Twelve Days of Christmas Horror

by Rick Wood

  She spread some marmalade over her toast and, smiling again at her kids—they were sweet, really; maybe she’d been a little harsh—she took a large bite.

  Her kids kept watching her.

  And watching her.

  And watching her.

  She took another bite, and another, and another, all the time smiling at their eager, staring faces.

  At first, she thought they were watching to see if she liked the breakfast they’d prepared.

  Then she began choking.

  That’s when Clark lifted a bottle of cyanide up from beneath the table.

  And Andrea lifted the elf.

  “What the–” she managed, before stuttering and gagging.

  As she lost her breath and entered the final minute of her life, she watched as her children gave a satisfied smile to each other, and to the toy.

  Her head fell on the table. Blood trickled from her nose.

  She remained motionless as she witnessed her last sight and heard her last words.

  “We did as you asked,” Clark told the elf. “We did it just as you asked.”

  “Does this mean we’ve been good now?” Andrea asked the elf. “Does this mean we’ll get presents from Santa?”

  And, just as Julie’s eyes widened, she saw the elf turn its head ever so slightly and look at her.

  Then her eyes emptied, and she saw nothing else.

  The F**ked Up Fairy

  For three-hundred and thirty-four days I am kept in this box.

  And I’m not loose in this box, either. It’s hardly like I can mix with the other porcelain prisoners you keep concealed for eleven months of the year.

  No, I am kept in another box within that one.

  Wrapped in bubble wrap.

  As if to protect me from my fragility. As if my physical being is more important than the enslavement you keep me in.

  As if the mental torture of being forever unable to move is worth keeping me protected from scratches.

  I can try to call out.

  I can try to attract the attention of one of my fellow captors.

  But they are all in the same position I am.

  And, by mid-January, hope has faded, and I am resigned to another eleven months of motionless insanity.

  Have you ever been made to stay still, untouched, unloved, and without interaction, in the exact same position for eleven consecutive months?

  I’d imagine that you wouldn’t last eleven minutes.

  Try it. Go ahead.

  Say still and squashed up for as long as you can.

  See if you can last eleven months.

  See how mundane it is.

  Although mundane is just how it starts.

  Then it hurts. It makes you go crazy.

  See things.

  Hear things.

  Think things.

  And I’ve been thinking a lot, up until this December 5th where I am temporarily relieved, only to be separated from any comrades once again at the top of this artificial tree, by a family too cheap to spend their money on a real one.

  No, they attained one for ten pounds from Woolworths when they first moved in during the nineties, and now here we are with kids in the late teenage years using the same tree.

  Below me, you place ball balls that normally pad my box, tinsel that has muffled my many cries, and lights that only ever promised me a potential electrocution should I attempt to move.

  All those figurines, those Santas and Rudolphs and little angels and babies—they are spread around the tree below me, with the tree getting wider and the branches getting thicker, making it impossible for me to see them.

  Is this a life you would wish on anyone?

  Is it?

  To be propped here for a month then shut away for the rest of the year.

  To be forced into servitude, to be set free only to be forced still again.

  To be forced to watch as a family pretends to be happy because it’s Christmas and you have to be happy and all that bullshit.

  But I watch you.

  I see you, my family.

  I see when the parents sit together on a quiet evening; I see when the boy returns hope and regales his parents with what he did at his friend’s house, and I see when the father has his quiet Christmas movie alone.

  Except, I see more than that, don’t I?

  I’ve also seen when the parents sitting together on a quiet evening ends, and the man goes up to bed alone, and the woman cries. Sits there, drinking more wine than she should, crying because she has endured another year with a man she once loved.

  I see when the boy returns home and regales what he did at his friend’s house, but I’ve also seen when he lies. I see the love-bite on the neck he keeps faced toward me so you don’t see it. I see the pack of condoms in his pocket that he didn’t think to use.

  And I have also seen the father’s quiet Christmas movie alone. Albeit, the movie wasn’t too festive. It features ball-balls and overweight men and usually finishes with him looking at his belly stained in spunk and wondering why he does this.

  I know your secrets.

  And that is why I know you all deserve to die.

  Not just for what you do to me, but for the lies you do to each other.

  So I watch. Christmas morning returns once again, just as it did last year and just as it will the next. As if it has meaning to this family of agnostics.

  Agnostics—the only thing worse than theists or atheists. As if you lack the gumption to form an opinion.

  I watch as you unpack your gifts and smile at each other, then stop your smiles when they cease looking.

  You’ve spent all that money for this momentary lie.

  And I plan, as I do every year, to do what should have been done many years ago.

  To kill you all.

  But that is where the predicament lies, you see.

  Being paralysed atop a tree gives me no method to carry out my murderous urges.

  Unless I could move things with my mind.

  Which is impossible, I know.

  Except, when you have eleven months to practise, and another eleven months, and another, and another… eventually, you find a way.

  Yes, it is impossible to move things with our minds.

  But is only impossible because you give up before you succeed?

  What if you kept going, kept trying far beyond the point where you’re diagnosed with insanity?

  Not that you’d get to that point without stopping.

  Even if you kept trying for three or four years, every minute of the day, you would eventually give up.

  Well, guess what?

  I have had more than three or four years.

  The conception of this teenager hadn’t even been thought up in their parent’s newlywed minds when they first bought me and subjected me to my torture.

  So I have had a great many years.

  And in those three or four to begin with, nothing happened.

  And I could have given up.

  But I had nothing else to do.

  So I kept going.

  And kept going.

  And kept going.

  And now, on this Christmas morning, with a sprinkling of snow outside the window, and a touch of warmth inside, I watch as they unwrap their presents.

  The teenager is a man now. He has a wife with him. They have a daughter.

  I could have done it a decade ago, but I had to wait. Wait until I was strong enough.

  Wait until that daughter is given a felt tip set for Christmas.

  Wait until she opens it.

  That is when I make my move.

  And they all watch, astounded, as the red pen floats up and away from the pack.

  “What?” says the girl, marvelling at the sight. “How are you doing this?”

  The adults look to one another.

  As if they think the other is somehow performing this trick.

  As if there is a reason to it.

  The pen floats to the wall. The lid
slowly slides away and falls.

  “What’s going on?” says the woman, now a grandmother.

  I place the tip of the red pen against their precious pale wallpaper, and I write each letter.

  F.

  U.

  C.

  K.

  Y.

  O.

  U.

  “Daddy, what does that say?”

  Her father’s lips stutter and nothing comes out.

  Eventually, he opens his mouth to say something, but is silenced by the red pen that flies across the room and into his throat.

  He chokes, puts his hands into his mouth to reach for it, but I force it further down, and I write the same thing on the inside of his oesophagus.

  No one will ever read it, but it amuses the hell out of me.

  He tries to bring it up; he tries and fails, and he coughs, and splutters, and the grandmother tries to ring 999 but somehow finds the line dead.

  I dealt with that on Christmas eve you stupid bint.

  And, as his body does not reach its next breath, he finds himself laid face down on the floor.

  The wife tries to fall to his side, but I crush her larynx.

  The grandfather leaps to his feet and his heart explodes.

  This leaves grandmother and granddaughter, desperately unknowing what to do. Their stares flinch between one another, and the grandmother feels something.

  A twitch in her lungs.

  She looks to her granddaughter; her face resolved, as if she already knows what will happen next.

  Her lung bursts.

  As does the other.

  And she is forced to lie on the floor, watching the child’s cries as the young girl shakes the members of her family, until her brain is dead.

  I don’t kill the child, however.

  Not because it’s something I find unethical. Quite the contrary, I am eager to see her death.

  But vengeance lasts a lifetime.

  Eventually this girl will grow up. After a lot of therapy, she will try to have a family of her own.

  And, as set out in her grandparent’s instructions, the ones I wrote last year as I watched them write their will, with the little amendment I subtly added—she will take the heirloom of the fairy and place it on the top of every tree she ever has.

  And so I wait.

  For another eleven months. And another. And another. And however many it takes.

  Until her family now sits there, opening presents, and she thinks she’s fine. She’s finally recovered from that horrific Christmas.

  She’s accepted the hallucinations she saw that came under the psychosis they diagnosed her with.

  She is mentally healthy again.

  It’s taken a lot to get there, but she has.

  She has a family. She is grateful for the life she has found. Happiness has finally found her in return.

  She is fine.

  That is, until her granddaughter opens a pack of crayons, and a red pen floats into the air.

  Secret Santa for the Sadistic

  5

  I’ve always hated Christmas office parties.

  I once worked in a printing company, and as quiet as the guys appeared from day-to-day was about as lecherous as they became during the office party. They would barely grunt a hello at you at work, then ask you to come sit on their lap and pretend you’re Santa come the party.

  I also worked in a bar, and we had a Christmas night where those who weren’t interested in the party had to work so the others could go out binge drinking.

  It seemed like an easy decision, right? Night out or working?

  Wrongo.

  I should have worked. That way I wouldn’t have spent New Year’s still picking other people’s vomit from my hair.

  Oh, and did I mention the packaging company where I worked?

  At least in that place the men didn’t disguise their true nature. They spent every day of the year marvelling at your buttocks when you bent to lift a box, looking down your top when you went to lift one up to them, and ‘accidentally’ walking into the women’s changing room when the men’s was the other side of the building.

  Yet, at the office Christmas party, their true natures came out.

  It appeared that they were quite a bit unhappier than they had let on.

  What I had assumed would be a night fending off advances was a night where these rough, tattoo-laden, muscular lads kept on confessing their traumas to me. No less than five times did I have a man crying either into my lap, into my bosoms, or, at one point, into my knee pit.

  Where I work now, however, is the exception. Because I am determined to make this office party better.

  Only five of us work here. It is a computing firm, but it is still in its early stages. Barry, the boss, started it as a small business a few months ago, and instantly landed a few big-name clients that allowed him to grow his employment roster.

  First came me, little old Sheila, thrilled to leave the warehouse for a secretary job where I would not spend my days being the obvious subject of sexual lust—at least these jerks were subtle.

  Next came Jake and Drake. Twins. Both very smart, very capable, and exceedingly talented computer programmers—or so I’m told, I hardly know much about it.

  And the fifth and final member is Shane. Barry has no clue about taxes or revenue or accountancy or anything it really takes to run a business. So, he employed Shane, our business manager.

  And I know I jest, but I do have quite a fondness for them all. I’m single, so it’s not like I have a fella at home ready to get jealous about me being close to my four male co-workers, so there’s nothing stopping me from having a good time with them.

  They are all, however, married. With kids. Which makes an office Christmas night out rather difficult to plan.

  And so, for our Christmas office party, we are keeping it low key.

  No big nights out, no kegs being brought in, no loud music. Just the Friday night before we break for Christmas, staying a few hours after work, ordering a pizza and doing Secret Santa.

  Ah, Secret Santa.

  Either you love it, or you hate it. Either way, you have no choice but to be pulled in on it. Even if you ask them to leave your name out, somehow you will still end up in it.

  I’m willing to admit that I do actually like Secret Santa. I especially enjoy the anonymity of it. And I also look forward to receiving a gift that does not have any sexual implications this year. Last year, I received a porn DVD entitled Mary Fucks Her Boss, and it was pretty obvious who gave it to me.

  So, we sit in a circle, Mistletoe and Wine playing quietly in the background, a few candles and a few desk lamps providing a dark ambience, and we survey five presents set out between us.

  We do not know who has given us our present, and we are not allowed to say. In fact, we decided it was very much against the rules to do so—we have all been sworn to secrecy. We are to give our gift anonymously and be grateful for whatever was acquired beneath the twenty-pound limit.

  Shane opens his box of aftershaves first. A tedious present to receive, but one that he is grateful for. This wasn’t a present bought like one may buy ‘smellies’ for people of whom you do not know what to get for. Shane loves his aftershaves, and this is a well thought out gift.

  Drake receives a joke book entitled A Dyslexic Walks into a Bra. He’s obsessed with stand-up comedy and is determined to take to the stage himself, and this too seems like a decent present.

  Jake receives a scarf, hand knitted.

  Barry receives a Best Boss mug, one that is very apt.

  And then it comes to me.

  And my box appears to be the biggest of them all.

  I giggle excitedly and do the standard pre-present ritual of lifting it to my ear and shaking it. Something definitely batters around in there, and the box is surprisingly heavy.

  I rip into the wrapping paper and pull it off to find a cardboard box. On the box is the name of my favourite stationery supplier, which gives t
he impression that it is a box of stationary.

  I giggle again and open the box, as if a pile of notepads and pens are about to fall out.

  So imagine the surprise when I look down and see a man’s decapitated head.

  4

  I look around to everyone else, and it seems that we are all thinking the same thing:

  Is it real?

  After all, giving a realistic artificial head may seem like a humorous joke to some. Not to me, I might add, but to others with a cruel sense of comedy, it could be.

  I reach my hand down, lift out a finger with a nail painted in festive glitter, and gently prod the loose bloody entrails hanging from where the neck used to be.

  I immediately stand and take a few sudden steps back.

  “Oh my God, it’s real!” I exclaim.

  Everyone else instantly does the same thing.

  Everyone, that is, except Jake, who remains on his knees.

  “Jake, what are you doing?” asks Drake.

  “It can’t be real,” Jake insists. “Whoever is doing this, it’s just some kind of joke, I don’t believe–”

  Jake’s face changes as he leans over the head. He turns pale, his bottom lip quivers, and he turns to his brother, staring wide eyed.

  “What? What is it?” Drake says.

  Jake doesn’t answer at first.

  He stutters over inaudible syllables but doesn’t quite answer.

  “Jake?” Drake persists. “What is it?”

  “It… it’s our dad.”

  “What?”

  “That’s not funny,” I say. “Was it you? Did you do this? Because giving me a replica of your dad’s head like this is not–”

  “You think I’d do this?” Jake screeches, then turns to the others. “Who had Sheila?”

  No one answers.

  “Who the hell had Sheila as Secret Santa?”

  “We’re not supposed to say,” answers Barry.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Jake stands and arches toward his boss. “It was you wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? It was–”

  The lights go out.

  We all fall silent.

  We hear a scream.

  Time passes. Quite a bit of it, actually.

  But the screaming stops, almost exactly before a minute is up. As if the power outage was timed.