Happy Ghoulidays by Shannon Lawrence

Author:Shannon Lawrence
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: short fiction, short stories, short story, horror fiction, short horror, horror short, female author, horror shorts, woman author
Publisher: Shannon Lawrence

Deck the Halls with Guts & Madness

Maddie plopped the box full of Christmas decorations onto the hardwood floor of the sorority house. A light string slithered onto the floor, pulling the rest out in a continuous loop until the plug got stuck on something else in the box. Fake pine scent wafted out.

Stacy plodded into the room with her own box of decorations, setting it next to the first. “Where is everyone? I thought we were all supposed to help with this.”

“They’ll be here, just late. It always happens.”

“Well, I’m going to grab something to drink while we’re waiting. Want something?”

“Can you get me a soda?”

Stacy nodded and padded toward the kitchen in her sock feet. They had the heat turned up nice and warm, and both girls wore their pajamas.

Maddie pulled items out of the box to start organizing them. All the light strands went into one pile, ornaments in another, and she piled the garland up at the foot of the staircase. There were also stocking hangers, which she set up on the fireplace mantle. The sorority sisters had made individual stockings the night before, enjoying snacks and covert wine while doing so. There were strict rules about drinking in the sorority and fraternity houses on campus, but everyone broke them all the time. If they cracked down on one house, they’d have to punish them all, so administrators tended to look the other way, as long as everyone pretended to be following the rules.

Maddie’s stocking was blue with white snowflakes on it. She wasn’t Christian, but she still celebrated Christmas. In fact, most of the girls were something other than Christian, but the fun of Christmas was catching, and most of them had celebrated it in a secular way all their lives. The stockings varied from angels to snowflakes to menorahs to Santa Claus, and more. It was always fun seeing what everyone came up with. Clara’s was all black, with pagan symbols drawn on it. She claimed to be a Satanist, but everyone knew it was just her trying to be different. Lorna had once caught her praying, or so she claimed.

They also lit a menorah together, and would be celebrating Kwanza starting the day after Christmas. Latecia was the first person to have brought that into the house, but the girls had loved what it stood for, and they tried to be as open as possible to learning new things. Everyone should get to enjoy the holidays however they wanted. They’d even had one girl before who didn’t celebrate anything, so they’d let her be.

Stacy brought a can of soda out to Maddie and settled next to her to sort out her own box. The other girls started to filter in, voices bubbling along the hallway. Quickly, laughter and conversation filled the place, and the decorations went up in little time.

As a senior, this would be Maddie’s last year in the sorority house, and she was determined to enjoy everything she could. She got several

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