A Zombie Christmas Carol Read Online Free

old weapon that now lay in both a comfortable position but also ideally placed to use in anger if required.  He walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that whilst keeping his right hand firmly on the weapon, just in case.  The weapon gave him a re-assuring, safe feeling though it did nothing to hold back the coldness of the house.
    Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker.
    Quite satisfied, he placed the sword down and then closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take his gruel. To the side of his bed lay a fine bladed dagger though like all of Scrooge’s possessions it was old, poorly cared for and saw little if any use.
    It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh’s daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet’s rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley’s head on every one.
    “Humbug!” said Scrooge; and walked across the room.
    After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.
    With surprising speed, he reached out and grabbed the dagger, pulling it close to his side.  He lowered the tip so that it pointed ahead towards the direction of the sound.
    This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant’s cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.
    The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.
    He held the dagger out in front of him, the thoughts of his last battles with the undead racing to the top of his mind.  If nothing else, Scrooge refused to suffer the same face as Marley had when dragged down and eaten alive by those vile things.
    “Could it be that they have come back and they want to finish me like they did Marley?” asked Scrooge to himself.
    He looked around the room for any others weapons,