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. Night of the Cramondites Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

NIGHT OF THE CRAMONDITES

The shift from the two-lane highway to the main drag of Lamb’s Cove was stark and abrupt. Justin and Celeste hadn’t spoken much since the airport. The flight itself was relatively short, but they’d been forced to sit on the tarmac for three hours; both tried to nap, and both found it impossible. The trip from the airport to the Little Town B&B just north of Lamb’s Cove was another two hours. Neither had seen the Atlantic Ocean, and it had seemed interesting enough for that alone, given that they were in an all-encompassing rut.

Justin hit his blinker and pulled into an empty spot out front of a string of small storefronts in Lamb’s Cove. He’d done some Google—and soul—searching while still on the tarmac. Celeste blinked out one dozy eye.

“I guess I’m willing to try it,” Justin said.

“Try what?” Celeste said, her other eye opening, awakening further.

“I figure if you get the stuff here…I don’t know, like, it won’t show up on the credit card from some obvious place and nobody in the store will recognize you.”

“What store?” Celeste scanned the offerings before her.

“Passionate Moments,” Justin said, face forward, as if he couldn’t even look at the store.

“You mean—you want me to…” Celeste had come fully awake, her words coming out in an excited jumble.

“Just…make it a small one, okay?”

Celeste nodded before leaning over to kiss her husband of nineteen years on the corner of his mouth.

—

Gilda and Ross stood on the stone steps leading up to the Little Town B&B. They were an old couple, in argyle and wool knits and beige slacks.

“Welcome,” Ross said.

“Hi,” Celeste said, lugging one of their two bags.

“I’m Justin and this is Celeste.” Justin held a hand out for a shake, which Ross accepted.

“Such a relief to see people of your age. We can’t officially discriminate…but the best guests for Little Town are couples with a little more life experience, a little less potential for virginity,” Gilda said.

Ross laughed, side-eyeing his wife. “Sometimes her words cross. She means you’re less likely to make a mess given that you’re not kids anymore.”

Gilda put her hands to her cheeks, flushing. “I don’t recommend getting old.”

Justin and Celeste smiled politely.

“Come along, we’ll show you around. You’re our only guests at the moment.” Ross led them into the foyer. The place looked exactly as expected: striped wallpaper, hardwood floors, a chunky staircase with an equally chunky newel post, and gold-tinted light fixtures. They continued past a dining area featuring a long, rectangular table hidden beneath a lacy cloth and a lounge where they had an old tube TV and a wall of hardcover books, two couches, and a high-backed chair, doilies on every flat surface.

“And this is Little Town,” Gilda said, sweeping her arm over the huge table display of a model town.

“This is fantastic,” Celeste said, the awe in her voice authentic. “Did you make it?”

Both Gilda and Ross grinned, and Ross said, “It was here when we bought the place. We were told it’s of a ghost town only three miles south of here, from before it was a ghost town.”

“Ghost town?” Justin said as he studied the fine details of a tiny man riding horseback.

“Story goes, the people of Cramond—the followers of a religious leader named Cramond, of course—ran a trio of strange women from town, killing a fourth in the process, and in revenge, the woman—witches, so it’s said—cursed the town. The next day, everyone disappeared,” Ross said.

“Wow,” Justin and Celeste said, a half-second out of sync.

“The fourth they killed was hardly a woman at all. And had spurred the locals into action with word that she’d married a humanoid beast from the forest at the edge of town. They broke down the door of her home on the night of her wedding—”

Ross interrupted his wife. “While she was in bed with her beastly husband and lover.”

Gilda nodded at him. “And slaughtered her in her marital bed. While this was happening, the witches were gathered, then sent out on foot with only what they could fit in their carriage.”

“Amazing,” Justin said.

—

Evening glowed redly through the bedroom windows. The space was small with a pink and white quilt on a queen bed. There were a dresser, a night table, and a chair, all of matching wood and featuring similar inlaid designs. A large mirror sat atop the dresser; the image it cast was wonky, fattening at the body and slimming at the top and bottom, offering a subtle swirling effect. There was an ensuite bathroom through a skinnier than normal door painted a pastel pink that matched—was close enough to matching—the quilt.

Celeste was in the bathroom changing while Justin was on the bed, reading from his phone. “That town, Cramond, is real. More than two hundred people disappeared overnight in October of eighteen-twenty. It’s one of those horror trap kind of places now. Even mentions the model they discovered, which was auctioned off—explains how it got here, I guess. It says some believe the model is not as it seems, and is instead, a totem that trapped the bodies and souls of the missing people. And you know how everything on the internet is true. Nobody lives there now, but a company does tours through the ruins. Maybe we should check it out, only three miles from here. Probably beat the hell out of…” he trailed as Celeste stepped out of the bathroom.

She wore a two-piece lingerie set: scarlet red, scalloped lace edges, a neckline that plunged into silky cups and a ribbon bow at its base; Galloon lace that flared around the thighs and top of the butt; at the back was an opening that traveled below her butt and up to the lace of the crotch. Intimidating at the front around her waist and over her pubis was a leather belt with leg straps and the moderate purple dildo jutting from a holster.

“I can’t tell you how fucking hot I feel in this,” Celeste said, her words like a promise, a threat.

“Okay,” Justin said as he slipped from bed and began stripping. “There’s, like, oil or lube or something, right?”

Three years earlier, they’d tried to spice up the relationship. It began with watching porn, but when they couldn’t agree on subject matter, they shifted to hiring a prostitute—taking a trip to Montreal specifically for this purpose. No good. Justin couldn’t last with so much flesh, so many breasts, and hands, and mouths upon him, and Celeste simply wasn’t turned on by the woman. When Celeste then suggested they bring in another man, try it that way, Justin axed the subject. For three years they’d been servicing themselves at tedium and this was Justin making what felt like a huge, even degrading, concession to save the sex life of his marriage. Over and over for the last six months, he’d continually told himself, maybe you’ll like it.

“Don’t worry, baby. Mama’s got you.”

—

Justin lay on his face and tummy. It hadn’t gone well, but he’d soldiered through the pain—his body had refused to unclench, even as Celeste moaned and shook with orgasm. He’d wiped himself after she was done, noting a disheartening smear of blood within the clear grease and streaks of shit.

Celeste was busy with cold water and a wad of toilet paper, trying to rub away the blood spots from the quilt. “It’ll be better next try.”

For the first time in more than twenty-five years, Justin began to sob, face pressed into his pillow. Celeste quit working and spooned up behind him—wearing the lingerie but not the strap-on.

“Oh, honey, it’s okay. It’ll—”

“We need a divorce. This isn’t worth it. None of this is worth it.”

Celeste stiffened behind him a moment before rolling to her back. “Yeah, I guess not.”

Justin smeared his nose and eyes against the pillow as he said, “I’ve been thinking it for years.”

“Me too.”

After about three minutes of silence, Justin flipped over and looked at his soon to be ex-wife. “I wish I never let you do that to me.”

Celeste frowned. “Don’t be such a baby. Think I was totally comfortable when you fucked my ass those times?”

Justin sighed and rolled away from Celeste, then dug the quilt out from beneath him and closed his eyes.

—

“Almost want to kick them out,” Gilda said as she scrolled back the video recording from Justin and Celeste’s room. “I think she’s trying to scrub out a poop stain.”

Ross sat naked and cross-legged by the master bedroom’s window, tooting on a stubby, glass pipe. “I do believe what they did got us revving high enough,” he inhaled before finishing, his words becoming high and breathy, “don’t you?”

“It was something,” Gilda said, her left hand reached out from the bed for the pipe and the glowing marijuana in its bowl.

Ross handed it over but remained by the window. “What even was the point of having a bed and breakfast before little cameras?”

Gilda shook her head gently, chest filled with smoke. She exhaled around the words, “Ross, you’re high.”

He gave her a sleepy-eyed grin as she handed the pipe back so that he could tap the ashes before joining her in bed. The covers were hardly settled, the lightbulb in the bedside lamp still warm, when a series of thumps played out downstairs. It sounded like a tub of beanbags tipped to the floor, continuing for eight seconds.

“What was that?” Gilda said after twisting the light switch on the lamp.

Ross kicked out of bed, grabbing his blue, terry-cloth robe from a hook affixed inside the wardrobe door. Without pause, he hurried along the hallway to the wide staircase, flicking light switches as he went. They’d had trouble with rats and raccoons in the past, so he first checked the kitchen. The windows and door remained tight and unbothered.

“Hmm,” he said a moment before a straggling thump hit the floor behind him, sounding as if it came from the parlor. Ross charged onward. When it came to houses, it was only a matter of time until pipes burst, or possibly worse, trickled drip by drip until plaster and wood went soft with rot. At 129 years old, the house was likely due for another grievous cost.

Ross hit the lights in the parlor and looked to the ceiling. There were no stains, nothing dripping. His gaze lowered to the model miniature of Cramond. All appeared to be in order. The model sat on three folding tables, fresh white sheets covering them and reaching to about a foot from the floor. Another muffled thump sounded, seemingly from beneath the table. He bent and tipped clumsily to his knees. All shadows under there. He crawled near and lifted the sheet.

Close to two hundred action figure-sized heads tilted upward, little eyes piercing his sense of reality. He blinked before rubbing his face. A gentle laugh played up from his chest. He’d smoked more than he—

The first tiny person ran to Ross’ hand and bit down on a ropey vein traversing up from the left side of his middle knuckle.

“Ow!” Ross jerked his arm away, shaking the pain.

The little man in his archaic getup clung, chewing deeper even as his body swung limply from his toothy grasp. Before Ross had a chance to do more, a guild of women in blue hats were attacking his inner thighs with teensy pins.

“Goddammit!” Ross pushed to his feet, turning away to create space between himself and whatever in the hell this was. “Ow!”

A blacksmith had the nail of his big right toe between iron tongs, reefing with all his might, blood bubbling along the edges. Ross lifted his foot to kick, unnoticing of the thread of rope playing around his ankle. He tipped, dropping hard enough to break his right wrist. He screamed something like a word but not quite. The sum of the people were on him then, slashing, biting, stabbing, and pounding. Another scream bubbled until a fat man in a preacher’s collar slipped clawed hands through the flesh of his throat and stretched his jugular like a rubber band until it snapped, painting the waxy hardwood red.

Footfalls raced downstairs.

—

“Did you hear that?” Celeste said from the bed where she scrolled her social feeds via her cellphone.

Justin was in the washroom. The bleeding from his anus refused to cease its trickle, so he was dabbing it with toilet paper—he’d hold the tickets against his flesh for five, ten seconds, take a peek, then find a clean area of paper and dab anew. The sink faucet was running while he did this.

“No,” he said and killed the water’s flow.

From downstairs, Gilda’s voice carried through the vents: “Ross! Oh my god!” The words were followed by an agonized scream.

Justin popped out of the washroom naked, pink toilet paper in his hand. He shot a look at Celeste a moment before they both hurried to dress in the clothing they’d left puddled on the floor. Justin moved more slowly, though with no less urgency.

Celeste swung open the door and stopped in the hallway. “Hello? Is everything all right?” She was nearly shouting.

Justin watched from the end of the bed as he zipped up his jeans. Celeste gave him a shrug before stepping from view. He trailed her into the hallway. She again stopped, this time at the top of the wide staircase.

“Hello? Do you need help?” she said, her voice bold and strong, but clearly worried.

As Celeste started down the stairs, Justin reached the railing at the top. There was little to see, and nothing unusual. At the bottom, Celeste looked up at him, pulling a face as she did so. Then came a strange sound.

“What the fuck?” she said and spun, began racing back up the stairs.

Justin got out a “What is—?” before the massive, lumpy ball came into view. It gained on Celeste, was on her by the time she reached the landing at the halfway point. What was there didn’t make sense. It looked like hundreds of little dolls mashed together in the way one might make a rubber band ball or a ball of errant tinfoil. Hands and feet and faces jutted from the surface, seemingly going for Celeste, pushing her backward.

“Justin!” she shouted.

Behind her, a window shattered. In a blink, she was no longer there. The ball shifted its focus and barreled up the stairs toward Justin.

“No,” he whispered before rushing to one of the hallway’s windows.

He looked down on Celeste where she lay splayed on the backyard lawn. Through the window, the roof tipped out toward a small shed. Justin jerked around, a plan forming, only to discover he’d cornered himself. The ball was upstairs and filled most of the hallway.

“Fuck.”

He yanked up on the window. A wood on wood screech played only a touch louder than the rumble of all those tiny breaths. He bent, his anus screaming a sour note, and he popped through the window. Tiny hands and mouths tickled the bottoms of his bare feet as he slithered onto the shingles. His momentum threatened to take him further, so he pressed his fingers against the rough surface. The middle fingernail of his right hand flipped straight back. Justin yanked his hand up, rolling to his left, his foot landing roughly inside the eavestrough. The window shattered behind him. Wood began to splinter as the ball scattered apart and the little people began eating. Brick dust lit on the night as they smashed and ate of the wall.

“Jesus.” Justin took two steps back from the edge before running and leaping onto the roof of the shed. He landed heavily, his feet and butt plowing through the flimsy steel roof. He grimaced and groaned as he rolled from the canopy roof of a small tractor. A Kubota, orange and black, with a small loader bucket on the front.

Justin climbed down, his feet and ankles joining the pained choir of his ass. Beyond the walls of the shed, a great crashing clatter rang out. Justin shuffled his feet, feeling every piece of gravel and every splinter of wood of the shed’s floor. Outside, he saw what had caused the noise. The wall and secondary roof—everywhere he’d stood to make his escape—was gone. The main roof and most of the brickwork of the second floor had tumbled or been eaten. The little people had grown to twice their size after feeding on the old home. A few leapt down to the grass and ran for Celeste’s unconscious body.

Instinct moved Justin. He kicked and punched at the bastardly things—now the size of Barbie dolls. More took note and jumped down from the mess of the Little Town B&B. Justin grabbed Celeste by the arms after sending the first wave pinwheeling through the night. He had no keys. No cellphone. The only option seemed to be the tractor.

He dropped her arms in front of the shed so that he could swing open the second door. Two little women in rough dresses were on her, biting at her legs. In the moonlight, Justin spotted a roundmouth shovel inside the shed doors. He grabbed it, took a golf club grip, and swung through. He nailed both the women—while chunking a gash from Celeste’s ankle—sending them airborne, flying back to the B&B, which was steadily shrinking as the feasting little freaks grew larger.

All that remained was to pray that the owners of the tractor left the keys in the ignition. They had. The lights lit and the engine rumbled to life. Justin jumped back down from the tractor and ran around front to gather his soon-to-be-ex-wife. Twenty figures, toddler sized now, bolted toward them.

“Fuck!”

Justin flopped Celeste into the bucket without ceremony, then hurried back behind the wheel. As a teenager, he’d worked at a golf course; the controls on the Kubota were the same as the ancient Ford he’d driven oh so many years ago. He bounced into a roll, jostling Celeste in the bucket as he lifted while in motion. She popped and flipped inside the bucket, her head knocking hollowly against the steel. He geared up, shifting like he was in a race. His speed topped out at 19 MPH, the little tractor proving just how little it was.

The ravenous figures trailed, not catching up but not falling behind either. Once Justin settled his mind enough to consider his surroundings, he realized he’d been rolling for three minutes, away from town, away from the highway, the asphalt beneath him gone for who knew how long. He bumped and jounced in and out of potholes. Soon, there had to be a turn, there had to be some piece of civilization.

He started up a hill, the tractor chugging and nearly stalling in high gear—he didn’t dare lower the gear, he needed all the speed the engine could muster. At the top, he saw the ruins of Cramond. The only building still in any kind of order was the church. Given that a tour ran through the former town, there was room to hope the church was kept up enough that it might feature a telephone.

Blue trash barrels and plaques posted on the edges of the road were the only proofs that anything modern happened in the place. Justin cast a look back—he’d have to weigh the potential for deadly convergence against pulling Celeste along; no sense in both of them succumbing. But the little people had slowed, many loitered amidst the ruins, as if confused or curious. Justin had time at least to get himself and Celeste inside the church.

Once a few feet from the heavy-looking door, Justin stomped the clutch and brake while dropping the bucket to the ground. The tractor stalled the moment he lifted his foot to jump down. The church door was open, the way they always seemed to be open, and Justin swung it wide before hurrying back to the bucket to gather Celeste. She was still out, so rather than attempting to lift her, he simply dragged her over the gravel and onto the rough wooden floor. He felt the wall for a light switch—currently the only shine finding them was coming from the headlights of the stalled tractor and the moon, certainly not enough to see within the church. There were no switches near the door, but as his palm played up, he felt a candle holder, knocking a box of matches to the floor. He snatched them up and slammed the door.

In nearly total darkness, he struck a match. There was a sliding bolt lock on the back of the door. Heavy, stiff, and encouraging, the lock slipped into its thick holster. Justin dropped the match, then fumbled to light another. Almost immediately to his right was a desk with two half-full boxes of red candles. He lit three and knelt next to Celeste; the security of the lock and the distracted pursuers offered a slight sense of safety. She was breathing, but still hadn’t stirred. He played the light over her limbs, looking for obvious breaks and found none. There were several marks on her face and a gash in the back of her head—on top of the chunk of ankle he’d accidentally taken from her flesh when he’d swung the shovel.

Up the middle aisle between the rows of greyed pews, he headed for the pulpit and beyond—perhaps there was an office hidden away at the front. The flooring creaked beneath his feet, sounding off each step.

At the pulpit, he paused. There was a slim but tall and wide book bound in leather upon the angled top. Four candle holders dipped into the wood like eyeless orbits. Justin continued onward. In the calm of the moment, his brain caught up to the impossibility of what was going on, his breaths hitching in his chest and his head swimming.

How?

Why?

Who?

His mind went to their size, then the town, then the model from the B&B, and what other answer was there? According to what he’d read, it would take virgin blood to bring them back, and the innkeeper, Gilda, hadn’t she accidentally mentioned virgins?

“But what virgin…?” the question trailed from his mouth.

Him. He was the virgin. That blood. The penetration he’d encouraged.

“No. That’s insane,” he said as he scanned the front wall, looking for a door.

But was it any more insane than what he’d seen? Any more insane than miniature Cramondites feasting on everything they came across?

No door, no windows aside from the skinny frames with single panes of stained glass high up on the side walls, nowhere to go. Justin returned to the pulpit and inserted his candles into the holders. The book before him was dusty, the leather pale and cracked. He swung it wide.

He jumped as a pounding thrummed against the walls from outside. It grew stronger and stronger by the second. Justin flipped closed the book, as if that might stop it. It didn’t. The pressure continued. He grabbed at the lit candles, successfully lifting two while the third dropped and rolled along the floor until it hit a wall. The flame leapt from the wick and ran along a seam, scorching a skid mark until it leapt again, lighting the wick of a candle high up on the wall. Flames began leaping in both directions, finding dozens of candles and brightening the room.

Justin dropped the candles he held and stumbled to Celeste. The plaster on the walls began to crumble at the pounding. Huge swatches of a wall beneath the wall were revealed. Faces and bodies…a mural. Justin couldn’t look and latched onto Celeste. He slapped her and pinched her, his eyes squeezed tight shut, trying to awaken her, looking to unburden some of the terror and confusion onto her. It didn’t work.

A minute passed, two, then the pounding stopped and the church grew silent but for the whimper playing from Justin’s throat. One eye open, he scanned around him. The door remained secure, so there was that at least. All the plaster had fallen, and the mural bloomed like new. There were simple townsfolk, doing what was done in the 1820s. The depictions began to shift; the same townsfolk wore hideous, face-stretching grins. Another shift. The townsfolk were naked and engaging in sexual acts with beasts of every stripe, mythological creatures of a slew of religions and lore. The front wall was the worst yet. A woman floated before a caterpillar-like creature with two arms and humanistic facial attributes, while the naked townsfolk knelt in subservience.

“They got it backwards,” Justin whispered, thinking of the story of the witches who’d disappeared the Cramondites.

The floor began to shake and thump. Boards rose and clanked, rose and clanked before splintering. The bolt on the door screeched open. Justin squirmed away from his wife and into the back wall. The people—most now standing about four feet tall—paraded in amongst the pews, but instead of sitting, they knelt, facing the center aisle. The floor seemed poised to burst upward the moment the Cramondites began to sing:

“There is power, power, wonder-working power

“In the need of Cramond

“There is hunger, hunger, soul-cleansing hunger

“In the almighty blood of Cramond…”

The floor did finally burst, and the fuzzy arms of the humanistic caterpillar pulled itself topside. The congregation began chanting, “Feast, feast, feast oh hungry one. Feast, feast, feast oh mighty one.”

Justin gasped, bringing his knees to his chest when Celeste’s body floated on air. The caterpillar-like creature filled much of the church, its mouth wide, its purple tongue dancing, its eyes smiling at Justin as Celeste floated closer, closer, closer until that tongue stretched out and reeled her in.

The mouth closed. The bone shattering crunches were deafening amid the horridness. Justin covered his ears and lowered his face. This couldn’t be happening. A quiver became a shake, rattling him from the core of his being outward. He felt himself being lifted, not by hands, but by a power beyond humanity.

“No! Please!”

Justin tried to thrash, finding that without gravity’s tie, he was useless—it did not quiet his effort, however. He kicked and swatted, tried to swim on air. That purple tongue reached for him. It was hot, hot, hot beneath him as it cradled him toward its mouth. Complete terror rendered his body inutile, and he lay limp as the jaws closed and—

Nothing.

The thing spat him out. A gravelly baritone voice barreled free. “Tis the blood of this mortal which has awakened me. Spare him his life.”

Justin gazed up at Cramond, the impossible creature, until his mind simply winked out.

—

“I’m telling you, they’re a cult and…” Justin trailed.

He and two detectives stood at the edge of the New Cramond town line. The place was busy with contractors, constructing what looked like any moderately-priced homes in any subdivision in North America.

“And they took your wife and did what exactly?” one said.

“And why did they tear down Little Town B and B?” the other said.

The Cramondites were on average about six inches shorter than normal, but otherwise seemed like anybody else. They were cordial. They let the police look everywhere they wanted. They even offered condolences to Justin, though denied knowledge of all he’d spoken of—the pieces he’d dared to speak of.

“What do you want me to say?” Justin said. So far, he’d refused to step within the boundaries of the budding community and could only point distantly to where the events occurred. 

“You could tell us about the accident that killed her,” the one said.

“Accident?” Justin’s face scrunched into an irritable ball, ready to lash out.

“Sure, you could tell us what’s already in the report,” the second said.

“Then never speak a word of Cramond again.”

“Not a word.”

Justin looked at the men in stunned silence.

The detectives then opened their mouths and sang in rough harmony, “There is hunger, hunger, soul-cleansing hunger. In the almighty blood of Cramond,” their purple tongues dancing beneath the words.

Justin clenched all over—just as he’d clenched beneath Celeste’s thrusts—before nodding in agreement.

XX