December 3rd
“Daaaaaaddy!”
The shrill yelling of my six year old tearing into the room made me want to stick my head into a pillow and scream. Instead, I rolled my eyes and sighed.
“What is it, darling?” I asked.
“Liam picked his nose and is trying to wipe his finger on my shirt!” Sophia practically shrieked, yanking on my arm. I set my knife onto the cutting board before she inadvertently sliced my finger and wiped my hands on a towel. I turned, seeing Liam peek around the corner into the kitchen where I stood with his sister. His dark hair was glued to his forehead, and his chunky baby cheeks were red with exertion and excitement, leading me to believe he had chased her all the way up from the playroom in the basement. His eyes were bright and full of mischief.
“Liam, did you try to wipe boogies on your sister?” I asked. He shrieked in laughter, giddily running back downstairs. Internally I wondered when I had decided that this was my life now. When had my existence been taken over by potty training and refereeing these petty fights, cooking dinners that everyone would complain about or mash into their high chair? As I chased the toddler down the stairs, I dusted off my old fantasy, the one where I was a respected pilot in some massive airline conglomerate, jetting around the world, never in one place long enough to call it home. I would go to all the places I’d ever dreamed of traveling, make mega bucks, strutting through the airport like I owned the place, commanding respect from everyone, even the ones who didn’t know me, a different flight attendant to warm my bed in every hub city.
Snapping back into my reality, I heaved my younger child up onto my hip and headed for the sink. Liam babbled toddler talk at me while I washed him up, and I nodded, making agreeable noises in all the right places, still half mentally in bed with that flight attendant. I sat him down in his high chair and gave him a biscuit to suck on while I finished cooking dinner.
“Sophia, please go clean up the toys so we can have dinner,” I said.
“Whyyyyyy!” she whined, “Liam is the one that made the mess, he dumped the whole toy box.”
“Just. Do. It.” I said through gritted teeth. I could feel the migraine starting behind my eyes, like tiny men with pickaxes were at work inside my head. Closing my eyes for a minute to mute the sound of her grumbling as she walked down the stairs, I mentally calculated how many minutes were left until bedtime. Too many, it seemed. I hurriedly finished cooking the meal, set it on the table and began dividing it onto plates. My wife had called earlier to say that she would be late. Again. I tried not to be too annoyed. After all, it was her income that was supporting our rather comfortable suburban existence. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t agreed to this. Her job had always paid more than mine, and after the kids came and her career took off, it just made sense for me to be the stay at home parent. The deal was that when Liam was old enough for preschool, I could start focusing on my career again, at least when he was in school. Besides, I loved my family, I just… got tired sometimes.
“Daddy, the clock says five zero six. Most other nights it says six three zero when we have dinner. Why are we eating so early?” Sophia said as she climbed into her chair.
“Christmas parade, remember?” I said, setting the primary colored plastic plates in front of them both. “We need dinner early if we want to go see Santa in his sleigh at the parade.”
Her eyes lit up in excitement and her voice seemed to climb up about ten more decibels. “Santa!! Will his reindeer be there too?” she screamed.
“I don’t know, darling. But you need to eat up if we want to get there in time,” I said, right as a tiny fistful of mashed potatoes went flying across the table. I watched it land on the wallpaper, then slide down, leaving a snail like trail of buttery mash all the way to the hardwood floor. I resolutely ignored it, snagging the plate off of Liam’s high chair to save the rest of his food. Making silly noises and driving a spoonful of food toward his face, I made a mental note to wipe it up afterward before it left a grease stain on the wall. “Don’t forget your green beans,” I said and Sophia groaned dramatically and lolled her head back against her chair.
An eternity later I had them bundled in their coats and buckled into their carseats. I popped a few tylenol into my mouth and washed it down with a swallow of water from a plastic bottle that had been in the cup holder of the SUV for who knows how long. Oh well, I thought. At least it was something wet. I turned the key over, and prepared to back out of the driveway.
“Daddy?” Sophia said. “I have to go potty.” I groaned under my breath, then turned the key back, shutting the engine off and opening my door to unbuckle them both and shuffle them back into the house. We all tromped inside, then back out a few minutes later and I did the song and dance again, fighting the toddler to sit down in his seat so I could buckle him, reminding Sophia that the strap had to go in front, not under her armpits. Luckily it was only a ten minute drive to the parade route. Finding a parking spot was another nightmare, with one overly excited chatterbox in the backseat and the other one getting fussy from being strapped in while I cruised slowly along the side streets, praying for an empty spot. I strapped the little dude into a stroller, made my daughter promise to keep her hand on the handle next to me, and started off down the bumpy ‘historical cobblestone’ that the city had inflicted on this particular downtown street, toward the main stretch where people were already lining the street, bundled in their coats on their lawn chairs.
We managed to find an open spot in the line of neighbors that was wide enough to shove the stroller through. I positioned Sophie on the curb right in front of the stroller, where she could see all the action without being in her brother’s way or crowded next to me. Of course, right as the first float passed she spun around and swatted at the baby’s legs, complaining that he was kicking her. I sighed and pulled the stroller back a few inches, getting her back out of Liam’s range. As the parade began in earnest, I couldn’t help catching a bit of the magical feeling that I’d always felt as a kid, with the cold air and twinkling lights, the mystical feel of the holiday figures. Watching the excited faces of my children as the dancers twirled past, people wearing gingerbread people costumes handed out candy canes to the kids on each side, the floats from different companies in town that were using the occasion to subtly advertise, almost made up for the hassle of dragging them both out into the winter air this close to bedtime.
Liam started rocking back and forth in the stroller, making unhappy sounds that would quickly dissolve into screaming unless I acted quick. I pulled his favorite toy out of the diaper bag and handed it to him. That lasted a few minutes until, predictably right as I could see Santa’s sleigh rolling up the street, Liam chucked the toy, right at Sophia’s head. She cried out, rubbing her head, then turned around and with a nasty frown on her face, pinched his leg. He began to shriek, big fat tears rolled down his cheek, and Sophie, seeing my likely upset expression, dissolved into hysterics too.
Groaning, I unbuckled Liam and lifted him into my arms. I shushed him gently, rubbing his leg where she had pinched him, then folded Sophie against me, letting her cry into my leg while I rubbed her back. I held my crying children while Santa and his sleigh, plus a tribe of elves led by Mrs Claus, marched by. The parade over, I stuck the baby back into the stroller and dragged both kids back to the car. By the time I got them buckled in, Liam was drowsy, falling asleep in his seat, and Sophia’s sobs had mellowed into half hearted sniffles. I shut the door and leaned against the side of the car, pressing my head against the cold window for a moment.
Hearing a jingling behind me, I turned to look. I half expected to see that some part of the parade had followed us up this side road, making it back to wherever they went when the show was over. Instead, I saw a shadowy figure at the end of the street, weaving back and forth. I stepped forward, peering into the dark. Clank! I heard the jangling of metal against metal again, this time sounding decidedly NOT like jingle bells.
“Hello?” I called out. “Who’s there?” I watched uneasily as the shadowed figure moved a bit closer, still seeming to zig zag back and forth across the street as they walked toward me. Suddenly it started to snow, a soft, magical snow that fell like glitter from the sky. I looked up at the sky for a moment, then pulled my attention back to the person walking my way as a deep voiced chuckle echoed up the street. As they got closer, more details began to stand out, though my visibility through the snow was still low. I guessed that the figure was probably a man, as they were fairly tall. They were wearing a large coat, or they were built like a linebacker. Their movements were erratic, something in the movement of their stride seemed… off. I stood beside the car watching their approach. Cli-cli-cli-clack! I could finally see what was making the metallic noise, and the first tendril of fear began to curl in my stomach. He was dragging several chains behind him, bumping them over the cobblestones.
I looked in the car window and saw my sleeping children’s faces, then gave one last glance down the street at the approaching stranger. Another laugh echoed up the street, my nerves twisting the sound in my interpretation, making it sound insane and dangerous, like a madman on the loose. I opened the driver’s door and slid into my seat, thumbing the button to lock the doors. I started the engine, then peeked into my side view mirror, seeing the figure reflected back at me. He appeared to be running up the street now, the chains bouncing behind him, his strangely lopsided gait bringing him closer. A snowflake landed on the mirror, and I swore as it melted, it revealed the man coming down the street had glowing red eyes and a pair of massive, curved horns on his head. My heart began to race, and I pulled out of the parking spot, speeding away from the lunatic scene behind me. What the fuck was that about? I wondered as I drove home. Some idiot drunk playing a prank maybe? It had to be. I convinced myself I was just stressed from the long day and had imagined the rest of it, exaggerated things in my head. But my heart continued to race for a bit too long, and sleep did not come easy that night.
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December 4th
Saturday morning. Unfortunately toddlers don’t understand weekends, so I was up with the sun, dragging my ass to the coffee maker. I felt a twinge of guilt when I parked the little one in front of the tv, letting Mickey Mouse babysit while I tried to wake up and let go of the foggy lingering feeling of some nightmare that I couldn’t quite remember.
“Daddy?” Sophie stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Can we have pancakes?” she asked. My annoyance from the antics from the night before had faded a bit, and I felt generous.
“Sure sweetie. Why don’t you go watch cartoons with your brother while I get them going. Maybe we can even surprise Mommy with breakfast in bed!” I said. She gasped in excitement and went pattering off to the living room in her footie pajamas.
I bent to pull the griddle from the cupboard and began to plot out the day. Yeah, we would take my wife some breakfast in bed, then maybe take the kids out to play in the snow that had continued to accumulate as we slept last night. Then maybe a little private time for mommy and daddy during naps. It had been a while, Lisa’s work schedule had been nutty for weeks now. She was frequently leaving before I had even gotten Sophia up for school, and most nights she was home after the kids were in bed. Her office was working on some major project, so it was eating up her free hours. She kept assuring me it was going to be worth it, the work she was putting in now would net her a bonus that would get us an inground swimming pool out back with one of those remote covers that would keep the kids safe when we weren’t using it. Every night that I did the bedtime routine alone, every long afternoon with no one to talk to other than the kids, I repeated it like a mantra. Swimming pool, swimming pool. I held the mental image of myself, floating on the water with a cold beer on a hot summer’s day.
Flipping the first pancake over, I heard Lisa’s voice behind me. “Mmmm, those smell good, hun.” She came up behind me and brushed her lips across my cheek in a hurried kiss. “Is there any coffee?”
I turned around and took in the sight of her. She was in one of her sharp tailored business suits, hair pinned in place, impeccable makeup, busily pouring coffee into her travel mug. My heart fell in disappointment.
“You have to go in today?” I asked, trying not to let the disappointment leak into my voice.
“Yeah, there was a development last night and now the whole team has to come in to work out the kinks. I’m not sure how long it will take.” Lisa pulled on her heels and set the mug next to her briefcase. She looked up, saw the blank expression on my face, and sighed. “I know, I know. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” Her eyes shifted behind me to the stove. “Your pancakes are burning.”
Cursing under my breath, I turned to deal with the food on the stove. By the time I scraped the burned mess off the pan and into the garbage, she was gone. Great, I thought. Another day with just me and the kids, and she didn’t even say goodbye.
Throughout the day I found my thoughts returning to the strange apparition I’d seen the night before, the hulking horned thing coming up the street in the dark, dragging chains behind him. When the kids finally gave up their bickering long enough to go down for a nap, I sat at my laptop and did a search, trying to see if there was something I’d subconsciously absorbed from some random internet article to pop out this bizarro menace that kept haunting my thoughts. Feeding the key words and phrases into the search engine, most of what was regurgitated back to me was plotlines for some B rated horror movies.
I found a reddit thread and clicked, going down the rabbit hole. The post was by some user named ‘Krypt1dHunt3r19’ and it detailed an encounter he had documented where a massive man with large curved goat horns had stalked a family of five with three young children. There were pictures and official police reports to back up his claims that it was a true story. This poor family had lost two of their children, kidnapped right out of their beds, the oldest, an eight year old boy, and a four year old girl, one of a set of twins. The insane thing was the younger one was in the same room as her twin sister, but only one of them was taken. The only physical evidence at the scene was a photographed print in the half melted snow outside one of the children’s bedroom windows. A hoof print, like a large goat or deer pressed down into the frozen ground. There was an eyewitness statement taken from the teenage boy who lived across the street. He’d gotten up for a glass of water in the middle of the night and seen a large man with some sort of monster mask sporting massive horns sneaking around the edge of the house across the way. He had figured it was a nightmare, that he’d only dreamed it. Until he woke up the next morning with police lights flashing across the street.
Krypt1dHunt3r19 went on to postulate that the beast that had stolen the children was no other than Krampus, the devil side of the Christmas duo. I’d never heard of Krampus, so that was the next thing I pulled up in my search bar. A pre-Christian devil, Santa’s sidekick, apparently he was the one charged with taking care of the ‘naughty’ kids on the list. Most artwork showed him as a long faced version of Satan, with long curved horns, sharp teeth with a wicked long forked tongue sticking between them, red skin, and goat legs. Some versions added a heavily furred body, others had him carrying a bundle of sticks on his back (to beat the naughty children with), chains dragged behind to add extra horror, or an empty sack that he used to drag the bad kiddies down to Hell. Apparently mothers in old Germany and other European countries used to tell this lovely tale to their children, as a way of terrorizing them into being on their best behaviour. I shook my head, clearing the thoughts gathering in my imagination, and shut down the computer.
By dinnertime Lisa still wasn’t home, and as I sat down with the kids at the table, my phone chimed.
“Gonna be a long one. Don’t wait up. X”
I felt my jaw tighten and made a concentrated effort to relax it and box up the anger I felt to deal with later, when the kids weren’t watching. Luckily they were worn out from a long day playing in the snow, or should I say playing in the snow for ten minutes, only to cry about being cold and come back inside, then twenty minutes later beg to go back out. The entire day had been spent bundling and unbundling them both with winter clothes and wiping tears when a bit of snow had landed on someone’s face. My life on repeat, forever and ever, Amen. In any case, it had been an exhausting day and they were fairly subdued. Liam didn’t even try to throw his food, only mashed it around his tray and into his hair. When I’d finished clearing the table afterward, I set Sophie in front of the tv with some holiday cartoon while I gave Liam his bath. Tucking them both into bed and reading ‘Goodnight Moon’ for the ten thousandth time, I was looking forward to blowing off a little steam by murdering colored pixels after they fell asleep. Finally, they drifted off and I was left alone.
I headed down into the den and grabbed my XBox controller. I flopped onto the couch and hit the power button. There was no response. Groaning, I pulled myself off the couch and went over to where the machine sat on the entertainment stand. I bent down and immediately saw that something sticky was oozing out of the disc drive.
“What the fuck?” I said, pushing the button to eject the game disc. The power button lit up this time, and the disc drive slowly started to extend, making a horrible grinding sound.
“What. The fuck,” I repeated. Reaching down, I pulled a syrupy mashed mess of pancake out of the drive that was meant to hold games. I began to smell scorched sugar, as the syrup started to cook onto the delicate electronics inside the game console. Laughing ruefully, I yanked the power cord out of the back and dropped the controller on the shelf next to the four hundred dollar paperweight. I climbed the stairs and headed to the kitchen. Grabbing a glass and tossing some ice cubes into it, I reached over the fridge where we kept the hard liquor and pulled down the whiskey. I splashed some into my glass, started to place it back up on the high shelf, then shrugged and carried the bottle with me back to the living room. I sat there, alone in the dark, silently fuming at the unfairness of it all, refilling my glass every now and again. Ugly thoughts kept creeping in, and I couldn’t help my mind returning to the things I’d read, those old scary nursery rhymes about Krampus, beating the naughty children to make them behave.
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December 5th
Hungover at the grocery store in the height of Christmas shopping season should be on the list of unsanctioned torture methods, I thought, pushing the cart into line behind dozens of other people with their piles of groceries. Liam started to fuss in the baby seat, so I grabbed a light up toy from the last minute candy bait they placed before the cashier, so waiting suckers might add things to their purchases. The line moved at a snail’s pace, but finally, we got through. Lisa had taken Sophie shopping with her, ‘some special girl time’ was all she’d said before they drove off. So that left me with the little guy, and a grocery list a mile long.
We finally made it home and I left Liam to play with some blocks on the floor while I unloaded and put away the groceries. About halfway through, I found a stack of about fifteen Dove chocolate bars in a bag. What the hell? I thought. I hadn’t bought these. I double checked the receipt, and yep, there they were. Liam’s high pitched giggle came from the other room and it dawned on me that what had likely happened was he had swiped them into the cart when I wasn’t looking, while we waited in line. Great. I shoved them into the freezer, figuring they’d be a nice treat on some later occasion, since I’d paid for them apparently. Groaning, I headed for the tylenol bottle again.
Lisa and Sophie came in a few hours later, and we decided on a family movie night. Curled up on the couch next to my wife, I felt better than I had in weeks. We had had so little quality time lately, I barely watched the show, I just soaked in the presence of the beautiful woman by my side and the two perfect children we had created. Liam climbed up on my lap, and Sophie sat on the floor near her mother’s feet. I decided that it was moments like this that made all the struggle worth it. It was a perfect peaceful moment after days of chaos and stress. At least, until Liam reached down and yanked a handful of Sophie’s hair.
She let loose a bloodcurdling scream and spun around with her fist raised. Her aim was perfect, and she popped him in the nose before I caught her wrist. Blood went pouring down the baby’s face and Lisa leapt up with him, rushing to the bathroom to clean him up. Sophia wasn’t finished, she kicked a toy across the room and into the wall, denting the drywall in with the impact. She dropped to the floor, now crying and holding her foot. I groaned and slid down onto the floor beside her, checking to make sure she hadn’t injured her foot.
“Well, I guess that’s bedtime then. Go brush your teeth please.” I said. Sophia looked up at me with tear filled eyes and wailed.
“But Daddyyyyyy!” she cried. “What about the movie?”
“We can finish it tomorrow,” I said sternly. “Go on now.” She pouted and stomped up the stairs. Lisa came back out carrying Liam, whose little face was swollen but cleaned up.
“It’s not broken, but he’ll have a nice bruise across his face for the Christmas card photos you scheduled for Tuesday,” she said. She handed him over to me, and I took a look.
“Shit. Maybe I can push them back a few days.”
“Not if you want them to get mailed out in time.” Lisa took him back and carted him up the stairs to put to bed. I stood in the den for a moment, wondering what the hell had happened to my nice peaceful moment. Never fails, I thought, shaking my head.
Clang! I jerked awake at the sound. Sitting up, I listened for the sound that had pulled me from sleep. Lisa shifted slightly in her sleep, then I heard her even breathing resume. Clink! I froze, then gently climbed out of bed to investigate. A tiny worm of fear was weaving its way through my stomach, and I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I slowly crept to the door, lifting the baseball bat I kept by the closet on my way. Swallowing hard, I opened the door, then slid into the hallway. I heard a rustling sound coming from the nursery, and slowly started to move that way, lifting the bat over my shoulder. I pushed the door open gently, then felt reality tilt underneath me and drop as I gazed into the room.
Standing next to the crib was a massive monster straight from a horror story. A man, or at least man shaped, seven feet tall without the horns, which stood another foot above his head, turned his face toward me as I stood in the doorway. Time seemed to slow as I took in the scene. His face was a nightmare, a pointed jaw that dropped open into a wide, toothy grin as I came into view, angular cheekbones, and the worst of all, eyes that glowed red like embers burnt down in a campfire. Moonlight came in from the open window, revealing legs shaped like a goat’s, with cloven hooves at the ends. Near his hooves lay a burlap sack. As I watched, the sack moved slightly, and a muffled sleepy sigh came through the fabric. My eyes darted to the crib, and I saw that Liam still lay there under his blanket.
“Well, well. Come to say goodbye?” he asked in a terrifyingly deep voice. It sounded like an earthquake, rocks grinding deep beneath the earth, and somehow at the same time as if he had whispered directly inside my head. I gasped and dropped the bat.
“What?” The word whooshed out of me with all of my breath, barely audible.
“You called, and I answered,” he said matter of factly. “Your misery shines like a beacon, and these plums are ripe for the picking.” He gestured to the baby in his crib and the sack on the floor as he spoke. I sank to my knees, wheezing in a pained breath.
“I called? What…” I thought back to the night I’d gotten drunk, and my heart dropped into my stomach like a rock. “No…. Please,” I begged.
He took a few steps forward, then pulled a branch from the bundle tied to his back and used it to gently lift the blanket off of my son. Looking down at him, he chuckled, the same deep, insane laugh I’d heard coming from the street after the parade. He ran the tip of the stick across Liam’s back and shifted his glowing eyes up to me. I felt a pressure in my bladder, and then a sudden warmth as it let go.
“Please? Please what?” he asked.
“Don’t take them, I didn’t mean it, they’re just kids,” I exhaled, the words coming out in a rush.
He lifted the stick, used a hoof to shift the burlap sack that I was now sure held my daughter, then sighed heavily.
“Would you trade? Your soul for theirs.” His eyes seemed to burn through me, and I felt myself freeze for a moment. My heart seemed to skip a beat and I paused. My soul? I didn’t deserve this. My head conjured up images of people held by chains, beaten and screaming in a fiery pit. Seeing my hesitation, he threw his head back and laughed. Through his open teeth I could see his forked tongue.
“Well. Your pathetic existence amuses me. You may keep your brats,” he said, “for now.”. Bending down, he retrieved the sack from the floor and reached inside. He pulled Sophia out and handed her over to me with one massive hand. I accepted the weight of her sleeping form, numb and terrified.
Krampus strode to the window and lifted a leg over the frame. “Just know, they are on MY list now. I’m not as…” he paused, looking for the right word. “Forgiving, as my brother. I’ll be checking in.” He pulled himself through the window and dropped to the ground below. I gently laid Sophie on the floor and crawled to the open window. Peering over the ledge, I saw him slinking away, dragging his chains behind him, and I heard a snippet of familiar yet minor keyed and horribly warped song come back to me on the freezing winter air.
“I’ll watch you when you’re sleeping, I’ll beat you wide awake. I know when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake….”