A game by Josh Fox & Black Armada

I’m on the Black Armada Patreon and last year they put out a solo journaling advent calendar. I loved the idea, but was too lazy to print it out and too forgetful to preorder one in time for Dragonmeet. This year, as well as having a lovely chat with the UK Indie League folks, I picked up one of the few remaining copies.

It’s a folk horror advent calendar, with each door giving a different prompt. As far as I can see it doesn’t need dice, just the calendar and something to write with.

Beware spoilers, as I’m going to try and go through the whole of the Advent of Abomination. 

Day Zero: Going Away

I’m waiting for a train at the moment and it’s an hour until the next one, so while I was going to wait until I was at the cabin to start this holiday journal, this is going to help kill some time. If I’m lucky it’ll keep my fingers warm as the fingerless gloves aren’t doing enough.

If you find my frozen corpse on Platform 2 of the Caenholm Railway Station, my name’s Martin Price. I’ve spent the last few years staying in fairly remote places with my partner, Casey. It was a great way of avoiding both of our families who are frankly way too much drama. If it was in the middle of nowhere and fairly cosy then all the better. Thing is, places get booked up quickly so as the organised one, I arrange somewhere for us to stay as early as possible.

And that’s why I’m here. Casey and I broke up in October. They’re back with their family now and you know… good for them. I’m not in a good place with mine and while Sam and Lou offered a place at theirs, I didn’t want to be a burden. I’d rented the cabin, I already had a shopping list of supplies, so I’d just spend some time there alone, read some books, get off the grid. If the snow’s not too bad, maybe go out on some walks.

It’ll be good. It’ll be good. If I say it enough times, if I write it down, maybe it’ll even be true.

Day One

Guess what? I survived the trip up to the cabin. It’s quite a walk from the station, I nearly ordered a taxi, but I’m not sure how long that would have taken to arrive and really didn’t want to stand still any longer. 

The cabin’s fairly big… you know, couple-size. I reached the place, turned on the heating and unpacked my clothes just in time for the online delivery to show up. There weren’t many substitutions, luckily. I wasn’t sure if they’d make it from wherever they came from, especially through the snow. I offered them a bottle of water and to use the loo if they wanted, but they were on a clock.

The signal’s sketchy here and the WiFi’s rubbish, mostly working in the bedroom and the left side of the sofa. I decided to treat it as a bit of a detox.

I was originally going to read some Stephen King, specifically Gerald’s Game. I decided against it, as I didn’t want dreams of being trapped and alone in a cabin. I grabbed a James Herbert instead, one of his unsurpassed and unsurpassable Rats trilogy. A work of Marenghian magnificence.

Of course now, I’ll be dreaming of rats in the walls instead. Rats on the roof. Not because of Herbert, god help me, I’ve read the trilogy a few times and they’re hilariously bad. It’s because of noises I heard. Scratches, loud scratches. I genuinely thought someone was on the roof at one point. I went outside and had a look, but there was nothing there. Maybe it was some snow falling from one of the trees near the cabin. I don’t know. 

Wish me luck with my dreams!

Day Two

The rats didn’t return, either in the real world or in my dreams. I got the freezer pain au chocolates (chocolatses?) out and put them together, breaking a bunch of the weird chocolate sticks you put in before you unroll them. They were alright to eat and I’ve got leftovers of them for lunch as I ended up making enough for me and Casey.

I went out walking, not to the village as it felt a long walk just to see their shops which are probably closed for the winter. The paperwork about the cabin said there were some nice woods to walk in with some cultivated pathways, so it’s easier to walk even in the bad weather.

Luckily it was cold, but bright. You could hear the creaking of the snow in the trees. The ground was more treacherous than I’d hoped and I almost slipped over on what looked like fairly stable earth. After a couple of hours I was warming up, but a bit tired. All these years of sedentary work has done in my stamina. Hopefully this time away will help build some up. 

I’d gone off the path and wandered through some old woods, past a dew pond which was frozen over. I don’t know if it was used or not, but there were a lot of old trees with their branches dipping into it, all frozen in place now. Beyond that, I found a nice little clearing. Some tightly-packed trees meant that there wasn’t as much snow, I was able to brush off a stump and have a sit for a time. The snow and the light meant that even the shade was a kind of pale blue. I took a few minutes to sit there and regain my breath before returning past the dew pond, to the path and then to the cabin.

Advent of Abomination is by Black Armada and available here.