Every Christmas Eve, I buy the bloodiest, rarest steak I can find and leave it out on my front porch. I tuck my daughter in tight, steal a cookie or two from the cheesy, mouse-themed Christmas plate we’ve used since I was her age, and set the slab of fine rare meat on the step. The choice cut, wrapped in dripping butcher paper, is always gone without a trace in the morning.
I’ve been doing it since I was a little girl, nabbing change from my parents’ couch cushions and car trays the other eleven months out of the year. I’d collect it all in a pickle jar until I could afford the big purchase a week before Christmas. The thievery never seemed to count, as long as the money was going toward that.
Each year, like clockwork, my wife asks me why I still do it. I just tell her it’s a token of appreciation for an old friend. If she thinks I’m crazy, she’s never given so much of a hint as to it. It doesn’t matter either way; I know I’m not crazy. Because I remember that night as clearly as if it happened yesterday. Because I used to have a brother.
Jack and I were never close. There’s not much that a nine-year-old and a sixteen-year-old can have in common, and it always kept a wedge between us. Christmas time was no different.
Since I’d been old enough to remember that time of year, he hadn’t had a holly jolly bone in his body. It was always left to me and my mom to deck the halls, bake Christmas cookies, and watch Santa Tracker on the desktop computer until my eyelids got too heavy to stay open. His not-so-silent nights were spent getting up to trouble with his friends. Christmas mornings with my brother are a haze of disappointment, never receiving even the tiniest gift from him.
For some reason, even with the little amount of interest or affection Jack had shown me in my short life, I desperately wanted him to like me. Instead of macaroni art or other cute, misguided acts of love, I decided imitation was the best way to his heart. It started small, but at pushing ten, I had become hell on wheels. I stole anything that wasn’t nailed down, I drew with crayon all over the walls, and I gave the cat a cold bath which was in my mind the highest sin someone like me could commit, but in reality was only a mild annoyance to both my cat and my mom. I even made my mom cry when I broke a special vase she’d inherited from her grandmother when I was using a slingshot in the house like I wasn’t supposed to.
That one I felt a little bad about after the fact. But everything else was quite literally child’s play, and to say I was a brat at that age would’ve been an understatement. In the end, all of it amounted to nothing. Jack didn’t spare me more than a passing glance, even when I covered his bed in hair from one of my Barbies or put a lizard in the bathroom when he was brushing his teeth. Still, if anyone was on the naughty list that year, it was me.
None of it mattered at all when Jack went missing. The Christmas tree was already up by then, and presents from relatives had been stuffed underneath while still leaving room for Santa’s visit. I’d learned some years ago that, naughty or nice, there would be presents waiting for us under the tree all the same. One snowy night, Jack had gone out with his friends again with little fanfare, but his bed was empty in the morning. They say a mother knows, but I wouldn’t understand that feeling until later in my life. We were supposed to go to the Christmas Village at the mall that day, but my mother took the day she’d called off work for me to instead look for my brother. I had to ride around in the back of the car as she scoured the icy streets, and I only got angrier and angrier.
“Can’t we just go to the mall, mama? I want to see Santa!”
My mom had said nothing to that.
“Why are we still out here? Jack isn’t here!”
Still, nothing but silence.
“I don’t want to ride around anymore, mama! I want to go to the mall! Jack is probably doing this on purpose!”
“Stop, Myna,” was all she said in return, cold and quiet.
“He doesn’t even like us, mama! He’s doing this to ruin my day because he’s the worst brother ever! I hope he stays gone!”
I still cringe when I think about saying those words. The car screeched to a halt in the middle of the road, and if anyone had been behind us, they would’ve plowed through the back and that would’ve been it for me.
“You are a rotten little girl,” she said, turning back to me with hurt in her eyes and venom in her voice, “and I hope you get exactly what you deserve for Christmas.”
My tiny heart shattered in my chest, and I broke out into sobs. My mom instantly softened, apologizing over and over and assuring me she hadn’t meant it. I let her climb into the backseat and pull me into a remorseful hug. We went to the mall after that, but my mom was spacey and elsewhere.
It bothers me enormously now, to think about the way I handled my brother’s disappearance, but young children seldom process things the way they should. My choice had been to ignore it.
After a day had gone by, my mom had called the police. By day three, she’d spent all her waking hours searching for him and helping the search however she could. By day five, all of the Christmas decorations were coming down. She said she didn’t want to celebrate without him, and my dad wasn’t around enough to argue with her. Everything was gone except the tree, and I couldn’t have been more angry at her.
She tried to take down the last little shred of holiday joy I had the night before Christmas Eve. I caught her with a wine bottle in one hand and trying to tug the string lights from the branches and sending ornaments skittering all over the floor with the other.
“What are you doing?!” I yelled at her.
“Christmas is canceled this year,” she slurred at me. I don’t blame her for getting as drunk as she did now, but back then, I fumed.
“No it’s not! I want Christmas! I don’t care about Jack! He’s not even here! If he cared, he would be here! He probably ran away!”
My mom swung around to look at me, eyes full of rage and despair.
“Don’t you fucking talk to me like that! He’s your brother! He’s your goddamn brother!”
My mom never swore at me like that. I cowered back just a little, but I matched her volume and stomped my foot down hard.
“He’s not my brother! Brothers are nice to their little sisters! He’s never been my brother!”
My mom dropped to her knees and wept.
“My boy,” was all she would say, “my boy has left me.”
I just stared at her, tears forming in my own eyes as I looked back up to the tree. Then I started picking up the ornaments and putting them back on without saying anything. I stayed there with her a while, at least until her drunken sobbing had stopped.
She stumbled to the couch, and I laid a blanket over her. Then I went and poured a glass of milk and sat on the floor beside her, drinking it in silence. The half-hung Christmas lights blinked on and off festively despite my mother’s efforts, and I knew the argument was over. The tree would still be there in the morning, even if Jack wasn’t.
We did our best to be cheerful on Christmas Eve. My dad was there for all of about two hours until he was shipping off to his third job. My mom made cocoa and put on one of the American Dad Christmas specials. Every other day of the year, she was careful about what I watched, like any mom is with their child. But this was our special tradition. I fell asleep with my head in her lap on the couch, chocolate dried all over the edges of my mouth, and cookie crumbs on my pajamas.
There’s something special about waking up in your own bed as a kid when you know you didn’t fall asleep there. There are few greater feelings than knowing you’re loved enough for someone to carry you across the house and to your room, making sure you’re safe and comfortable.
Snowflakes gently fell outside my window, and I could hear the TV droning quietly in my mom’s room down the hall. I pulled the comforter off my bed, wrapped it around my shoulders like a cape, and tiptoed to my door.
After a minute or so of listening out for Santa Claus, I went to my mom. Gently, I pulled the wine bottle from her hand and set it on the nightstand. Then I pulled the covers over her. I left the TV on, turning it to the holiday music channel, because I knew the noise helped her sleep.
I knew I should go back to bed, but curiosity won out. I had to see if Santa had come. As I crept down the stairs and into the doorway of the living room, my eyes met with the sight of glossy, glittering wrapping paper adorned with big golden bows. Christmas hadn’t been canceled that year. Santa still made it to my house. Under the tree was absolutely stuffed, and I barely resisted the urge to run across the room and tear into each gilded delight.
I’d taken a few steps forward without realizing when I heard something rattling around in the kitchen. The comforter around my shoulders slipped from my hands and pooled around my feet. My Rainbow Dash pajamas might as well have been made of ice. Back down the hall, a melodic voice on the TV asked do you hear what I hear?
My dad wouldn’t be home until late afternoon the next day. My mother was still out cold. I thought it might be my brother, but I couldn’t work up the nerve to call out for him. I knew deep down that something was very wrong. Then I heard the thunderous footfalls, and my suspicions were confirmed. Tens of hundreds of grotesque monsters ran through my imaginative young mind.
None of them matched up to the creature that slowly walked into the living room, blood drenching its snout. The ceiling in our living room was high and vaulted, just like my grandma had it designed long before we inherited the house, and the creature had a massive set of twisting horns that gouged into the plaster. Coarse black hair covered it from head to hoof, smelling like ice, salt, dirt, and iron. Large eyes with square pupils centered on me, glowing red with malice. The burlap sack on its back writhed as if something inside was in great pain. A whip-like tail lashed out at the air behind him.
I wanted to cry out for my mom, but like I was in a nightmare, all that came out was a dry whisper that definitely wasn’t waking anyone up. The gigantic goat man took a slow step toward me, and my legs finally unfroze. I made it to the doorway before my knees couldn’t support my terrified weight from how much they were shaking, and I crumpled to the floor. Then I was being lifted from the floor, held by the collar of my pajamas, eye-level with what I finally recognized as the Christmas beast I’d seen on television only a few hours ago. It was Krampus, real and in the flesh. He looked a lot different than I’d imagined, and it scared me more than I’d ever been in my entire life.
He opened his big goat mouth, and it was full of yellow teeth. They were flat but sharp, like the blade of a guillotine. His nostrils flared out as he breathed, and the stench made me want to puke. He held me tight with what I thought were hooves, but instead were large black fists, slicked down with bloody, matted hair.
A low, guttural goat noise rose from his throat, but that’s not all I heard. In the back of my mind, a heavy and scratchy voice with a strange accent, asked me if I wanted to fatten up his Christmas stew. I managed a scream at last, but my mom was a heavy sleeper when she was sober. There was no way she’d stir after almost an entire bottle of wine.
Krampus brought me closer to his face, and in an act of courage I didn’t know I had, I swung my little legs and kicked him right in the snout. He grunted, and his grip on me loosened. I wriggled free and fell to the ground, feeling a painful tug in my wrist when I hit the floor. My legs were more stable this time, and so I got up and ran upstairs to my bedroom. As I could hear Krampus stomping after me, I stuffed myself in the tiny space underneath my bed.
He was going to kill me. There was no other outcome I could think of. He was going to splatter me all over the Christmas tree like so much fake snow. I was going to get stuffed in a pot and have an apple shoved into my mouth like a roasting pig. I’d get thrown into his bag and never see the sunlight or my mom or my dad or even Jack ever again.
Come back, little girl! Surely you wouldn’t mind just one little bite!
I put my hands over my eyes as I heard the door to my bedroom creak open. Whiskers, who’d been sleeping on my bed, yowled and hissed. Then she suddenly went quiet. Tears welled up in my eyes as I thought of how he probably snapped her up as an appetizer.
The silence stayed, dragging on for what felt like years. The wooden floor underneath where I’d curled into the fetal position chilled me to the bone. I wondered where Jack was at that moment. I just couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t be here for Christmas; I couldn’t forgive him for making my mom so sad. But despite all that, I wished so badly that he’d come back.
Just when I started to think that maybe Krampus had gone away after all, my pink bed skirt slowly lifted, and I was met with those shiny crimson eyes. He flashed his teeth at me in what I assumed was the best grin a goat face could make, and with a dry squeal, his raspy voice in the back of my mind went boo!
He licked his teeth with a long black tongue, and I let out a cry. When he reached for me, I scrambled from under the bed and leapt across it. I’d barely missed being disemboweled by one of his gnarled horns as he rose from the ground. I didn’t think, I just ran. I had to get away.
Behind me, he was still growling threats about all the awful things he was going to do to me.
What will I make you into, little girl? Maybe a nice mince pie. Or maybe I’ll roast you over an open fire. I’m sure you’d love a nice toasty stay in the oven for a few hours! You’d just fall off the bone, wouldn’t you?
When I made it to the stairs, I lost my balance halfway down. They were steep and made of old wood, and I’d always been afraid one day I’d slip and fall. All I could do when I hit the bottom was lay on the floor and cry out for my mom and dad. I’d sprained my ankle, made the one in my wrist worse, and covered myself in bruises. The tramping of hooves still followed after me, and I wished he would just catch me and get it over with.
I’ll catch you eventually, little girl! Nothing can save you now!
But then, it all stopped suddenly. I looked around through bleary eyes, trying to figure out why. That was when I saw him.
He was standing in front of the tree, staring down at all the presents and not moving a muscle. His back was to me, but I didn’t care. He was here. My brother was here, and he would save me. He would wake my mom and they’d call the police and Krampus would get tased in the face!
“Jack! Jack, help me! Please! It’s Krampus, he wants to eat me! He’s going to eat me!”
Jack said nothing, only stood there. Until he began to twitch. His head jerked down into his shoulder like a wind-up toy with a broken spring. All of a sudden, I wasn’t thinking about anything else. He didn’t look hurt, but the spasm of his neck had to be painful.
“Jack? Jack, are you alright?” I said, barely above a whisper.
With a loud, stomach-turning crack, Jack’s neck snapped all the way around. His eyes bulged out from their sockets like they were in a juice press, and his jaw crunched as it fell low to his chest. I couldn’t scream; all I could do was let my own mouth fall open.
My brother began to gag and croak, the noises someone would make if they were choking on their own vomit. I watched on in traumatized silence as his skin peeled off his face and his teeth began to fall from his exposed cheekbones and jaw. Black sludge poured from his mouth, and I pushed myself up onto my elbows, inching away and back toward the stairs.
His head snapped back around the right way and he turned on a dime, charging toward me. The fear, confusion, and despair mixed into one, tearing from my chest in a howl as he launched on top of me, elongating nails scratching at my face. I was drenched in whatever was oozing out of his mouth, and it felt like the cornstarch monster we’d made in class only two months ago.
The thing that wasn’t my brother anymore reared its half-flayed head back and screeched. What skin was left on his face was turning swollen and blue-green.
“I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die!”
It was all I could say through frantic gasps for air as it grabbed my throat and began to squeeze. My bladder let go as my vision began to blacken. Then there was a loud crunch, and a shining black hoof, covered with globby blood, was inches from my face. It had slammed straight through the monstrosity’s head.
A minute passed. Nobody moved. Air returned to my lungs as I heaved and wept. Then, Krampus shook the corpse of my imposter brother off his hoof like he’d stepped in mud. The ick leaking from its head splattered across my mom’s rug. In the moment, all I could think was that was my grandma’s rug and my mom was going to be so sad.
Hey, kid. Calm down. It’s alright, you don’t need to cry like that.
The black stuff was drying on me, and it smelled like gasoline and rotten eggs. I covered my eyes with my hands. They couldn’t stop shaking from the shock.
“No! No no no no no! It’s not alright! My brother is a monster and you’re going to kill me and eat me now! My mom is going to be all alone on Christmas!”
There was a pause.
Okay, you’re right. It’s not alright. But listen, kid, I’ll level with you.
Krampus crouched down to my level and continued to speak in my mind through snorts and huffs. There was no malice in his eyes anymore, just confusion and something that was almost worry. Something in his tone calmed me just a bit.
I wiped at my eyes and Krampus lifted me off the ground again easily with one hand, but this time he sat me down gently on the couch.
I wasn’t going to actually make you my Christmas dinner or anything like that. I just wanted to scare you straight. You’re not like some of the little brats I’ll be visiting tonight. You’re not evil. But that… that thing. What was that?
I hiccuped a little as I tried to stop crying. My still-developing brain was already working double time to fuzz over the nightmare that I’d just gone through, dampening the memory of my brother’s eyeballs bursting all over my face.
“I… I don’t know! How would I know?! It looked like my brother but it wasn’t! It wasn’t him!”
Krampus looked at the mangled corpse he’d kicked across the room, then back at me. He looked just as puzzled as I felt, furry eyebrows raised in surprise in a way that might’ve made me laugh if the circumstances were different.
Of course you don’t. Oh, boy. Alright. Your brother was on my list anyway. I think it’s best we just call this one done. Here’s what we’re going to do, okay? I’m going to go, and you’re going to wake up safe in your bed in the morning like none of this ever happened. Be good from now on, kid. If you’ve got to be someone else to find favor with a person, even if they’re your family, you shouldn’t be looking for it.
“Thank… Thank you for saving me,” I said, voice still trembling a little.
Don’t mention it. I don’t want to see you next year.
I only nodded. Nothing sounded better than being in bed asleep. My sniffles died down and my eyelids began to get heavy.
Merry Christmas, kid. Man, this job gets weirder every year.
True to his word, my eyes slid closed, and I woke up the next morning snug in my bed. My bumps and bruises were all gone and my pajamas were clean and dry. My neck felt a little tender from where I’d nearly been strangled, but that was it.
I raced into my mother’s room, but not for any of the reasons I should have. I hadn’t noticed the absence of the wine bottle then; I was too focused on rooting my way under the covers and into her arms. To my surprise, she woke up almost instantly, with no sign of the usual hangover.
“Myna? Myna, what’s wrong?”
When she saw my tears, she wrapped me in her arms and pulled me into the bed with her.
“I… something bad happened last night, Mommy.”
She stroked back my messy hair and kissed my forehead.
“It was probably just another nightmare, my birdie. Why don’t we get up and open your gifts now?”
She was acting unusually upbeat for what had happened the past few weeks, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. I just sank back into her arms and said the words no young child should ever feel the need to say on Christmas morning.
“Can we stay in bed for a little while longer? I don’t want to go downstairs yet.”
My mom obliged, and we watched The Year Without A Santa Claus in bed together. I could almost forget about the things I’d seen the night before, being there with her.
Eventually though, she carried me downstairs and sat me in front of the tree. To my surprise, my dad was home and had started on a late Christmas breakfast. The smell of cinnamon and powdered sugar and frying bacon filled my nostrils, washing out the smells of blood and ice from the night before.
Waiting by the Christmas tree was Whiskers, uneaten and swishing her tail in annoyance. Around her neck was tied a big red Christmas bow, and I could only assume that she’d been given it the night before by my goat visitor. Looking through the presents, I found that there weren’t as many. The ones that were left were wrapped in pastel colors with shiny pink ribbons.
“There were more presents here,” I said, looking back at her.
My mom took what probably sounded like an ungrateful daughter in stride.
“Some of your gifts won’t be here until after Christmas, remember sweetie? Sometimes Santa’s elves can’t make everything in time.”
That wasn’t the issue. There were more than enough gifts, but they were only for me.
“What about Jack? Don’t you have any for him?”
My mom looked puzzled for a moment, but then she gave me a warm smile.
“Is that one of your little boyfriends from school? Oh, birdie, I’m sure he’s just as busy as we are on Christmas. But we can have a playdate next week, before school starts again. Does that sound good?”
I didn’t know how to tell her that not only was that the furthest thing from the case, but I was talking about my brother! Her son!
“Mom, where is Jack? He should be here.”
My mom looked more concerned this time, standing up from the couch and walking over with her coffee.
“Myna, we don’t know any Jack that should be here. The only Jack that could be is Uncle Jack, but he’s in Poland visiting with your aunt’s family. Are you feeling alright?”
I thought about running back upstairs to try and find proof of the brother I knew I had, but I already was sure I’d only find an empty room, maybe filled with storage boxes. Or maybe there would only be a blank wall where his door should’ve been.
Instead, I told my mom I was fine and did my best to put on a happy face as I opened my gifts.
“Sheila,” my dad called from the kitchen, “did you take one of the steaks I had for dinner tonight?”
My mom laughed and wrapped her robe tighter around herself as she walked into the kitchen doorway. There was something light in her step that hadn’t been there before.
“I didn’t. Maybe Santa Claus took it,” she said with a conspiratorial smile.
Santa hadn’t taken the steak, but I had a pretty good idea as to who did. He’d saved my life, and the steak was a small price to pay. I vowed to have another one waiting for him next Christmas Eve.
If Jack had ever shown me any real love in his life, it would’ve been much harder to get over his absence. But slowly, the memory of him became a dull ache I felt only once in a while. I’d barely known him, and he’d given me so little to miss.
My mom and dad seemed happier without him around. My dad only worked two jobs after that instead of pushing four, and I saw him more often. As guilty as it made me feel to say it, life seemed better without him.
On the cold December evenings leading up to Christmas, I always find myself thinking about what happened that night. Whenever I think about that thing twitching by the Christmas tree, lunging at me with a mangled face and clawing at me with cracking nails, I hug my wife and daughter closer. I can only hope that whatever Krampus did to erase Jack from existence put him out of whatever misery he’d surely been in, wherever my real brother had gone to.
So, every Christmas Eve, I leave out my gift for him. Then I spend the rest of my night hoping that the thing that wore my brother’s face won’t come back for me after all this time. I don’t know what it was, and I don’t want to ever find out. I just hope that if the worst does happen again, another hoof will be there to save me.
I’m not afraid of Krampus, because I know that somewhere out there are far worse things to be scared of.