While I was at Rainforest Writers, the Horrible Disaster Anthology was released by HorrorAddicts.net:
HorrorAddicts.net proudly presents Horrible Disasters. Thirteen authors from around the globe share their visions of terror set during real natural disasters throughout history. Travel back in time to earth shattering events like the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, and the Winter of Terror avalanches, 1950. What supernatural events went unnoticed? What creatures caused such destruction without remorse? Stock your emergency kit, hunker in your bunker, and prepare for… Horrible Disasters. Proceeds go to help disaster relief globally by way of the Rescue Task Force
My short story is set during the Winter of Terror in 1950. A vagabond ex-soldier is swept up in an alpine avalanche. Injured but alive, he encounters a hermit, a boy, and the fabled barbegazi. Trapped on the mountain beneath the looming weight of another snowy avalanche, he risks his life to free the child and defeat the monster before an unsuspecting village is buried.
The Winter of Terror is famous for the series of avalanches which killed over 265 people.
Not familiar with the Barbegazi? Here’s a copy of the Wikipedia entry and a picture of a barbegazi that I particularly like:
Barbegazi by Melanie Dellas:
Barbegazi are mythical creatures from Swiss and French mythology. A variety of dwarf or gnome, a barbegazi resembles a small white-furred man with a long beard and enormous feet. They travel in the mountains that are their home by skiing with their massive feet, or using them as snowshoes. In the summer they aestivate in caves and tunnels and do not come out until the first snowfall. The word barbegazi comes from the French barbe-glacée, meaning “frozen beard”. Because of their penchant for high altitudes and low temperatures, they are rarely sighted by humans, but sometimes help shepherds round up lost sheep. Their greatest known excitement is surfing on avalanches with their remarkably large feet, but they are said to give low whistling cries to warn humans of the danger above, sometimes they will give their best effort to dig humans out from the snow.[1]
Considering how completely adorable these creatures are, you’d think my story would be cheerful. But what fun is that?
