I’ve been going through my old Google documents as I organize my Google Drive, and came across the following CBC story contest that I entered a few years ago:

We are looking for you to send to us a brief story (100 – 250 words) using the following opening and closing lines.
Opening: “The snowman grinned malevolently as…”
Closing: “…buried alive.”
The rest is up to you. Fill in the middle with whatever you want. Make us laugh, make us scream, but definitely make us want to read on.

Snowmen

The Snowman grinned malevolently as he tugged the frozen carrot out of his fiancée’s eye socket. Her blood looked black by the light of the full moon, splattered all over his son’s snow sculpture.

He imagined the kid coming home from that freaky magic club of his, then running to the yard to find his mother motionless beside the three boulders of snow he’d stacked in the morning. The Snowman felt nothing when he pictured his son’s future melting away. Not even a trickle of regret. The nickname he’d just christened himself with was appropriate, what with the heart of ice.

Why should he feel bad? He told her not to snoop around in his tool shed.

He turned towards the shed and imagined a picture of his face in the newspaper. Latest Victim Was Snowman’s Own Fiancée, the headlines would read. Yes, famous enough for a nickname! The Snowman giggled. Right up there with Zodiac and Son of Sam! He moaned a puff of vapour into the air and tightened his grip on the carrot.

Snow crunched behind him. He swiveled around, and found himself making eye contact with two lumps of coal. His son’s sculpture wanted its nose back.

Only then did his frozen heart melt just a little, allowing tiny icicles of regret to stab at his insides. He dropped the carrot. Fists of snow thumpety-thumped him to the ground, and as quickly as his regret had been revived, it was buried alive.

See also: In Triumph