My ex-husband is a psychopath, and I fully expected him to come over for Christmas. One or two in the morning, to be precise. Two years ago, he had entered through the door; now it has four separate locks keeping it closed. A year ago, it was through the windows. I have motion sensors now. This year, for the past three months, he had sent me nine separate letters, all written on Christmas-print postcards, alleging he’d come through the chimney this year.
I believed him. I could see him wearing that ratty Santa costume he’d pulled from some bargain bin. He’d come high and with a bag full of presents for our two daughters. The past two Christmases, they greeted him with a mix of fear and awe. He’d bellow his “ho ho ho’s” and refuse to leave until each daughter had opened up her presents and sat on his lap. Then he’d yell at them for not appreciating him and tear down the decorations throughout the house until the police arrived. How he never went to prison, I’ll never know.
I wouldn’t let any of that happen this year. I planned to stay up all night. The girls had hung their stockings and had placed milk and cookies out for Santa. They eyed their presents under the tree, especially the empty space where “Santa’s” presents would magically appear overnight. Both had jittered with excitement, asking if they could stay up with me. Despite the pains of past Christmases, they hadn’t lost their innocence, bless their hearts. They each tried to ignore their colds and drowsy eyes, but I was sure to whisk both girls up to their beds and send them to sleep with some nighttime cold medicine. They wouldn’t wake up until tomorrow morning, no matter how much their father hollered.
Bathed in the glow of red and green lights, I sunk into my recliner facing the fireplace and blinked away my own fatigue. I had prepared for this for months. The kids’ extra presents were in a bag behind the tree. My shotgun lay at my side; my cell phone on the coffee table at my other side by the milk and cookies. The screen had been placed on the fireplace, and I was ready with matches if my ex-husband ended up being too insistent on coming in.
At around 3:30, I had a faint hope that he wouldn’t come this year. Maybe he got too high, maybe even overdosed on something. I pulled out the footrest of my recliner, convincing myself I could take a power nap at least.
Just as I set the alarm on my phone, the first thump of the night pounded on the roof. I cursed and scrambled out of the chair, snatching the shotgun. As I heard shoes clomp over the ceiling above me, I backed five or six steps from the fireplace, breathed deeply, and readied my gun.
The second thump startled me as it crashed onto the roof, shaking the foundations of the house. Footsteps stampeded from one side of the roof to the chimney, each like mortar bombs. The scream that followed numbed my hands and stole any courage I once had. I could tell it came from my ex, and it was the first scream I had ever heard completely silenced. No whimper, no fade in intensity, just gone, as if someone had muted him.
I pointed the shotgun toward the ceiling as I gasped for air, struggling to keep conscious for whatever would come next. Above me, I could hear something being dragged across the roof, accompanied by the heavy footsteps. My brain tore in three different directions, wondering if I should prepare to shoot whatever was up there, call the police, or grab my children and hide.
The hearth exploded before I could decide, flinging the screen across the living room and into the wall bending me. Ash and bits of charred wood spilled into the room, burning at my eyes and squeezing my lungs. I coughed and cried, clutching the shotgun tightly. I was not prepared for this.
Nor was I prepared for the monster that crawled out from the fireplace. It unfolded before me, its head nearly scraping the ceiling as it reached its full height. Its face was gray and shriveled as if mummified. Ragged strands of white hair hung from its face, stained with red. It wore what looked like several layers of dirty and torn red cloth, each piled on each other to create a shapeless mass. Only its massive belly was exposed, lumpy and distended, looking as if something were about rip from its stomach and through its gray skin.
The two empty sockets where its eyes should’ve been watched me. Even if my shotgun shells could harm it, my frozen fingers could not pull the trigger. As it stared down at me, a long skeletal arm emerged from the creature’s clothing. In its clawed fingers was a cardboard box. A simple box tied with brown string. It dropped the package which released a wet squelch as it landed. The monster retracted its arm and pulled two more presents from its clothing, depositing them next to the first.
Its gaze slowly shifted from the boxes and then back to me. It limped to the coffee table, coming no more than a foot from me. It wrapped its ghastly hand around the glass of milk. From the white tendrils of his beard, a mouth emerged, protruding from its face and lined with fang-like teeth. The mouth sprang forward from the monster’s face like a goblin shark’s, swallowing the glass of milk whole. I could hear the glass crunch as it moved down its esophagus, but the creature seemed unfazed. It grabbed the plate of cookies and similarly shoved it down its alien-like mouth, ceramic and all.
The monster seemed to chew for a time, its eyes still trained on me as if considering me for its next course. As its mouth withdrew into its face, it turned from me and crouched into the chimney. The muscles rippled in its gaunt legs, and it shot up the chimney before I could consider shooting it from behind. I heard its feet collide against the roof as it landed somewhere above my head. It let out a low guttural moan, a repeated “ohm” which reverberated through my spine.
There was a flurry of footsteps, and the moaning echoed into the distance. I collapsed on the ground, pushing the shotgun away from me and cried into my hands. I could not fathom what had appeared before me. Whether my daughters were asleep or too afraid to come downstairs, I was fortunate that they didn’t see me.
As I blinked back the tears, I turned my attention to the “presents” left by the monster. In the largest box, I found my ex-husband’s head, decapitated just below the chin. The second held both of his hands, one missing the topmost digits of the pinky, ring, and middle fingers. The third—the smallest and no larger than my palm—held what I could only assume to be his testicles. All gifts had been nestled in what once was plain white tissue paper, now soaked with blood. I was somehow able to keep my dinner in my stomach.
I called the police after that, reporting that an intruder had left me gory mementos of my ex-husband. With all the blood that had seeped through the boxes and into my carpet, I could not pretend that nothing had happened. The wide streaks of red snow on my roof also would have betrayed me.
A swarm of cop cars responded. They questioned me and repeated the questions and asked me again how my ex-husband ended up as only a head, hands, and balls. They woke up my children and searched my home. They took the boxes and opened the kids’ presents. After three hours, they had to let me leave. My children were my alibi.
My girls and I are staying in a hotel for Christmas Day. Fortunately, they never saw the living room, and I was able to keep their presents. When they wake up again, we’ll look at their new toys and clothing before going down for a nice holiday continental breakfast. Later, I will tell them that their father’s gone. Not today though; it’s Christmas.
I couldn’t predict any of this. I knew I would see my ex-husband, and I had made my many plans to stop him from ruining Christmas. I felt confident that one of my plans would work this year; I just would’ve never thought that it would be my letter to Santa that did it.