I don’t have time to write this, but this is all I’ve got.
I’m a murderer.
But I’m just a kid. I didn’t want to kill, I was forced.
The crate of Coke just sitting there in a patch of grass was definitely a trap.
But there was no way I was ignoring it.
Sitting cross-legged in dirt, my classmate’s blood running down my face, I gulped down diet soda until it was frothing in the back of my nose and I was gleefully choking on it, burping and giggling, revelling in the ice cold flush of relief drowning my sandpaper throat.
I didn’t expect soda.
Town’s people were allowed to send pretty much anything to contestants. Whether that was food or stuffed toys to keep up morale. I had a plastic duck in my backpack from an anonymous donor who was definitely my neighbor. I wasn’t sure why she stayed anonymous.
I guess if she gave her name, she would be actively participating in watching me kill to survive. My neighbor always said she was against The Event, refusing to look me in the eye when I was dragged into an awaiting van, my hands tied behind my back. Still though, it was nice of her to send me a rubber duck.
I’d had a lot of gifts over the last three days, but soda was a new one.
Bottled water was a given, of course.
I’d seen a guy perched in a tree, happily sipping a White Claw before getting his brains blown out by Alyssa Riley, who was surprisingly (and scarily) good with a sniper.
I could ask questions until I was blue in the face.
The who, what, why, and how a crate of eight perfectly plastic wrapped diet Coke’s were sitting in front of me.
Except I was tired, hungry, and would commit murder for a fresh can of soda.
Jumping into action,I crawled over to them, tearing into the packaging like a rabid animal. The soda felt perfect in my hands. I didn’t think about my fingers caked with fleshy pink, my skin that would never be clean again.
I think I stopped coherently thinking after my third or fourth kill. Terror had taken a whole other level, throwing my body into fight or flight. Which meant, despite being fully aware of human brains splattered all over me, the still human part of me enjoyed my drink. I was on my third can, half aware of the barrier standing several yards away from me. I could sense their faces pressed against it, eager eyes awaiting the next kill. In my training, I was told to never look at the barrier that sealed us from the outside.
We were like zoo animals, a yearly festive attraction for all to see.
If we saw our faces, what we had been reduced to, animals covered in our friends blood and bone, we would go fucking mad.
My father, the winner of the 1996 event, had allegedly told me the exact same thing, holding me in his arms, and then hanging himself an hour after I was born. Dad displayed himself inside an empty waiting room for all to see, hanging from the ceiling fan in tangles of bandages resembling an angel. It was a spectacle people had painted and written about in town journals; a previous winner hanging himself minutes after the birth of his son.
Some people called him a coward while others believed my father had been reborn on the battleground as Jesus Christ himself. He was the reason why townspeople were convinced no matter what we did, and how many children our town slaughtered each year, spilling blood in the name of a sacred animal, Santa Clause would never be satisfied.
Christmas Eve, 1978, five senior kids who would quickly become infamous for plunging our town into despair, kidnapped Blitzen, Santa’s reindeer, while Santa was delivering gifts.
In their minds, they thought a reindeer held power and immortality. So, they dragged it from the sleigh sitting on top of the high school, tortured, killed, and then dismembered it, before setting the carcass alight in the woods nearby.
Unsurprisingly, the kids were not granted magical powers or immortality.
Santa was quiet at first, and left our town without a word. Immediately, our mayor tried to cover up the murder, disposing of Blitzen’s remains and holding a town meeting urging people to never speak the reindeer’s name again.
They thought they got away with it.
A whole year passed, and Christmas came once again, our town filled with festive lights and decoration. On Christmas day, however, there were no presents in stockings. Instead, half of the senior class were found skinned of their flesh, still in their beds, with Blitzen’s murderers being reduced to reddish pulp staining their sheets.
Parents killed themselves over what was left of their children.
Grammy described it as a massacre so bad they knocked down the high school, both ashamed of those five students, and horrified by the senior bloodbath of 1979. Santa sent a very clear message the following year. To make up for their children’s sins, every child would spill blood in Blitzen’s name. If they refused, he would start picking off citizens himself. In the early 80’s, I don’t think my town believed it.
So, they went on as normal and attempted to hold both a holiday and a day of mourning for the dead.
Which was quickly interrupted by demonic elf-like creatures that ripped apart half of the mourners, parents and children alike.
The more our town resisted, Santa tightened his iron fist.
Babies were born with contorted bodies and heads, choking up tinsel. The town was overridden with festering bugs on every sidewalk, the lake turning blood red, and a plague hitting the preschool.
Santa wasn’t fucking around.
Which meant Livingswood had to find a way to spill the blood of several dozen children a year, to save themselves.
Mom told me Santa himself was in talks with the mayor, and both had come to a sort of agreement. First, was that every citizen born after 1980 would not be allowed to leave town, trapped inside his wrath. Every year on December 23rd, half of the senior class would take part in a three day kill or be killed style event, with the winner the last one standing– and gifted with a choice.
Ring the bell at the stroke of midnight on Christmas day, and grant Livingswood another year of mercy, or fail to ring it, and plunge the town into darkness, allowing Santa and his little helpers to rip the town and its civilians apart.
The town knew what he was capable of, and they had no choice but to agree to these terms. Now, it’s not like kids didn’t protest and refuse to take part.
Parents with power attempted to take control and the spotlight away from their own kids. Initially, Livingswood attempted to play the system.
The mayor’s children were automatically excluded on the grounds of them being too important, and parents and teachers were… influenced to pick students from either broken backgrounds or with poor test scores. Santa immediately slaughtered three girls at random, right in front of their parents.
Never there in person, but his methods were horrific, described as watching an invisible mouth, a gnawing tumour, tearing the body apart from the inside.
His argument was that five children from completely different backgrounds killed Blitzen.
Three of them were rich kids with serious cash, while two had been either living in government housing or the trailer park.
Every student was guilty in his eyes.
Santa didn’t see individuals. He just saw a town full of poisoned children, psychotic murderers who were to be punished each year to make up for the town’s sins.
So, participants were chosen by Santa himself. The kids eligible for the event would put out a stocking on December 1st. White candy canes were safe, while red ones marked them for death. When I was eight years old, I had a screaming fit over the song, Santa Clause is coming to town.
The town was not subtle in training us from preschool that Santa was not a good person.
I already knew.
Santa Clause was the reason for my Mom’s excessive drinking, and the cult dedicated to my dead father being the next reincarnation of Jesus…or something like that. Santa Clause had murdered my father. He didn’t bring gifts for us on Christmas day. Santa trapped the high schooler’s behind a magical barrier halfway across town, and forced them to kill each other.
When I was ten, training began. First, we were told the story of Blitzen’s death, and then the town mayor with a strained smile and trembling voice stood in front of us, and told us that only the lucky ones would be chosen to fight for our town. We were taught what our choice would be once victorious. Ring the bell, and save the town. There was even a song made out of those words, purposely catchy to stick into our heads.
Ring the bell, save the town!
La, la, la, la!
When Mom wasn’t black out drunk on the couch, she fought to make sure my candy cane was never red. And to her credit, Mom almost protected me.
She argued that our family had already fought for the town, granting Livingswood years of mercy they did not deserve. However, according to the mayor, Dad being victorious in 1996 was not a good enough reason to spare me.
November 30th, I burned the stupid fucking stocking before I went to bed.
I think Santa considered me and the other kids who had parents that were previous winners as legacies. So, it’s not like I was surprised when I awoke to find the stocking on the foot of my bed, despite me burning it to dust and pouring the dust down the drain.
One single red candy cane dropped out, and I burst into hysterical laughter that quickly turned to sobs heaving my chest. I tried to hide it, eating it, only for the candy to creep back up my throat, choking my tongue and slicing my mouth open when it slipped from my bloody lips, fully whole. I tried to hide it from Mom, but even barely sober and conscious, she held out her hand.
“Candy cane, plearseeee.”
I didn’t look up from my cereal. “It’s white,” I lied, pasting on my best smile.
Mom broke out into a grin that was dare I think, maybe sober, and saluted me with her glass of orange juice. “My baby is a winner,” her slur was clearing up slightly. Mom reached across the table and grabbed my face, cradling my cheeks. I had to swallow sour barf. Her smile was far too wide, tears slipping down her cheeks. She tightened her grip, like clinging on might save me.
“Just like your father,” she spluttered through hiccups.
Mom knew.
I could see a red candy cane sticking from her pocket when she pulled away.
I almost choked on my coffee. Santa was fucking cruel. He didn’t just present me my fate, the bastard made sure my mother knew of my inevitable death at the mercy of my classmates too. Mom didn’t say anything. She just made me my favourite pancakes and drowned them in chocolate syrup.
I had mandatory training for the whole class that day.
If we missed one session, we were automatically entered into The Event, and our family executed. So, I hugged her with a growing lump in my throat, and headed to school. When I returned, I knew exactly what I would find.
Unlike my father, who wanted his body to be found and remembered, my mother had left me with a single shot to the head. Mom didn’t have people crowded around her like dad. She died alone in our pitch dark living room, curled up, lying in a stemming pool of red. When I dropped to my knees by her side, her blood was freezing cold, thickening into a paste and drying into her favourite sheepskin rug.
She took her own life minutes after I left for class.
Mom’s death meant nothing to anyone but me, and the weird cult made up in my father’s name. Neither the cops nor the coroner took her body. They were too busy hunting down chosen kids trying to escape town– and their fate.
I wrapped Mom in sheets and left her on her bed.
Dad’s cult broke into our house on the eve of the 23rd December, throwing themselves on the ground in front of me, their faces cast in candlelight.
They were… bowing.
To them, I was my father’s legacy who would do the town a favour.
In their fucked up minds, they believed my father’s death was symbolic, that he hung himself to represent the town giving in to Santa’s will. I’m pretty sure it was depression and trauma, PTSD that kept him up all night screaming, that killed him. But you can’t argue with crazy.
They crashed through my door, bearing festive masks, decorated in tinsel and colourful lights. The ring leader was definitely a teenager. Somehow, these crazies had managed to brainwash scared kids in my class into joining them and, if they were chosen, going against rules, failing to ring the bell and plunging our town into the dark.
The cult wanted Mom to use it as a so-called beacon for the opening ceremony.
I told them to go fuck themselves. Thirteen years of mental and physical training, I no longer felt emotion the way humans are supposed to. Core memories are supposed to begin around the age of preschool, where the brain starts to become self aware.
Kids are taught basic languages and numbers. We were taught how to fight.
As littles, we were exposed to explicit gore and murder, bloodbaths both on screen and in person. It was supposed to desensitize us.
But I think it just made fifty psychopaths torn of empathy and emotion.
After all, you’ll never be truly okay after being splashed in the face with blood at a young age.
I don’t think I’ll ever get it out of my head, even years later. It was a lesson teaching us how to properly sever the veins in the throat muscles.
So our victims couldn’t scream, of course.
I remember the slick blade of the knife slicing into flesh.
I screamed the first time warm wet redness spattered my cheeks.
The second, third, and fourth times, I just stared.
I was nine when I killed my first person, a single gunshot to their head. After that, I stopped truly feeling anything at all.
I didn’t feel regret when I leapt onto the cult leader, already knowing exactly how to squeeze the breath from his lungs. This kid had my exact training, but he wasn’t using it. I think he wanted me to kill him. Ripping off his Santa mask like a Scooby Doo cartoon, the guy’s expression was riddled with insanity.
“Do it,” he mouthed, rotten teeth stretching into a grin.
Daniel Oliver was like me.
His Mom was the winner of the 1994 event. She had Daniel, and twin girls, killing the twins and then herself, leaving Daniel and his father behind.
I wasn’t surprised he bought the bullshit that his parents did the right thing, and were in fact symbols of our dying town. I didn’t choke him.
Wrestling the kitchen knife from his struggling hands, I plunged the blade into his eye so I didn’t have to look at him, at what he was trying to tell me.
“Poisoned,” Daniel giggled, blood frothing between his lips. His laughter was hysterical when he got to his feet, one hand over his bleeding socket.
I guessed the rumour was true that kids our age didn’t feel proper pain.
“We’re poisoned,” he blindly reached out to me, blinking through intense red running in rivulets down his face. “But you know what to do, don’t you?” narrowing his good eye, the boy’s lip curled. “You’re Ben Ashcroft’s son. You can do what’s right.”
I cocked my head, curious. “And what is right, exactly?”
His smile widened. “You were chosen.”
I nodded, a sour paste in my throat.
His manic giggle sent shivers down my spine. “Then you know what to do. Just like your father. We sinned as a town. We killed a sacred beast, and there’s no running away. We will keep dying, offering our children to darkness and despair that is endless! That will never stop! They will keep dying, and the survivors will be creating future murderers and corpses for a town that does not deserve a second chance.”
Daniel’s expression twitched, and for the fraction of a moment I swear I saw coherence. He wasn’t crazy. He was upset. It was enough to send me stumbling back, phantom bugs choking filling my mouth. “Unless…” He caught himself, exhaling a breath. “You end it.”.
I opened my mouth to speak, before he cut me off.
“My Mom tried to tell us,” he said, his voice breaking. “Mom killed herself and my sisters because… because we are all poisoned, Cass.” His eyes were tragic, suddenly, lips wobbling. “This town and its people are tainted and wrong,” Daniel offered me a weak smile. “You need to put all of us out of our misery.”
I called him a nutjob, shoving the asshole out the door.
Two days later, thirteen of my classmate’s were dead. I was trapped behind a magical barrier standing between me and survival, picking pieces of bone like cat’s teeth clinging to my sweater. I was wrong about the no longer feeling empathy and emotion part. I was a stupid kid and thought I wouldn’t feel when I killed.
I was sorely mistaken.
Maybe something was in the air, Santa’s mind control cursing us with emotions, or maybe I was actually just breaking apart inside.
Daniel was right, and I had made my decision after losing my…. friends.
Daniel was right.
Dad was right.
We were all dead people walking.
I didn’t mean to join a group, three kids I would never usually hang around with. After being knelt in shit for hours listening to kids being slaughtered, I needed human interaction, even if it was fellow contestants capable of one-shotting me in one single swoop.
Kenji, Clee, and Alex.
In training, we were told to stay independent and avoid forming groups and attachments unless it was beneficial to us, or a luring tactic.
I found them by accident.
Clee stepped on a branch and squeaked, revealing her position.
She was pretty fucking obvious, bright red curls glinting in afternoon sunlight.
Not to mention she was standing there smiling at a butterfly.
My only weapon was a knife, and she had a 9mm magnum.
Clee had the advantage, so I thought for sure she’d shoot me in the face and then skip away. She almost did, until two figures were bounding from the trees and stopping her. Kenji was their leader, a sharp faced kid with a shaved head and too-friendly smile, and Alex, a brunette with a permanent scowl.
Kenji introduced their little group as “The Pacifist’s”.
Kenji stuck his gun in my forehead with a playful smile. “Join us, or die.”
I slipped my fingers into my jeans, easily inching around the handle of my knife. “Do you know what a pacifist is?”
“Maybe!” was all he responded, with a laugh.
We had all been groomed to be killers since birth, so I knew Kenji would kill me in a heartbeat—if he wanted to. His hands were wrapped expertly around the butt of the gun. His eyes were exactly what I expected. Insanity, mixed with splintered emotion. I watched his finger dance across the trigger. “Do you like Mac N’ cheese?”
His question took me slightly off guard.
I lowered my hand slightly, my fingers loosening around the knife I’d been ready to plunge into the side of his head.
“What?”
“Mac N’ Cheese,” he shrugged. “Someone in town sent me a giant steaming pot of pasta and cheese, and we don’t know what to do with it.” Kenji nodded at my knife, his lip quirking. “Soo, you can either kill us, or come eat some yummy pasta.” I jumped when the gun slipped from his fingers.
He was unarmed, and I could easily sever a vein with him that close.
“After all,” Kenji’s gaze followed my knife. “It’s Christmas. Why don’t we celebrate?”
His words twisted my gut. I had never celebrated Christmas. I knew what the rest of the world did, watching movies and TV shows. Normal people’s stockings weren’t filled with candy canes marking them for death. In fact, it was just candy.
Normal people strung lights in trees and even brought in trees from the outside and decorated them.
It was called a Christmas tree.
Livingswood, however, was terrified of acknowledging the holiday.
Alex folded his arms, still scowling. Though there was maybe the slightest quick of a smile trying to curve on his lips. “We’ve got food and lights,” he grumbled. “If you wanna join.”
Clee nodded eagerly behind him. “Yes! We’re having our own holiday meal.”
“Oh, the joys,” Alex rolled his eyes. But his eyes were warm for Clee.
I thought they were joking until they took me back to their little hiding spot, and there it was, a big pot of pasta. The shitty, battery powered Christmas lights blinking in the dirt, where they wouldn’t be detected, shouldn’t have made me cry. The pasta that melted in my mouth when I shoved it into my mouth, should not have relaxed my body. This could easily have been a trap, but it was the most comforting and tastiest trap ever.
I was swallowing down creamy pasta when an explosion went off behind us.
The others didn’t move, only hugging their bowls closer to them.
“Do you guys know any Christmas songs?” Kenji yelled over a guy screaming, begging for mercy.
Followed by his killer’s maniacal laughter.
Alex nodded, squeezing his eyes shut when another sharp cry rattled the night, blood staining the icy wind hitting me in the face. I continued eating pasta. “Yeah. I know one.”
He started to sing, a melody which would forever be stuck in my head.
I never knew how the lyrics went though, because Kenji stood up, pulled out his gun, and shot Clee in the head. I felt something snap inside me, an unearthly darkness twisting my mind.
I felt numb, wrong, like a puppet, still watching.
Alex kept singing the melody, like he knew it was going to happen.
No lyrics, I thought, staring wide eyed at the cavern between Clee’s brows.
Just the melody.
Before his singing stopped, and Clee hit the ground.
Alex was slowly standing up, and reaching for Kenji, who’s expression was flat, eyes vacant and wrong. He was stock still, not even shaking, his fingers perfectly cinched around the butt of his gun. I don’t know what it was.
Maybe Kenji was screwing with us the whole time, and planned to kill us after a last supper type of meal.
But I knew the truth.
He was… poisoned.
Not just by Blitzen’s original killers, but by a town who had fashioned him into a psychopath. I think both of us knew the moment Alex slashed the boy’s throat and gently lowered him to the ground, exactly what we needed to do.
Daniel was right, and my Dad was too.
I don’t think he was Jesus, like his weird cult’s rants.
But I think my birth made him realise I was poisoned too.
And my children would be poisoned.
And my children’s children.
Sudden movement behind me snapped me from my thoughts, and I almost choked on my Coke. Oh, God, not again. So much killing. I didn’t want to do it anymore. But my body worked like a robot, like I was no longer in control. Whipping around, I shot a startled looking Alice Jarret point blank in the head, my own gasp slicing through the night. I dropped to my knees and sobbed. I wasn’t a fucking killer. I REFUSED to be a killer. The crack of the gunshot had definitely revealed my location. But there were only three of us left. Alice’s tactics were clever, using the crate of Coke. I admit, I fell for it. But Alice didn’t know I was armed.
I made sure to let other participants know I had a single knife and nothing else, while keeping Kenji’s gun stuck down my pants.
When Alice dropped into the dirt, the crowd outside the barrier began a countdown.
I could already see them, camera flashes behind the glass. I could imagine how nervous they all were, awaiting the last one standing.
Bugs filled my mouth, unbridled fear forcing me to look away from them.
Go away. I wanted to scream at them.
Who saw my friends deaths as sacrifices
FUCK.
There were 3 contestants left.
Alex.
Ramona.
And me.
11:57.
A clock face was illuminated on the barrier every hour, displaying the time.
December 25th was looming, and so was my choice.
The three of us had already made our decision. I would make it painless and not give them a warning. I could sense the two of them were stalling. Alex was helping himself to diet soda, and Romana was just vibing, stealing shiny things from dead contestants. In the town’s eyes, we were minutes from killing each other and the survivor saving them for another year.
Ring the bell, and grant Livingswood mercy.
The words rattled in my skull.
11:59.
Save the town.
But…
I was covered in Alyssa.
I didn’t want to continue.
Fractured pieces of Kenji’s skull clung to my sweater.
I was so cold. You have no idea how cold it gets in Northern Canada. I was wearing a t-shirt. I could see my breath.
Tired.
I could still hear their screams.
Feel their blood caked all over me.
I could see why Santa chose a traumatised kid to make this choice.
Cruel, but clever.
Who in their right mind would save an already poisoned town?
The seniors before us were hopeful of a better future.
A chance that we could be forgiven.
Bullshit.
Blitzen wasn’t just a reindeer, but a part of Christmas.
We were fucking stupid to think Santa would ever offer us mercy.
Alex and Ramona stood by my side when the chance to ring the bell came and went.
Outside the barrier, the town had erupted into chaos, trying to force themselves into the glass. Their wide, accusing eyes and snarls were the icing on the cake. “Ready?” Alex’s blood slicked hand entangled with mine. It was comfortable, and I was at peace.
Alex and Ramona wanted it to be fast.
Painless.
So, I made it fast.
Painless.
I’m sorry. My breath came out in sharp hisses.
I didn’t give warning, twisting around, slicing Ramona’s throat open and shooting Alex in the perfect place to secure zero pain. The town started screaming at me behind the barrier, urging me to ring the bell. That it wasn’t too late. Their fear made me scared too, but I didn’t show it. Even when they threw things into the barrier. The mayor himself was at the front, his lips twisted into a furious yell, screaming at me to ring the bell. Instead, I gulped down soda. I could see my reflection on the surface of the barrier. I looked like shit.
I could barely see my face, splattered red covering every inch of me, my hair a mop hanging in front of my eyes.
When jingling bells sounded from above, horrified cries erupting behind the barrier, I remember smiling, breaking down in front of Santa’s looming shadow, and a skin prickling oblivion creeping across an already pitch black sky. Tipping my head back, this darkness was impenetrable, swallowing up the sky above our town. His maniacal, bloodthirsty grin and tragic eyes. I dropped to my knees, and raised my Coke to Blitzen. My body told me to run. It told me something worse loomed.
I jumped, dropping the can of soda, when cold, skeletal fingers wrapped around my neck and yanked me back.
I knew who it was, a sharp cry ripping from my lips.
No.
“Thank you,” his voice thundered in my mind, when the first snow of the winter started to fall, lightly grazing my face.
No, not snow.
I blinked, coughing.
Ash.
The ground was white when I was being dragged, kicking and screaming, through startling nothing. I could smell the foul stink of burning flesh, and looked back, only for my head to be violently twisted around. “Get off me,” I said into nothing, my words pulled from my lips. “Get off of me!” But there was nothing to look back on. Several faces were pressed against the barrier, trying to force themselves through, when tiny creatures with melted faces and pointy ears leapt onto them. There was an explosion of red splattering the glass. My body felt weighted and wrong. I turned back, thinking of my dead friends.
They were at peace.
Then what about me?!
Where was my peace?
The shadow tugged harder on the back of my sweater, and I stumbled.
“Come with me.”
I had no choice, staggering into the dark, my own breaths and every thought drowned out by jingling bells.
I wish I could tell you I too died with Livingswood.
But I’m still here writing this, aren’t I?
Currently, we’re in Switzerland. We do a trial run with the sleigh before the real thing. Just to make sure everything is fine, and the reindeers are good. I need help. I need someone to get me away from here. I’ve tried, but he punishes us if we disobey him. I found a phone, and I’m not being monitored.
Anymore.
There is a tracking device in my neck but I don’t think it can tell I’m writing this. Unless it can. In that case, I’m a dead boy walking. Can someone help me? I want my Mom. I want to go home. Jinx, the moody kid who orders me around, is MIA. Poppy is…somewhere. Probably smoking weed. She thinks HE doesn’t know.
But he does.
He’s planning on severing her tongue.
Just like other naughty kids who tried to bear the sins of their town, we are stuck.
As Santa’s little helpers.
But you can help me, right?
It wasn’t even my fault! My town burned, and now I’m a prisoner.
Please.
Help me!