The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Lumps of Coal, for Luck
by Alex Grehy
On New Year’s Day, in certain lands, the first visitor to a household carries luck across the threshold in the form of a lump of coal.
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The dead so often lack insight into their own mortality,
lingering as if they still had business in the world. They
look back along the tracks of their lives, so many
yesterdays laden with regrets and unfulfilled desires.
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New Year’s Eve at the station. Time to move on! says
The Conductor. Excited souls gather, thinking that a nice
trip might indeed be restorative, a winter tonic of sentimentality
blended with the beauty of a vintage steam engine, brasses
gleaming, smoke pouring rich and savoury like gravy over a
Christmas roast that they do not quite recall enjoying.
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Don’t forget your coal, The Conductor says, two lumps
each, as per tradition. They take their seats, too thrilled
by the marvellous luxury of first class carriages to wonder
at their destination and who might receive their gifts of coal.
Glorious mountain views flash between tunnels that seem
strangely familiar, as if their vision had been narrowed
before, but The Conductor soothes their vague anxieties
with champagne and song.
.
Snow gathers and frost fingers drift across the windows
oblivious to the hot smoke drifting from the engine, puffing
hard against the strain, wheels slipping on icy rails. The
passengers mutter, the gathering snowdrifts brood like piles
of old sins, frigid and intense. They cry to The Conductor
who tells them, soothingly, that all the train needs is a little
more fuel, maybe if they gave the boilerman their gifts of
coal they would soon be out of the cold.
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One by one, he leads them forward, tells them to hold their
lumps of coal high, as if they were dark lenses against the glare.
They shiver, finding themselves inexplicably naked, the coal a
deep shadow against their frost-whitened faces. The Conductor
smiles, reassuringly, though his passengers are wide-mouthed
with terror. In the engine room they cannot help but lean towards
the beguiling incandescence of the fire that drives the train.
Lumps of coal for luck, you’ll be needing it, the boilerman says,
inviting them to throw their tributes to the flames as he swings
his shovel hard, though the souls he sweeps to perdition weigh
less than the coal they offered to the pyres of hell.
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Fiction © Copyright Alex Grehy
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
More from author Alex Grehy:
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Plants are beautiful, peaceful, abundant, and life-sustaining…
But what if something sinister took root in the soil, awakening to unleash slashing thorns, squeezing vines, or haunting greenery that lured you in? Perhaps blooms on distant planets could claim your heart, hitch a ride to Earth on a meteor, or simply poison you with their essence. Imagine a world where scientists produced our own demise in a lab, set spores free to infect, even bred ferns to be our friends only to witness the privilege perverted. When faced with botanical terror, will humanity fight to survive, or will they curl and wither like leaves in the fall?
Read ten speculative tales ripe with dangerous flora to find out.
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