Friday nights in Port Credit had a rhythm all their own, especially during hockey season. The town’s heartbeat pulsed in sync with the slap of sticks on ice, the scrape of skates, and the roar of the crowd. Tonight was no exception. The Dixie Beehives were on home ice, locked in a battle with the Oakville Blades, and the rink was packed. The smell of popcorn and sweat mixed in the cold air as fans in thick coats and bright Beehives scarves crammed into the narrow bleachers, shouting encouragement and slews of insults at the rival team.
In the second period, the game took a fierce, gritty turn. Skaters crashed into the boards, fists were thrown, and penalties piled up, but the home crowd loved every minute of it. Among the noise, one name was chanted again and again: “Rapid Robert!” Robert Montgomery was Port Credit’s golden boy, known for his blazing speed and his wicked slap shot. He was a stalky, wiry center with golden blond hair and stone-cold blue eyes that burned with a competitive edge. When he hit the ice, fans leaned forward, waiting for him to make magic.
About halfway through the second, the Beehives were down by one. Tension built as Montgomery skated up center ice, weaving through two defensemen and winding up for one of his legendary slap shots. The crowd held its breath as he drew back, the muscles in his arms tensing, and then wham — he struck the ice with a blazing fast release. The puck rocketed towards the Blades’ goalie, who barely had time to raise his glove. The puck slammed off the top edge of his stick, redirecting at a lethal angle. It hurtled over the boards, toward the stands, slicing through the air with a deadly precision.
The crowd gasped as the puck struck an older man in the third row. The sickening sound of impact was followed by silence, and then the man slumped forward, blood pooling from his head onto the plastic seat. People scrambled, some reaching out to help, others backing away in horror. Paramedics rushed to the man’s side, but it was clear he was gone. The crowd watched, stunned, as the announcer called a brief pause in the game. By the time the paramedics wheeled the stretcher out of the rink, his face covered with a sheet, the game was officially postponed.
The town was rocked. A freak accident, the papers called it, though many struggled to shake off the eerie chill that had swept through the rink. Over the next few games, the Beehives resumed their season, cautiously, respectfully honoring the tragedy with a moment of silence before each game. But the season rolled on, and hockey being hockey, things gradually began to return to normal.
Then, one night a few weeks later, it happened again.
This time, it was a defenseman from the visiting team, winding up for a slap shot. The puck ricocheted, this time off a Beehives’ player’s skate, and hurtled into the stands, striking a young woman in the neck. She collapsed instantly, her body sprawled across the seats, her face frozen in shock. People screamed, rushing for exits, and again, the rink fell silent as paramedics pronounced her dead on the scene.
The news spread fast, both deaths creating a shadow over Port Credit’s cherished hockey season. As the weeks went on, the town’s once-beloved sport turned into something sinister, drawing a morbid curiosity from neighboring cities. People spoke in hushed tones of the “curse,” whispering about how, after each slap shot, the puck seemed to defy all logic, seeking out a new victim.
The local papers fed off the tragedies, dubbing it “The Port Credit Curse.” Reporters came from Toronto, and soon television news trucks lined up outside the small arena, their lights casting an eerie glow on the frost-rimmed glass doors. But the Beehives kept playing, and people, however afraid, kept showing up. The townspeople whispered about it in cafes and in the aisles of the grocery store. The arena became a place of morbid fascination, drawing people who wanted to witness the unexplainable events for themselves.
The players, though, were unnerved. In the locker room, Rapid Robert Montgomery and his teammates grew anxious. No one wanted to talk about it openly, but they felt the weight of something wrong hanging over the ice. Between periods and practices, Montgomery often caught his teammates glancing at each other, their eyes full of questions they couldn’t answer.
Then came the night of the third death.
It was a Friday night, and the stands were packed again, despite the chilling stories. Fans couldn’t stay away, some for the love of the game, others simply driven by that dark curiosity. The Beehives were up against the Kingston Voyageurs, and the tension on the ice was thick, every player’s movements laced with caution.
As the third period neared its end, the score was tied, and Rapid Robert, feeling the pressure, took control of the puck. The crowd, as if under a spell, went silent, eyes fixed on him as he darted down the ice. He wound up, his slap shot a furious blur of muscle and momentum. The puck shot off his stick, flying toward the goal. But as if gripped by an invisible hand, it veered off course at the last second, glancing off the goalie’s helmet and into the audience.
The gasps began, but they were cut short by a collective scream. The puck had struck a man square in the chest, and he fell back, clutching his chest. He was dead before his body hit the ground.
The team was devastated. The Beehives’ coach called an emergency meeting after the game, his face pale as he looked at his players. “I don’t know what’s going on here,” he said, voice trembling. “But we can’t pretend this isn’t real. It’s like the damn puck is possessed.”
Montgomery shifted in his seat, jaw clenched. He wanted to believe it was all coincidence, but three deaths? There was no explaining it.
Over the next week, the league threatened to shut down Port Credit’s games, but the town’s council, along with the arena’s owner, pushed back, citing tradition and the financial impact of canceling their season. Yet whispers of the curse spread, and attendance began to drop. Parents kept their children home, and even the most die-hard fans seemed skittish, looking over their shoulders as if something unseen were lurking in the shadows of the stands.
Montgomery couldn’t shake the feeling that he was at the center of it all. It was always his slap shots that seemed to trigger the deadly chain of events. After another gruesome game, he decided to investigate. He approached Lou, the arena’s timekeeper, a strange and solitary figure who had worked in that booth above the rink for as long as anyone could remember. Lou was an older man with an icy demeanor, his eyes shadowed and distant, and he’d been the one to handle all the pucks since before Montgomery even started playing.
Montgomery waited until the rink was empty, shadows stretching across the ice, and climbed up the narrow staircase to the timekeeper’s booth. Lou was there, as usual, sitting in the dim light, his gaze fixed on the darkened rink below.
“Lou,” Montgomery said, his voice tense, “we need to talk.”
Lou turned slowly, his eyes blank, almost as if he’d been expecting him. “About what, kid?” he asked in a low, gravelly tone.
“You’ve been here a long time,” Montgomery said, trying to steady his voice. “You’ve seen what’s been happening, right? The accidents.”
Lou gave a slow, chilling smile. “Accidents,” he murmured, “is that what you think they are?”
Montgomery’s pulse quickened. “What else would they be?”
Lou leaned forward, resting his gnarled hands on the edge of the table. “There’s power in things, Robert. Power people don’t understand. They think a puck’s just a piece of rubber, just like they think a game’s just a game. But everything leaves a mark, and sometimes things don’t want to be forgotten.” He lifted a worn black puck, holding it up for Montgomery to see. “These pucks…they’re more than they seem.”
Montgomery’s gaze locked onto the puck, his stomach churning. “What did you do, Lou?”
Lou’s smile widened, showing yellowed teeth. “I didn’t do anything but give people what they wanted. A game they’d never forget.”
A cold realization settled over Montgomery. He felt his blood run cold as he stared at the puck in Lou’s hand, the way it seemed to gleam unnaturally in the dim light. “These pucks…are they cursed?”
Lou shrugged, his voice barely a whisper. “You could call it that. But I’d say they’re just doing what they’re meant to do. They’re here to remind people of what they’ve forgotten, the blood and sweat that went into making this place.”
Montgomery backed away, the horror rising in his chest as Lou’s words sank in. The deaths weren’t random. They were part of something dark, something ancient and twisted that had taken root in the very heart of Port Credit’s cherished rink. And now, he knew, there was no going back.
As he descended the stairs, Lou’s final words echoed in his mind, chilling him to the bone.
“You keep taking those slap shots, Robert. Let’s see just how many people remember.”
Montgomery barely slept that night. Lou’s words played over and over in his head, mingling with the images of each death he had witnessed from the ice. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw their faces—the elderly man, the young woman, the fan struck down just last week. All casualties of his own slap shots, as if he were pulling the trigger himself.
The next morning, Montgomery called a team meeting, inviting only his closest teammates: Matt “Sticks” Larson, their sharp-eyed winger, and Henry “The Tank” Miller, their tough-as-nails defenseman who had been his best friend since they were kids.
As they huddled in the empty locker room, Montgomery shared everything he’d learned from Lou. Sticks and Tank listened in horrified silence, the color draining from their faces as he spoke.
“You’re telling me,” Tank said, his voice barely above a whisper, “that the pucks…are cursed? That Lou’s somehow…possessed them?”
“Not just that,” Montgomery replied. “He’s using them. He knew what would happen, and he wanted it to happen. He called it ‘giving people a game they’d never forget.’”
“Forget?” Sticks shook his head in disbelief. “People are dead, Rob! This is sick. Why would he do something like that?”
Montgomery leaned forward, eyes haunted. “I don’t know. He talked about blood and sweat, about history. Maybe…maybe he thinks the rink is owed something.”
Silence fell over the three of them, broken only by the distant hum of the arena’s cooling system. Finally, Tank spoke up, his voice steady with determination. “We can’t let him keep doing this. There’s gotta be a way to break it.”
They spent hours brainstorming, sifting through half-formed ideas and superstition. None of them knew anything about curses, let alone how to break one. Finally, Sticks spoke up, his voice tentative.
“My uncle,” he said, glancing around, “he…he’s into weird stuff. Old stories and legends, that kind of thing. He always talked about how curses get attached to places and objects. He said if something’s cursed, it can sometimes be broken by…destroying the thing it’s attached to.”
Montgomery’s eyes narrowed. “The pucks.”
Sticks nodded. “Yeah. If Lou’s using these cursed pucks, maybe destroying them will break whatever hold they have over the rink.”
They waited until night fell and the arena was closed, the only sounds in the rink the creaks of old metal beams and the muffled drip of melting ice. They slipped into the rink’s storage room, a cluttered, chilly space crammed with old equipment and spare pucks.
Montgomery opened a drawer near the back, where Lou had always kept the game pucks. Inside were rows of jet-black pucks, identical but somehow menacing in the dim light. Each one seemed to hold a strange weight, as if it radiated a cold malice. Montgomery picked one up, feeling a strange pulse in his palm, as if the puck were alive.
They gathered the pucks in a worn equipment bag and made their way to the empty parking lot. Montgomery, Sticks, and Tank stood in a rough circle around the bag, the cold night air biting at their faces as they stared down at the collection of pucks.
“Let’s do this,” Tank said, grabbing the first puck and hurling it to the ground, his foot coming down hard to crush it into the pavement.
The puck cracked, splintering into chunks, and for a split second, Montgomery thought he heard something—a faint, echoing scream that seemed to come from inside the shattered puck. He shivered, his fingers trembling as he grabbed the next one. They went through the bag one by one, each puck crushed to pieces. With each one, the air around them felt heavier, colder, as if something angry and unseen were being torn apart.
By the time they finished, the pavement was littered with rubber fragments, and the three men were breathing heavily, as if the destruction of each puck had drained them. Tank wiped a shaky hand across his brow, his eyes darting around the empty lot.
“Think…think that did it?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Montgomery felt a strange lightness, as if a dark cloud had lifted. He nodded, forcing himself to believe. “It has to. Lou can’t curse what doesn’t exist anymore.”
But in the back of his mind, Montgomery wasn’t so sure. The memory of Lou’s chilling smile lingered, and he knew the twisted timekeeper wasn’t someone who would simply give up.
The following Friday, the Beehives returned to the ice. The crowd, subdued but steady, had trickled back into the stands, the morbid whispers fading as people let themselves believe that the accidents were over. The atmosphere was tense but hopeful; they were here to reclaim their game.
Lou sat in his booth above, staring down at the ice, his eyes fixed on Montgomery. The young player felt that icy gaze prickling the back of his neck as he skated warm-up laps. Lou’s expression was unreadable, but there was something in his eyes that sent a shiver down Montgomery’s spine.
The game started, and the Beehives played hard, finally finding their rhythm after the shadowed weeks behind them. Montgomery was in the zone, his movements sharp and fluid, a renewed energy fueling every shift. The third period came, and the Beehives were up by one goal.
Montgomery felt a familiar, almost electric sensation as he sped down the ice, the puck under his control. He wound up for his signature slap shot, feeling the exhilarating power surge through him as his stick struck the ice. The puck shot forward, a clean, powerful drive toward the goal.
But halfway through its trajectory, the puck twisted, as if caught by an invisible force. It veered, arcing unnaturally toward the stands.
The arena erupted in screams as the puck zeroed in on a section of fans, its deadly course unaltered. But at the last second, it struck the glass, splintering into a spiderweb of cracks. Montgomery’s heart thundered, his breaths shallow as he stared up at the timekeeper’s booth, where Lou was grinning, a cold, triumphant gleam in his eyes.
Lou lifted a hand, gesturing as if he were holding something. And that’s when Montgomery saw it—the puck in Lou’s hand, pitch black, identical to the cursed ones they had destroyed.
A new dread settled over him. They hadn’t stopped it. Lou had more—an endless supply, it seemed, of cursed pucks bound to claim lives and draw blood, all for reasons only Lou seemed to understand.
Montgomery clenched his fists, a fierce resolve settling in. This wasn’t over, but now he knew what he had to do. Lou wasn’t just cursing pucks; he was feeding something darker, and until they stopped him, the deaths would continue.
As the final buzzer sounded, the Beehives victorious but shaken, Montgomery skated off the ice, his jaw set. He was ready for whatever came next.
After the game, Montgomery didn’t head to the locker room. Instead, he waited near the stairwell that led up to Lou’s booth, his pulse quickening as he glanced up at the small, dimly lit room above. The arena had mostly cleared out, with only a few workers lingering to clean up, and the muffled sounds of their conversation echoed through the empty space.
Sticks and Tank appeared at his side, looking at him with worry etched on their faces.
“You’re not going up there alone, Rob,” Sticks said, his voice firm. “This guy’s dangerous, and who knows what else he’s hiding up there.”
Montgomery nodded, grateful for their loyalty. Together, the three of them climbed the narrow staircase leading up to the booth. Each step felt heavier than the last, and as they approached, they could hear the soft murmur of Lou’s voice, though no one else was in the booth with him.
Tank shot Montgomery a look, mouthing, “Who’s he talking to?”
Montgomery shook his head, unsure. His hand reached for the door, pausing just a moment before he pushed it open.
Inside, Lou sat at his small, cluttered desk, his back to them. In front of him lay another black puck, identical to the ones they had smashed to pieces. But this one seemed different, darker somehow, as if it absorbed the dim light instead of reflecting it. Lou murmured something unintelligible under his breath, his hands hovering above the puck, almost reverent.
“Lou,” Montgomery called, his voice harsher than he intended.
Lou stiffened, his hand pausing mid-gesture, before he slowly turned his head to look at them. His face was blank, eyes void of warmth, but a slight, eerie smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.
“Couldn’t leave it alone, could you, boys?” Lou said, his voice soft and mocking. “Always have to meddle where you don’t belong.”
“What are you doing?” Montgomery demanded, stepping forward. “What’s with the pucks? Why are people dying?”
Lou’s expression didn’t change. Instead, he sighed, picking up the puck and cradling it in his hands as if it were something precious. “You kids…you play this game and think it’s all fun and glory. But there’s a cost to everything, and this arena—this rink—was built on a lot more than ice and boards. You have no idea how many sacrifices it took to build this place.”
Montgomery’s brow furrowed, trying to make sense of Lou’s words. “Sacrifices?”
Lou nodded slowly, his voice taking on an almost wistful tone. “Back when they built this arena, the land…let’s just say it didn’t want to be disturbed. They had to appease it, so to speak. There were accidents, workers who went missing. Rumors that the ground itself was cursed. But they ignored the warnings, buried the bodies, and built over them anyway.”
Tank’s face twisted in horror. “So you’re saying…this place is haunted? And you’re using these cursed pucks to—what? Avenge them?”
Lou let out a dark chuckle. “Something like that. It’s not about revenge. It’s about respect. The land was disturbed, and now it wants something back. A reminder, a…balance. These pucks are a way to settle the debt, to honor those who were forgotten. Blood for blood.”
Montgomery felt a chill run through him. “So you’re just going to keep killing people? Because of something that happened decades ago?”
Lou shrugged, his gaze cold. “It’s not me doing the killing, Robert. It’s the land, the spirits that live here. I’m just…facilitating it. Giving them a way to reach through, to remind people of their place. And the best part is—” his grin widened—“there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”
Montgomery’s eyes narrowed. He lunged forward, grabbing for the puck in Lou’s hand, but Lou jerked back with surprising speed, clutching the puck to his chest.
“Careful, now,” Lou hissed, his eyes wild. “You break it here, and you might just unleash more than you’re ready for.”
But Montgomery didn’t care anymore. Fueled by anger and fear, he reached forward, wrestling with Lou. Sticks and Tank jumped in, and together, they struggled with Lou, each trying to pry the puck from his grasp. Lou fought with unnatural strength, his nails digging into Montgomery’s arm, his face contorted in a grotesque rage.
Finally, with a powerful shove, Montgomery wrenched the puck free and hurled it to the ground. It shattered, the pieces scattering across the booth floor. For a moment, everything went silent.
Then, a cold gust of air swept through the booth, chilling them to the bone. The lights flickered, and shadows seemed to grow and shift around them. A low, guttural sound filled the room, like a rumble from beneath the earth itself, vibrating through their bodies.
Lou’s face twisted with horror, his eyes wide as he backed away from the shattered pieces of the puck. “What…what have you done?” he whispered, his voice laced with genuine fear.
The floor beneath them began to tremble, as if something deep below was waking up. Montgomery, Sticks, and Tank looked at each other, their faces pale, as the entire arena seemed to groan and shake, the shadows deepening into shapes, figures that loomed in the corners of the room.
Lou stumbled back, his hands clawing at his face. “No…no, this wasn’t supposed to happen!” he screamed, but it was too late. The shadows closed in around him, pulling him down as he thrashed and screamed. His voice grew fainter, swallowed by the darkness that seemed to consume him.
Then, as quickly as it began, the tremors stopped, and the shadows receded, leaving nothing but silence and the cold, empty booth.
Montgomery, breathing hard, looked around, trying to steady his racing heart. Lou was gone, vanished into whatever darkness he had unleashed.
“Is it…is it over?” Sticks asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Montgomery nodded, though he wasn’t entirely sure. “I think…whatever curse he unleashed, whatever he was using to keep this going, it’s gone now. The land wanted him, and it took him.”
They left the booth in silence, descending the stairs as the arena lights flickered back to life, casting a faint glow over the ice below. The rink was eerily quiet, the usual buzz of the arena replaced by a heavy stillness. It felt, somehow, like the place was finally at rest.
The next game, a few days later, went on without incident. The crowd was thinner than usual, and the lingering chill of recent events kept the energy subdued, but there were no accidents, no rogue pucks careening into the stands, no shadowed whispers in the corners.
In time, the town began to heal, the horror of the past few months fading into uneasy memories. Montgomery and his teammates returned to their routine, though they never quite felt the same about the rink. They played hard, but each slap shot, each ricochet off the boards, brought a flicker of dread, a reminder of the curse they had nearly been consumed by.
And sometimes, after the last game of the night, Montgomery would glance up at the timekeeper’s booth, half-expecting to see Lou’s twisted grin staring down at him from the shadows.
But the booth stayed empty, a dark reminder of the secret that lay buried beneath the ice, a story that Port Credit would never forget.
Months passed, and the dark days of the “Port Credit Curse” became something of a ghost story around town, whispered about in hushed voices. Hockey resumed its place as a proud, beloved pastime, and for a while, it seemed like everything had gone back to normal. The Beehives even made it to the playoffs, the fans cheering with a new intensity, as if to drive away the lingering memories of death that had haunted the arena.
But for Montgomery, things were far from normal. Though Lou was gone, though he’d seen the man swallowed up by the very darkness he had unleashed, something lingered—something that made Montgomery wake up in cold sweats, heart pounding, certain he’d heard faint voices calling his name. He tried to shrug it off, to convince himself it was just trauma from a dark time, but the feeling only grew stronger.
One night, after a hard-fought game that ended in a victory, Montgomery stayed behind to grab some sticks he’d left by the benches. The rest of the team had already cleared out, and the arena was quiet, the rows of seats casting long, empty shadows over the ice.
As he walked down the aisle toward the benches, his steps echoing off the concrete walls, a faint sound caught his ear. It was soft, almost like a whisper, drifting through the empty arena. He stopped, straining to listen.
“Robert…”
He froze, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. The voice was familiar. It was low, scratchy—Lou’s voice. But Lou was gone. He had seen it happen, seen Lou dragged down by whatever vengeful spirits he had been meddling with.
He took a shaky step forward, his eyes scanning the empty seats, looking for any sign of movement. Nothing. Just row after row of dark, vacant seats stretching into the shadows. He forced himself to move again, willing his legs to ignore the chilling fear settling in his bones.
But the whisper came again, clearer this time. “Robert…you can’t leave them.”
The air in the rink felt colder, and his breaths came out in misty clouds. The whisper grew, as if several voices joined in, a low chorus that echoed off the rafters and reverberated through his skull.
“They’re still here… They’re still waiting…”
Panicked, Montgomery turned, ready to bolt out of the arena, but stopped dead in his tracks. Standing at the far end of the ice, just visible in the dim light, was a figure. It was shadowy, indistinct, but he could see the outline of a man, his posture familiar—the crooked shoulders, the slouching, twisted frame. Lou.
Montgomery’s mind raced, his feet frozen in place. This was impossible. He had seen Lou disappear, consumed by whatever dark forces had finally claimed him. But here he was, or at least, something that looked like him.
“Lou?” he called, his voice barely above a whisper.
The figure didn’t answer. It just stood there, unmoving, but somehow, its gaze felt heavy, pressing down on him. Then, slowly, it raised one hand and pointed toward the far side of the rink.
Montgomery followed the gesture, his eyes tracing over the rows of seats and settling on something small and dark lying at the edge of the boards. His stomach dropped. It was a puck—a black, cracked puck that looked almost identical to the ones Lou had used, the ones he and his friends had destroyed. But this one was different. It was wrapped in shadows, as if darkness clung to it like smoke.
The whispers grew louder, almost deafening, filling his head with an unholy chorus that seemed to come from the very walls around him. The voices chanted words he couldn’t understand, an ancient, guttural language that seemed to claw at his mind, each syllable sharp and painful.
“The debt is not paid… The debt must be honored…”
Montgomery stumbled forward, driven by a compulsion he couldn’t resist, his eyes locked on the puck. He reached out, his fingers trembling as he touched its cold, cracked surface. A shock shot through him, freezing his breath in his lungs.
The rink around him seemed to fade, the lights dimming, until he stood alone in darkness, the ice beneath him feeling brittle and wrong. He looked up, his surroundings shifting, and found himself in a version of the arena he’d never seen before. The walls were old, crumbling, lined with shadows that seemed to pulse with life. Rows of spectral figures filled the seats, ghostly forms with hollow eyes watching him in silence.
A low, growling voice echoed from somewhere above him, deep and terrible. “You took them from their rest,” it said. “You disturbed the ground, and now you must give it back.”
Montgomery’s heart pounded as he looked up to see the ghostly figures begin to rise, the shadows peeling off their faces to reveal hollow, twisted visages of men and women from ages past. They seemed to reach out, their hands claw-like, their expressions frozen in grief and anger.
“No!” he shouted, backing away. “I didn’t do this! It was Lou! He’s the one who cursed this place!”
The shadows seemed to ignore his pleas, drifting toward him with agonizing slowness, their hollow eyes burning with a strange, accusatory light. He tried to move, to run, but his legs felt like lead, his body paralyzed by a bone-deep terror.
Then, from the darkness, he heard Lou’s voice once more, but this time it sounded…different. Desperate.
“They’re taking me too, Robert. They’re taking us all. There’s no escape.”
Montgomery’s mind reeled, his thoughts scrambling for an answer, a way out. And then, through the fog of fear, he remembered something Sticks had said that night in the parking lot: “Sometimes, the only way to end a curse is to break its hold on the place.”
He looked down at the puck in his hand, feeling the weight of it, the icy pulse that seemed to carry every ounce of darkness that had settled over the rink. Maybe, just maybe, destroying it here, in this twisted version of the arena, would break the curse once and for all.
With every ounce of strength he had left, Montgomery raised the puck above his head and slammed it down onto the ice. It shattered, shards of black scattering across the frozen surface.
For a moment, silence fell. The spectral figures paused, their faces flickering, as if uncertain. Then, one by one, they began to dissipate, the shadows peeling away like smoke caught in a breeze. The arena around him faded, the crumbling walls returning to their familiar solid form, the ghostly spectators disappearing into the ether.
Montgomery found himself alone on the ice, the lights bright and steady overhead. The whispering voices were gone, the oppressive cold lifted. He let out a shaky breath, dropping to his knees, exhaustion and relief washing over him.
As he glanced around, his eyes caught a faint shimmer on the ice where he had shattered the puck. It was faint, barely visible, but as he stared, he thought he saw the shadowy outline of Lou’s face, twisted in agony, before it melted into the ice and vanished.
The next morning, Montgomery sat with Sticks and Tank, explaining everything, his friends listening in stunned silence.
“So…it’s over?” Sticks asked, his voice tinged with disbelief.
Montgomery nodded. “I think so. Whatever hold that place had…whatever Lou stirred up, it’s gone now. For good.”
They looked at each other, silent for a long moment, then lifted their coffees in a quiet toast, a tribute to the end of a nightmare.
As the weeks passed, the rink felt different, lighter. The games resumed without incident, and the ghost stories began to fade, slipping into memory, like all dark things that eventually pass.
But every so often, as Montgomery skated down the ice, he felt a cold shiver, a faint whisper of the past brushing against him like a shadow, a reminder of the darkness he’d confronted—and the debt that had, at last, been paid.
The End
