A Dark Christmas

 

It was Christmas eve: the most difficult day of the year to send my son, Sammy, to bed. Every year, he tried his best to stay up for Santa. He always complained that he never got to do anything he wanted, and that being a kid was unfair.

“Grown-ups can stay up till late all they want, but I can't even see Santa. I can’t wait to grow up.”

“You won’t care about Santa when you’re grown up, Sammy.”

“No, I’ll always care about him!”

Sammy went to bed after hugging me a few minutes later, but he was still annoyed. I wished my brother Peter was still with us; he knew all the right things to say, and how to bargain with Sammy. Afterwards, I finished my chores and joined my husband Jeffrey in bed. I was falling asleep when there was a sudden noise from downstairs. Jeffrey jumped out of bed and grabbed his baseball bat.

“Check on Sammy; I’ll go downstairs.”

I rushed to Sammy's room; he was fast asleep. I locked his room door and went to the kitchen; I picked up the meat cleaver and rushed downstairs. I found Jeffrey being choked in the living room by someone—or rather, some ‘thing’. With spiralling horns and dark grey skin, as well as elongated fingers and fingernails, the being resembled something demonic. I struck it on the arm from behind with the cleaver, but it turned around and smiled. Its eyes glowed crimson; my soul sunk in dread. I stepped back, my legs quivering as I struggled to speak.

“What... What are you?”

“Krampus. I’m here for him, not you.”

Jeffrey took the opportunity to strike him in the head with the baseball bat, but the demon was unfazed. Krampus then took hold of the bat and snapped it in half, hitting Jeffrey in the forehead with the piece in his hand. I yelled and tried to rush towards him, but Krampus warned me against it.

“Don’t interfere!”

“What do you mean ‘don’t interfere’? He’s my husband!”

“Yes, but not a good one.”

“What do you mean?”

Krampus grinned. He walked up to Jeffrey, who was staggering to get to his feet, and placed his hand on his head. He then asked me to come to him and placed his other hand on my forehead. Then I saw it: a deep, dark secret. It broke me. My brother, Peter, whom I had thought was killed in a mugging two week before, had actually been murdered by Jeffrey, himself. I couldn’t believe it, or rather, I didn’t want to; but Krampus didn’t just let me see Jeffrey’s memories—he also revealed the feelings that drove him to do it. Jeffrey had always been jealous of Peter’s popularity, but it had grown even more when he found out that Peter was getting the promotion he had been eying for a long time.

I stood there, stupefied. Looking down at Jeffrey, I couldn’t comprehend how someone who seemed to be so loving could do something so heinous to an innocent person. Knowing not what to even say, I walked away from the room as Jeffrey cried out to me, begging me to come back. I went back upstairs and sat on the floor in front of Sammy’s bedroom, holding myself as the pain of my brother’s passing stung me deeper.

Krampus killed Jeffrey that night. I waited until the screaming in the living room ceased before going back downstairs. By the time I got there, Krampus had vanished, leaving Jeffrey’s bloody corpse on the floor. I called the cops immediately and told them that someone had broken in and killed him. Thankfully, Sammy slept through the entire ordeal without even a peep. It broke my heart to give him ill tidings on Christmas Day. The holidays were never going to be the same.