be severe. 

In the darkest corners of their homes, whispers would still be shared. Things that should not have been possible, and yet it was right in front of their eyes. Shortly after every Winterfest, the queen would emerge from her chambers, looking more radiant than ever. At first, it had seemed like a miracle, and then each year it would only raise questions that there would not be an answer for. 

For how it seemed that despite the king’s face etching with wrinkles and his hair turning the color of ash, the queen remained untouched by the passage of time. Or one should say time would catch up with her at the first fall of snow and she would escape its grasp. 

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Or how a few have said they heard what sounded like screams coming from the castle on the night of Winterfest. But even they would shake their heads as if punishing themselves for the thought. It must have been the wind howling. 

No king would ever harm their loyal subject. 

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2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Jennifer Weigel

    December 22, 2022 at 12:32 pm

    Elizabeth Bathory would be the perfect Sow Queen, the warm blood provides such a beautiful and stark contrast to the cold white…

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Original Creations

The Scent of Blood: Comic Book Art by Jennifer Weigel

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Somehow I came across an older Midnight Panther comic book, Feudal Fantasy #2 from the late 1990s to be precise, and I thought I’d reappropriate it into a new story as a collage. Anyway, this is what evolved. Honestly there wasn’t a lot of content to work with, but that isn’t surprising seeing as how that wasn’t really the point of the original… And sorry, I saved the erotic bits for another project, though even that was pretty tame in this one – just a bunch of boobies.

The Scent of Blood comic book art
The Scent of Blood comic book art

Images: Black and white line drawings of wide-eyed anime women and men in various states of undress, looking cute, being coyly pensive, and hack ‘n slashing.

Text reads: I like… men who are dying. We ought to just kill everyone involved. The scent of blood!! I never see his face, he always wears a mask. What a waste of time. I don’t like this. The horny bastard. What a pig!! -Slash- Sounds like it could be fun.

Ferryman comic book art

Images: More black and white line drawings of wide-eyed anime women and men kissing and hack ‘n slashing.

Text reads: Mercenaries of glorious Edo, if you can make the flowers that bloom along the rivers during spring drop their petals, then do so. I’m the Ferryman of the River Styx. Whssh.

OK, OK – here are some boobies since you stuck with this so long. And here’s a link to some more of my comic book collages, in case you are interested.

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Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.

And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.

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Original Creations

Bonus Black Friday story: Zombie Apocalypse by Jennifer Weigel

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Black Friday.

You can’t beat the deals.  So many of us.  Waiting.  Readying.  Checking the time.  Counting down the seconds.  You better believe I earned my place at the start of the line.  I’ve been camping out here since late Wednesday.  Yeah, yeah, the holiday was yesterday.  Whatever, I had my family’s full endorsement.

Because that new high-definition television beckons.  The best in zoning out technology.  All channel access.  Cutting edge entertainment.  Bleeding edge.  That blade is sharp, baby.  Like a razor.

But this kind of escapism is costly.  A reality check says it’s not in my family’s budget.  We don’t make that kind of money, and so here I am.  Among all the others vying for the same prize.

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Only one will get there first.  Only one available.  Must have TV.  Must have T.V.  Must.  Have.  T.  V.

An employee approaches the door.  Nobody noteworthy.  A soon-to-be-casualty.  No more.  No less.

We rise and lurch into place.  Ready…

On your mark.

Get set.

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Go!

Black Friday Dealz... Must Have TV... Zombie Apocalypse
Black Friday Dealz… Must Have TV… Zombie Apocalypse

Original images generated with Nightcafe AI art generator.

Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.

And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website. Or if you just want more zombies, might I recommend either Elvis or the Fashionistas?

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Original Series

Nightmarish Nature: Scads of Scat, Beyond Just Goose Poo

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This time on Nightmarish Nature, in honor of Thanksgiving, we’re exploring scads of scat! And not just because of the aftermath of all that eating we’re going to be doing, given that everything that goes in must come out eventually. But because turkeys are weird.

But, how weird?

Apparently, the shape and size of a turkey’s poop can tell you the sex and age of the bird. Male and female birds poop different shaped turds, and bigger ones with age. Your poop can’t do that, we’re pretty sure. And no, we don’t want to check, even if it does come in a whole host of rainbow colors with all the dyes in our food nowadays. Keep your weird quirks to yourself.

Poop Emoji

Fecal Fetishes

Vultures have very acidic scat that helps to keep their feet and food clean of bacteria from hopping in and around dead things. Somehow, this doesn’t seem like a step up to us, but I guess if you’re a carrion crawler you take what you can get. At least you’d know where it’s been I suppose, and that’s more than you can say for some of your long dead food sources…

Rabbits must process their food twice in order to break down the grassy matter they digest (like cows chewing cud). And so they eat their own partially digested matter, the cecotropes they produce after the first digestion. This isn’t true poop per se, that fecal matter comes after second digestion, but it does work its way through the same way.

And that brings us to koalas. They are one of only a few mammals that can eat eucalyptus leaves (and are closely related to wombats, one of the other two). Koala offspring eat their mother’s pap, which is a specialized form of poop that allows the baby to transition from nursing milk to eating solid leaves. It is green, smeary, mushy, and can get everywhere. Just like you’d expect.

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Corny Poop Emoji

We aren’t exempt.

For all that we have learned to be poop averse, a lot of animals eat others’ scat and glean a lot of nutritional value from their detritus. It’s not just your dog raiding the cat litter box and then licking you in the face. And we humans have even fought wars over rights to seabird guano, which was used as a form of fertilizer in the late 1800s.

Anyway, that’s the scoop on poop for now. Maybe we’ll revisit this load later on, seeing as how there’s still plenty of content here.

If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:

Vampires Among Us

Perilous Parenting

Freaky Fungus

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Worrisome Wasps

Cannibalism

Terrifying Tardigrades

Reindeer Give Pause

Komodo Dragons

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Zombie Snails

Horrifying Humans

Giants Among Spiders

Flesh in Flowers

Assassin Fashion

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Baby Bomb

Orca Antics

Creepy Spider Facts

Screwed Up Screwworms

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