Oh Holy Night, the Stars
by Joe Koch
Outside, the bells, the hum on my threshold, the carolers gather, droning like flies; too many voices, too many tones with no words and no sense. Growing in number, they swarm uninvited, crowding my porch, humming thick with the press of increasing flesh.
The foundation creaks. Windows clot, lips against glass, black holes mouthing Oh. The room sweats. Chanting swells. Walls bend from the bodies, the heat.
Studs implode. I flee to the basement, bad knees cracking down cobwebbed steps, past the boiler, still broken since Atticus died. I’m fine by myself. I don’t need anyone’s help. Why won’t the voices leave me alone?
Louder above through the gaps in the rafters, feet beating in time with the roar of their groans. Old dust and bug carcasses rain on my shoulders as the basement shakes with perverse intonations. Toneless mouths seek egress below.
Past tools and bins, their chanting grows louder. Through unexplored corners, I delve room after room. Darker the door to more unused storage; have I lived here so long never knowing these doors? I open another. The chorale comes closer. Discordant bodies flood from above.
Beyond this doorway there is no floor.
Bad knees cracking, I descend in an avalanche, grabbing at earth as it crumbles away. Stones and roots escape my grasp. I cry out for Atticus, though I know he’s been gone much longer than our daughter. The holes in my heart open like mouths. I sob as the carolers chant and slaver, begging black craters that swallow the stars. Dirt heavy as bodies collapses the passage.
The last door before me worm-eaten with need; hymns moan through holes, unhallowed wails. Rotten wood tilts on an axis. One thought of peace and it evaporates.
I fall.
There are mouths. There are voices. There are stars.
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Joe Koch writes literary horror and surrealist trash. Their books include The Wingspan of Severed Hands, Convulsive, Invaginies, and The Couvade, which received a Shirley Jackson Award nomination in 2019. His short fiction appears in Vastarien, Southwest Review, PseudoPod, Children of the New Flesh, and many other journals and anthologies. Joe’s work has been translated into both Spanish and Italian. He/They. Find Joe at horrorsong.blog and on social media as horrorsong.
DEATH KNELL PRESS 