Last month I moved into my new house—not that the house was new, mind you, but it was new to me. My husband died two years ago, and after struggling both emotionally and financially for months, I had gotten a good job at a local software company only an hour’s drive from my hometown. For a time, things started to look up moneywise, but it was still hard to go home everyday to a house filled with memories of my time with Mark. So I had started saving up to get a new house next year, but this past September my boss gave me the news that I was being promoted…and transferred.
The new job was two states away, and while the company was paying for moving expenses and temporary housing until I found a house I wanted, I was still caught between being nervous about moving to a place I didn’t know and worried about losing my job if I couldn’t quickly find a house I could afford. So imagine my relief when, on my first house scouting trip, I found the perfect place.
It was on the outskirts of town in an older, spread out neighborhood with big yards and wide, quiet streets. The house itself had been built in the 1940s, and while it had apparently sat empty for several years, it was in surprisingly good repair. It was also way bigger than anything I could have afforded back home, with a large front porch and a second story that contained two more bedrooms and a large master bath.
I was moved in by the middle of November, and by the time I went home for Thanksgiving last week, I was mostly unpacked aside from a few of Mark’s belongings that I was keeping in storage until it hurt a little less to see them. Holidays have been especially hard since he died, but between the new job and house, and being happy to be around my family again, I’ve been pretty occupied and had a really good time during my visit back home. But while I loved my new house, I’d be lying if a part of me didn’t dread driving back to it and the relatively lonely new life it represented.
Maybe that’s why my first reaction to the plastic snowman in my yard was surprise and delight instead of confusion or concern. It was a very old-fashioned looking three-foot snowman wearing a red scarf and green mittens, and as my headlights swept across it as I pulled into my driveway, it almost looked like it was giving me a little wave. This was late Sunday night, and I was a bit punchy from hours of driving, but I remember letting out a small laugh as I stopped the car and looked at it.
It was close to the street, but too far in and well-positioned to have fallen out of a truck or been placed in my yard unintentionally. I pulled on up in my driveway and got out slowly, looking around as though I was going to see the responsible party waiting behind a bush at close to midnight. For all I knew it could have been there for days…I just had no idea where it had come from.
I’d met all my neighbors, at least I thought I had, and they all seemed like nice, normal people. But most of them were significantly older that I was and I hadn’t become really friendly with anyone in the past couple of weeks. Certainly not “give me a random decoration” friendly. And I didn’t think anyone at my new office even knew where I was living since I had moved out of the company’s extended stay rooms. Maybe Carol in HR might, but she was hardly ever around in the first place, and I didn’t see her trekking out here to stick a weird snowman in my yard.
Because that was the other thing. The snowman was a little weird. It didn’t look weathered or dirty, but it did look old. Like an authentic prop from a Christmas movie set in the 50s. If someone was going to give me a Christmas decoration, why would they pick something like this? And why would you just randomly stick it in the yard rather than on the porch with a note or something? I didn’t have any answers to any of this, and was too tired to care beyond a certain degree of curiosity, so I patted the snowman on its head and went inside to sleep.
When I woke up the next morning, there were two reindeer closer in to the house.
The snowman was still there, but now he was turned facing the house and seemed a few feet closer as well. And nearer still were the two plastic reindeer that had the same old but well-preserved look as the snowman. They were also turned toward the house as though part of some mass Christmas exodus across the lawn toward my front door.
I was running late for work, so I only had time to snap a picture with my phone and jump in my car. I sent the picture to my sister and asked her what she thought. As I expected, her response was basically that it was fucking awesome and I should keep her updated if “they” kept adding more cool shit to the yard. The fact that “they” were trespassing and that it was rarely a good sign when mystery people started weirdly fixating on you seemed to escape her.
Still, maybe she had a point. Maybe it was a practical joker neighbor with a twisted sense of humor trying to welcome me to the street. Or maybe I had a work acquaintance with too much time on their hands. Maybe Carol was never at work because she was roaming the streets in a panel van filled with antique decorations, scouting out yards for her next guerilla art exhibition.
Or maybe a dangerous nutjob had taken an interest in me.
This last thought worried me, but it seemed unlikely at first. And when I woke up on Tuesday with no change in the decorations, I was actually a bit disappointed. I even texted my sister and told her that I thought the phantom decorator might be done.
I had to go by the grocery store that night, so it was well after dark before I got home. When I did, I saw a third reindeer and a small pair of what I supposed were meant to be carolers were sitting at the bottom of my steps. At first I felt a little happy thrill of excitement, and I grinned as I noticed that the other two reindeer and the snowman had made their way closer in as well. But my smile faltered when I saw the front of the carolers.
Just like the older decorations, they were of well-kept but ancient-looking plastic, and based on their height and the shape of their plastic “hair”, I assumed they were meant to be a small boy and girl. But it was hard to be sure because their faces were gone.
I don’t mean they were like some decorations where the face has no features by design. This was like someone had taken a hot iron to them. In the place of a nose and eyes and singing mouth were tangled mounds of rough, melted plastic.
That’s when I called the police.
As you might expect, that amounted to very little. I couldn’t really blame them. It looked like a vaguely creepy prank of some kind, and they said there hadn’t been any similar pranks reported this year. They promised to touch base with my closest neighbors just to see if anyone heard or saw anything, and one of the officers assured me that just having them ask around would likely spook whoever was doing it enough that it might very well stop.
The next morning, when I sleep-stumbled into the kitchen to make coffee, I froze. Sitting on my kitchen table was a gingerbread house. It looked as though it had been sprayed with some kind of sealant at some point in the past, and while it didn’t look nearly as old as the yard decorations, the translucent film coating every surface of it was run through with cracks and yellowed like an old man’s toenails. And underneath the film, exploiting all the wounds in the protective seal, were the house’s inhabitants.
Tiny roaches. Worms. Other small bits of hungry movement that roamed across the sugary snow-topped roof and bit little holes through the candy window panes. I could faintly smell a dry rotting smell coming from the gingerbread house, but it was a combination of that endless movement and the sour pang of fear in my belly that made me dry retch into the sink several times before I was able to call 911 again.
That was on Wednesday. The police seemed more concerned, but could still do very little. They said the neighbors hadn’t seen anything, but that they would follow back up with them about this latest invasion. So I had the locks all changed during an extended lunch break, and that night after work, I spent money I didn’t have to buy a couple of little security cameras. You know, the wifi type you can put pretty much anywhere and that have okay night vision.
This morning I woke up with my bedroom filled with tiny Christmas figurines, all made of discolored, cracked porceline and ranging from cardinals wearing festive hats to dancing elves with hands full of toys. They were everywhere, from my nightstands to the dresser and on both windowsills. I eased out of bed slowly, thinking to check underneath before putting my feet down. There was nothing there, but as I stepped back from the bed something else caught my eye. A small porceline angel was laying on my pillow next to where my head lay. And like the carolers outside, its face had been burned away.
I’m too shaky to drive at the moment, so my sister is coming to pick me up and carry me back to my parents’ house for the next couple of days. Maybe police will find something, someone, and make it stop. At least I think I have their attention now.
Because aside from the figurines, I also thought and pulled up the cloud-recorded camera video from last night on my phone. For the most part there was nothing, but at 3:38 a.m., one of the cameras caught seven seconds of movement. It was the faint silhouettes of three shapes moving up the stairs toward my bedroom.
And one of those roaming shadows seemed to be dressed like Santa Claus.
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Credits
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