O Come, All Ye Faithful
by Daniel Mowery
We saw it while running from home. A lone Christmas tree in the dark forest, fully decorated, casting red and green shadows. Golden trim dazzling the snow.
Our names were on the presents. Wrapped in shiny paper, bright as Mom’s smile when she revealed the truth, with silk bows tied tight like Dad’s hugs while we cried. We reached for the packages, but scaly hands fell from the boughs, snatching them away.
We crawled under the tree’s skirt and climbed up the branches. Scaling the rough bark, cracked like our shivering skin, growing denser and wilder than the forest without. Up and up we went for hours. Fir needles stabbed through our jackets, the scent of rotting wood and moldy citrus, sap sticking with each wooden rung.
It darkened as the limbs grew closer, yet the tree was merry and bright: shimmering tinsel nooses, bloody, bloated heads bobbing from hooks, angels of bone, human teeth Chrismons, lichen-coated flesh garlands ornamenting the trunk.
We kept climbing, following the starlight gleam of our presents just above. Even when the sap pulled the skin off our frostbitten fingers, and we heard movements below us.
My brother was the first to fall. Perry had always doubted. It was his idea to run away, outraged more by the lie than the truth. I waited for the crash of his fall; instead there was rending, screaming.
I’m a believer, but I know the fairy tales misconstrue. Santa is a slithering thing, with crimson fur, black talons on its many feet, white whiskers, silver-bell eyes.
I can almost reach my present, sap sliding down my throat, fir needles piercing my pupils, hot breath on my neck. They were wrong, Mom, Dad, Perry.
Santa is real.
Santa knows, can taste, that I’ve been a good boy this year.
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Daniel Mowery (he/him) lives in Greensboro, NC with his wife, daughter, and dog. He loves that his family puts up with this horror and dark fiction during their holiday cheer. He wrapped those ugly looking presents under your tree, yes the lumpy ones with blood seeping out. If you listen close, you’ll hear him putting double kick drums and minor keys in his Christmas Carols. Find the ghosts of his past, present, and future fiction on his website: danielmowerywrites.com
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