Christmas Tales of Terror Read Online Free PDF Page A

breathing and the distant noise of the servants inside the house putting up the last of the decorations. It was a dreamscape of muted sound, muted colour.
    John took a deep breath and the cold air filled his lungs. It made him gasp with the shock of it and he panted it out in little clouds of mist.
    He smiled to himself. He was sure that the snow must be too deep for his uncle to travel, and if there was to be no Uncle, that meant no Charles either. No Cousin Charles! What a Christmas present that would be, he thought.
    John picked up two handfuls of snow and crushed them together, letting a cascade of snow dust fall to the ground, glittering like tiny diamonds as it did so. He grinned.
    It was the perfect consistency.
    John leaned back and hurled the snowball with all his might up into the tall pine at the corner of the drive. It dislodged a shower of sparkling, sugary snow.
    John’s demeanour changed now. Snowballing was enjoyable enough in its way, but it was frivolous. There was work to be done. He picked up a heaped handful of snow and started to make another snowball. But this time he did so with special intensity and care, for this snowball would be the core – the heart – of his snowman.
    It had snowed every year since John was old enough to remember, and every year he had built a snowman, no matter how measly the snowfall had been, or however short-lived.
    But never had the snow been so thick, so deep, so perfect as this. This year he would make the best snowman ever.
    John held the snowball to his chest, turning it, compressing it, working it with all the skill he had gleaned over his years of snowman-making. So intent was he, in fact, that it was a while before he noticed the sound of the carriage arriving behind him.
    ‘John, my boy!’ shouted his Uncle Henry as he reined in the horses and jumped down.
    John turned and saw his uncle striding towards him across the pristine snow, ruining it. Behind him, the hateful Charles scowled.
    Uncle Henry clapped him on both arms, almost knocking the snowball from his hands.
    ‘Snowballs, eh?’ said his uncle with a grin. ‘Good, good. Won’t throw one at your poor old uncle, though, will you?’
    ‘No, sir,’ said John.
    Uncle Henry bellowed with laughter and clapped him on the arms again. Uncle Henry was always letting out these arbitrary volleys of laughter. John found them intensely unnerving.
    ‘Better pop in and say hello to your parents, eh?’ he said. ‘You boys can play out here. Charles! Come and say hello to your cousin, you scamp!’
    Charles ambled through the snow and smiled at John. It was a smile that even John found hard to believe could conceal such a monster. John smiled back, involuntarily.
    ‘Good, good,’ said Uncle Henry. ‘Time for a hot cup of something, I think. Have fun. Play nicely.’
    And off went Uncle Henry, ruining more pristine snow by heading towards the french windows instead of the front door. The boys watched him go, neither one moving a muscle until Uncle Henry had waved a final farewell before being let into the house by John’s mother. As soon as he’d gone, Charles’s dimpled smile disappeared as well.
    ‘So, Worm,’ said Charles. ‘Another Christmas together. What larks.’
    ‘Worm’ was Charles’s name for John. He refused to call him anything else unless there were adults in earshot, and John had long since given up on trying to persuade him otherwise.
    Charles was two years older than John and a foot taller and a foot broader. Older, taller, heavier and nastier, he was a bully who was as adept at concealing his true nature to his elders as he was at humiliating his victims.
    ‘What are you doing out here anyway, Worm?’ he said with a sigh. ‘Snowball fight? On your own? What an idiot you are, Worm.’
    John tried not to make eye contact and hoped Charles would get bored soon and follow his father into the house.
    ‘Did you hear me?’ said Charles. ‘You’re an idiot, Worm.’
    He laughed and shook