When I began writing short fiction for hire, I did not expect that I would be writing horror stories. Horror is not a genre I typically like to read, yet I found that if given a topic, I could write a pretty good horror story. My work with Wet Ink Games has led me to write several short horror stories. The following story appeared in Tome of Beasts, a supplemental book for the game Never Going Home. The story is set on the battlefield somewhere in Europe in 1917, after the horrors of the Great War opened a veil into another world of strange creatures and monsters, drawn to chaos and destruction. One of the beasts that players can encounter in the game is the Comfort Siren, which is exactly as it sounds. This story was published in 2019 by Wet Ink Games.

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“Cold out tonight.”

I turned my head towards Cloyd. He was rubbing his hands together as he breathed onto them; his air a puff of cloud steaming in the night. “Uh huh,” I grunted. Who cares? We’re all gonna die anyway.

Cloyd clapped me on the shoulder, a fresh smile spreading across his face. “What’s the matter? You’re thinking about that woman, aren’t you?”

“I’m not thinking about her,” I grumped back. “No way she was real anyway.”

Cloyd’s smile was gone in an instant. “You mean…”. He lowered his voice. “You don’t think she was…was she one of those things?”

“Eh!” I spat the taste of mud from my mouth. Everything tasted like mud out here. The air, the water, the food. We lived in mud. We slept in mud. We were all going to end up in the mud in the end.

“You think they’re real, though,” Cloyd pressed.

“I don’t know what I saw,” I sighed. My breath swirled in the air in front of me. “Maybe I was just dreaming.”

At that, he laughed. “Dreaming! Yes, dreaming. That’s what you were doing. Dreaming of being home, with the sweet smell of a woman, a good stew, a hot cup of tea… Sleeping in a bed… I was dreaming too, Abner. But I’ve never had a dream like that.”

I shook off his words. He was right, but I didn’t want to tell  him what I thought. I didn’t want to scare him.

He’d been with me when she first appeared. She had thick curls and wore an ivory dress. The lace around the collar as nearly the same color as her neck. Her cheeks and lips were a deep pink. She didn’t have a speck of dirt on her. That alone would have given me a clue that she wasn’t real, but there were other signs. She had a fire lit; she was boiling water. I could smell the tea that was already steeping in the mug she had laid out on the ground. She had blankets—such clean blankets!—and meat roasting on a spit.

“Come,” she said. “I have enough for you,” she cooed as she gestured to the roasting meat. The grease dripped into the fire, hissing on the logs.

Cloyd’s eyes were glazing over as he moved nearer. “Wait,” I said, catching him on the shoulder. “Wait.”

She bent down, lifting her kettle from the fire. I watched as she poured the water into another mug. The fire popped, sending up a spray of sparks around her. She smiled, something devilish, as the flames licked at the meat.

I took my hand from Cloyd, now being drawn in myself. My mind was fighting with my body. Don’t go near. She’s one of them. She’s not real.

We were saved by the braying of our dogs. We were lucky enough to still have dogs out here, and every time we let them loose to hunt we figured it would be the last we saw of them. They came bounding over the ground, having caught a rat, or a bird or whatever else was still living out here. They barked and barked at the woman—the creature—knowing intuitively she was a threat.

She hissed a hellish sound as the dogs came into her camp. Her wail pierced the night as she faded into a dark mist.

Our dogs, as confused as we were, sniffed all over the ground. But there was nothing left. No tea. No meat. No blankets. No woman.

“Well, at any rate, glad the dogs came when they did. What do you think she would have done to us?” Cloyd almost sounded as if he wished she had captured us.

“Not sure it would have been like you’re imagining, Cloyd.” I turned up my coat collar against the wind. God! It’s cold!

“Better than this. Even if she sucked the life out of us. For at least a moment, it would have been better than this.”

“Fresh, hot meat…” I mused, falling into the trap of daydreaming.

“I can almost taste the grease. I can feel the warmth of that tea spreading through me,” Cloyd continued.

“Mmmmmmm…” I agreed, my eyes closed, remembering what food tasted like.

Cloyd furiously tapped me on the shoulder. “Abner!” He whispered. “Abner! She’s back!”

I opened my eyes. Had we conjured her? Or had she simple come because we wanted her?

“Don’t look at her, Cloyd. Don’t go near her.” I cast my eyes to the ground, trying to will her away. We had no dogs to save us this time. The dogs were with Samuel and David tonight.

“Come,” I heard the creature say. “Come. Warm yourself by my fire.”

“Run, Cloyd. Run away,” I whispered.

“No, you go. Go. She can have me.” He began moving away from me, slowly. I caught hold of him. He turned, a mix of fear and relief in his eyes. “Go, Abner!” he pleaded.

“Come, Abner,” she said. She held up a steaming mug, offering me comfort, warmth, a piece of home.

I couldn’t leave Cloyd alone with her. I stepped closer to her fire as he sat down within its light. The woman wrapped one of her blankets around his shoulders. He took the steaming mug, sipping joyfully. She carved a piece of meat from the roast and offered him a bite. He let out a laugh as the juice dripped down his chin.

Then she turned to me. Resist her. Resist her for Cloyd. Try to save him from himself. I didn’t sit. I didn’t take her offered cup. She frowned at me.

“Oh, Abner…what can I give you?” She came closer to me. My heart hammered against my ribs. Her pink lips, like a dusty rose, pouted at me. “Maybe you want something…more…like this?” She slowly unbuttoned the buttons of her lace collar, showing me her pale flesh.

Sweat was beading on my brow. “Cloyd, we can’t stay here,” I said, though my feet were rooted to the ground. “Cloyd…”

But Cloyd was far away, lost on his own thoughts as he gleefully ate the roast from the spit. The grease fell into the flames with each cut he made. The flames looked like the flames within the woman’s eyes.

“Come to me, Abner,” she whispered. Her lips moved towards mine. We kissed.

I felt the life leaving me. She drew it from me as I fought with her. It was no use. She would kill me, and then she would do the same to Cloyd.

Her kiss wasn’t even sweet. It tasted like mud, just like everything else.