Winter Horrorland
Entering a new season in the Macabre Monday realm
Winter is an underrated playground for horror.
Leaves have fallen from trees, leaving naked branches in their wake. Vibrant colorful forests turn to legions of towering misshapen giants clothed in shadow once the sun dips below the horizon. Ice and snow blanket every last thing in their path.
Warmth and life yield to cold and death.
Winter is a true Lovecraftian monster, digging its tentacles into everything light or darkness touches. It shapes us into weary wheezing creatures swarmed by cold or flu germs, only departing when the monster feels good and ready to depart.
With winter fast approaching the crypt where Macabre Monday resides, a new request from your favorite crypt keepers comes your way. Please share with us your favorite wintertime horror stories. Maybe it is a dark tale you’ve read that haunted you. Maybe you penned the frightful words yourself.
What makes these tales scary?
What causes them to stick with you long after the final sentence?
And don’t forget to tend to the fire before the last flame vanishes from the fireplace, surrendering your home to an otherworldly chill.
The Weekly Digest
A selection of last week’s Macabre Monday posts from our team.
Gather around our campfire as we highlight memorable stories, poems, articles, and notes from last week’s Macabre Monday offerings:
- shared part one of her short story Revamp the Night — a tale about a vampire who works as a “hitter” for the owner of a nightclub catering to vampires. I recommend also listening to the audio version as well as reading. Kailani offers an excellent, compelling narration.
- shared Midnight Motorcycle, her entry into our recent Halloween writing contest. It’s a creepy tale of a motorcycle signaling the return of a restless spirit out to torment the spouse who killed him years earlier. Check it out!
- shared Dark Windows, a dark drabble (a story that’s exactly 100 words). This microfiction was structured like a dark poem and felt like one in spirit with the rhythm and meter in the prose.
Is Chris trapped in Hell, or is he just hallucinating? Does it even make a difference? These are the burning questions
serves up in part five of his engrossing horror serial Madisonville Murder.
Here’s The Urn, a fun flash fiction tale from
about ghostly voices from an urn tormenting Elise and driving her to see what lies inside.
Finally, you may want to think twice before trying the sauces at the House of Chicken Legs. As
details in her terrifying horror tale, Special Sauce, they are to die for.
Have a horror tale you’d like to share with the Macabre Monday community? Post a story link to our weekly chat thread or share the link on Notes and tag the MM team (
, , ) in your post.
Simple, I think. It starts to get darker and the nights grow longer. We celebrate on or around December 25th in part at least because the days start to get longer. But first it's night's reign. Cold enervates us. Is that creaking a frozen branch scraping against the window? Ice makes a sound like a scream when it freezes. Snow dampens sound so we can't hear the killer creeping up on us.
I wrote a darker version of Tim Allen's The Santa Clause where the MC becomes Santa AND Krampus. Krampus is such an underused winter time horror critter.
Thank you so much for including Special Sauce in your roundup! As for horror stories with a winter setting, Let the Right One In is essential reading.