https://lemmy.world/post/10570356

I had a dream about a more scifi version of this, and made it a rough draft for a short story

The only way it matters is if/when it is defederated by/from other instances.

That being said, some may or may not be more reliable than others, but that’s a separate issue

They went to the Crenshaw’s place next. Same thing, though they also killed their horses and pigs. At the Pope house, Jimmy escaped, he was the first to see them and live. He ran into the woods in his pajamas and house slippers. He lost three toes to frostbite. If it hadn’t been for werewolf Terry, he might have died too, lost in the bitter, bloody snows. But Terry had felt that evil take root and left his wife and kids behind in their wolf shapes to come and fight whatever it was.

Terry found Jimmy stuck in a drift, tears frozen on his face. He was in his half man shape. Jimmy screamed a little before Terry scooped him up and started running. They showed up at our place maybe an hour after the howl. We are the closest to the Pope’s. My dad almost shot them through the window before he recognized Terry. Can’t mistake his reddish fur once you’ve seen him a few times, and they’re hunting buddies.

Terry brought the now unconscious boy in, his voice rumbling that something bad was coming. He said he would fight it, but that we should start calling for help because he could smell blood following him.

My mom was on the phone immediately. My dad told me to take my sister in my room, and started checking Jimmy over. I was coming back when he came down the hall carrying Jimmy. He told me to stay in there with them. I should have listened. I did stay, for a while. I stayed until I heard Terry growl, and my dad start shooting.

I couldn’t just hide. I ran down the hall to see my mom loading shells into my dad’s shotgun. She looked at me and started to bark some kind of order, probably to go back. But she thought better of it and handed me the shotgun instead. She grabbed a pistol, the big one with the bullets bigger than my fingers. She left the safe open and told me to stay near it and bring what they asked for, and to shoot anything that wasn’t dad or Terry that came through the door.

And I did. I even shoved some magazines for my dad’s rifle in my pockets so they would be ready. When my dad busted back through the door, my mom moved to it and started firing. I handed my dad the magazines, and he told me to load the ones he kicked over to me as he went back. My mom stepped in and reloaded hers.

There was a deep roar of pain before my dad opened back up. I ran to the window, drawn to see what was happening.

I saw Terry clawing at a giant, bloody snowman. One with pine branch wings. Wings I had pushed into the snow when it was clean and white. Beside them, another snowman, one with streaks of white still visible here and there, was clawing at Terry, its wooden talons the same ones my cousin had tied together out of sticks. There were more. More of them sliding across the snow outside. There were three that had fallen over, but I could see the snow pouring up and filling in the bullet holes and claw marks.

I saw maybe eight of them, moving towards Terry, as he danced away from the raking claws of the two already fighting with him. Eight. There were three times that many at the tree farm. Were these the only ones that had been changed? Or were there others out there, coming this way, or finding other victims? I didn’t know the answer then. I wish I had never found the answer.

But the fight was still on. My dad would take shots at the ones getting close to Terry until he emptied the magazines. My mom or me would step in his place and fire while the other was reloading. Twenty minutes like that, I think. Maybe it was longer. But Terry was bleeding bad. Werewolves heal fast, but blood loss was slowing him down and these wounds were worse than they should be. They shouldn’t have been able to really hurt him at all. It was just sticks and snow

But the pebbles we had used for eyes were glowing red. And Terry’s blood was being sucked up into the wood instead of dripping.

We were running low on ammunition. My dad had to switch to another rifle. Then the shotgun was out. My mom swapped to one of the two remaining pistols. And Terry was slowing down, taking more hits.

I was certain we would all die.

Until my mom shouted out “Thank the gods!”

I looked over and saw the zombie, coming out of the woods from the north. I could see other shapes moving behind it. They were backlit by a purple glow.

They came out of the woods, moving through the snow. They were clumsy, but they were almost running. A few at the back looked nearly alive. One of those, lady in a pretty dress, did look alive. But right behind her was an old man. Mr Byrnes, holding his walking stick high, purple light radiating from the head of it. He’s older than my grandfather, but he was walking straight and tall, dressed in black.

The zombies attacked the snowmen. Tearing into them with hands and teeth. Mr Byrnes’ zombie dog helped them. Everybody at school liked to scare each other, saying that Timothy would get them if they trespassed on his land. That Timothy would come in the night and get you if you said anything bad about Mr Byrnes. And Timothy is scary. And ugly. But that night, I loved that Frankenstein dog. It would barrel into a snowman, sending chunks of bloody snow flying, and right behind that, Mr Byrnes would throw some kind of magic into the things. When he hit them a couple times, they didn’t get back up.

When they were all down, reduced to crimson stains on the snow, he went over to Terry, and talked to him in a soft voice. They came over to the porch, limping. Mr Byrnes told my folks that there was only one more group of the evil snowmen left, for us to get inside. Him and Terry were going to go take care of the rest. He thanked my mom for calling him, and apologized it took so long to get here.

Then they were gone. The necromancer, the werewolf, the zombies. They just jogged into the woods, the zombies breaking through the snow as they went.

Our little war was over.

A lot of people died. More got hurt bad before Terry and Mr Byrnes got to the last house the snowmen were attacking.

Later on, Mr Byrnes told people that some kind of spirit crossed over. Samhain, Halloween, it’s a time when the barriers between our world and the other places is thin. Here in The Corners, that barrier is thin all the time, so those times like Halloween make the barriers like wet toilet paper. Things can come here. Things that will inhabit dead bodies.

But they can inhabit things that are shaped like living creatures too. When those things are made with human creativity, of the materials of the land itself, it’s easier for them to do. But snow is easiest because it takes less energy to move for the spirits.

Jimmy lives with his uncle now, over in Johnson County. Terry and his family come to visit us every month now. Him and my dad were already friends, but that night made us all family.