by Chris Morey
BELSNICKEL
Amy and Doug were sitting down in the living room, the TV tuned in to their favorite network television show—Castle—when the doorbell rang.
Amy glanced at Doug, who had that irritated look she’d come to love—what the hell is this? that look seemed to say. She could relate; it was Tuesday night, four days before Christmas, and tomorrow was the last day at their jobs before the holidays and their weeklong vacations kicked in. They didn’t have to return back to work until after New Year’s Day. Who could be ringing the doorbell at nine o’clock in the evening? It was too late for door-to-door evangelists.
“Are you expecting anybody?” Amy asked as she got up. She handed Doug the remote and he quickly paused the show on their DVR.
“No,” he said, confused. “Are you?”
She gave the living room a quick once-over—it was tidy, laid out perfectly, with a brand-new Christmas tree in the far corner dressed with tinsel, decorations, twinkling lights, and gift-wrapped presents underneath. Amy had also put up Christmas lights along the living room window. When she peered through the viewfinder set in the front door she saw an old man dressed in a brown overcoat and a weird, oversized brown furry hat. Beneath the brown overcoat it looked like he was wearing a heavy flannel shirt. He looked like a hobo. “Who is it?” Amy called out, suspicious.
There was a shuffling of footsteps outside. “It’s Uncle Floyd!”
At the sound of the man’s voice, Amy reacted with surprise. “Uncle Floyd?” She fumbled with the lock. She opened the door.
Amy flipped on the porch light to reveal an elderly man of medium height, slightly portly, with white hair, glasses, and a friendly face. He was wearing a long brown overcoat over a red-and-blue flannel shirt. A worn, brown furry hat was perched on his head. His dungarees were old and dirty, as were his shoes. She recognized his outfit right away; it was one right out of her Pennsylvania childhood. It was the only part of that childhood that made her smile.
“Uncle Floyd!” Amy exclaimed, the shock and surprise giving way to joy.
Uncle Floyd smiled. “Hello, Amy! Can I come in?”
“Sure!” Amy stepped aside and Uncle Floyd entered their end-unit townhome.
“I can’t believe you would come all the way out here dressed in your Belsnickel outfit,” Amy said again. She was also thinking, What’s he doing here?
Doug was standing next to her still looking confused. “Bel-what?”
Amy turned to Doug. “Honey, this is my Uncle Floyd. Actually, he’s my great-uncle—my dad’s uncle. When we were kids he used to be the Belsnickel during the holidays. It’s an old Pennsylvania Dutch legend and—”
“It’s not a legend, Amy,” Uncle Floyd said, bringing the switch out and raising it over his head. “I’m real.” Before she knew what hit her a sharp pain slash across her face, and for the next minute there was nothing but pain, frantic yelling, Doug shouting, and then something hit her alongside her head and she was knocked out cold.
§
Consciousness came back slowly.
The pain in her head and her nausea were the first sensations that dragged her to wakefulness. The second was thirst—her throat was very dry—and the third was the sticky blood drying on the side of her head. She opened her eyes and looked around in a daze. Doug was already awake. He didn’t seem to notice that Amy had just woken up. He was tied to one of their kitchen chairs, arms behind his back, legs lashed to the legs of the chair. Uncle Floyd must have dragged them into the kitchen and tied them to the chairs. Pretty remarkable for an eighty-five-year-old man.
At the thought of Uncle Floyd, Amy’s stomach sank. He stepped into her field of vision, still wearing his Belsnickel outfit, and smiled down at her. “Miss me, dear?”
“What …why are you doing this?”
“Why else? I’m the Belsnickel!”
Doug finally said something—and as he said it Amy realized he hadn’t even inquired if she was okay. “What is a Belsnickel, Amy?”
“What kind of a Dutchman are you?” Uncle Floyd chuckled. “Oh, that’s right … you aren’t a Dutchman. You’re just some west-coast California boy who managed to lure Amy away from home. But that’s okay … she'll tell you what the Belsnickel is.” Floyd addressed her. “Amy?”
She cast a quick glance at her boyfriend, whose attention seemed to be centered on Uncle Floyd. “The Belsnickel is an old German legend originating in the Middle Ages. He’s still a very popular figure with the Pennsylvania Dutch. He shows up at houses a week or two before Christmas to see which kids were naughty and which ones were good. He does this to pave the way for Santa. For children that are bad, he punishes them, usually beats them with a switch.”
Uncle Floyd chuckled. “Now, now, Amy … I never had to beat any of you when you were kids.”
Amy continued. “Legend has it the Belsnickel scares the bad kids into being good, which paves the way for them to get presents on Christmas.” She glanced at Doug and managed to catch his eye. “There’s scarier versions of the legend too—that the Belsnickel would drag the bad kids into the forest, that he’d kidnap them and never return them to their parents.”
“Hogwash,” Uncle Floyd said, waving a dirty hand at them. “I never did that.”
Amy regarded Uncle Floyd as if he’d lost his mind—and she supposed he had if he really thought he was the Belsnickel. “Like I said, the tradition is still popular among the Pennsylvania Dutch where I grew up. Men dressing up as the Belsnickel are as common as men dressing up as Santa Claus. Uncle Floyd used to dress up as the Belsnickel when we were kids.”
“When you were kids?” Uncle Floyd said. He still clutched his switch, a thick piece of branch that was dotted with blood. “Amy, my dear, I still do it. You haven’t been listening to me, have you?”
She continued, somehow finding the strength to continue speaking. “It appears Uncle Floyd seems to think he really is the Belsnickel.”
“Not think,” Uncle Floyd leered at her. “I am!”
“Let me get this straight,” Doug asked, his eyes darting from Amy to Uncle Floyd. “He flies all the way from Pennsylvania dressed like this, comes to our place and pulls this shit because he thinks you’re—”
“Naughty!” Uncle Floyd jeered at her. He laughed—cackled, actually. That cackle was the defining moment for Amy. Uncle Floyd really was insane. There was a sense of madness about him she’d never noticed before at all the family picnics they used to have and all the get-togethers at her parent’s place for holidays and birthdays. The Uncle Floyd she knew then was funny, warm, and gregarious—the only bright spot in those family gatherings, actually.
Amy said the only thing she could think of. “Why do you think I’m naughty, Uncle Floyd?”
Uncle Floyd held his arms out, indicating the townhome. “Take a look around you, girl. What do you think?”
Doug glanced at Amy. “I don’t get it.”
She knew exactly what Floyd was getting at. “He thinks I’m naughty because I left my parents and moved out here to be with you.”
Doug shot a glance at Uncle Floyd. “Really? Is that true?”
“A girl’s proper place is at home taking care of her parents,” Uncle Floyd said.
The moment Floyd said this, the rage and hate that had gone dormant the minute her plane touched down on the runway at John Wayne Airport and she was three thousand miles away from her parents was rekindled. “Taking care of my parents,” Amy said. “Really?”
Uncle Floyd hefted the switch in his hands, as if he were testing its strength. “Your place is back home. Your role as caregiver to your parents—especially your father—is expected.”
Doug started talking, “I don’t believe this …”
Moving swiftly, Uncle Floyd swung the switch viciously. It cracked against Doug’s face with a hearty whack. The force of the blow rocked him back in his chair. Droplets of blood splattered the floor.
The sudden violence against her boyfriend sent Amy’s heart to her throat.
“Stop it!”
Uncle Floyd paused in his attack on Doug, the switch raised over his head for another blow. He turned to her. “He’s just as guilty, Amy. Maybe less so because he’s not of us.”
“What is this ‘not of us’ shit?” she screamed, barely aware that she was crying.
“He is not from our heritage, nor our customs,” Uncle Floyd said. He slipped his bloody switch into an inner pocket of his overcoat. “When one is not aware of those customs, they cannot be held responsible for not being aware of what is right.”
Amy couldn’t believe what he was saying. She was having a hard time following his logic.
Uncle Floyd slowly withdrew his hand from his overcoat—the one that had held the switch. Amy saw with sinking horror that he now held a butcher knife.
“Despite that, Amy, I’m sorry to say that your boyfriend must suffer the consequences of his actions.” Uncle Floyd stepped up to Doug, who was beginning to come around after being struck such a fierce blow with the switch. The right side of his face was swollen and black with heavy bruising.
“No, no … no!” Amy yelled, her voice high pitched and pleading. “Please, Uncle Floyd, don’t! Whatever it is … I’m sorry! I won’t do it again! I’ll go back home. Really, I promise.” She instantly reverted to the mind of a child, hoping that if she played along with whatever fantasy/psychosis he was harboring she could somehow maneuver her and Doug free. “I’m sorry I left my parents,” she continued. “I don’t know what I was thinking. You can punish me later if you have to, but please … let Doug go. Don’t do this to him.”
Uncle Floyd’s smile faltered. “Don’t do this to him?” He looked down at the butcher knife. “But … Amy … how else am I to fulfill my purpose?”
“You always played the part of the Belsnickel with the kids in our family, and sometimes with the neighborhood kids,” she said, thinking quickly. “Kids that knew the legend. Doug doesn’t know it. So fulfill your destiny by letting him go and punish me instead.”
From Doug there came a mangled, throaty, “No … this isn’t happening.…”
Uncle Floyd’s face was deadpan. For the first time since he’d blown in, she saw that his skin looked white and pasty, as if he was gravely ill. His eyes were bloodshot. How could he have flown all the way across the country looking like that?
On the heels of that thought: And how did he get my address? She’d left her parents no forwarding address. Nobody in her family knew where she was. She had packed suddenly, taking only essentials, then had bought a plane ticket at a local travel agency, paying for it in cash. She hadn’t even told her old co-workers where she was moving. She had cut all ties with her family completely. It was the only way to start over. Especially after everything her parents had put her through …
“Oh, don’t worry, Amy,” Floyd said. One hand gently brushed Doug’s hair away from his forehead. “I will punish you. You can count on that.”
“Then let him go!” Amy said, more forceful. “Don’t hurt him anymore.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m the Belsnickel. I punish everybody who’s naughty.”
“Earlier you said that you weren’t going to punish him as badly because he wasn’t a member of our family,” Amy said, struggling to stay focused and not scream and yell. “You’ve hurt him enough. Cut him loose and I’ll go back home. I’ll leave tonight with you.”
“Cut him loose?” Uncle Floyd seemed confused.
“Yes, cut him loose. Then you and I will leave. We’ll catch the first flight back to Pennsylvania. We’ll spend Christmas together, with my parents, with the family.”
“Where you belong, ” Uncle Floyd finished for her.
“Yes,” Amy nodded. “Where I belong.”
Uncle Floyd seemed to pause as he looked around the townhome … the decorations, the Christmas tree all dressed up with tinsel and twinkling lights, presents under the tree on a snow-white blanket, candy-cane ornaments draped along the bookshelf. This was supposed to have been what she felt was her first real Christmas, spending it with someone she loved. Amy watched Uncle Floyd and gained control of her breathing, staying focused. It was true: she had left town suddenly for a reason—her parents were financially destitute. Years of alcohol and substance abuse had worn them down physically and mentally—Mom had emphysema and COPD; Dad had developed Parkinson’s disease and was beginning to slide into dementia. Her parents were in their sixties; they looked as if they were thirty years older. When Amy had blown town, her parents were on the verge of being evicted from their ramshackle home in northern Lancaster County due to foreclosure on the mortgage. Her brother was no better, and other family members, various aunts, uncles, and cousins, enabled her parents by giving them money for cigarettes and booze, sometimes drugs, sometimes bail money. They’d been living like this for as long as she could remember. Amy knew the way they lived was not normal, that it was destructive. She’d known this from the time she was seven and had borne the weight of both parents in her tiny, narrow bed during the infrequent sessions they stumbled into her room after a night of heavy partying and raped her. That wasn’t the worst thing they had done to her, either.
“You have a nice home, Amy,” Uncle Floyd said. He was apparently finished with the visual inspection of her townhome.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Your parents are currently living with your Aunt Martha,” he continued. At the mention of Aunt Martha, Amy didn’t react; Martha was her father’s sister and was crazier than her parents. “Unfortunately, they can’t stay there forever. It’s only temporary. Something about Martha’s husband not being able to get along with your mother.”
Amy didn’t react. Uncle Floyd didn’t seem to notice as he continued. “Everybody in the family is angry that you took off like that. Martha found a lawyer, one who specializes in elder care. He mentioned a law, something called filial responsibility law. Pennsylvania is one of twenty-nine states with a filial responsibility law that requires children to be financially responsible for their destitute parent’s care.”
“Have you paid a similar visit to my stupid brother about this?” Amy asked.
Uncle Floyd looked confused. “Why would I do that?”
“Why not? You said this law requires children to be financially responsible for their parents if they’re destitute.”
“You’re their daughter. It’s tradition that women … that girls … provide all the care for their parents when they become elderly. Your brother doesn’t have to do a thing—he has his own family to provide for.”
And I don’t? Amy thought.
“You shouldn’t avoid this—you make plenty of money. It’s your duty.”
Amy’s mind was racing. She was familiar with filial laws, and she had to admit, part of her reason for moving into Doug’s condo on the northeastern outskirts of Irvine, California, right at the foothills of the Santa Ana mountains, was to avoid financial responsibility for her parent’s care due to what they’d put her through. Beat the shit out of me as a child? Psychologically and sexually abuse me? Treat my stupid brother better than me even though he’s a complete fuckup?
You get what you pay for.
She had a new life now. She’d met Doug at a conference in Chicago eight months ago. Work for a mutual client had paired them professionally; natural chemistry did the rest. She’d had boyfriends before, but nothing like Doug. Before either of them knew it they were burning up cellular minutes, engaging in long Skype conversations over the internet during downtime from their consulting positions and hooking up physically when they were in Chicago for work. Amy had flown out to California twice to spend long weekends with him and they’d sealed the deal while on a moonlit walk along Laguna Beach; she was thinking of moving to a different company anyway. A mutual acquaintance hooked Amy up with a Newport Beach firm and she received an offer two weeks later. Hence, her exit from the life she’d known in Pennsylvania.
As far as she was concerned, her parents could rot. She’d left her birthplace, the area she grew up in, the area that bore bad memories and bad times in order to start over fresh. She left home not caring what would happen to her parents, eager for a new life. They’d been dead to her for a long time.
However, she wasn’t going to tell Uncle Floyd that. She had no intention of providing support—physical or financial—to her parents. For now, she had to make him believe she had seen the error of her ways and was agreeing to come home to care for her parents.
“Okay,” she said, “you’re right. I’m done running. I’m in the wrong. I’ll go home with you.”
“Excellent!” Uncle Floyd said. He stepped behind Doug and brought out his butcher knife. “I’ll just cut Doug loose, then.” Uncle Floyd was smiling; his blue eyes were twinkling with merriment and delight. “He can stay behind and finish decorating the tree.”
The comment went over Amy’s head at first but then it became apparent what it—and his first comment about cutting Doug loose—meant. Uncle Floyd’s eyes narrowed as his face changed to an evil grimace as he brought the blade of the butcher knife to Doug’s exposed throat and began to saw through his neck.
Amy screamed. Doug’s eyes flew open and he let out a quick pain-wracked scream that turned into a gurgle as his larynx was severed. Blood spurted out of his neck. It was like watching a faucet being turned on; the flow was strong and the floor was immediately stained with a growing pool of blood. Doug’s feet kicked at the floor and his body spasmed as the blade sawed through his neck.
There were more screams too, but Amy didn’t realize the screaming was hers.
Then she blacked out.
§
When Amy regained consciousness the first thing she was aware of was that her arms were free, as were her feet and ankles—Uncle Floyd must have cut her loose too. She lay sprawled on the dining room floor, her left cheek against the floor.
The second thing she was aware of was the reflection of flashing red and orange lights from outside. There were also voices in the distance. She tried to make them out and saw a group of figures huddled around the corner of the living room near the Christmas tree. She also felt the presence of other figures kneeling beside her. She felt a blood-pressure gauge around her upper right arm, and she heard a voice say, “She’s waking up.”
