I wake up hung-over again, no surprise there. I passed out on the couch last night … again, with the TV on watching me all night. The newscasters are wearing ugly red and green sweaters and the weatherman is saying that we won’t have a white Christmas this year. I rub my eyes and shuffle through the mess of beer cans and fast food containers on my living room floor towards the bathroom.
It’s still dark, the sun hasn’t risen yet, and The TV is the only source of light in the house. I flick on the bathroom lights and stare at my reflection in the dirty mirror. I hate what I see: a wretched shell-of-a-man, a disappointment of a husband, and a failure of a father. My head is pounding. I splash some cold water on my face before getting into the shower.
I leave the bathroom and, I notice how quiet the house has been. It’s been like this ever since Dakota passed. My wife Judy and I stopped talking to each other after it happened, there was nothing left to talk about. One day she just got up and left me. That was six months ago. That means this would be my first Christmas Eve alone.
After getting changed, I check the digital clock on the stove: 9:05. I’m late for my shift, not like it mattered. I kind of wish they would just fire me already. I’d get enough money from the severance package to live comfortably for a while and I’d never have to put up with my manager’s bullshit again. Still, I grab my keys and head out the front door.
The weather has been so dark and gloomy lately. Hardly any light filters down from the dense cloud cover making it dark even on these relatively warm winter days. I don’t think I’ve seen the sun in at least a week. There has been this unyielding fog that covers the whole town in a dismal grey blanket. I can’t remember the last time we had was such a miserable December.
The snow has all but melted away, leaving only shallow mounds of muddy slush on the side of the road. The cheap decorations I had put up on my front lawn look sad and worn out. There is a plastic Santa Claus with an off-white beard and flaking red paint, a reindeer with a broken antler, and a meager string of multi-colored lights draped lazily over the bushes in my yard. Dakota loved Christmas, I kept the crappy decorations for her. They reminded me of happier times.
Before getting in my car, I kneel over to straighten the plastic Santa which had slumped over with the melting snow. With my back turned to the road, a very strange feeling washes over me. It’s hard to explain. I feel a sudden coldness, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I involuntarily freeze in place. It’s like a subconscious, evolutionary response in my brain telling me don’t move you are being watched!
I slowly turn to face the road but there is nothing there. Nothing but the greyscale silhouettes of houses and trees shrouded in the thick fog. I don’t know how, but it felt like someone was right behind me, reaching out to grab me by the shoulder. I shudder, and try to shake off the feeling but still the eeriness remains. I need to get more sleep.
I get in my car and begin reversing out of my driveway. I make it only three feet or so when my car’s proximity alarm beeps, warning me that something is behind the vehicle. Looking closely at the rear view camera screen, I see nothing out of the ordinary – just my empty driveway. I continue to reverse the car, this time a little slower.
Beep Beep Beep.
The sensor goes off again.
I’m confused, I can’t see anything. Maybe the sensor on the car is dirty or busted – or something. I get out of the driver’s seat and walk around to the boot of the car to inspect the camera. It looks fine to me. I give the lens a wipe and I even check the under-carriage for good measure. There is nothing there that should have made the proximity alarm beep. Frustrated, I just assume it must have been the fog messing with the sensor. I get back in the car and put it in reverse.
Beep Beep Beep… The alarm again!
I’m getting annoyed. I ignore it and focus on the rear-view mirror instead of the camera screen. That’s when I see something.
A huge shadow, pitch-black and almost human-shaped. It whooshes across my field of view with startling speed. I jerk my head around to get a better look out the rear window.
Again… Nothing.
What was that? A person? No … it was too large, too fast to be a person. The fog is so thick that I can hardly see past the end of the driveway. I sit frozen again for a moment, confused, scanning the faint impressions of rooftops and tree trunks for any sign of movement.
There is none.
It’s not the shadow itself that worries me, it’s the fact that I am beginning to doubt my own senses that has me on edge. For an unnerving amount of time the world is unnaturally still, empty. I’m trying to comprehend what – if anything – I had just seen.
A car drives past and I snap back to reality. I check the time on my phone. I am really late for work and I received a few text messages from co-workers asking where I was. I drive to work as quickly as the weather permitted, trying to put that morning’s strange experience out of my mind.
The Christmas Eve shift is uneventful, as usual. Most of my co-workers are checked out, gossiping amongst themselves and sharing their holiday plans. My manager really liked the holiday season, it puts her into a holly jolly mood like some character from an old-timey Christmas movie. It’s aggravating. Although, she didn’t reprimand me for being late this morning. She let it slide because ‘Tis the Season and all. Not like any of that matters anyhow.
The rest of the work day patters on. I spend most of the day looking at old pictures of my family on my computer. I guess this time of the year makes me sentimental too. I don’t notice anything strange, however. No shadows. No eerie feelings. I almost forget about that thing I thought I had seen earlier.
I leave the office at around 5 PM. The sun is setting, though I never really saw it at all today. The fog still lingered over the town, making my drive home more difficult than it needed to be. I stop at the corner store a few blocks from my house to pick up some things for my lonely Christmas Eve dinner. I grab a frozen turkey meal for one and a six pack.
On my way to the car I see a figure, standing alone in the obscurity of the otherwise empty parking lot. It’s probably just a homeless person or someone waiting for the bus. The figure stands completely motionless. Its features are veiled by the mist and the glare of the streetlamp overhead.
I open my passenger-side door and place my groceries inside, keeping the figure in my peripherals. The way he stands there, unmoving, just gives me the creeps. You never know if someone like that could be dangerous. I can just make out his heavy breathing, high pitched wheezing accompanied with low, guttural exhales. This guy might be on something and I don’t want to stick around to find out what.
I open my driver’s side door but before I could get in, the streetlamp begins to short circuit. The light shuts off and the parking lot is suddenly flooded with darkness. My heart begins to race, that same eerie feeling has returned.
The whole world goes silent for a moment, then the light abruptly returns with an audible electric snap.
The figure now stands about twenty feet away from me, tall and imposing, staring menacingly in my direction. I don’t know how he could have moved so quickly and silently.
“Sorry, I-I don’t have any money, buddy,” I say, trying to keep my composure. I try not to make eye contact as I get in my car and quickly lock the door behind me. I put the car in drive and head to the exit. I look around and the figure has moved again seamlessly behind my car, as if purposely avoiding the beam from the headlights.
It continues to stare as I drive off. I keep an eye on it in the rearview mirror as I merge onto the main road. Relief comes only when I turn the corner and the figure is finally out of sight. What’s that guy’s problem? Whatever, I don’t care.
I just want to go home and have a drink, get my mind off things. I circle the block one extra time before pulling up to my house, just to make sure no one was following me home. I might be getting a little paranoid but it’s better to be safe than sorry. The stress of spending my first Christmas alone must be really getting to me. I still can’t shake that feeling of being followed … it’s deep in my core.
Inside, I put the frozen dinner in the oven and crack open a beer. I find a TV channel that plays classic Christmas music on repeat while I sit in my recliner. Dakota loved Christmas music, she could listen to it all day, every day, for the entire month of December. I find it a little annoying but it reminds me of her … and it keeps me company on what I think is going to be a long lonely night.
I sit and drink and reminisce about Christmases come and gone. One year we bought Dakota a toy gun and she drove her mother crazy for weeks, ambushing her with foam bullets every time she turned a corner. Or the year we got her a bike and she tried to ride it in the snow and fell face first into a snowbank. She was a good kid, she didn’t deserve what she got. Sometimes I think it wasn’t about her, it’s about me … and that maybe I deserve this.
Six beers later, I’m passed out on the couch, the smell of burnt food and the whine of the smoke detector awakens me. I forgot about my sad little dinner and now it was ruined. I open the kitchen window to let the smoke out.
That’s when I notice, out the window, my neighborhood is oddly beautiful tonight, cloaked in an ominous serenity. Streetlamps and colorful Christmas lights struggle to penetrate the murkiness of the night, as if despite the terrible weather, some good can still shine through. Most of my neighbors must have gone to their relatives’ houses for the evening as the streets and driveways are deserted. I really am all alone tonight.
I check the clock on the stove to see for how long I had slept. The digital display is blinking 12:00. That’s odd, there must have been a power outage at some point today. I check my phone, it’s already nine-fourteen.
I contemplate calling Judy and wishing her a merry Christmas before she goes to bed. I swallow my pride, punch in her number and hit dial. It rings for a few seconds before the call drops. The operator recording says the call had failed. That’s strange too, I have no cell service. She wouldn’t have wanted to talk to me anyway. I pick at some of the burnt food before throwing it in the trash then return to the living room.
Sappy holiday music still emanates from the TV speakers, but suddenly it sounds … a bit off. It plays distorted with intermittent static, fluctuating volume and quality. Something is interfering with the TV signal too. I reach for the remote and out of the corner of my eye, I see something move across my back window.
Inhumanly fast, a figure darts across the frame. My surprise quickly turns into a frustrated rage. Somebody is messing with me. The man from parking lot must have followed me home despite my attempts to elude him. He must have known where I lived already. It must have been him on my driveway this morning. I’m going to catch the bastard and teach him a lesson. I grab my old baseball bat from the closet and run out my backdoor.
“You wanna fuck with me, eh!?” I yell angrily into the night, my voice cutting into the dense, solemn air. I grip the bat tightly with two hands, poised and ready to swing. I frantically scan my empty yard, but no one is there. I pace about my yard in my wet socks looking for my stalker behind the worn-out patio furniture.
I begin to doubt my sanity again after I fail to find anyone in my backyard. There is no way a person could move that fast. I’m just seeing things, maybe a bird, or something, flew by the window. Why would anyone stalk me, anyway? I have nothing worth stealing, nothing worth taking away … nothing anymore. I’m just being paranoid … or drunk … or stressed out. I try to recollect my thoughts and return inside.
That’s when I hear a crash – the sound of smashing dishes – coming from inside my house. I sprint back inside, fueled by rage and panic. I was right. There is someone stalking me! I run into the kitchen to see shards of broken porcelain all over the floor. The dirty dishes had been knocked from the counter beside the sink where I had left them. I look up from the floor to see what had caused it to shatter.
Fear, shock, disgust and confusion all hit me at once. A long and gangly arm with jet black skin and distended fingers, extends into the house from the kitchen window that I had left open. It writhes about, clawing and grasping at anything it can reach. It grips onto the counter and pulls, digging four jagged trenches on the countertop with its long, splintery fingernails. What in the world is that?
I stand for a moment, petrified. It’s trying to get inside! I suppress my fear and charge at the thing coming through the window. I slam the bat down hard, channeling my frustration into my swing. Making contact with the back of the thing’s monstrous hand, it lets out a horrific shriek. The arm quickly slinks out the window like a recoiling snake. The bulbs in the overhead light fixture suddenly pop, raining bits of glass down on my head and submerging the kitchen in darkness. This monster seems to have had a disruptive effect on the electric devices in my home. I catch a quick glimpse of it as it bounds around the corner towards the front of my house.
The flickering lights of my outdoor Christmas décor filter through the broken blinds on my front window, rhythmically illuminating the darkened house with faint hues of red then green … then red … then green. I approach the front window cautiously. The ominous and twisted holiday music spills in from the other room, and that spine-tingling, primeval feeling of dread returns in full force.
Out the window, I see it standing there: a human-sized mass of long shaggy hair, dark as coal, with a face, pale as the surrounding mists. I gaze deeply into the two obscure voids that are eyes on its unnerving, expressionless face. Its form vanishes and reappears with the slow pulsing of the glowing stringed-lights. It inches closer and closer with every dull flash, glaring at me like a predator stalking its prey. What is it? What does it want?
Then, it stands up.
I realize that the monster had been crouching all along, making it look more human, for when it extended its thin wiry legs, its true gigantic stature was revealed. The creature stands at least fifteen feet tall. As tall as my house, it rivals the nearby trees in height and proportion. A bestial torso supported on impossibly long legs with arms that nearly scrape at the ground. I gasp, dumbstruck, dropping the bat on the floor. It screeches and the lights violently flutter out.
My world goes black. The next few seconds feel like an eternity. There’s no sounds but my shallow and shaky breathing, my heart hammering in my chest. I wave my arms out in front of me, searching for something to grab hold of to orient myself in the darkness.
I hear another crash. The back door … It’s in the house!
Gigantic footsteps creak against my floorboards, rustling and crushing the empty beer cans with every stride. My legs tremble and give out on me. I fall to the floor. It’s coming for me.
I panic. My arms trembling as I crawl on all fours. I find a corner and back myself into it. The sound of its hideous wheezing is getting louder and louder. The smell of its rancid breath stings my nostrils. I try to scream, but the sound is caught in my throat.
I see nothing but I know it’s close. I can feel it staring at me.