Everyone who lives or has lived in the small town of Sparings knows about the events of the early years of the 2000s. Nobody talks about it, as not to bring back the trauma for those who were directly involved, but everyone knows.
Everyone in Sparings knows about Santa Claus.
No, not the red-cheeked, round, jolly man from the movies and stories. Not that Santa Claus. The Santa Claus who brutally murdered six children, and attempted to murder a seventh.
The first year, it was December 25, 2002. A child was discovered missing the morning of Christmas, with a small gift-wrapped box on his bed. Inside, the police found a small, simple Christmas Card that read, “Santa Claus is coming to town,” with nothing else written in it.
At first, no one really made a big deal about it. It was just some kid who had run away and left a strange note.
Then, it happened again.
2003, Christmas Day. Another child goes missing, with the same package and same note on their bed in the morning.
This is when people began to get worried, and the search got serious.
Sparings isn’t a large town. It has one main road that goes into and out of town, and is surrounded by a forest. Any of the children could be anywhere in the huge mass of trees, so obviously, that was where the search was mainly focused.
But absolutely nothing showed up. There was no sign of them.
When Christmas came around the next year, many children slept with their parents. Many people were scared that their child would be next.
That year, 2004, not one, but two children vanished. People panicked, and the search efforts tripled. People from nearby towns came over just to help. But it didn’t matter. No one found them. Nobody found any sign of any of the children.
This went on for two more years. Each year, at Christmas, a child would vanish without a trace, a small package with a store-bought card inside sitting on their bed. People would search for a few months, before realizing that they wouldn’t find anything.
Police began patrolling the streets during the holiday season in Sparings. They would watch the houses, just to make sure some psychopath wasn’t breaking into a child’s room. But they didn’t help. Every year, someone disappeared just the same.
Then came Christmas of 2007. I was lying in my bed, staring up at the ceiling, when I heard something from outside my room.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Footsteps. Getting closer and closer. I began to panic, realizing what was happening.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
In my fear and panic, I completely froze. I didn’t know what to do. I was only 10 at the time. I had no idea what I was supposed to do in this situation. The kids at my school had already been spreading rumors about what this guy actually was. A ghost. A demon. A psychopath. The latter was what everyone believed.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The footsteps were right outside my door. My heart was pounding in my chest so hard I felt as if it would burst out.
Slowly, ever so slowly, my bedroom door creaked open.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
A shadow crossed over the dim light coming from the hall as the man stepped into my room.
Then, in one swift motion, the man took two steps toward me and covered my mouth with a cloth. After a second, everything went completely dark and completely silent.
I woke up in almost complete darkness. There was a stench all around me, a stench that I would only later realize was the smell of death and decay. A single window across the room from me let a few rays of dim moonlight shine through the room. The small amount of light glistened off of meat hooks attached to the ceiling, from which hung shapes which I could barely make out the edges of.
My arms and legs were tied together, but I managed to use a nearby crate to stand up. My eyes were beginning to adjust to the dark, allowing me to make out a metal door nearby, with a small wired window at the top.
I sat there, in the dark, for what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, with no sound other than my own heavy breathing. Eventually, I managed to tear the ropes holding me using the edges of the wooden crate.
Then, there was a soft orange glow from the window on the metal door as a light behind it turned on. There was the soft click as a lock opened, and a metallic creaking and scraping sound as the door opened. A man’s shadow, which wore a Santa hat, spread across the room as the light allowed me to see the true horror of the room I was in.
All around me were chunks of meat. But not animal meat. I recognized a head sitting on the floor only a few feet away from where I had been standing for God knows how long. It was Susan Julrin, one of the girls who had gone missing. There was a pool of dried blood around the dismembered head, and I immediately had to hold back the urge to throw up.
The man, wearing a Santa hat and a red suit, walked into the room and looked around. I held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t see me.
But then I had an idea. The door was still open. The crate that I was behind was only a few feet from the door. The man was currently facing away from both me and the door.
I sprinted for the door, without thinking. I was out and into the open before the man turned and yelled at me. I didn’t hear what he said, though, because my heart was still beating so loud it drowned out everything but my breathing.
I ran and ran through the woods, my legs burning, but I kept running. As the sun was beginning to rise over the trees, I reached the main road which I recognized as the road that leads in and out of Sparings.
Around noon, I made it back to my house. I cried and cried the entire way back, and didn’t stop crying until my tear ducts were empty. Through my sobs, I managed to get out what had happened. My dad called the police while my mom comforted and hugged me.
When the police arrived, I recounted my story again, this time slightly more calm. They left to where I said I thought the building was.
The next day, the news had a story about it. My mom didn’t let me see at the time, but I have recently searched up the article and read it.
Apparently, the building was an abandoned butcher’s shop. Inside were the mutilated corpses of every single child who had disappeared, some so rotten they could only be identified through their teeth. But that wasn’t the worst part. In addition to that, all of the bodies had evidence of being eaten. Bite marks, flesh missing.
The worst part of the whole thing was that after I ran, the man must have left. There was no sign of him anywhere near the building. That’s what scares me most now. He could be anybody. Anybody. No one knew who he was, maybe no one will ever know. He could be at your mall, just waiting, biding his time. You might know him. You might be friends with a cannibalistic psychopath. There’s no way to know.
Unless you just wait until Christmas day. Then you’ll know.
Just like I knew all those years ago.