Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28060931-20161219211715

This is my entry for the 2016 Jollytime Murderfest Competition. I took so long because I got a bad case of the flu and was unable to work for a week. This will teach me not to enter contest. Honestly, I feel this is one of my worst pieces of work. I would appreciate any and every bit of feedback, but I have some points I'm especially concerned about.

1) The writing style and dialogue. The story is set in the early 1940s and the style is a bit obtuse -- I perchance to venture in my fancies(I think)

2)The monster. I crossed off two billion ideas and settled on this. I think it might be a little too cringy.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy... I hope.

We all sat around a fir table with pumpernickel bites neatly laid out over it; the fire crackled gingerly and bathed the room in a warm glow. We tipped brandy into our tea and drank as we reclined in our armchairs. Snow frosted the window. We all smiled except Evan who looked troubled. "Evan!" I said ."Why ate you sad? It's Christmas, so be happy." "True, but I have bad memories of Christmas." "Surly," said I, "You won't let a bad apple spoil the bunch?" "No, but I will let an apple infested with worms and spiders spoil the bunch." "What could have destroyed the best holiday on our calendar so badly for you?" John asked. "I won't say. I won't destroy the happy atmosphere." Evan said. "Come now, we all love a good story, even if a miserable one. Unless it's too personal, of course." John replied. "I suppose it's personal, but if you insist. So Twenty-three years ago, on Christmas morning, I went downstairs to check my presents. My mother sat staring at the snow-tipped fir, she looked exasperated and shell-shocked. She turned on me and said, " 'You've been a bad boy; Santa's brought you a bag of coal. Go to your room, get the meanest leather belt you can find, take off your shirt and tie yourself to the radiator, back facing the door. Now!' "She whipped me eighty times and washed my bleeding back with vinegar. Next Christmas, I got coal and ninty new whip marks on my back; this repeated itself for six Christmas'. I was fourteen by then but I only received home tuition and was not allowed to leave the boundaries of the manor so I assumed Santa was real. My punishments left such a deep impression that I ensured my behavior was immaculate. But once, I snuck out in the middle of the night -- on the seventh Christmas -- with a plan to ask Santa why I got lump of coal each Christmas. "When I snuck into the living room, I heard a rustling coming from the chimney, It sounded like a rat trying to escape a box made out of paper. Then a hunched shadow, resembling a dog with hints of amphibian structure in the lower skeleton, snuck out of the fireplace, It was lugging a sack. It turned around and we looked at each other, it screeched and fled. "I screamed something about a monster in the living room. My mother burst through the door. " 'You didn't see anything, you pup! Not a damn thing you saw here, understand! Monsters don't exist. You've been a bad boy and I'll have to discipline you harshly!' She said. "Thats when I saw the fire axe in her hand. Thats also when the film stops, I know I escaped and was adopted... "You know the real fucked up thing? I don't hold a grudge against her. She did all she knew to help me be a good person. It improved my behavior; now I hardly ever decline a request unless I have a Fort Knox-strong argument for it." His story was punctuated by Lou Costello yelling "Ohhh, I'm a bad boy!" on the TV next room.  Evan's mother passed away from lung cancer five months later and left her son the estate. After that, we didn't see Evan until the next Christmas. We sat in a restaurant. Blue and red lights flashed in the window and a stately Christmas tree sat near the counter. A frosty mist rolled through the streets, and a light drizzle tapped on the windows. Evan looked sad and disconnected. John was also not in the Christmas mood, he had a divorce after being caught in bed with another women. But he had time to recover.  "You know," Evan began, "The new h-house I've inherited, yeah? Well, I have, um, trouble you know... Sleeping there at night. Things scratch at the window. Shapes in the corners of my eyes. Umm..." He froze, looking sick. "Could you stay over for Christmas, John. And Michael, of course. You too." Evan said. The second he finished the sentence regret and self-hatred swallowed him; he was pallid and frightened. "Sure, any time. I'm sure John can too, no?" I said "Yes, not a problem. I need some company myself."  "No please. I implore you, no! It was a joke; you cannot be troubled with my delusion. I'll get over it. You being there will delay my coping." But it was no use: we would help our friend for he was exactly that. We set out after we finished dinner.  We came upon a rusted gate and beyond it were lamp poles affixed with red lamps zig-zagging up the hill. The colonial manor atop the loomed behind a thick shroud of mist. I was not in the least surprised that this place unnerved my friend; though most of the eeriness came from the state of disrepair: the house leaned and was slightly deformed, and the trees were not cut for decades. We parked and hiked up the hill. The air was cold and moist; the lamps were spread out at regular intervals and a forest of spruces and yews looped around and up the hill. We were exhausted when we reached the house. We went in through the front door. "Sorry about the s-state of the place. I'm having it, um, renovated soon." Evan said, "I'll take John with me to c-c-chop firewood for the f-fire -- if he doesn't mind." John said he wouldn't and I was sent to seek out some whiskey or wine. It took me some time to find and open the cabinet with all the good stuff, and when I did I heard an abruptly cut off shriek. I rushed outside into the biting winter air. I saw a trench in the snow curving into the forest. It was stained with blood. I thought a wild beast ambushed my friends so I went back inside and found a double-barreled shotgun hanging above an elk's head. I grabbed it and went outside, the weapon poised above my hips.  Snow crunched under my feet as I crashed through undergrowth. I squeezed through a gap inbetween two pines. The terror I saw made me weak and cast a dreamy film over the world. The barren branches of trees made a dome over our heads; the only light was shafts of red from the lamps breaking through the trees, creating vertical lines of crimson. One of them ran across Evan's arm. In it, he was clutching an axe, it was drenched in blood. At his feet lay John's body; a pulpy mess of brain tissue seeping out of the gory gash in his head. "Evan?" Barely a whisper. "Evan?" I choked. "I had to do it," he said distantly. "It told me to do it. It haunted me since childhood. It made sure my mother disciplines me. I guess it's my turn to discipline." "Evan! What the hell are you talking about? What did it want? What is it?" "I dunno. It was the thing that brought the coal. It said it was with the family since forever and that it made sure me were good and righteous, or something. It basically is a guardian angle of sorts that attends the eldest family member and makes sure they make their close-ones watch their actions. I'm the last surviving member of the family. Anyway, I'm sure your shocked so let's go and chop some actual firewood. Then we'll need a drink." I raised my gun. "Now, now," Evan snapped, "Your shocked, I'm sure, but there's a limit so put that down or I'll chastise your little fucking ass." My hand faltered and I pulled one trigger. Evan ducked and threw the axe up. A branch was blown of a tree with a bang. Evan gave a cry and charged at me. I jumped away but the axe caught my shin and I made a snow-angle. I got up and turned. The axe gleamed red in the lamp light. I saw my horrified face as the axe swung down; the reflection was swallowed by a blast of yellow and a new layer of blood splashed it as I blew my friend's brains out. I lay there for what seemed like hours upon hours upon even more hours until my senses surfaced. "The last of the Writh family dies, alas. The world shall be an oyster of sin and misdeed." I heard a raspy voice murmur. It was a vague sound. A man of science would say the voice was a hallucination caused by shock and a frightfully real but fantastical stories told to me by a person of trust who destroyed that trust thus creating a complex in my mind. Somehow that voice made Evan's story blossom with validity. The words were leaking with reality, it put holes through the dream-like feeling I had. The layer of unrealness that took possession of the world shattered and crumbled. I knew the horror Evan told of was lurking in the recesses of the manor, and I knew I had end it. For my sake. I got up and ran into the manor. I burned my blood-stained clothes and substituted them for clean ones. I wiped my fingerprints off the gun and went into the basement. There, I found coal. I unloaded it into every hallway and most rooms; then, I gathered some newspapers and dry twigs; then I got a light and set the place on fire. 