TW // Violence
“HO HO HO” the grinning Santa on the door screamed at James as he rummaged for his key. He stumbled back, aghast as the entrance to his house was opened.
“Do you like it?” Geoff smiled brightly.
“It’s horrific.” James snapped, as he stumbled into the newly decorated home: a Christmas cacophony of colour and sound.
“Okay, Scrooge.” Geoff said, planting a kiss on his husband’s cheek.
“You’ve decorated.” James said flatly, trying and failing to smile as his eyes scanned objects that cluttered the once beautiful room.
“I have. What do you think?”
“It’s certainly something.”
“I think the tree looks stunning.” Geoff said, standing back to admire.
“It’s plastic.” James said, with a withering note of bitterness.
Geoff rolled his eyes and sighed, “you’re not going to get over that are you?”
“No.” James grinned before sipping the Baileys that Geoff had pushed into his hand. “It’s hideous.” He knew how much this topic pained him and luxuriated in his out-sized discomfort.
“It’s eco-friendly.”
“It will be landfill.”
“You’ll be landfill if you carry on.” Geoff snapped and rounded on James, fists clenched and eyes thin. Okay, maybe I pushed a little too far, James noted, admonishing himself.
“I’m joking. It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”
Geoff’s glare softened a touch. “Get the last box of decorations.” He demanded in an exaggerated imperative, before turning his back and considering the tree again.
“On it, sweetheart.” James half-sung and watched to see his husband’s ears rise in sync with an obscured smile. Oh, he’s fine, he thought, relieved. Their playful teasing was always at risk of spilling into outright warfare at this time of year. Neither of them loved the holiday season; it had been tainted by both of their family’s tone-deaf commentaries and drunken rants. It didn’t take much to send either of them spiralling into a fit of rage and unplanned exit from the house. But Geoff had seemed particularly on edge in recent days. Maybe it was because this would be the first Christmas without his father around, or his job slowly taking over every waking moment of his life, James wondered as he climbed the stairs and walked down the hall towards the box of decorations beneath the now closed loft hatch. Maybe I need to give him a little more space- James stumbled on the loose floorboard and cursed loudly as his shoulder collided with the wall. Their old house was falling apart, and that loose board had been on the to-do list for longer than James could remember. I’ll get to it, before the end of the year. That might put a smile on Geoff’s face, he thought, suppressing a laugh.
The doorbell rang as he stood with the box in his arms. Who the hell is that? He wondered. It was after eight on a Sunday night, outside the window of appropriate doorbell ringing. He quickened his pace with the box back down the hall to the stairs - mindful of avoiding the loose board - as the thought of some hassling teens sending Geoff into a blind rage formed in his mind. The singing began, washing away his anxiety, as James reached the bottom step and turned to face his smiling partner. The door was held open and the gathering carollers were standing beyond in the half-dark.
“Oh how wonderful.” James exclaimed as he placed down the box and moved in beside his husband, allowing O Holy Night to wash over them both, as though carried in the chill breeze that swept in through the door. The distant road was quiet and there was a rough scattering of yesterday’s snow on the ground, giving the dark forms a nascent backlight.
“O Holy night! The stars are brightly shining
It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth”
James and Geoff linked arms and leaned into one another as they embraced the beauty of the harmonies that seemed to envelope them.
“Long lay the world in sin and error pining
‘Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth”
The faces of the singers were in shadow but for brief flashes of white-blue light from the hanging, plastic icicles - that James had declared as gauche - that adorned the front of their house. The couple squinted over smiles at the faces; trying to decode the half-hidden images ahead of them. There was something off, something not quite right. The faces of the carollers were wrong. There was a distinction between the beauty of the sound and the forming distortion on their faces.
“A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn”
The lights held their strength for a moment or two longer than they had before, the end of the repeating cycle of brightening-then-dimming-then-brightening-then-dimming, and the carollers came into full view. There were six pairs of loose eyes staring into the house: bloodshot and moist and unblinking. The yellowed orbs shone like warning beacons beside the road. Teeth were missing and leaning desperately, cracked and splintered. The vibrant vocals gathered an underlying distortion that was guttural and timbrous. James squeezed Geoff’s arm and he could feel that he was also holding his breath. Close the door, he thought desperately, but neither of them moved but for the slow removal of their smiles.
“Fall on your knees; O hear the Angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born”
As the rolling lights dimmed again, James’s eyes darted across the rest of the carollers’ bodies. Maybe it’s a trick of the light, some awful discombobulation brought about by the cold. But the hands proved it to be true as the light rose once again. His eyes landed on the woman at the centre, wearing a tight bonnet and with her head slightly leaning to the side. Her hands were clasped in front of her and he scanned her fingers. The nails were two inches long and orange-black. They were almost serrated in their state of disrepair and curled inward; searchingly. We need to shut the damn door.
“O night, O Holy night, O night divine!”
The last syllable was half-skewered by the slam of the door as James - and then Geoff, who seemed to awake from a stupor - pushed it quickly shut. They both backed away, staring through the frosted glass at the now silent but unmoving silhouettes beyond.
“What…” James managed but couldn’t find any other words as he panted in their front room.
“A prank?” Geoff asked, desperate for some explanation, something logical to explain away the madness outside.
“What?”
“It’s a prank, someone is pranking us.” Geoff smiled and forced a short laugh, shaking his head quickly as though pleading for his own fictional story to be reality.
“That’s real. They are real.” The words fell back into a whisper as James pointed and realised the forms had still not moved. “They’re still there.” He gripped his husband’s shoulder and began panting again.
“It’s a prank.” Geoff said, with more confidence and less levity this time - as though irritated with the imagined prankster that had put this all into motion. He moved to the door and opened it again.
“No-” The word caught in James’ throat but he was too late. Geoff had opened the door and taken a breath: one single breath that would enable him to unleash a patronising rebuke of the people that had put on make-up and practised singing with blank, staring expressions as a prank. But the words never had a chance to leave his body. The woman at the centre was on him. Her teeth had found his throat and her clawing fingernails had wrapped around the sides of his head, turning inward and breaking open the back of his skull. In half a moment he was gargling bloodied fear as the life was seeping from him. James screamed. The bonneted woman released her teeth from Geoff’s neck and spat blood against the white wooden doorframe and the tiled floor of the porch. She fixed her lifeless eyes on James and unleashed a wail that seemed to distort reality. Everything was cold, everything was frozen. James couldn’t move. The woman pulled Geoff out of the house and tossed him to the fellow carollers who fell about the limp body. The sounds of crunching and tearing reminded James briefly of having a tooth removed by the dentist. His tongue found the gap in his teeth reflexively. She, now covered in blood, raised herself up to fix James with a stare. The lights rolled from on to off and the blood on her chest and hands went from black to brown in the blue-grey wan. There was an inevitability about the moment: this was his end; this was the bloody finishing of him. Then a plastic Santa Claus came to his rescue with a bellowed “HO HO HO”.
The woman barely flinched, just frowned slightly, and then turned to face the grinning, bearded noise-box on the door. This was a moment that he could not let pass him by. James launched himself forward and slammed the door closed. He twisted the handle up and heard the crunch of a lock, then stepped back and closed the inner fire-door. Then, backing further into the house, he shut another door, then another and then he ran upstairs. He was breathless as he reached the landing. Stumbled on the loose floorboard and launched himself under his bed. And there he lay, panting through his hand, blood thundering through his ears. He wanted to weep for Geoff but he couldn’t allow himself to think beyond sheer survival. The prying fingers and the spurts of blood wouldn’t leave his mind. They won’t just go away. They will come for me too.
James restrained his breath to reduce the noise and allow his ears to pick up every half-sound in the pitch dark around him. Nothing. Maybe I’m safe. He allowed himself to hope for a moment that it was all over. That maybe it was some Christmas prank, with Geoff involved, and they would all have a good laugh over a mulled wine in a minute. But then he heard the bells and the footsteps overhead. With each heavy step there was soft, muted jingle. They’re in the house. Tears burst from his eyes as he realised this was no joke, no prank: this was a living nightmare. I have to fight. That is the only option. An anger rose within him and gave him enough adrenaline to force himself out from under the bed and search quickly for a weapon. Geoff’s autographed cricket bat was pinned to the wall but came down easily enough. The weight of it was pleasant and reassuring as he swung it in the darkness, and then he gritted his teeth and left the bedroom. The steps to the loft were at the other end of the hall. The footsteps and bell-ringing overhead seemed to be moving with him in unison in that direction. I’ll surprise them when they come down. They’ll not expect me there with the bat. He was almost giddy with the thought of braining the carolling daemon; enlivened by the inevitability of violence, the necessity for his performing of it.
The singing started again. It seemed to come out of the walls and made him claustrophobic.
“Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand”
He immediately wanted to scurry back to his room and slide under the bed: become that powerless child again.
“So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming
Here come the Wise Men from Orient land”
James tightened the grip on the bat and bit his lip. I’ve got this. I can fight them. A heavy footstep overhead made him look up and take one defiant step himself.
“The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger
In all our trials born to be our friend”
The singing softened - how was it still so beautiful? - and he leaned forward to hear it better, to place it.
“He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger
Behold your King; before Him lowly bend”
He located it and his heart sank. The loose floorboard between his feet seemed to tremble with each harmonised syllable. There was only one option, one thing he could do. With the bat raised, he half-crouched and dug his fingernails into the slightly raised edge of the board. And lifted.
“Behold your King; before Him lowly bend.”
The eyes were clouded pearls that emitted their own light: lunar beacons, swollen and raging. The teeth chattered as the singing bounced passed them. In this, his moment, his opportunity, James could do nothing. The bat hung still and silent. His half-crouched form could not run, nor move at all. There was no time. The last, tremulous lyric found his ears as the digging fingernails found his calves, then his thighs and in a moment he was torn and ripped and dragged into the bowels of the house.
The singing continued into the dusted, cavernous walls of the old house as the otherwise silent night settled in: a looping, swirling clamour.