Twelve Days of Christmas—Dark Tidings is a Substack special holiday horror event. Each day, beginning Friday the 13th, we’ll count down to Christmas Eve with a dark tale featuring one of the gifts from the classic Christmas carol.
A guide to all the stories can be found here.
This seemed like a place no living thing dared call home.
Graffiti plastered the walls inside the classroom from end to end. A dank, sickening aroma invaded her nostrils as soon as Zoe entered through the open doorway. Cracked and broken tiles littered the floor. Discolored water stains scarred exposed sections of subflooring.
“So, why exactly did we come here again?” She crinkled her nose and glanced over her shoulder back at the doorway. “What’s so special about this place?”
Avery cracked a smile and bounced her flashlight beam over to Zoe.
“Every place has a story to tell. You just need to look around and listen.”
Zoe scolded herself internally for expecting anything other than a glib response. Avery eagerly tried to act all cool and modern during her lectures, but Zoe did not function on the same wavelength as her professor. This abandoned school outlived whatever useful purpose it once served. The remains only told one story — a cautionary tale warning bystanders to stay away.
“No one warned me urban exploring would be so gross. OMG! I can’t even.”
Zoe fought back against a sigh trying to escape. Why did Lyla sign up to come out here? She must have known what this project entailed as much as the rest of the group.
Her eyes followed Lyla, who cringed as she gingerly tiptoed around an overturned desk in her path. Cracked wood forming the desktop started rotting and breaking down long ago. Rainwater must have leaked through cracks in the roof. Discolored bubbles dotting the drop tile ceiling supported Zoe’s observation. Some former bubbles exploded at one point, scattering debris over and around other desks strewn about the room.
“Just live stream it on your vlog. Everybody can comment endlessly on how hot you look, you know, like they usually do.”
Spontaneous laughter accompanied the suggestion. Lyla shot eye daggers back at Jaxson as soon as he made his sarcastic remark and let her icy glare linger on him until he clammed up.
“This isn’t ‘Cheerleader Chic’ material,” she said, making a point to name drop her vlog as if any simple mention earned her extra cash from sponsors. “I won’t clutter my channel with this trash.”
Jaxson’s lips contorted while trying to stop himself from laughing again. He failed.
Zoe smirked. His suggestion offered a nice change of direction from the usual fashion nonsense cluttering Lyla’s vlog. She tried watching an episode on two separate occasions. Both times, Zoe clicked away from that insipid channel within five minutes.
“We should all be careful to not draw attention to ourselves in here,” a softer voice pierced the laughter. “Some crazy people could be hiding in here … or something worse.”
Zoe cast a wary glance over at Riley, the last person forming their urban exploration group. She pushed her glasses up along her nose as she walked a pace behind the others. A backpack strap draped over Riley’s shoulder, and she clutched a thick black metal flashlight. Zoe shuddered. The way Riley drew out her last three words sent an extra shiver down her spine. Keeping her eyes from wandering over to shadowy corners was already hard enough. She didn’t need a quiet nerd’s fear stoking the fires of her own imagination.
Avery stopped, turned on her heel, and faced the rest of the group.
“No one is here except everyone in this room,” she said. “Now let’s stay focused on our purpose for being here.”
Avery had briefly discussed their little field trip before everyone piled into the bus and left the UC-San Cristobal campus. She also withheld a few key details from the handout. Now that they were inside the school, Zoe increasingly questioned her professor’s motives for bringing them here. She also worried someone else she trusted should have read over the waiver first before she signed on the dotted line.
What in the hell did an abandoned school in a southside neighborhood have to do with architectural history? Taking on an extra credit project seemed like a solid idea after she bombed the final. Now Zoe wished she had accepted her fate and headed home for Christmas break a couple of days early. Who cares if her grade point average slipped? Did the threat of losing her scholarship merit stumbling around in a dark cavernous building late at night?
Zoe knew the answer, of course, and couldn’t afford to plunge into student loan debt up to her eyeballs just to finish her degree.
Everyone trudged after Avery as she led them out of the classroom and back into the hall. They ducked inside and then hurried out of two other second floor classrooms. Both shared a similar state of disrepair mirroring the first one.
“Are you searching for something specific?” Riley’s anxious tone suggested the same growing worry settled on her as their group trekked further down a darkened hall. “Maybe if we knew what you were looking for, we could help you find it.”
“I’ll know when I see it,” Avery said, without looking back. “And you’ll know when I know.”
They all meandered down a narrow stairwell. Random garbage littered the stairs. Partially crumpled fast food sacks and burger wrappers. Unmistakable evidence revealing other people were here before they showed up. How long ago? Zoe couldn’t judge from discarded wrappers alone. Would they run into other urban explorers? Homeless squatters? Drug dealers?
God, she hoped nobody was still hanging around here, concealed in shadows while watching and waiting to spring out on them like a hungry mountain lion. Even now, Zoe felt more than one pair of invisible eyes tracking her.
The stairwell led back out to the ground floor, on the opposite end from where they started. Rust spotted lockers lined the hall ahead. Some locker doors hung wide open. Others had been broken off at the hinges and lay on the floor. Many intact doors had been bent or twisted. Graffiti covered the lockers. A melting pot of random names and strange symbols.
“Looks like a tornado ripped through here,” Zoe mumbled.
“We don’t get tornados in this part of California.” More unsteadiness laced through Riley’s voice as she offered up an unwanted fact.
Zoe glanced back over her shoulder and flashed an annoyed frown. Didn’t anyone ever tell her no one likes to hang out with a know-it-all?
“No shit, Sherlock,” she snapped. “It’s just an expression.”
Riley dropped her eyes to her feet and fiddled with her backpack strap while mumbling under her breath. Whatever she wanted to say, she lacked a strong enough backbone to say those words aloud. Zoe sighed and refocused her gaze ahead.
“I found it!”
Avery’s excited shout echoed through the empty hall. A flashlight beam bounced along as she sprinted further into the darkness. The others all matched the professor’s pace. In Zoe’s case, she had no desire to be separated from the group in this cavernous tomb of an ex-school.
Their destination ended up being an expansive library. Multiple shelves still stood upright throughout the room. All were virtually barren, aside from a weathered book here and there that no one bothered to pack up or throw away. Avery led the group to a central spot underneath a broken skylight. Glass shards were scattered over faded threadbare carpet. Moonlight spilled from gaping holes in the skylight down to the floor.
Avery called Riley over and motioned for her to unzip her backpack and set it on the ground. The professor approached the open backpack and fished out six medium white candles and a red grill lighter. One by one, she arranged candles in a wide circle under the skylight and lit each wick.
“This feels kind of weird,” Lyla said. “Can you tell me why we’re doing this again?”
Avery stepped out of the circle after lighting the last candle. She drew out a change purse from her own pants pocket and snapped her head over at Lyla. An exasperated frown crossed her lips. Zoe shook her head. Lyla already heard the same explanation as everyone else on the bus and simply chose not to listen.
“Are you not familiar with the symbolism behind the five golden rings?”
Avery meant her question to be rhetorical. She paused only briefly, not long enough for anyone to utter a word, before supplying her own answer.
“They are a symbol of the Torah — divine law,” she said. “A law intended to guide God’s people out of the wilderness.”
“I always thought they were just a cool gift in a Christmas carol,” Jaxson replied.
“No.” Avery turned on her heel and faced him. “The golden rings serve a greater purpose than being a reward for a greedy lover.”
She popped open the snap on the change purse and drew out a small gold-colored band. The ring resembled two interlacing ropes forming a continuous circle in its design. Zoe’s eyes widened when they fell on the piece of jewelry.
“An obscure Scandinavian legend says the golden ring’s essence will guide the one who bears the ring to fulfilling their greatest desire,” Avery said.
“Greatest desire?” Lyla repeated.
“Yes,” she replied. “One only need slip the ring on their finger, stand inside the circle, and recite specific ancient words. Then the ring’s essence will be unlocked and work its deep magic.”
Avery drew out other gold bands from the purse and then tucked it back inside her pocket. She held the rings inside her open palm.
“Five golden rings — one for each of us. We all must choose a ring, slip it on, and step inside the circle.”
Jaxson and Lyla walked forward without hesitation and snatched rings out of Avery’s hand. Zoe exchanged suspicious glances with Riley. This sounded less like an extra credit project and more like cult indoctrination.
“Humor me.” Avery extended her palm toward the girls and drew a couple of steps closer.
Riley shrugged and took a ring.
“Nothing will happen,” she said. “Science leaves no room for magic to exist.”
Zoe stared at the ring after Avery dropped it into her palm. Riley was probably correct to be skeptical about all of this. If magic was real, she would have found evidence by now. Real evidence. Not urban legends shared in podcasts.
Zoe slipped the golden ring on her finger and stepped into the candle circle. Avery smiled, closed her eyelids, and lifted her chin skyward. Her smile seemed off. Cold. Calculating.
Like she had something up her sleeve.
Zoe quietly slid the ring back off her finger as Avery started chanting out a string of words in an unfamiliar language. She dropped the piece of jewelry on the ground next to her foot. When Avery finished her recitation, an ethereal howl ripped through the derelict library.
Ashen mists sprang up and swarmed Riley, Lyla, and Jaxson. Each student let out a pained groan. Groans changed to screams with a spine-chilling suddenness.
Riley tried to rip the ring off her finger. It now glowed and did not budge an inch. Lyla attempted to flee from the room and tripped over a candle. She fell face first on the floor. Jaxson squeezed his hands against both sides of his head as his eyes started to bulge.
Zoe stood frozen, unsure what to do.
Avery also didn’t move. But no trace of fear adorned her face. She stretched out her hands and wore a triumphant grin. Zoe’s eyes were drawn to her ring. It appeared larger than the others and was set with two tiny purple gems resembling eyes.
Why did she not notice this detail before entering the circle?
No time left to scold herself over a lack of foresight. Zoe needed to get the hell out of here before whatever Avery planned unfolded.
Gathering mist acted like a swarm of disembodied insects, stripping away flesh and bone from the three students still wearing their rings. Riley, Jaxson, and Lyla all decayed and withered right before her eyes. Zoe’s heart raced as she watched them die one by one in the most gruesome and frightening way imaginable.
Avery stepped forward and collected each still glowing ring and stuck them inside her change purse. She stopped at Zoe’s ring and snapped her head up at her. Fire filled her light brown eyes.
“What did you do?” The professor’s question hissed from her lips. “No one told you to take that ring off!”
“I’m happy I did,” Zoe said. “What … are you?”
Avery flashed an icy smirk at her.
“Never seen a little witchcraft in action, have you?” she said. “You just had to go and mess everything up. Josiah deserves better.”
“Josiah?”
“I could never love anyone as much as him. We were engaged. Then a drunk driver t-boned his car on the night before Christmas Eve. Stole both our lives in one awful moment.”
Zoe backed up past the candle circle.
“What does that have to do with me?” She swept her arm out toward the decayed remnants of the other students. “Or them? I know I didn’t kill him.”
“No. But your life energy, collected in these rings, will restore Josiah to me. It will bring us back together, once I complete the proper rite.”
Zoe snatched a candle off the floor and stuck it out in front of her like a shield.
“You’re bat-shit crazy. And a murderer.”
Avery scooped up the final ring. It glowed like the others. She clenched her teeth.
“Put the ring on, you little bitch.”
Zoe waved the candle at her and backpedaled further from her reach. Avery lunged forward and knocked the candle out of her hand. She wrestled Zoe to the floor. They became a jumble of arms and legs. Then an ear-piercing scream cut through their skirmish. Zoe ripped herself free of Avery’s grasp and panted hard as she fell back onto the floor.
Avery let out a second, more violent scream. The ring meant for Zoe now rested under the knuckle of her professor’s index finger. Zoe jammed it down on the digit hard enough to make it become stuck. Mists gathered around Avery as she sobbed and clawed at the ring.
Her body succumbed to the same rapid melting decay as her victims.
Zoe gathered up a flashlight and grabbed all five golden rings. Probably best to destroy all this jewelry before someone else followed in Avery’s footsteps later. She wondered how she would explain everything that happened to the bus driver waiting outside.
Check out the Dark Tidings story preceding mine, a tale from Hanna Delaney inspired by Six Geese a-Laying. Find it here.
Don’t miss the Dark Tidings story after mine, a tale from Nick Winney inspired by Four Calling Birds. Find it here.
Story art by MARK of the BRAND
A special thanks to Garen Marie for inviting me to be part of this storytelling event.
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I thought degloving was the worst thing that could happen with a ring. I was wrong.
There's a lesson here, two actually:
"Don't go into strange buildings with a crazy lady," and "Make sure your sacrifice doesn't remove the object that makes her a sacrifice."
There's a bonus lesson as well, "Don't wrestle around with the cursed object in your hand. You never know when it could be turned on you."