A/N: So...this is my first Night In The Woods story, and it's an entry for the Writers Anonymous Holiday Flash Challenge. Hope you like it! I'm really enjoying the game, so I thought I'd write a little something for it for the first time.
Lori Meyers smiled at her latest creation. A snow mouse. A snowman with a head shaped like a mouse, round snowball ears and all. Two big, black rocks for eyes, another one for a nose, and a stick in its rear serving as its tail. Perfect. She glanced over at the train tracks. Her favorite place in the world. Far away from decrepit Possum Springs. Well, she wasn't technically out of Possum Springs, but here, she might as well be. The silvery rails had some reddish brown streaks in some areas from years of train wheels screeching against them. A million boards of wood, all perfectly lined up, parallel to one another, stretching into both sides of the horizon farther than she could see with the naked eye.
"The sun's about to start setting," Lori mused to herself, brushing some excess snow from her snow mouse's ear. The sky above her was glowing a vermilion orange, with streaks of pink and purple blending right in almost seamlessly. Wintry air cut through her skin. Lori pulled her hood up, but it didn't do much to keep her warm, not that she minded too much. In fact, she loved cold weather. Sure, winter wasn't like autumn, but it had its perks.
By this point, every tree in the woods had been stripped bare of their leaves, leaving them naught but pitiful husks that made up a near desolate forest. Just the way she liked it, though leafy trees had their perks as well. Their branches waved just barely in the breeze. Lori thought some of them looked like monster claws, like in the horror movies she loved so much. Trees could make pretty good horror movie monsters. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves pulled it off just fine, and it wasn't even a horror movie.
"Ooh! Now there's an idea!" Lori's mind was already at work as she laid down between the train tracks, keeping herself very still. She slid between the tracks easily, without touching either of the rails. There was one good thing about being short. Her hood served as a makeshift pillow, protecting her head against the crunchy dirt and gravel underneath her. Her round ears didn't catch any rumbling in the distance. No trains today? Lori pouted at the thought of no trains, even as she thought of a new horror movie story in her head.
"Hmmm...maybe a tree could come to life and attack this one family because they used his sister as a Christmas tree," Lori found herself vocalizing her idea, telling it to nobody but herself and her snow mouse. She glanced over to her left. Snow mouse stared right back at her from just a few feet away. "I think I'll expand on that when I get home."
A faint rumbling echoed in the distance. Her ears caught it just in time. So trains were coming today after all! Her heart pounded in her chest as she laid in between the tracks, waiting. Steadily, the rumbling grew louder, a train horn's bellowing howls soon echoing in her ears. The ground shook, as though an earthquake was ready to strike, and a grey and black blur rushed right past her. Lori sighed. Everything around her was so comforting right now. The noises, the scenery, the feeling that washed over her...it was the most comforting feeling in the world. So much better than Christmas, and it was only a few days away.
Lori huffed. Who cares about Christmas anyway? It was just a dumb holiday. People giving each other gifts to satiate their own egos, stuffing stockings with a whole bunch of crap nobody had much use for, those obnoxious songs that would always play in stores or the radio, Christmas specials airing every day with their own obnoxious songs…The train was long gone by this point. Lori got back on her feet.
Actually, wasn't that one Christmas special on tonight?
She checked the time on her phone. It was 7:23 PM. The special was due to air at eight tonight. Good thing her house was relatively close by. But before going home, she approached her snow mouse.
"I'll see you later, Snow Mouse," Lori said. "Actually, Snow Mouse is boring. How about I call you something different?" She stopped to think of potential names for her snow mouse. Queen Snowmouse? No, she had no kingdom to rule. Unless she made servants, but that'd take too much time. Snowflake? Too simple. Snowy the Snowmouse? No way. She was better at coming up with horror movie names than snowman names. Wait a minute…
"I got it!" Lori smacked her palm with a fist. A light bulb went off in her head. "You'll be Hellraiser! You're the ghost of a serial killer who always murdered people during the winter, always wearing a mouse mask! Hellraiser the Snow Mouse!"
Satisfied, Lori made a beeline for her house. "See ya, Hellraiser!"
Hellraiser said nothing and watched as his creator disappeared into the snowy townscape.
"Dad? Mom?"
An empty house answered her with silence.
The living room was clean, at least. She plopped herself down on a maroon couch and grabbed the TV remote. She had to wonder how her parents managed to scrape together enough money to buy a flat screen TV. The picture quality was nice, but they couldn't afford more than a hundred channels. Fair enough. Lori was just happy they had channels that showed horror movies every now and again, so she wasn't complaining. She surfed through the channels, looking for the Christmas special. What channel was it again? At one point, the TV showed a snowman talking to the audience.
"Kinda late, but whatever," Lori put the remote down and relaxed, putting her elbows behind her head.
It was Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. The beloved story of the reindeer who was once hated by his peers for something he couldn't control, then chosen by Santa Claus to pull his sleigh. Normally, Lori claimed she wouldn't be caught dead watching this. When her 5th grade English class put this on for Christmas, she made herself as small as possible, refusing to even look at the TV screen. It was terribly cheesy, the stop motion animation was really herky-jerky, the songs were annoying and obnoxious, and Hermey's voice grated on her ears. Actually, every voice except for the snowman, Santa, Rudolph, and the women sounded like they were trying way too hard. Even now, her opinion didn't change.
And yet...she still found herself drawn to this fifty year old TV special. Lori couldn't help but chuckle. Lori Meyers, horror movie fan girl and aficionado, watching Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. What a concept. But she knew the answer. As a kid, when all of the reindeer shunned Rudolph for his red nose, even his own family, she had bawled her eyes out. How could they hate him over something so stupid? It wasn't like his red nose had hurt anyone. The callous laughter of the reindeer as they laughed at poor Rudolph tugged at her 14-year-old heart once more.
"We're a lot alike, you and I," Lori said to the TV.
That was it. She saw herself in Rudolph. In school, she was the red nosed reindeer, the oddity among her peers. To her classmates, she was just a freak. A weirdo, always away in her own world, dreaming about movies and monsters and all sorts of morbid stuff. There had never been a day that went by where she didn't hear some kid snickering or spreading rumors about her behind her back. Where she always felt judgmental, scornful gazes on her back. Teachers admonishing her for either not doing good enough in school or not trying to fit in with her classmates. Not even her parents were around. Always working during the day, but for what? There wasn't much to work for here in Possum Springs. They were always going to be stuck here in this dump of a town with nothing going for it.
For now, she was happy they weren't home. Knowing them, they'd probably admonish her for watching something so childish. Lori watched the special from beginning to end, bravely enduring the cheesy songs, dated stop-motion, and childish, tired storyline. In the end, Rudolph was accepted and went on to do great things. The screen turned dark as soon as she pressed the power button on the remote. Good, she had her Rudolph fix. Time to go back to being Lori M the horror movie lover.
Still, she couldn't help but wonder...could she do what Rudolph managed to achieve someday? Would she be able to leave Possum Springs and go her own way in life, like Rudolph did? It couldn't be impossible. There was more to the world than Possum Springs, and it wasn't all sinkholes, dying establishments, constant foreclosures, and dead-end jobs.
Gradually, the dark cloak of night draped over Possum Springs, sequined with glittering stars, crowned by moonlight. In the comfort of her eternally messy bedroom, Lori turned on the radio, hoping to find the rock station. Something to get those cheesy songs out of her brain, especially Hermey's grating misfit song. Instead, the soft melodies of a piano greeted her. She reached her hand out to turn the dial, but the serene, soothing piece stopped her in her tracks. She knew this song.
"Clair de Lune...this was Grandma's favorite," Lori muttered to herself.
She pulled her hand back. Maybe she could afford to take a break from rock music and death metal for five minutes. She sat at her desk, picked up a pencil, and began sketching something from her imagination. Memories flooded her mind. Her younger self sitting at her grandmother's knees, watching as her mousy fingers danced across the white piano keys, producing sound like magic. She could hear the crackling of flames in the fireplace and smell her grandmother's cherry cookies fresh from the oven. Just like old times...Lori shook her head before returning to her drawing.
Christmas would never be the same. But that was okay. Lori still had her whole life ahead of her, and she hoped it wouldn't be stuck in Possum Springs. If she was Rudolph, she'd use her red nose to find her own place in the world.
A place where only she could belong.