by Chris Morey
Her vision swam back into focus. The figures kneeling beside her were paramedics. She glanced toward the living room. There were uniformed policemen and what appeared to be two detectives looking at the Christmas tree, talking in low tones. There was a lot of activity. Blood was all over the living room floor.
And there was no sign of Uncle Floyd. Or Doug, for that matter.
At the mention that she was waking up, one of the detectives approached her. As he moved closer to her she caught a quick glimpse of what the other officers were focused on in the corner.
Uncle Floyd was right.
Doug had finished decorating the tree.
This time she didn’t even hear herself scream as she blacked out again.
§
These days, Amy spends all of her time alone in her room at Canyon Ridge Psychiatric Hospital.
She spends most of that time looking at the white walls of her room, wondering how Uncle Floyd got away with what he did. Occasionally, she mutters to herself and laughs, and then she kind of goes away for awhile. She doesn’t know how else to explain it—it’s like her mind goes blank and when she becomes aware of her surroundings again, time has passed and she’s somewhere else in her room—on her narrow cot, or sitting on the floor, knees drawn up to her chest, or sometimes lying on the floor curled into a fetal position. Then when she comes back to herself she cries briefly, then calms down and starts the whole thought process over again.
Dr. Andrew Stevens watched her through the one-way glass pane set in the door to her room. He clutched her chart in his hands as he talked to Mark Ryan, one of the lawyers from the Orange County District Attorney’s office. Ryan was already leaning very heavily towards not putting her on trial, but he had to go through the formalities—that was why he was here, conferring with Dr. Stevens.
Dr. Stevens was consulting the notes in the chart. “Floyd Heister, her father’s brother, was deceased two years before … .correct?”
Mark Ryan nodded. “Yes. Natural causes, according to the coroner in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.”
“Where’d he die?”
“Ephrata Hospital, in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.”
“And this Belsnickel thing …” Dr. Stevens began.
“Apparently Floyd really did that,” Mark said. “In PA Dutch folklore, the Belsnickel is as popular a character as Santa Claus. Family members say Floyd played the part every year.”
“Even into her adulthood,” Dr. Stevens said, reading from his notes. “You’ve read my report on her. And judging by what your investigation has revealed, I would say that years of extreme physical, emotional, and sexual abuse from her parents shattered her mind into two separate psyches: one completely made up, and her real psyche, which was already severely damaged.”
“So she’s a genuine case of a split personality?” Mark Ryan asked.
“No doubt about it.” Dr. Stevens closed her case file and looked into her room. “It’s such a shame. The mind can take a lot, Mr. Ryan. But when the abuse is so traumatic and goes on for so long with no rescue, the results can be devastating. Combine that with her parents’ real situation—I hear they’re both in a homeless shelter now and aren’t doing well health-wise—and then you add guilt on top of that, well …” He shook his head. “I’m sure that put her over the edge. Whatever ounce of humanity she had left couldn’t handle the fact that her parents were likely going to be homeless, that being homeless would eventually kill them due to lack of proper medical care, food, and shelter—especially as winter set in. She had extreme guilt over intentionally leaving them. That was the icing on the cake that led to this break.”
“Between you and me,” Mark said, glancing at Dr. Stevens, “her parents deserve everything they have coming to them for what they did to her growing up.”
“And between you and me, I agree with you.” Dr. Stevens was watching Amy as she sat up and looked around her room in confusion. “Poor girl. Driven by guilt and the demons of her past, she lost grip with reality and hallucinated her Uncle Floyd. He served as her sort of moral compass through all this.”
“So Uncle Floyd really killed her boyfriend?” Mark Ryan said.
“In a way. The physical evidence, of course, says otherwise … that all points to Amy.”
Mark Ryan looked apprehensive. He cast a sidelong glance at Dr. Stevens, and then looked around to make sure they were alone. When he spoke to Dr. Stevens, his voice was lowered. “I realize the evidence says Amy killed him … but there’s something you need to know.”
Dr. Stevens looked curious.
“Remember the testimony from Floyd’s wife that after his death, all of his clothing was either donated to Goodwill or burned?”
Dr. Stevens nodded.
“The burned clothing included the outfit he used when he played the Belsnickel.”
“Okay …”
“Their neighbors swear the outfit was burned too,” Mark continued. “They saw it … but get this …” He leaned closer, his voice a gravelly whisper. “We found his Belsnickel costume in that townhouse … and it was covered with Doug’s blood!”
CONTRIBUTOR BIOS
JOE R. LANSDALE is the author of over thirty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in eighteen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Hotep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” was adapted to film for Showtime’s “Masters of Horror.” He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.
NATE SOUTHARD’S books include Scavengers, This Little Light of Mine, Red Sky, Just Like Hell, Broken Skin, and He Stepped Through. His short fiction has appeared in such venues as Cemetery Dance, Black Static, Thuglit, and the anthology Supernatural Noir. His short stories “Going Home, Ugly Stick in Hand” and “The Blisters On My Heart” have received honorable mentions in The Year’s Best Horror, and he earned a Bram Stoker Award nomination for his story “In the Middle of Poplar Street.” A graduate of The University of Texas with a degree in Radio, Television, and Film, Nate lives in Austin, Texas with his cat.
STEPHEN MARK RAINEY is not the infamous Stephen King antihero Mort Rainey, but the far more nefarious author of the novels Dark Shadows: Dreams of the Dark (with Elizabeth Massie, HarperCollins), Balak (Wildside Books), The Lebo Coven (Thomson Gale/Five Star Books, Crossroad Press), The Nightmare Frontier (Sarob Press, Crossroad Press), Blue Devil Island (Thomson Gale/Five Star Books, Marietta), and The Monarchs (Crossroad Press); three short story collections; and over 100 published works of short fiction.
JEFF STRAND is the four-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of such books as PRESSURE, DWELLER, A BAD DAY FOR VOODOO, DEAD CLOWN BARBECUE, and a bunch of others. He also conveniently wrote WOLF HUNT, which made it a lot easier to get permission to write the sequel. Future novels may or may not include WOLF HUNT 3, WOLF HUNT 4, WOLF HUNT 5, WOLF HUNT 6, or WOLF HUNT: ALL-VAMPIRE EDITION. Foolish mortals can visit his website at www.jeffstrand.com.
SHANE MCKENZIE is the author of Infinity House, All You Can Eat, Bleed on Me, Jacked, A
ddicted to the Dead, Muerte Con Carne, Escape from Shit Town (co-authored with Sam W. Anderson and Erik Williams), Fat Off Sex and Violence, Fairy, The Bingo Hall, and many more to come. He is also the editor at Sinister Grin Press. He lives in Austin, TX with his wife and daughter. He eats his portion of meat every day and has the most amazing Corpse Snuff collection you’ve ever seen.
CODY GOODFELLOW has written five novels–his latest is Repo Shark (Broken River Books)– and co-wrote three more with John Skipp. His first two collections, Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars and All-Monster Action, each received the Wonderland Book Award. He wrote, co-produced and scored the short Lovecraftian hygiene film Stay At Home Dad, which can be viewed on YouTube. He is also a director of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival-Los Angeles and cofounder of Perilous Press, an occasional micropublisher of modern cosmic horror. He lives in Burbank, California, and is currently working on building a perfect bowling team.
JOHN SKIPP is a New York Times bestselling author, editor, film director, zombie godfather, compulsive collaborator, musical pornographer, black-humored optimist and all-around Renaissance mutant. His early novels from the 1980s and 90s pioneered the graphic, subversive, high-energy form known as splatterpunk. His anthology Book of the Dead was the beginning of modern post-Romero zombie literature. His work ranges from hardcore horror to whacked-out Bizarro to scathing social satire, all brought together with his trademark cinematic pace and intimate, unflinching, unmistakable voice. From young agitator to hilarious elder statesman, Skipp remains one of genre fiction’s most colorful characters.
J. F. GONZALEZ is the author of several novels of horror and dark suspense and over eighty short stories and novellas. Christmas Horror Volume 1 is dedicated to his memory (J. F. passed away in 2014).
ZACH MCCAIN is an internationally published artist who is primarily known for his illustration and cover artwork in the horror and science fiction genres. He has worked on hundreds of books for numerous publishers. His work ranges from book and magazine illustration to graphic design, album art, DVD and poster work for films, and RPG games. Mediums often used are oils as well as pencil, ink, and digital.
