A Christmas Horror Story Read Online Free

floor. It was getting cold, and she shivered as she climbed the ladder to her bed. Snuggled under her quilt and fighting back the winter air, which seemed to seep straight through the walls, she thought of what she would do when she had to go to university.
    Her GCSE results had been exceptional, and her college had told her that the world was her oyster. But could she really leave Mum, Emily and Jake? They needed her, that was obvious, but at times Katie felt like home was choking her. The responsibility of being the eldest in a single-parent family was sometimes a heavy burden to carry. But if she thought on it now, she would never sleep, so she relaxed and cleared her mind and tried not to worry. It was easier said than done. Still, Mum would be home soon and she would sleep easier then.
    Katie had barely closed her eyes when she realised that she was no longer in the comfort of her bed. Now, she stood shivering to death in the middle of a white field surrounded by the falling snow. It covered the horizon and the nearby landmarks with a static white film, making it impossible for Katie to get her bearings. The wind and winter soaked her flimsy nightclothes and turned her skin purple, wet and bloodied through frostbite. Her fingertips and her toes were numb with cold and were turning hardened black. She would have screamed but the wind and weather choked her as soon as she opened her mouth.
    With little choice before hypothermia claimed her, she tucked in her arms as best she could and began to trek. Each step was akin to walking on broken glass, sharp and painful to the bone. Into the frozen waste Katie went, when suddenly through the storm she spied a figure, a large blurred man shape, as faint as a pencil drawing being erased. He was calling, waving, wavering. The shouts were lost to the air and the waves were a blur but Katie still had little choice but to try to reach the figure. With each step her heavy frozen legs did not bring her any closer to the stranger. For with each step the figure seemed further away, until the shape became one with the snowflakes.
    But suddenly and without warning, Katie was no longer lost to the storm, for the wind had turned to a whisper. Her surrounds had changed. There were still the great hills and mounds of snow, but now there were buildings, old buildings in crumbled stone. Then was a tower of steel, a hundred feet tall if it was an inch. A skeleton of rusting white and reddish cold metal. Around the structures stretched a chain-link fence. Katie now knew she was dreaming, for this was Moorside coal mine. This was where her father died. She saw him now, dressed in his black police uniform and long black winter coat. He walked amongst the dead buildings, calling out to the missing hikers lost in the snow.
    She called his name. ‘Stephen, Stephen, Dad, Dad.’ But he didn’t so much as look her way. She screamed for him until her voice was hoarse and dry, then changed tactics and ran to her father across the snow, but slowly as her legs were stone and the snow glue. And as he turned to her, she saw his blue eyes looking back, and he waved at her as the ground collapsed around him, and with a gust of dust and filth he was swallowed into the sinking black void of the mine.
    But Katie was not the only dreamer. Emily also murmured in her sleep.

Chapter Four
    Our Sweet Lady Orphanage, England, Christmas Eve 1833
    Henrietta was fast asleep in a comforting blanket of darkness when someone shook her awake. Tiny hands pushed her in a rocking motion, causing her to groan and retreat further into her thin blanket.
    ‘Go away, Alice. Go back to sleep’,’ Henrietta protested. She knew it would be Alice of course. There had been many times when the five-year-old girl had woken Henrietta from one imagined night terror or another.
    ‘No wake up, Henri. You have to see this’.’ Alice shook Henrietta as hard as she could, and although this was hardly anything at all, it was enough to make