It's time I gave you a Microhorror. Horror is a kind of Christmas tradition too, isn't it. In October I gave you horrors all the way through the month and I always intended publishing them but I expect this is as close as I'll come. I have well over a hundred of them. My own horror is that I am pusilanimous as hell. Oh look it up!
Silent Curse
“There’s still a present under the tree,” said Erik.
“Don’t touch that!”
Various voices chimed caution.
Tanya took Erik’s hand. “It’s great uncle Bertie’s Christmas box,” she explained, which of course meant nothing to Erik since it was his first Christmas with them and he’d never heard of Uncle Bertie.
“It’s a tradition,” added her mother Poppy, who was very conservative in all her ways and needed no other reason for this particular eccentricity.
“It’s supposed to be cursed,” said Toby eagerly.
Tanya’s teenage brother could be a nuisance at times but he could always be relied upon to let any cat out of any bag and so Erik liked him. Tanya interrupted but Toby would not be contained. He loved the story of the Christmas curse and Erik was scarcely less eager to hear it.
“Great uncle Bertie died horribly from gas,” Toby enthused. “Not the sort you get from too much turkey either! Blisters all over his body, throat burning and eyes stuck with puss. He was in the trenches. They say you used to drown in your own lungs!”
“Mummy…” appealed Rachel. "He’s going to make everyone sick.” .
“Yes, Toby, that’s enough! My unfortunate ancestor was reported killed on Christmas Day1917 on the Western Front,” said Poppy. “When his wife Philomena was informed of the circumstances of his death, she was doubly horrified. She claimed to have had some premonition of his fate, you see. She preserved this gift unopened and it has passed down through the family ‘til the present day.”
“So nobody knows what’s in it then?” Erik loved mystery.
“No. So sad. They never had children of their own. They weren’t long married -- rather like you and Tanya. Anyway, Philomena expressly forbade tampering with it,” said Poppy. “It would be bad luck to touch it. Disrespectful perhaps, to Bertie’s memory.”
“Told you,” said Toby, “it’s cursed.”
“The only curse is that mankind perpetrates such cruelties,” said Poppy.
“So who placed it under the tree?” asked Erik.
“That duty falls to me. I do it every year,” said Poppy, “to remind us all that Christmas is a time of peace.”
“And is it heavy? Does it rattle?”
“No. In fact it feels as if there mightn’t be anything inside at all.”
“Oh,” said Erik, “how strange.”
“Now, Toby, go and wash your hands. Girls, maybe you would help me lay the table?”
And so Erik found himself alone with the mystery box. He couldn’t wrest his eyes from it. It drew him, goaded him, dared him. At length he picked it up. Its cubic symmetry was perfect. The green tissue paper wrapping was yellowed but firm. He shook it gently. It made no sound. It did indeed feel as if it was empty. No label indicated ownership…
He ripped the paper open. Underneath was a plain cardboard box. Erik opened the lid and laughed. “There you see,” he said aloud with much relief at the sound of his own voice, “nothing – zilch -- fresh air.” And the thought came to him,’ Of course – because she’d had a premonition that he was dead!’ He turned the box upside down.
Immediately, a yellow spiral began to circle and spread, accompanied by a sweet aroma; a spicy scent, reminiscent of lilacs, garlic, horseradish – no mustard! Erik’s eyes began to burn, his skin to blister and more and more of the gas spilled from the box as he writhed.
Tanya, standing by the door, screamed.
“Bitter…” Erik managed to say – or was it ‘Bitte’ or was it ‘Bertie’? He never uttered another word. He lay dead. The gas swirled back into the box.
It was Toby who later replaced the lid and buried the box. But having seen for himself, the blisters on Erik’s skin, his eyes stuck with puss, his face contorted and pleading, he too never uttered another word.
by Oonah V Joslin first published in MicroHorror
Today's Bonus Read is in PostcardPoems&Prose just click the link.
