Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. A Little Warmth on a Cold Night Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

A LITTLE WARMTH ON A COLD NIGHT

The gentle flickering of light rose from the three burning candles on the floor of the McCarrens’ 1928 Ford Model A. Elanor McCarron shivered, an almost steady whine playing up her throat over the last twenty or so miles.

“I’m as cold as I have ever been,” she said through chattering teeth.

Theodore nodded, bumbling along the icy, ill-kempt patch of road between Marble Canyon and Numa Creek. He peeled back the stiff fingers of a gloved hand from the steering wheel and pointed through the frosty windshield.

“A light burns,” he said before sniffling back against his leaky sinus.

“Thank heavens…is it an inn?”

They’d moved at a steady pace of 23 MPH since sundown. The weather was not only bitterly frigid, but the wind kicked up snow in great white dervishes that had Theodore leaning closer and closer to the windshield.

“A church,” Theodore said finally.

“Thank heavens, thank heavens,” Elanor said again. “Miriam had bragged about the heater in her husband’s Chevrolet, and I had told her a little cold did not bother me, but goodness, if I am never this cold again, I shall count myself fortunate.”

The lane leading up to the church had been shoveled. Theodore turned in. To either side of the lane were great swatches of field, the deep snow was lumpy with peculiar ridges. Peculiar until the setting and uniformity performed a mental math equation in both their minds. Neither said it, but both recognized that surrounding the church was a sea of gravestones, buried beneath the season’s fluff.

Theodore led the brief parade up the snowy steps. Directly above was a single electric bulb, the only light they’d seen. He took the brass knocker and rapped it against the door with three heavy strikes. The sound was dull versus the wind whipping over the lifeless countryside. Both stood silently appraising the ornate floral embellishments of the door so as to take their minds from the cold. Stained glass to either side of the door remained dim, and yet the door opened.

A withered face on a short frame with white, white hair wrapped beneath a black, black shawl leaned through the crack. It was an old woman. Her eyes were pearly blue and quite obviously blind. “Hello?” she said, stretching the O and holding it, hellooo.

“Hello. I am Theodore and this is my wife, Elanor.”

“Hello,” Elanor said, fighting to still her teeth long enough to get the word out clearly.

“We have been on the road longer than expected, and though I hate to impose, I must ask to come in and sit a spell in the warmth of the church,” Theodore said.

Elanor clutched at his arm. What if this woman said no?

“Of course, come iiin,” the woman said and took a backward step into the sheer blackness of the church’s vestibule.

Theodore urged Elanor through the door. Both moved with light, shuffling steps. Neither could see a thing. Theodore pushed the door closed behind him.

“Pardon me,” he said. “Is there perhaps a light switch or a candle?”

Distantly, the voice came back to them. “Forgive meee. It is so rare that we have night visitooors.” The old woman had walked surely, moving quickly ahead of their shuffling steps, and was now at the far end of a large room.

Elanor discovered a pew and put her hands on it to sturdy herself. “We?” she said.

Directly to her left, a match lit and another woman, this one big and sturdy in a nun’s habit, started toward them with an oil lamp in her hands. The flame touched wick and threw a dim glow upon the small meeting area. A second nun sat in a pew directly to Theodore’s left, startling him enough that he jumped at her sight. She was tall, slender, young, and nearly pale as the snow beyond the walls.

“Excuse me,” he said.

“Do not be offended if Sister Mary and Sister Agatha don’t speeeak. They have taken vows of sileeence,” the old woman said from the far end of the church.

“Thank you,” Elanor said as she accepted the lamp and the nun headed back to the shadowy spaces.

“Come, this waaay.” The woman began feeling around before locating what she sought. “Here, matcheees.” She patted a sill by a door before passing through.

“At least it is warmer,” Elanor whispered.

“Hush, darling,” Theodore said.

Upon reaching the matches, Elanor’s lamplight shined against a second, identical lamp. Theodore made quick work. With two flames burning, the simple kitchen beyond the church floor became apparent. The old woman stood before a range, a little flame burning beneath a kettle.

“Would you care for a cup of teeea?” she said.

The kitchen was the warmest room yet. Elanor sighed and set the lamp on the dining table so she could remove her gloves.

“Yes, please,” Theodore said.

“Yes, thank you. It is very gracious of you,” Elanor said, she then looked at Theodore. Under the enhanced glow banking from the pale-yellow wallpaper, the mess of Theodore’s face was suddenly all too visible. She laughed. “You are filthy.”

“Am I?” Theodore said, grinning. At the last bit of sunlight, he’d filled the gas tank from a can and worked free two dirty snow chunks that had affixed to the Ford’s undercarriage.

The old woman turned to face them. The great lines of her leathery flesh stark in the lamplight. “At the end of the hall, the door on the left is the indoor privy.”

Theodore shrugged to Elanor before tilting his head, giving her serious askance eyebrows. She waved him away. The kitchen broke off into a hall that spread into another room. The church seemed much larger on the inside than it had looked from the outside.

Elanor opened her mouth to ask about the church, but the whistle of the kettle interrupted her. The old woman felt around the counter for a jar. She pulled it close. She then opened a drawer to her right and began pawing around inside. Her hand reappeared with a large steeping spoon. Elanor winced, wanting to offer her assistance, though not wanting to shout over the squealing kettle. The old woman reached into a cupboard and felt around until discovering the trio of cups with saucers she wanted—all three different—and the pot—a different design yet again. Elanor clenched her teeth and squinted with her entire expression, that damned whistle—why didn’t she remove the kettle from the heat? The old woman loaded the spoon from the jar before deftly placing the spoon over the mouth of the pot. Finally, finally she reached for the kettle, quieting that cursed whistling. Slowly, and without spilling, she ran the water into the tea pot through the spoon’s payload.

It smelled earthy and sweet, a bit like November apples, brown and soft. Elanor turned up her lip. Rather than speak on the scent, she said, “Is this an old parish?”

The woman turned, two teacups rattling on their saucers in her hands. “Pastor Davenport discovered this land iiin…” The old woman trailed off, her hands tipping, muddy red tea spilling onto the linen tablecloth.

“Goodness!” Elanor rounded the table and touched the old woman’s forearm.

The old woman wrenched away, flinging the teacups across the kitchen. One hit the floor without damage, while the other struck a wall. The tea splashed a great swatch upon the white paper before oozing down to the pale wainscotting.

“Do not you touch me, dew-beateeer!”

“Excuse you,” Elanor said, stumbling in reverse. She was suddenly plenty warm enough to continue on her way. “I think it is time for my husband and I to depart. We thank you for the warmth of the church.”

She took up her lamp and rushed down the hall. There were three doors at the end. She opened the one on the left. The washroom was cramped—a clawfoot tub to one side, a toilet and a sink a foot apart and almost kissing distance from the tub—and dark. Theodore was not in there. To her right came a rustling.

“Theodore?” she said.

She closed the washroom door to a crack and stepped to the middle door. The knob was cold in her grasp; she could feel carved lines within the steel. Locked. She tugged hard. She attempted five quick jerks, and still nothing. She heard more rustling, to her right yet.

“Theodore?”

She tried the handle and the door pulled open. The light from her lamp immediately shined on the ruddy face of an old man. He jumped. Elanor jumped, nearly dropping the lamp.

“Oy, scared the dickens out of me,” the man mumbled. He had no teeth and when his gums came together, it depressed the entire lower half of his face. “What’s all the shouting about?”

Elanor put a hand to her breast. “I am sorry; my husband came back to use the facilities, but he is not—did you see him?”

The old man squinted an eye. “Privy’s the door two down.”

“I am aware. He is not in there, and the middle door is locked.”

The old man shuffled out of his room. It reeked of sweat and tobacco, with the hint of something sweet and earthy, perhaps a cup of the old woman’s tea.

Though she’d been in the little washroom, she went back and flung open the door. “Empty.”

The old man stood next to her. He was in a nightshirt that stretched to his knees. The top of his head came up only to Elanor’s shoulder, and she was no taller than the average woman. He leaned in for a better look around the washroom.

“I sure do appreciate the indoor works,” he said and leered a mashed-face grin at Elanor. “Must have gone out to the church.” The old man pointed past Elanor.

There was a fourth door; this one on the other wall. She wordlessly pulled the door open and looked out to the empty rows of pews. It didn’t make sense…then again, perhaps he’d wanted his pipe. That was almost logical. He didn’t know the blind woman was so strange, and he’d simply gone out for his pipe.

“I suppose,” she said and started through the church.

The old man shuffled behind her. “Nobody comes out here much,” he said. “Never was much of a congregation…but it keeps me fed, so I ought not complain.”

A sense of politeness overcame Elanor’s mouth as she swung open the heavy door to the vestibule. “Are you the pastor.”

The light above the steps continued to glow. Looking outward, everything was visible. The yard was frozen and barren, the edges devoured by thick shadows. The Ford was snow-spattered, but the windshield was clear enough to see the two nuns. One sat behind the wheel and the other sat on the bench next to her. They were rocking, as if taking tight turns. Both appeared to be wide-eyed and grinning.

“I am no pastor,” the man said, pushing up close behind Elanor to see out.

“What are they doing?” Elanor said, a whine on her words.

“That your husband’s auto?” the old man said.

Elanor now sensed his closeness and wanted to push him back but did not. She then felt hands creep into the pockets of her coat. Fingers prodded the silk lining that played about the areas just above her thighs. The old man pressed himself against her.

“It is a nice car,” he whispered, his breath tight to her ear.

She spun, stumbling to the floor, again nearly dropping her lamp. She climbed to her feet before the old man had the chance to close the distance. She hurried back between the rows of pews. This was all wrong and that old man, what was his business here, if not a pastor?

Elanor was suddenly aware that she was now alone, but equally aware that if it came to it, she could surely fend off a toothless old man and a blind old woman. And just where had Theodore gone?

She’d seen him go down the hall. He wouldn’t go outside without her. He wasn’t in the washroom, and he wouldn’t have gone in the old man’s room. That left the locked door.

“Locked now,” she whispered and finished the sentiment in thought, but was it always? A tink-tink-tinking played quietly as she pushed through the door into the hall but stopped abruptly. She gasped when she saw the old woman standing in the dark but recovered quickly. “Open that door.”

“Which dooor? The old woman said.

“The middle door. The only locked door. Theodore must have gone through that door.”

“That door is looocked.”

“I know! But someone must have locked it after he passed through. Now, open it!”

The old woman did not move. “I do not touch that dooor. That is the door to the graveyaaard.”

The sea of bumps in the snow surrounding the church flashed upon her mind. So, so many grave markers, but for whom? It didn’t matter now.

The old man shuffled through the door and Elanor took a spinning step away, pointing to the middle door. “Open that door!”

The man’s eyes widened. “That door is locked.”

Frustrated, Elanor stamped her foot. “No! My husband had to have gone—”

The rumble of an engine played just above the rushing winds, cutting off Elanor’s train of thought. She looked past the old man. The vestibule door remained open, and the yard light remained lit. She hurried by him, bumping him aside. The old man and the blind woman followed Elanor, though did not make it more than halfway across the church floor before the shout paused them in their track.

“Where are they going?” Elanor shouted.

The Ford had backed out the drive and was rolling quickly away from the church. Elanor jerked away from the sight and charged toward the old man and old woman.

“Where are they taking the car?”

The old woman frowned, and the man bunched up his face.

“Where are they taking the car!”

“Whooo?”

“The nuns!”

The old man laughed. “The sisters cannot drive a car. Your husband must be with them, giving them a ride.”

The final word came out like a slur, something tawdry and below Elanor’s acknowledgement. “Someone better open that goddamned door!” She pushed on, shouldering between the old man and the old woman.

The tink-tink-tinking resumed and although it did not sound like a fist knocking on a door, did not sound like a voice, did not sound like anything she could discern, she knew, knew it was Theodore. The sound stopped once she re-entered the hallway.

“That door is locked!” the old man shouted behind her. “Only Davenport has a key!”

But it wasn’t locked. The knob spun easily in her grip. For a heartbeat, she paused before swinging it wide enough to reveal shadowy stone steps. Davenport, the pastor, he must’ve opened it. Likely he was lonely and had trapped Theodore with some boring tale or another. From her experience, clergymen loved to chat with strangers. Conversion bidding.

“Theodore?” Elanor said and stepped down into the black maw. It was warm down there, smelled sweet and earthy, like the blind woman’s tea. “Theodore?”

A rough stone wall butted up to the landing at the bottom of the stairs and she turned. Her lamp shined brightly over the huge room. There was a carpenter’s workbench. Next to it were planks of wood. Behind it were coffins. Elanor moved closer.

“Theodore?”

The tink-tink-tinking sound grew louder and she trailed it, stepping deeper into the room. Beyond the coffins were great slabs of limestone. Future grave markers, no doubt.

“Theodore?”

The tink-tink-tinking was coming from her left and she followed it, eyes on the floor as she stepped around rock debris and chunks of wood. The scent was heavier now.

“Theodore?”

At the end of the room was another set of stairs, cut into the rock. It had to be a storm door. She hurried along, mindful of the floor. She reached the stairs and found that the tink-tink-tinking was now behind her. She paused a moment to drink in the room in her wake, or rather, what she could see of it in the light cast by the lamp.

“Theodore, is that you?”

New sounds played through the storm door. A chunking, clunking sound, alongside heavy breaths. There was somebody out there, but what if that somebody wasn’t Theodore?

“Who else?” she said.

She steadied herself, ignoring the tears now cutting damp paths down her winter-dry cheeks. With her free hand, she pushed open the heavy storm door, and was immediately rewarded with a bitter wind that seemed to form icicles in her bone marrow.

“Theodore?” she shouted into the blustery night.

Ahead, flames rose from the ground. A man stood amongst them with a pickaxe that he was using to chunk up the frozen earth. The tink-tink-tinking behind her stopped and she faintly heard footfalls. Elanor turned from the wind and shined the light down the stairs.

“Theo—”

What Elanor saw cut the name in half in the back of her throat. The man coming toward her was in a black suit, dusty with limestone powder. His clergy collar was clean and tight. In his breast pocket were chisels and a small hammer. He had a long blue, blue face. Red blood flashed a stark contrast for his lips, a drip playing down to his chin. He had hideous yellow eyes and pointy ears.

“You must be the missus,” he said, revealing two rows of elongated eyeteeth.

Elanor screamed and popped up the stairs, dropping the lamp into the snow, and slamming the door closed behind her. The snow was high enough that she could only follow the trail to the fire and the man digging.

“Theodore?” she said, stopping two metres short of the spilled oil burning in perfect rectangles amid the snow. “Theodore?” she said again.

The man with the pickaxe was naked, his flesh pale, almost blue. Elanor recognized him from behind without having to see his face. At the back of her, the storm door banged open. She had no choice, and ran to him, ignoring the burning oil atop the frozen earth.

“Theodore!”

Elanor grabbed her husband and yanked him around. He obliged her effort and peered down at her with eyeless sockets. A chunk had been bitten from his throat. She screamed, her legs giving way, sending her sprawling out of the flaming quadrant. Dizziness reigned while the cold world fought to burn away the flesh of her hands and cheek, bare against the elements.

The world darkened when Pastor Davenport leaned over her from behind and sank his teeth into her throat.

—

Luna reached across the centre console and grabbed Ophelia’s arm. “Oh my god, you have to stop.”

Luna was already wide-eyed. “I know!”

Luna wheeled their 2023 Fisker Ocean SUV into the lot of an old church seemingly plunked down in the middle of a massive graveyard. There were several hundred stones, if not a thousand or more. They were smoky white and begging to be rubbed.

Ophelia gathered the Rubbermaid bin from the hatchback of the Fisker and started toward the gate of the stubby wrought-iron fence separating them from the cemetery. The gate creaked and Luna made a point of playing it back and forth. It was perfect.

“If a cemetery gate doesn’t creak, is it even a cemetery?” she said.

Ophelia laughed and set down the bin full of cloth paper, charcoal, rubbing wax, and the cleaning brushes. She gazed out at all the markers.

“Where do we even start?” she said.

A window of the church opened before Luna could answer. An old woman, eyes milky blue leaned out and said, “Would you care for a cup of teeea?”

XX