I wake up to the sound of my sister drowning.
I’m tied to a chair, and it’s one of my kitchen chairs that I’ve always been so proud of because it was the first set of furniture me and Mark bought as a married couple. Hard wood and well-made. So well made that it doesn’t even creak as I thrash against it, the cords of the Christmas lights binding me to the chair cutting into my arms and breasts as I push and pull against them. I have the crazed thought that I’m all lit up because someone has bothered to plug in the lights, but I push it aside as I hear a new terrified gurgle as they begin drowning my sister again.
I call out for them to leave her alone, to leave us both alone, but I know in my heart there’s no point to my words. So instead I begin trying to shimmy and turn my chair enough that I can see what they’re doing to her, as though bearing horrified and helpless witness will make it better that they’re killing Melanie.
There are two figures holding her down—one is an average-looking man in his late fifties. Well, average looking except for the frenzied sweat pouring down his face and his insane expression full of wide eyes and skinned back teeth. It was hard to say if he was angry or excited, but as he grasped Melanie’s ankles tight enough to make his hands go white, I realized it made little difference. He was gripped by the same fervor that was driving the two monsters in the room.
The first of the others might have been a woman once. It was hard to say because of how twisted her flesh was and how distorted her features had become. I had the thought that she was a candle, made of wax and human fat and carved to look like a person. A candle that was held to some terrible flame long ago until the eyes drooped and ran and the nose pooled away into a flattened bulge with two uneven holes for air. And the mouth…the mouth was filled with rotten little pegs of yellowed ivory as it hung open at the bottom of her head like an open, festering wound. She held Melanie’s shoulders and alternated between looking at her and at me with her deep-set, black pig eyes, all the time working a greyish green-striped candy cane at the corner of lips that looked like strips of red, wet meat. The woman-thing let out a titter as Melanie tried to struggle again. My sister was strong, but she was clearly already tired, and the creature easily pressed her shoulders flat again as the next jug was made ready.
Presiding over it all, dressed in tattered rags that likely had once been a very expensive Santa suit, was the third thing. It looked more like an old sinister tree than a candle or a man, the odd angles of its body and joints making the soiled red coat shift and poke like a sack holding a large, struggling spider. It held the jugs of what smelled like eggnog over Melanie’s face and poured them slowly in the general direction of her mouth and nose, each new gallon causing my sister to sputter and choke again.
For all the lack of care in getting it in her mouth, the Santa creature seemed very deliberate and intent on its work. Its face was still primarily human, showing the worn features of an old, thin man with a patchy grey beard and sad, roving eyes that sometimes seemed to flicker with a dim green light. The man’s lips were thin and ceaselessly moving as he poured, his eyes locked on Melanie’s as he slowly killed her. He kept saying the same word over and over, his deep, dry voice seeming to constantly be on the verge of breaking with emotion.
“Believe. Believe. Believe.”
Three hours earlier I was sitting at the police station waiting for my sister to come pick me up when I got a text from her.
At the house. Where R U?
I felt my heart start thudding in my chest. I had specifically told her that I would wait at the police station for her because I didn’t want to go back to the house. What made her go there? Fumbling with my phone, I tried to quickly call her, but I was interrupted by another text.
I think I saw you inside. I’m coming in.
I punched the button to call her but it just rang and rang before going to voicemail. I tried a second time as I started heading up to the front desk at the station to ask for help. That’s when I saw she was calling me back.
“Hello? Mel, get out of…”
“You need to come home, Clarissa.” It was an older man’s voice, but it was unfamiliar. “You need to come home so we can get started. If we have to start without you, or you ask your police friends to come…well, it won’t go well for her and we’ll still catch up with you later.”
“Please let her go. I’ll come back, that’s fine. Just let her go first.”
I thought I heard a brief, sour laugh from the man. “We just need the two of you to help us with something and then we’ll be on our way. Promise.”
I went to the house without telling anyone. A dozen times I almost went back to the police or called 911, but each time I saw the image of my sister, torn apart except for her beautiful face. Her dead eyes stared at me, accusing me, saying that she was only dead because she tried to help me. Because of something that…if not my fault, exactly, was at least my responsibility.
So I went back to my house and stifled a gasp as it came into view. The yard was now full of plastic snowmen and reindeer, candles and carolers that had stood too close to a flame. Most of them were pointed toward the house like an angry mob, but a handful were turned to where I parked in the driveway behind Melanie’s car. It was as though they were there to usher me in, and as I stepped out of my car, I saw a path had been cleared all the way to the front door.
I glanced around for Melanie outside, but it was a dim hope. I knew where she’d be. Stepping up onto the porch, I pushed at the door, feeling no surprise when it swung in quietly. I could already smell the gagging aromas that filled my house—cinnamon and pine needles mixed with spoiled meat and soured milk. Holding a hand to my nose, I stepped in and called out for my sister. When I heard nothing, I called out to them.
“I’m here, okay? Now please let her go. Use me for whatever it is you need and then please leave us both alone.” I swallowed, trying to not think about what would come next, whatever unknown torture or shame was waiting for me in the shadows. The main thing was to try and get Melanie out. I just had to focus on that.
That thought, that goal, steeled me for a few seconds as I went deeper into the house. I saw with unsurprised dread that there was a large, lop-sided Christmas tree in the living room now, its discolored branches decorated by a combination of lights, old-fashioned ornaments, and various small dead things and bits of bone. Even from a distance I thought I saw pieces of at least three small animal skeletons strung together and draped around like macabre tinsel. Just then I saw movement at the corner of my eye and turned. They were coming out to greet me.
I don’t know how to describe this next in a way that will make sense, but I will do my best. One of them, the man that appeared to be human, was stepping out of a door made into one wall that I never knew existed. It swung closed behind him with a silent solidity that left no seam in the wallpaper or other sign a secret door existed at all. But the other two…
They flowed down the walls somehow, their shapes pushing beneath the wallpaper and making it stretch before going back with no sign of what had just passed beneath it. The moving bulges slowly worked their way to where the wallpaper met the baseboard, and there they pulled themselves out into the room like decaying toothpaste being squeezed from a tube. I have trouble remembering this, I think because my mind couldn’t really understand what it was seeing, but in a matter of moments, they were standing before me even as the other man was approaching me slowly.
“Easy now. It’s better if you don’t fight. Just give up and it will be easier. Promise.” His mouth twisted into a cruel smile at the last part, and the next moment I was dashing back through the house with the goal of either finding Melanie or making it out the back door to get help. I never should have come here alone, I never…
And then I woke up to my sister drowning.
I think she had been dead for the last two jugs worth of their rancid eggnog concoction, my screaming and tears during the last few minutes having pushed me into a kind of exhausted stupor. I felt burned out, used up, and for the moment I didn’t care what they did. I deserved it for letting Melanie die. But when the man touched my chin gently, I jerked back in surprise, and looking up at his somber expression, I felt a new wave of anger and hatred filling me.
“You motherfucker. I’ll fucking kill you for what you did.” I looked behind him to where the two monsters were gently wiping Melanie off like they were apologetically cleaning up a spill. “Don’t you fucking touch her, you fucking freaks!”
The man tapped my chin lightly, and when I looked back up, his gaze was hard. “Don’t be rude to my parents. They meant your sister no harm. We’re only doing what we have to, and you’re the one that brought her into this.”
I gritted my teeth. “That’s a lie. I told her not to come here.”
He nodded, a small smile passing over his face. “That’s true. But while I’m not special like they are yet, they have passed along a few tricks and talents.” The last few words sounded like my voice, and my widening eyes brought the smile back. “None of wanted to trick her or hurt her. We don’t want to hurt you either. But we need you to believe.”
I shook my head slowly. “You’re insane. Believe? Believe in what? God?”
That small sour laugh again. I saw that his monstrous parents had finished cleaning Melanie, neglecting to get up the gallons of strange eggnog congealing on the floor. “No, no. Nothing like that. Just believe in the holiday of Christmas. We’re not after religious or spiritual belief, just the trappings.” He leaned closer as he continued in a conspiratorial whisper. “You know, reindeer, sleigh bells, mistletoe? We’ve been trying to give you Christmas spirit for days, but you haven’t been very receptive.”
He raised his hands as he continued in a lower voice. “I know, I know. They’re methods can be…off-putting. They put out the gingerbread house without my knowing about it.” He gave a chuckle. “I mean, I’ve been staying in the house a lot since you moved in, but I still have a job and other responsibilities.” Sighing, he looked back at them over his shoulder as they began to move closer. “To be honest, I think they’re going insane. But you need to understand it’s not their fault.”
“They’re going insane? What about you?” I was tired of this. If he was going to kill me, just do it and get it over with.
The man tapped my chin again, a bit harder this time. “Touche.”
“Tell her.” The man-thing’s voice was booming, but at the same time it was somehow hollow, like a storm’s wind pushing between dead winter trees. “Explain why she must believe.”
A look of irritation passed over the son’s face. “Getting to that.” He stood up and took a couple of steps back. When I was a teenager, my parents got a mysterious invitation to a hotel out west called The Imago. They had never heard of it, but when they asked around they found out it was some big deal fancy place that only the super-rich and powerful ever visited. We’re talking ten stars out of five star hotels.”
“But, the hotel apparently picked “lottery winners” once a year. How they selected them, or even knew my parents existed, we never found out. But my father was an accountant and my mother worked the front office for a pediatrician. They’d never have another chance like this, so they jumped at it.”
The man sat down on one of the other kitchen chairs, seemingly oblivious to the liquid soaking into his pants. His expression had grown darker, but also more sane, as he looked off at the far wall. “When they came back a week later, they were different. At first it was in positive ways. They both seemed younger and stronger. Smarter even.” He puffed out a breath. “And they could do things. Things that seemed like magic. When I would ask them about it, they would laugh it off, but I knew they were lying.”
“In time things started to swing back the other way. They were sick a lot, and they seemed to be aging, changing, almost overnight. By the time I was twenty-five, they couldn’t leave the property. They had become bound to it somehow. By the time I was thirty…well, it wasn’t good for anybody to see them anymore, and they had taken to disappearing into the bones of this place by then anyway.”
“We’ve spent so many years trying to fix what happened to them. And despite their problems, I’ve spent all that time trying to become like they once were. Because what they were…it was wonderful. Their mistake was leaving The Imago. They’re sick because they came back here for me.”
This was all insane. “Just kill me. I don’t believe any of this. Bunch of crazy bullshit.”
He leaned forward and slapped me across the face before I could pull back. When he spoke, his voice was hard and dangerous. “Just listen. They want you to understand, so you don’t think they’re being mean. That they’re bad people. They want you to hear it, so you’re going to fucking listen.” Clearing his throat, he continued. “They figured out that whatever magic they got from that place, if they can get a bit of it back, they’ll be able to leave this house and go back to the hotel. To the special room they had there. And all they think they need is someone to believe.”
He stood up, his face drawn as he began to pace. “I tried to do it for them, but it doesn’t work. We’ve had a couple of prior owners, but it didn’t go well.”
“Maybe because terrifying someone with old creepy decorations isn’t the way to give someone Christmas spirit?”
He chuckled and nodded. “You know, you might be right. But like I said, they aren’t thinking as clearly as they used to. Brain rot and all.” Turning back, he looked at me with a glint in his eye. “Sometimes I think I may be a slipping a little myself. But we’ve made due with what we had on hand and had to hope for the best.”
The woman-thing stepped forward and pulled something from ragged remains of a pocket on the father’s Santa coat. Her voice was thick and hard to understand as she tried to talk around her moldering candy cane. “Please. Help us. Help us be free…and get back.”
Despite everything, I felt myself feeling sorry for her. I didn’t know what to say or what to believe, and I knew I wasn’t going to be of any help to them, even if it was true. The only thing I knew for sure was that I was about to die when they saw all this was pointless. And I felt some grim satisfaction in knowing they wouldn’t get what they wanted after what they had done, however pitiful they might appear.
But then the front door was banging open and I heard men shouting. I was turned away from the commotion, but within a matter of moments the son was heading towards me and then being yanked backwards by the inertia of multiple bullets striking him at once. I think he was dead before he hit the floor, and I saw his ruined parents glance at him sadly before fading back into the walls of that place. I caught a flutter of movement as the woman dropped what she had been holding in her twisted fingers.
Two policemen were talking to me now, the same ones that had taken my earlier reports. I could tell they were both shaken, and though they were calling an EMT, I knew it was too late for Melanie or the son of the things that killed her. After I was freed, I managed to swipe the paper the mother had dropped, though I didn’t get to look at it right away. First I had to give a heavily modified version of what had happened, leaving out the monster parents that were still living in the walls of that fucking house.
The police didn’t press hard, and judging by the haunted looks, those two men had caught of a glimpse of the truth before it had faded back into hiding. Either way, I was released to my parents. Released to tell them that their other daughter was dead. I considered telling them the whole truth, but what was the point? They would just worry that their surviving daughter was insane.
When we were on the way back home, back to my real home, I finally dug out the piece of paper and looked at it. It was a faded invitation that was surprisingly clean and well-preserved. I thought of that woman creature holding it out toward me as some kind of pleading explanation. It was probably their most prized possession. It came from the place they needed to get back to, after all.
It said:
The Imago Hotel cordially invites you on an all-expenses paid trip to enjoy our hospitality. You have been selected for this very unique and life-changing experience, which includes access to all our amenities and a seven days/six night stay in one of the most celebrated of our renowned Holiday Rooms. The room chosen for you is The Christmas Room. You will be contacted again shortly to confirm your arrival time.
I studied the card in the dim light of the passing countryside, tears stinging my eyes. I had no idea what any of this was, and I didn’t want to know. All I knew was that I had lost enough and wanted no part of whatever this card had or might still represent.
So I rolled down the window and let the rushing air take it away. I hope it is never found, but if it is, let it be far away from me.
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Credits
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