by Rick Wood
She lifted the card and turned it over.
There was no stamp.
In fact, there was no address or name or anything at all. Just a blank envelope.
She opened the front door and looked outside. Turned her head back and forth. Peering into the dark night.
The gentle illumination of Christmas lights occasionally flashing lit the empty street. Two streetlamps gave a soft glow over cars parked by the curb, and a thin layer of snow was just starting to disappear.
There was no one around.
The street was empty.
This envelope wasn’t there when she had taken Tia to bed, she was sure of it. So someone must have brought it in the last ten minutes.
Dorothy shut the door.
Locked it.
Bolted it.
Then, insisting to herself that she should not assume this to be something sinister, she walked into the living room and sat on the sofa. If it was one of the neighbours, they may well have not put a name and address on it, mightn’t they?
She kept the envelope in one hand and lifted the remote with the other. She turned on the television and another rerun of It’s a Wonderful Life filled the screen. It was a version where they had restored the colour, which annoyed Dorothy. What was wrong with watching something in black and white if that was how it was meant to be?
She kept the volume low, tuning out Jimmy Stewart’s rant at the angel. She slid the back of the envelope open and there, in her hands, was a card with a snowy scene on the front.
With a boy.
In red.
Waving.
On the inside of the card was no handwriting, just the words Merry Christmas in a Sans font.
Dorothy fumed. Instantly, she shot to her feet and marched upstairs.
She didn’t bother trying to disguise the heavy footsteps, and neither did she bother trying to let Tia stay awake. She would have to answer for this.
She kicked the door open, turned on the light, and glared.
“Tia, do you think this is some kind of joke?”
The duvet was wrapped over the top of the bed, and Dorothy had no hesitation in pulling the duvet down.
“Tia, do you–”
She halted.
Tia wasn’t there.
“Tia?” she shouted.
She was even angrier now. Tia was lucky if she’d be allowed outside her room at all this Christmas, the way she was going. Dorothy had made it clear on multiple occasions she did not appreciate practical jokes.
“Tia, come out, now!”
She walked out of the room and into the corridor. She searched her own room, the bathroom, then stomped downstairs, only to look around her house and find nothing.
“Idiot,” she muttered, concluding that Tia must be outside.
She began her strides toward the backdoor but paused as she felt something in her hand wiggle.
She was still holding the card.
She slammed it down on the kitchen side, then went to the backdoor, and–
Hang on.
What was…
She turned back to the card.
Looked at the front.
There was the little boy in red, waving.
And standing next to him was a little girl.
A little girl who looked just like Tia.
A little girl who was Tia.
Wearing the same pyjamas as Tia was wearing when Dorothy had put her to bed only moments ago.
Tia was not waving and smiling like the boy, however.
Despite the static nature of the image, Tia’s eyes were filled with tears, and her face looked full of despair.
She had never seen a look of terror upon Tia’s face as pertinent as this one.
And, in a sudden act of irrationality, she disbelieved everything she had ever taught her child about monsters not being real.
Stage 2
Dorothy spent the next few days rambling incessantly at anyone who would listen.
It didn’t take long for the other mothers to turn their nose up again. At first, they thought it was a joke. Then they began to think it was odd. Then they grew concerned that Dorothy may actually believe what she was saying.
Dorothy realised that others were noticing her daughter’s absence, and she needed to be careful. If they thought she was mad and locked her up somewhere, there would be little she could do to help her daughter from a place of incarceration.
So she stopped beseeching anyone who would listen.
She started looking for other solutions.
More ludicrous solutions—then again, solutions only as ludicrous as the situation required.
It was on Christmas Eve that she gave in and visited the only person who may believe her.
She had never believed in psychics. It was a sham, and she knew that. They were con artists, feeding on the vulnerable. She thought the way psychics took advantage of those desperate and in need was abysmal. They were the lowest of the low, down in the gutter with murderers and paedophiles.
Now they were her only option.
She entered the house of a Madam Toufon, the only woman who would willingly see her this close to Christmas. The house itself was small but with wildly embellished architecture. Stone carvings of gargoyle heads rested either side of the stairs, old paintings of strange-looking people with eyes that followed you hung upon the wall, and a smell of unpleasant incense wafted throughout.
“In here,” declared a voice.
Dorothy entered and there Madam Toufon sat. Dorothy hated herself for entertaining the cliché of it all—a crystal ball over a red cloth and Tarot cards in neat piles. Toufon herself was an overweight, burly woman, with large curly hair and waddle beneath her chin that shook as she spoke.
“Come in, please,” she said, with a fake air of mysterious intrigue in her voice.
Dorothy edged in and placed herself on the stool opposite.
“Did you bring it?” asked the woman, her pitch rising at the end of the question in a way Dorothy was sure Toufon intended to sound dreamy.
“Here,” said Dorothy, her voice barely audible anymore. She was tired and her arms shook and taking an envelope out of her pocket proved to be more difficult than it should have been.
She placed it on the table in a small space beside the crystal ball.
Toufon stared at it with wide, mortified eyes. Dorothy struggled to tell if this was part of the act, or if she did detect some evil.
“Where on earth did you find this?” demanded Toufon.
“It was posted through my door.”
“Oh, dear, dear.” Toufon bowed her head and shook it, continuously muttering. “Oh, dear, dear.”
“Should I take it out to show–”
“No!”
A moment of silence descended as Dorothy awaited explanation.
“This,” Toufon said, once she was ready, “is made of pure evil. This is not something I wish to taint my home of peace with. The cleansing it would take to rid the room of its aurora…”
“But—but how do I…”
Toufon waved her hand to silence Dorothy. She closed her eyes and composed herself once more, then abruptly left her seat to find a notepad across the room.
She stood there for a few minutes, scribbling, quickly noting down something, then crossing it out and noting it down again.
She ripped the page out of the pad and brought it to Dorothy, handing it to her, keeping it folded.
“No!” said Toufon as Dorothy went to unfold it, and Dorothy just held it in her hands. “Go home, look at what is written, and read it over and over.”
“Okay.”
Dorothy stood to go, but Toufon took her wrist.
“But know this—the only way to do anything may be to change places with your daughter. If you choose not to go through with it, you can keep the card. She will still grow old. You will still be able to see her every day. She will still know your love.”
“I’m not leaving her in it.”
Toufon gave
a sad smile.
“I wish you well,” she said.
Dorothy gave her a final look then shuffled hastily out of the house, pleased to be free of it.
Stage 3
Dorothy did not put the main lights on when she returned home.
The single lamp was enough to light the unwashed dishes, the dirty clothes and the marked floor. Dorothy hadn’t even noticed how much she’d neglected this house in the past few days, and she didn’t really care.
She placed the card on the table.
Tia was still there.
But she had changed position.
Now, she was on her knees. The little boy in red kept the same position, but Tia was next to him, her hands together as if clasped in prayer, her eyes full of tears as if beseeching her mother.
“I’m coming,” Dorothy said, and stood back, taking the folded note in her hands.
She opened it up. On it were eight lines written in scribbled handwriting, of what Dorothy assumed was a prayer.
She remembered what Madam Toufon had said.
The only way to do this could be to change places with her daughter.
She thought about this for a moment, then decided there was nothing to contemplate. She would do anything for her daughter, even if that meant living the rest of her life as a two-dimensional image.
“Christmas card brought to life,” she began. “Christmas card that brought me strife.”
The card wobbled.
Something was happening.
“Christmas card that shows her face, Christmas card please change our place.”
The card wobbled, and a tinge of smoke rose into the air.
“Christmas card my will be spent, Christmas card I give consent.”
The card was vibrating; the smoke was getting higher.
She hesitated before the final words.
This was it.
For her daughter.
“Christmas card I don’t know how,” she lifted her head up. “Christmas card please take me now.”
She closed her eyes.
She felt a tight grip around her body, like a snake wrapping around her. Her breath choked, then she breathed no more.
When she opened her eyes, she couldn’t move.
She had changed places.
Yet her daughter was still in the card with her.
Final Stage
The little boy in red brushed off his coat.
He stretched his limbs.
It had been a long time since he had used them.
He looked around the place. It was a small house. Tiny, in fact. His parents had a much bigger house than this.
Oddly enough, despite the argument that preceded them banishing him to the card in the first place, he was quite excited to see them again.
He understood it was wrong of him to call his mother that.
He understood why his father wanted him punished.
And he understood that his little sister could not understand why he had hit her.
Suddenly, however, he found himself ravenous. He walked over to the kitchen and opened the fridge, finding enough food for a feast.
He looked to the calendar.
It was Christmas eve! This must have been their Christmas lunch!
Perfect!
He took out anything he could eat raw, such as the vegetables, which he devoured—he didn’t care, he hadn’t eaten in so long. There was hardly any food in that card with him, was there?
He ate the broccoli. The carrots. The parsnips. Even the sprouts.
He went through two packs of mince pies, a Christmas pudding, and nibbled on a bit of raw turkey.
Then he remembered.
Ah, yes!
One more thing to do, just for assurance!
He walked over to the card and lifted it up.
There they were. The girl and the mother. Both on their knees. Both with their hands clasped, as if reaching out desperately for their freedom. Both looking utterly terrified.
Ah, well.
Sucks to be them.
He ripped the card into tiny pieces and dropped the remnants into the bin.
He smiled, took a chocolate bar from the fridge for his journey, and left for home.
Track Santa Part Three
I search every part of the room. Not a corner or crevasse is left unexplored, not a drawer or door not opened, and not a shadow unscrutinised.
It becomes pertinently clear, as I look in the same places for the fifth time, that my son is not here.
I peer out of the door.
Across the corridor, I can see that shadow.
The beast.
Krampus, if that’s who it is.
It has my son.
And it almost has me.
I have two choices here. I can accept my loss and run, or I can go back and request the safe return of my child.
I doubt the second would be successful.
But there is a window in this bedroom, one I can open and leap out of. There is a tree I can jump onto, and I can drop from that to the ground, and I can run. Get some help. Find the police. Report Henry missing. Say I searched everywhere, that I don’t know what happened. Perhaps keep the whole Krampus thing to myself.
But I know I shouldn’t.
I have a duty.
I leave the room and edge toward the stairs. I move as slowly as I can, but when I reach the top step, I can’t go any further.
I look down at the silhouette. The beast has horns. It is large and hunched over. It is dripping something from its mouth. The whole house shakes under its deep, menacing breath.
I don’t want to confront it.
There is no way of knowing if Henry is there.
Henry could have heard trouble and leapt out of the window himself.
Yes, that’s right.
There’s no way to be sure.
Therefore, confronting it would be reckless.
I go to return to the bedroom, to leap out of the window myself, when I hear it.
“Dad…”
Faint, but definite. My boy’s voice. Calling me.
From downstairs.
The creature has him. It does. It has my son.
“Shit,” I say. Somehow, I am still hovering on the landing. Still halfway to the window. Still halfway to freedom.
It isn’t coming after me. I could still make it out alive.
I imagine my ex-wife’s voice, high and screeching, shouting in my ear as the man she left me for stands there with his arms folded, shaking his head, judging me, as if the man who split up my marriage has any concept of ethical implications.
I edge back to the top of the stairs.
That is where I remain.
That is where I stand.
“Let him go,” I say, my voice coming out small and timid, as if it was hidden away in a box somewhere. I don’t even remember telling myself to say those words, but they come out anyway.
The thing just laughs. Slow, intense, methodical laughs. Each one another wrenching pain in my side.
“Please,” I try.
As if please would do anything.
“Manners maketh the man, but manners also maketh the man lose,” as my darling ex once told our son.
I bow my head. Close my eyes.
“I have done nothing wrong,” I say.
The creature laughs again.
I wish it would stop laughing. Every snort is another dent in my confidence; any I still have left, anyway.
“Dad… Please…”
No...
Why…
“Come on, I’ve done nothing to hurt you!” I say, this time with a little more conviction, but only by my standards—by anyone else’s standards I still sound like a pathetic, weeping mess.
“Give me back my son!” I try, with the same fake conviction.
Come and get him…
It speaks yet it doesn’t.
Its voice booms yet I only feel its vibrations.
It doesn’t move, but I hear its sound.
Come and get him?
It wants me to come down there and get him?
I can’t.
I know I can’t.
But I also know I must.
I look back to the door. The tree through the window.
It could be so easy.
And, to be honest, it would probably be the most sensible choice. What chance do I stand, after all? Surely I’m better off getting the police here. They’d be better off in this confrontation.
And, as I make the decision, and my feet take me away from the monster, I feel its words once again…
Leave now, and I will keep your son forever.
It’s just saying it to taunt me. It has no way of doing that.
Then again, monsters have no way of existing—yet it does.
I return to the stairs and edge down a step.
Then another.
And another.
But I halt there. The third step is far enough for me.
I can smell it. Stale onions and damp. It has a moth-eaten robe over its back. It is more disgusting than I could have expected.
And I see him.
My son.
Behind the creature’s legs. On his knees. Looking up to me. Red eyes, red cheeks, and a shaking body.
He is so scared.
And I have no guts to do anything about it.
Come and get him, or we leave…
“Don’t take him. Please. Just go, and let him–”
No! You come get him, or he comes with me…
I step forward and it chuckles.
I wish I was stronger.
I wish I was the father I wanted to be.
I wish…
In fact, do you know what I wish?
I wish I would stop wishing.
I wish I would stop imagining things as they should be. That I would stop daydreaming about my ex-wife bursting through that front door and begging my forgiveness.
I wish I would stop imagining me beating up her husband, a man who deserves the title of man far more than I do.
And I wish I would stop wallowing. I wish I would stop being this sad, pathetic shell of a person who lost his entire life when all he lost was a wife.
She left, but my happiness needn’t.
I take another step.
Enough.
Enough of this shit.
