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2023 Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest Winners:
Overall Winner: “Hybrid” by John Nicol
Stocking Stuffer Winner: “My Father’s Pine” by Josh Carey
Weird Card Winner: “The Holly Berry Ritual” by Lisa H. Owens
Alternative Christmas Special Winner: “The True Meaning of Canceled” by Josh Chilson
Honorable Mentions (in no special order other than appearance on the show):
- “Negative Thinking” by Glyn Matthews
- “Santa’s Chimney” by Tripp Watson
- “NORAD Tracks Santa” by Laura Grant
- “How Are You Tomorrow?” by Chris Lilienthal
- “Requiem for the Heat Miser” by Michael Rosovsky
- “Search for the Magi” by Katharine Dow
- “Christmas Eve at the No Tell Motel” by Tracey Falenwolfe
- “Tradition” by John Wolfe
- “The Christmas Cracker” by Anne Kenney Ettel
- “As Good As Gold and Better” by Dan Fields
- “Christmas Dog” by AE Stueve
- “Christmas Crumbs” by Kristin Procter
- “They Whisper Our Names” by River Lucero
- “Tough Crowd” by Carla Rudy
- “The Blizzard and Eye” by Caleb Delos-Santos
- “A Timeless Holly Tradition” by R.D. Irizar
- “Full to the Brim and Running O’er” by Rosetta Yorke
- “Santa Drop” by Larry Hodges
- “CSI: Whoville” by Katie Gill
Please help support the contest, the podcast, and Weird Christmas website by donating/gifting any and all amounts at Ko-Fi.com (click here). The money from the prizes is all from donations. And the more donations I get, the more I can give to the contestants. My long term goal is to make every story count as a professional sale by most writing organization’s standards.
A big thank you to both volunteer readers this season: Dustin Pari (@dustinpari, as always coming through), and Daisy Shyglass.
Usual opening: “O Holy Night” by Tiny Tim, “Christmas Doesn’t Last” by Make Like Monkeys, “Santa Claus Boogie” by Hasil Adkins, “Space Age Santa” by Ross Christman
Special opening: “Electric Snow” by Wake Up and Smell the Sun. (A whole album of great original Xmas tunes)
Bumper music (ripped straight from YouTube): here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Contest results from previous years: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018.
2023 Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest
All stories copyright © 2023 by the authors.
Overall Winner: “Hybrid” by John Nicol
Hybrid
by John Nicol
It slid down the chimney, mucous-slippery blubber squelching. Cookies and milk and stockings awaited below. The scent of children lingered.
Hungry, hungry.
Tip-toeing around the cozy little room, its girth reflected the glow of twinkling lights. A tree stood by, strewn in garlands, horns, and bells.
It remembered something, wanting something, before, but now things were different. Cookies and milk disappeared into an orifice on its hairy belly.
Inky space. Explosions. The burning of a vessel, out on the ice.
The host had never known what happened, from the prick of the proboscis, to the insertion of the egg, to the gradual scaling over and loss of scraggly white hair. The merging.
Two things become one.
It pulled a stocking down and squatted. A mucoid ball was deposited; two; three.
The stocking was hung again, with care.
A cache of boxes, brightly wrapped in foil, ribbons exploding gaily from their tops, tumbled from a tatty sack. With a swish of its long tail, they aligned under the tree.
It lurked its way up the stairs. Tiny snores came from a cracked door.
In with a creak.
A child lay slumbering, framed by moonlight. Leaning over, the thing inhaled. The child’s breath was sweet, like peppermint. A long slow tongue unraveled, caressing the child’s face, probing their ear, their nose, their soft, soft lips. A drip of slime fell onto their cheek.
The child coughed.
The thing was gone, like an octopus shot into its hole, down the stairs, across the carpet, and up the chimney with a great sucking slurp.
A close call.
Its tail slapped wetly, reindeer nickered, and the sleigh lumbered into the air.
So many chimneys—as many as there were stars.
It was forgetting something, but it would remember, eventually.
John lives in New England with his wife, three kids, and three weird cats. He tends to write late at night. ‘Hybrid’ is his first published piece. When not writing, John enjoys guitars, yo-yo’s, and family dance parties.
Stocking Stuffer Winner: “My Father’s Pine” by Josh Carey
My Father’s Pine
by Josh Carey
The Christmas tree didn’t smell right this year. It had that bitter conifer smell but something about it smelt warm.
Not burnt, or toasted, just warm.
Dad wiped his hands on his jeans and told me to eat my soup.
On day two a sweetness had crept in. Like dusty lemonade. Dad handed me some tinsel, but I said I was tired and ran upstairs. I could hear him sobbing through the floorboards.
On day three I found him sleeping at its base. His head resting between the branches, a photo in his hand.
The room smelt of vinegar and unwashed dog. Dad looked pale. I tried eating something but the air tugged at the back of my throat. I threw a blanket across his chest and opened the door to the garden to coax the fug outside.
I pinched my nose and returned upstairs praying for him to wake.
The sharpness of winter stalked the house until morning, and I rose with misted breath.
I gathered my duvet around me and tiptoed cautiously downstairs. It smelt like asphalt and Parmesan mixed with the angry tang of something rawer.
Dad was no longer there. Just a damp outline of his torso. Fragments of denim blew in frosty eddies over red-brown scuffs on the carpet.
Head swimming with the thick acridity the air I pulled my sweatshirt over my nose and moved towards the fetid pine to drag it from the house. It was weighty and damp, but hands held firm to the trunk and slowly it started to move. My lungs begged for air, but my oesophagus held firm, the doorway nudging closer with each step.
Then my foot slipped on the dew-soaked carpet, the branches collapsed around my face and the shock drew breath into my lungs.
And?
I could smell cinnamon?
I chanced a second breath.
It was the smell of roasted chestnuts and marzipan.
Of sitting in an armchair by an open fire.
Of lying back on Christmas eve, full and happy.
And it was the smell closing your eyes.
Of family.
The smell of Christmas.
I live in South London, UK with my partner Maddie. Currently working with people experiencing homelessness. I spend most of my spare time watching films, pursuing a carousel of creative and culinary projects and worrying why the birds won’t eat from the feeder outside my window.
Alternative Christmas Special Winner: “The True Meaning of Canceled” by Josh Chilson
The True Meaning of Canceled
by Josh Chilson
A hush seized the auditorium the moment the speech ended. A silence more awkward than the pauses that bafflingly separated every piece of dialogue.
Technicolor faces stared back at them, unblinking. True, they were always unblinking. But this was different.
A small sob broke through the stillness. It was tiny, but resonant.
“We were just having fun. It’s Christmas.”
Mumbles turned into jeers.
“Was that the Bible? This is school. AND network TV.”
Linus began to sweat. He held his blanket close.
Schroeder tried breaking the tension with a jazz tune, but this crowd wasn’t having it. Snoopy stomped on the piano, causing Schroeder to spin in the air several times.
Finding his courage, Charlie Brown stood between his friend and the mob.
“He was just trying to help me find the true meaning of the holiday,” Charlie said “You’re all trying to take the ‘Christ’ out of…”
At that moment, the roof of the school seemed to disappear amid a deafening thunder. The black of the night sky was replaced with a bright, milky white.
A heavenly voice suddenly boomed from off-screen.
“Wah womp wah wah.”
Charlie Brown cowered, soar afraid. Linus, beaming, stood up.
“It’s the Lord coming to defend us!” Linus said.
“Womp womp wah womp!”
Charlie Brown gulped.
“What do you mean, ‘they have a point?’” stuttered Charlie.
“Womp wah wah wah womp.”
“You say that speech was sanctimonious, and sort of brought this whole story to an uncomfortable halt? And that as director, I’m at fault?”
“Womp.”
“And you say I should just lighten up and learn to embrace the new cultural norms of the holiday, including the mixed blessings of capitalism?”
“Wah wah womp.”
“And you also say our bewildering veer into religiosity is the only blight on an otherwise perfect secular Christmas special?”
“Wah womp!”
“Sorry! I mean, holiday special?”
“Womp womp.”
The light faded. The auditorium returned to normal.
Lucy, with her typical boldness, was the first to speak.
“Wow, you really messed it up this time, Charlie Brown! Even Jesus thinks you’re a blockhead.”
Charlie Brown lowered his head.
“Good grief.”
Josh Chilson runs a newsroom for a public broadcasting organization in the Midwest, so most of his writing is of the boring journalistic type. His forays into creative writing are generally limited to snarky comments on local political blogs and flash fiction contests for Christmas-adjacent podcasts.
Weird Card Winner: “The Holly Berry Ritual” by Lisa H. Owens
The Holly Berry Ritual
by Lisa H. Owens
The twins were born with hollows for eyes. It had been eons since identical tadpoles
metamorphosed into toads on Christmas Eve. Frog-Maester said ‘twas a miracle. A sign of
prosperity from Father Winter.
“The Unsealing,” Bullfrog’s throaty jug-o-rum called the colony to order.
Two primordial toads were retrieved from Holly-Berry Marsh, tethered to a frayed
shoestring and pulled with a final heave-ho to stand alongside the beaming parents, proudly
displaying their pair of identical eyeless toadlings.
Frog-Maester swept in with pomp and circumstance and the ceremony began. He hopped
to inspect the Ancients, his bulbous fingertips tapping four cast-iron domes covering the place
where their eyes should be. His broad lips moved as he chanted and lowered his hands to pinch
off pieces of their withered thigh muscles.
Excitement pulsated throughout the colony when Frog-Maester arose, his tongue snaking
to test, then release the translucent flesh into the twins’ eye-sockets.
Bullfrog ribbeted the arrival of Four-Fair-Maidens carrying baskets of Christmas
Toadstools and Frog-Maester produced the royal zester from beneath his dewlap. He studied the
toadstool harvest, settling on the less spongy bits. He held them high for all to see, then raked the toadstool caps across the grater, filling the toadlings’ sockets to the brim, thus covering the
Ancients’ sacrificial flesh.
In turn, the cast-iron domes were stripped from the Ancients’ eyes. Their nictitating
membranes blinked to reveal orbitals teeming with toothy tadpoles cascading from the orbs.
Frog-Maester impatiently tapped one webbed foot, waiting for the flow to cease, so as to croak
his blessings.
The Ancients’ arthritic fingerlings creaked as they presented the domes to Four-Fair-
Maidens, who dropped a single albino holly berry inside each before clapping them over the
toadlings’ brimming eye-hollows. Henceforth, the concoction would fester until the next
manifestation of twin eyeless toadlings—born on Christmas Eve—which would ensure the
colony’s survival.
“The Feeding,” Bullfrog belched, activating the weaponized tadpoles, who swarmed to
devour the Ancients before scattering to Holly-Berry Marsh, where they’d multiply.
Father Winter snow-flurried his approval, as the toadlings were buried to mature and
percolate until the next Christmas Eve miracle.
Lisa H. Owens was a weird kid born in December, which explains her obsession with Christmas and weird things. She resides in North Texas with two quirky rescue dogs and can be funny at times, so was a monthly humorist columnist until she ran out of jokes. Her first published short story was a real-life horror about the time she was nearly abducted by Ted Bundy in 1978. A wide variety of Lisa’s award-winning stories and poems are published in a gaggle of anthologies and e-zines and her work was featured on Day-6 of Creepy Podcast’s 31-Days of Horror, 2022. Her stories typically include family secrets and private jokes. Read her work at www.lisahowens.com.
Honorable Mentions
Negative Thinking
by Glyn Matthews
One Christmas morning we awoke to find a heavy fall of crows had smothered the world in a thick black blanket. The kids screamed in delight at the thought of feathered fun and gleefully rushed out to build a crowman.
Rolls of feathers grew in balls of thick black wool until the crowman stood complete. Chalk for eyes, a carrot for a nose and chopped parsnips for a smiling row of teeth. They threw crowballs at each other until panting and covered in blood and feathers, they lay supine making angel wings.
Then they posed for photographs beside their feathered friend, a testimonial that proved, when they were young, all Christmases were black.
A Christmas morning to remember. The roast went in the oven and the church bells rang with joy, the faithful came and footprints gathered in the aisles like scattered feathers in an abattoir. We sang the hymns we always sang then ran into the frigid air.
Down the lane, cars tracked through the virgin crows, wheels spinning and churning up a thick, pink slush. Thirsty drains began to gurgle with the run-off and precarious pedestrians slithered over gizzard-slippy curbs. Clumps of crow fell in steaming lumps from overhanging branches and excited infants screamed as blood-slicked feathers tickled down their necks.
Across the crowbound valley, shawled in black, dwellings were huddled together like Greek widows stranded in a winter landscape. In the knife-sharp air, black-backed hills seemed almost close enough to touch.
Once back home, mother disappeared inside while we stayed out throwing crowballs until mother called us in to claim our share of that other seasonal bird.
With noses like bottled cherries, we rushed inside, shaking off our coats and crowing with delight as we smelt the turkey roast.
Later, presents opened and spread around, we sat contented and roasted chestnuts in the glowing embers of the fire. Satisfied there’d never been a Christmas quite like this, we looked at each other’s faces, glowing and smiling in the firelight while outside the window, a soft down began to fall, covering our tracks and muffling the world.
Glyn Matthews from Congleton, England, trained as a graphic designer then a teacher of Expressive Arts before pursuing a long and successful career as a professional artist. He often includes poetry with his art, words that enhance rather than describe. More recently he has developed a passion for spinning yarns in the form of short stories and flash fiction. Ideas cling to him like invisible cobwebs on autumn mornings. www.facebook.com/glynmatthewsfineartandphotography
Santa’s Chimney
by Tripp Watson
Dear Santa,
Mom says you’ll come to Mars this year. I wasn’t so sure you would, but she felt very sure.
“He’s magic,” she had said. “I bet he can jet over here right after he finishes up in China.”
You didn’t come last year, but I was the only kid here then. There are twenty of us now, so maybe you’ll come this year. We’ve all been great kids, too. We listen carefully during Mr. Lang’s classroom broadcast (even though I’m sick of listening to an adult who isn’t even on the same planet as me), and we all work hard with the adults to make sure the crops stay watered and the base stays clean and tidy. They don’t let us outside to do any maintenance on the shell, but I’m sure if they did, we’d help with that too! They say it’s dangerous out there, and a wrong move could mean we’d all get sucked out. So, I guess it’s okay to leave that up to the older people.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that sometimes I sneak out of my room through the loose panel, but I don’t touch anything, I swear. I just like to watch the blue lights blink along the hallway floor. It’s nice. It’s peaceful.
I asked my dad if he was sure nothing could get in or out of the shell that surrounds the base and he said he was absolutely sure—zipped up tight!
So, I’m writing this from outside the airlock. I’ll leave it open for you. I found today’s codes on my dad’s handheld (Sorry, I know that’s not a good thing to do) and snuck out again—sorry again—but I wanted to make sure you had an “open chimney” tonight!
See you soon.
Tripp Watson wrote his first story at the age of 7 in pencil on four pages of loose leaf paper. It received little recognition from critics (Mom); however, he thought it was “not too bad.” Since then, he’s attended school for writing and gained certificates in copyediting and copywriting. He has various short stories published online and is an editor for CHUNK, a print publication featuring writers and artists in Oregon.
How Are You Tomorrow?
by Chris Lilienthal
The Christmas Clowns came when the sun set. They came on unicycles juggling oranges and calling out to us kids to gather round them in the middle of the lane. Oh, how we loved their hijinks, the tricks and dancing and frolicking about.
Their holiday antics always culminated with the clowns posing us the same question: “How are you tomorrow?” To which we would exclaim: “Alive! Alive!” to great laughter and merriment.
“Not all of you,” the clowns then responded in singsong unison, and that’s when one of the village elders would step forward and offer themselves up as tribute. This was the price of the performance: one life to sustain the clowns for another year.
And so it went year after year until that fateful Christmas Eve when I was just a lad of nine or ten. Not one of the elders stepped forward that year, none being so advanced in age as to be willing to make the sacrifice.
This, of course, was very bad news for the rest of us because it meant that the clowns could choose. They ordered all the children into a middle of the lane, then surrounded us as they began an elaborate ritual that including dancing, chanting and the juggling of oranges. It felt like a dream when I was selected. Three clowns bore me away kicking and screaming, while my parents looked on in stunned silence. A constable waved his billy club in protest, but really there was little he could do.
I thought the clowns would take me into the woods and devour me that very night. Instead, they brought me here to this cottage where they have kept me for all these years. I am so very old now, which may be the point. The clowns don’t have a taste for the young. They prefer their tribute, like their wine, aged to perfection.
The days are getting shorter, and the winds are picking up. I can tell from my window. Tomorrow is near, Christmas is coming for me, and so are the clowns.
Chris Lilienthal is a fiction writer whose work has been published in anthologies from Eerie River Publishing and Unsettling Reads and featured on The Other Stories podcast. He lives with his wife and two sons in Central Pennsylvania. Learn more at www.ChrisLWrites.com.
Requiem for the Heat Miser
by Michael Rosovsky
The Heat Miser came to and the first thing he felt was the chill. His wrists were bound behind him.
He recognized the Swedish teenager—Greta something—sitting across from him. She was usually chaining herself to some source of greenhouse gas and getting arrested. He had always considered her threats, something about his carbon footprint, to be the kind of things kids put on social media these days. It was so hard to keep up.
Others had come for him before. Oh well. Some people had to learn things the hard way. He willed the fire to come forth and was surprised when the rope stayed intact.
“It won’t work down here,” she said. “Haven’t you done enough, Mr. Green Christmas? Mister Hundred and One?” Her voice dripped with contempt.
“Whatever I touch…” he started to hum.
“I know, I know. ‘Seems to melt in your clutch’. Save it, fatso.”
He was unable to stop his enormous teeth from chattering and his body shivered. Were there actually humans who preferred this feeling to the kiss of a flame? It made no sense. His breath hung like white fog in front of him.
The imp-like teen tossed her pigtails and continued to shuffle her papers. She waved some graphs and diagrams at him. “Change starts today, Mr. Miser. Ecosystems are collapsing, and the youth of the world will never forgive you…”
Greta blathered on about his crimes. The nagging superiority reminded him of his mother, who also had preferred the cold. She doted on his brother, a frozen, pointy-nosed wraith in a blue striped sweater. The Heat Miser had left for the south on his own when he figured out that even Christmas was against him.
The imp rose and walked around the table towards him. The Snow Miser had once told him that death was like going to sleep. It turned out to be much, much colder.
Michael Rosovsky is an English teacher who lives in Newton, Massachusetts. His fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, AGNI, Hobart, The Harvard Review, and elsewhere. This is his first Christmas story.
Search for the Magi
by Katharine Down
Every year she showed up at our house with presents—candy for the oldest, a lump of coal for the baby. She would wait just outside the circle of light above the front door, shivering, leaning heavily on her broom for support, her feet protected from the snow by nothing more than house slippers. She called herself La Befana, and every year, our conversation was the same.
“Is he here? The one the Magi were looking for?”
Her accent had faded over the years, but it was still clear enough to identify her instantly.
“No, it’s just us.”
Her shoulders would slump and her deeply lined face would sink even deeper into a morass of broken shadows. She would make her way slowly down the street, asking the same question at each brownstone until she disappeared from sight.
This year, a series of blizzards had slammed New York. We’d been so overwhelmed we hadn’t managed to do much more than push the snow away from our front doors. None of the sidewalks were shoveled, and the streets were barely usable. When we heard a knock on the door, we were shocked to see the old lady, La Befana, although we shouldn’t have been.
Her presents, the candy and the coal, had been carefully placed on our stoop. Her bare hands were violently shaking from the cold, barely able to clutch her broomstick.
“Is he here?” she began.
I noticed that her lips were turning blue. She wasn’t going to make it if she stayed out there much longer. I should probably help.
“Why don’t you come inside for a bit?” I sighed deeply. “I’ll walk you home once you get warmed up.”
She shook her head, and turned away, the picture of defeat.
“Okay, okay, he’s here,” I shouted after her. “The Magi are here, the baby is here, everyone is here. Just come inside for a bit.”
She turned slowly around and looked me in the eyes. Her spine straightened and she smiled, her fangs lengthening as I watched in astonished horror.
“Finally,” she said.
Then she leapt.
Katharine Dow has an MFA from Seton Hill’s Writing Popular Fiction program. She is the author of “Don’t Feed the Troll” in Tales of Monstrosity and “The Brooklyn Dragon Racing Club” in Dragons of a Different Tail: 17 Unusual Dragon Tales. Her short story “The Funeral Company” appears in in Working Futures: 14 Speculative Stories About The Future of Work and in Lost Tales – Beyond Monstrosity. You can find her as @suggestionize on Instagram and at https://linktr.ee/katharinedow on Linktree.bio.
Christmas Eve at the No Tell Motel
by Tracey Falenwolfe
“Ho, ho, ho.”
“Gee, I’ve never heard that before.” Candy touched up her lipstick and fluffed her hair. “I’ve gotta get back to work.”
“Same time next year?”
She eyed him in the mirror. “Sure thing, Pops.”
He buckled his boots and handed her a small box tied with a gossamer bow.
“Most guys just leave the money on the dresser.” Candy untied the bow, fished the three-hundred bucks out of the box, and stuffed it into her bra. She didn’t care for older guys, and beards usually creeped her out, but there was something about Chris.
He said he wanted to talk. Have you been a good girl? Typical stuff. Some guys liked good girls, some guys liked bad, but none of them just wanted to chat about it the way Chris did.
And he smelled good. Like Snickerdoodles. And milk. He had her sit on his lap, but all he did was ask her what kind of toys she liked. She charged extra for gadgets, but he said that wasn’t what he’d meant, and went on about choo-choo trains and dollies.
She had a feeling he was a sailor, because of the way he talked about his wife.
Said they were far apart and that he didn’t see her much. Sounded like he’d been on a long journey. And he carried a big green sack. Slung it over his shoulder the way she’d seen sailors do.
When he left, he backed out of the room and laid his finger beside his nose. She had no idea what that was about. Must have been something he picked up overseas.
“Be good,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “And don’t forget to hang your stocking.”
She hated stockings. Garters were a pain.
After he left, she heard a clamor on the roof. This motel was a real rat trap.
Her next date didn’t want to talk at all. He stood there and cracked an entire sack of walnuts with his jaws.
Whatever, Buddy. Long as she got paid, he could bust his nuts all night long.
Since winning the Bethlehem Writers Roundtable Short Story Award in 2014, Tracy Falenwolfe’s stories have appeared in over a dozen publications including Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Spinetingler Magazine, Flash Bang Mysteries, Crimson Streets, and several Chicken Soup for the Soul volumes. Find her at www.tracyfalenwolfe.com
Tradition
by John Wolf
David stood in the tilled field, that year’s harvest gone and buried beneath snow. As the
late Winter sun warmed the frozen earth, steam rose all around, reminders of the great task
ahead. He held his torch and watched his brothers, Andrew and Ezra, roll the hollowed oak tree
across the field. It had taken days to cut down and prepare. Now, it finally rolled home into the
shallow ditch with a crash. Somewhere, a wood duck squawked.
Ezra and Andrew had lit their fire when they came of age. Now, Pa explained, it was David’s turn.
“Ready,” Ezra called while Andrew stuffed extra kindling into the ditch.
David breathed. Next to the fallen tree, his single branch looked so small.
“Go on,” Pa whispered. He struck a match, held it to David’s branch. The dry wood caught and the firelight drew David forward.
He knelt in the snow, the sweet scent of wet earth filling his nostrils. He was eye-level
with a large knot in the tree’s side. Dried corn stalks and kindling awaited below.
David would light them. He would be a man. The ash would be plowed under. Next year’s crops would grow tall. But only if he did his part…
A groan rose from the earth. The wood knot suddenly blinked, the circle within turning a startled blue. Something screamed nearby. David shot up, dropping the torch into the kindling. The fire ate greedily, filling the ditch with heat and terror.
“Come on!” Pa cried and hauled David from danger. Ezra and Andrew danced wildly around the fire. David looked at his father, the old man’s eyes harsh and clear.
Pa and David turned to watch that year’s Yule log burn. Ezra and Andrew soon joined them, and they stood together in the warm firelight.
“Good work,” Pa said and at that, any questions or worries David had floated away on the rising flames. He breathed in a cold, contented sigh. A man’s breath poured out of him.
A high-pitched sound rose from somewhere nearby. Steam escaping wet wood. Or sap crackling. Another wood duck maybe.
John Wolf is a librarian lurking in the Pacific Northwest. He subsists on a strict diet of coffee, horror movies, and podcasts. You can read his other recent work in the Strange Aeon 2022 and 2023 Lovecraftian horror anthologies or Tales of Fear, Superstition, and Doom, as well as other online magazines and podcasts. You can find him on Twitter as @JohnTheEngMajor.
The Christmas Cracker
by Anne Kenney Ettel
Five days before Christmas the Christmas Crackers came in the mail. I was so excited, I
bounced around the house. “When can we open them, when?” I cried.
“Not until Christmas Eve,” my mother said with a stern look as she took the box and hid
it in a cupboard.
For three days I watched that cupboard with an eagle eye. I couldn’t wait. I had to have
just one. But how could I get one with my mother watching?
Finally, the night before Christmas Eve arrived. I went to bed grumpy from my mother’s
scolding when she caught me peeking in the cupboard.
I fell into a restless sleep and was awakened by a cold breeze coming in the open
window.
As I pulled the covers up higher, I saw it. I bolted upright. There in my bedroom stood a
large Christmas Cracker, its gold foil glittering in the moonlight.
It lumbered over to me, stiff, except for its skinny arms and legs. In its outstretched hand
it held a small Christmas Cracker. “Here,” it said in a voice that was neither male nor female.
“Take it. You’ve been good all year, haven’t you?”
I nodded, too dumbstruck to say anything. I took the small cracker from its hand. I
couldn’t believe my luck.
“Open it,” it said.
With my heart thumping, I jumped out of bed, my bare feet landing on the cold floor.
“Go ahead,” it urged, while I stared at the small cracker.
It was beautiful, with red and green paper mixed with gold foil. It was the prettiest
Christmas Cracker I had ever seen.
I pulled the ends and the cracker burst like a firework, blowing off my pjs and sending
me through the window into the maple tree.
The large cracker tossed me its wrapper. “It’s cold out there,” it said with a sharp toothed
grin. I watched as it put on my pj’s and climbed into my bed.
Anne Kenney Ettel is writing her first novel and lives on the Oregon Coast where she enjoys mushroom foraging. She volunteers for Willamette Writers and is a member of Sisters in Crime.
“As Good As Gold, And Better”
by Dan Fields
To Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, Scrooge was a second father. This hospitality from the reformed miser proved expedient once the lad’s first father succumbed to natural causes beyond the reach of philanthropy.
The boy’s miraculously restored health manifested secondary symptoms for which no spirit guide had prepared him or his benefactor. Tim’s physical transformation gradually rendered the epithet of “Tiny” a macabre joke, next an obscene irony, as his dimensions grew monstrous. The surviving Cratchits withdrew from their brother in fear, leaving him to his adoptive parent’s exclusive care. Soon after came Tim’s dreadful turn of appetite.
By day they visited London’s prisons and workhouses, where Scrooge’s charitable ministrations were tireless. After sundown, Tim paid clandestine return visits, easing public need by culling the surplus population. The old man had purchased a draughty Bermondsey flat where Tim could hold his dark rites of consumption, followed by intervals of torpid sleep.
The hunger always found Tim near Christmas time. As his will to endure waned with each year, something in the fatty crackle of goose flesh and roasting chestnuts rekindled his faith in the metamorphosis whose greater purpose the ghostly emissaries had yet to reveal. Tim who would NOT die went forth by night for his own traditional feasting.
Scrooge, who had touched phantoms, far outlived his natural years before expiring. His final generosity was to offer his ancient flesh for his ward’s further sustenance. It was poor meat for Tim the brute, though rich in spiritual significance.
Leaving Scrooge’s hat, frock coat and bones in Hyde Park as a Christmas Eve puzzle for the constables, he climbed the south tower of St. Paul’s to await further signs. Alone and shivering, he felt the great storm of prayers vibrating the cathedral timbers. Did they beg blessings only once a year? He wished for understanding of this and other mysteries as the toll of bells gave way to the deeper thunder of a dark, undulating form which materialized near the base of the cathedral dome. Tim, who could NOT die, trembled at the advent of his third father.
Dan Fields has published around two dozen stories of horror and the weird with Pseudopod, Nocturnal Transmissions, Improbable Press, Cowboy Jamboree Magazine and many more. In 2021 he released a story collection entitled Under Worlds, After Lives, and he is co-author of an upcoming novel – Harvest Time – from Torrid Waters and Crystal Lake Entertainment. He lives in Houston, Texas with a totally out-of-his-league wife, two high-spirited kids, two criminally rowdy felines and a pretty damn good blues and rock band called Polecat Rodeo.
Christmas Dog
by AE Stueve
The dog sat in a cold alley, staring at the heavens. No one else noticed. Or if they did, they didn’t care.
But he was shivering and alone and it was Christmas.
“Hello?” I approached, palm out.
He side-eyed me before returning his attention to the sky.
“What do you see?” I followed his gaze.
The dog whined.
“What is it?”
With a sudden urgency he leaped to his back paws and wagged his tail.
Above us, far in the distance of space, a blue light exploded, sending streaks toward Earth.
In the blink of an eye, a streak landed before us. It s glow faded, revealing a buzzing gray sphere about as big as me.
My brain had trouble keeping up.
The dog noticed. “All dogs are leaving,” he said in perfect English. “This is my ride.”
Shock stole my response.
“We tried to help you,” he said sadly, “for so long, but there’s just something,” he studied the decay in the alley, the rotting detritus of the city, of mankind, “wrong inside.” He hung his head and mumbled.
“What?” I finally asked.
“There is goodness too,” he said. “It’s arbitrary and conditional but it’s there.” He cocked his head; a pointed ear flipped. “Would you have stopped if it wasn’t Christmas?”
“What?”
“All days are the same for dogs.”
“I don’t understand,” I whined. Uncontrollable tears flowed down my reddened cheeks.
“The Great Old Ones will be here soon,” he said. “They’ll end it.”
My hands hung limply at my side.
A keening grew on the wind, something like a howl, something like a siren. It came from the sky, the earth. The alley rumbled. A great boom exploded in the stars. We both looked up. The whole world looked up. What we saw was unspeakable. It was madness made flesh. It was a titan whose
phantasmagoric monstrosity the human brain could not comprehend.
It was the end of us.
The dog nudged my leg.
Reflexively, I petted his soft fur.
“You never answered my question,” he said.
“What?”
“Would you have stopped if it wasn’t Christmas?”
AE Stueve teaches writing, photography, filmmaking, and design at Bellevue West High and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. His novels, short stories, poems, journalism, and essays can be found online, on podcasts, and in print. To learn more about him, check out https://linktr.ee/stueveae.
Christmas Crumbs
by Kristin Proctor
Everyone blamed the Evergreen Terrace staff. Who else would the elderly residents trust?
When I asked, Harriet insisted in 80 years she had never participated in the relations implied by her positive test. Bernice listed her lovers, all quickly identified as past lovers, and eliminated as the source of this outbreak.
Elsie scoffed, “These things happen.”
“Why only ladies get ‘ze crabs? Snow crabs are ‘ze best,” Walter nattered. The young carer nearby busied herself with paperwork.
By the time Santa arrived at Evergreen, singing carols seemed the perfect distraction.
***
“Is he from a church or something?” I asked, wheeling residents towards Santa.
“He’s shown up a few times, like the real St. Nick, out of thin air,” smiled the young carer.
Santa scratched his beard, as he poured eggnog in cups and arranged sugar cookies on napkins.
Then, Santa serenaded a rosy-cheeked Harriet, while Elsie and Bernice shared kisses and then hiccups beneath the mistletoe.
Santa shuffled to Jingle Bell Rock, needing to adjust, then readjust his red pants.This overheated care home was no place for dancing in polyester.
By the time Santa finished Silent Night, even Walter wore a smile.
***
“Ho, ho, Harriet, I’ll help.” Santa extended an arm. An eye-twinkle flashed between them.
Technically, only staff should assist residents, but who was I to be a grinch?
“Can you smell booze?” The young carer asked
The head nurse, who after three decades at Evergreen remained fazed by nothing, shrugged, “Hand sanitiser. It’s everywhere.”
Further down the hall, Harriet whisper-shouted, “Santa, come sit on my lap!”
“No way,” gasped the young carer.
Santa plunged his hand into his pocket with a vigorously clawing motion.
“Santa?” I questioned, though I knew the answer.
“That’s no cookie crumb itch,” the head nurse confirmed.
Harriet’s door shut.
“Should we …” I started.
“‘Tis the season to get your jollies. We can treat ‘em in the new year. Now, do yourselves a favor and grab an eggnog.” The head nurse winked, humming Joy to the World as she raised a glass and herded residents down the hall.
Kristin Procter grew up in Canada but now lives and writes in Sydney, Australia. At first, she found it weird that Christmas wasn’t cold, but now she loves to spend the 25th of December on the beach. Her writing has been included in anthologies on colonizing Mars, motherhood, and ham sandwiches, but none that included all three…yet.
They Whisper Our Names
by River Lucero
There’s a lonely place in the woods. An icy clearing with dead branches and dirt. We call it The Bright Place. Every Christmas, we sneak out after dinner and there’s a new grave. We’ve never, ever told our parents.
We go there to talk to ghosts.
The ghosts whisper our names. They touch our ears. They kiss our faces. They tell us they love us. Sometimes, they ask for help. But they don’t need help. They’re happy. Happy that we talk to them and visit them. They say their families don’t know where they are. And that they don’t like the Gray Man. They tell us not to keep his secret.
And so we make masks. It’s part of the game! They know who we are even with masks on. They can smell our souls, our aliveness. We spend weeks making our masks. We make them out of paper. We use rocks and strings and glue. We use sticks for antlers. We make ourselves look like animals. We feel secret and magical.
We go through the ugly playground. You know the one. The one with the filthy, rusted blue bones and broken swings. Then over the small, frozen hill. We sneak deep into the cold heart of the woods, where no one ever goes. The snow swallows all the sound we make. Our footsteps, our giggling.
There’s a fresh new grave in The Bright Place this Christmas. Just like every year. Three ghosts to kiss us now. To thank us. To see us without seeing us behind our magic, secret masks.
That first Christmas, we caught the Gray Man while he was burying the first ghost. He told us that if we promised to keep his secret, we could talk to them. That ghosts only talk on Christmas and to good secret keepers, because they miss their families. And that if we ever told our parents, he’d make us ghosts, too.
And so we keep the Gray Man’s secret.
We don’t want to be ghosts.
River Lucero lives and writes in Texas. thenothingplace.wordpress.com
NORAD Tracks Santa
by Laura Grant
The man on the radio called out excitedly over the sound of carols in the background. “This just in: Santa has been spotted over Eastport, Maine, our nation’s easternmost town.” Through the window, Jilly saw a few flakes drifting down.
From the rug in front of the glowing fireplace where she sat playing with her dolls, Jilly peeked over her shoulder at Mother, who smiled at her and went back to cleaning the mortar propped between her knees. “Won’t be long now, Jilly.” Mother plunged the long-handled brush into the barrel of the mortar, scraping out the soot and gunpowder.
The tinsel on the tree twinkled and whirled as Father banged through the door, bringing the winter wind with him. He stamped his boots, clapped his hands, and gave a sharp bark. “Whew! It’s a cold one!” He winked at Jilly, then turned to Mother.
“Are we almost ready? He’ll be over us in no time.”
“Patience dear,” Mother soothed. “He’s only just now over Eastport.” She carefully guided a shell into the barrel of the mortar, wincing when it dropped too quickly.
Father grunted and ladled mulled wine into a mug. “Don’t want to miss our shot, darling.” He eyeballed the cookies cooling on the counter, but Mother tutted him.
The man on the radio piped up again. “We have some news about Santa’s sleigh,” — chaos in the background, papers shuffling, harsh whispers — “Sorry, folks, just getting the latest numbers. Santa’s slay count is now in the thousands. The Department of Yuletide Security anticipates many more if civilian spotters cannot bring him down.” Father snapped off the radio.
Moments later, they heard the faint tinkling of sleigh bells. Mother turned white. She and Father dragged the mortar outside. The fireplace crackled in the silence.
Jilly yelped as a boom shook the windows and the lights went off. Seconds later, something large crashed onto the roof. A multitude of hooves scrambled down both sides of the house.
Then, from inside the chimney, one immense black boot stamped down onto the fire, snuffing it out.
Laura Grant is a lawyer and writer. Like most elder millennials, she has held many job titles, including mother, photographer, burlesque emcee, private investigator, poker player, server, and pizza delivery driver. Her work is published or forthcoming in Flash Frog, Five Fleas, Collage, and The Downtown (a funky and now defunct ‘zine in Johnson City, TN). She lives in Maryland with a couple of gremlins.
The Blizzard and the Eye
by Caleb Delos-Santos
I obey.
“Wear this.” the Blizzard orders and tosses my Santa hat.
I stitch it to my head.
“Carol for me.”
I sing Mariah Carey and Charlie-Brown-dance.
“Chuckle like Kringle.”
I ho-ho-ho and recite reindeer until spit leaves my lips, and I dehydrate. For days, I follow rules and Christmas requests until the Blizzard pauses like a god at rest.
“What now?” I ask the Blizzard, uncertain if it still wants my submission.
“Hello?” I ask again.
It vomits white ash into my face and vision.
“Shoot your eye out.”
It stares and spins in place.
I never ponder the thought. The Blizzard does not let me.
“Okay.” I respond and reach for my denim side.
My shrinking purple fingers, frostbitten and deskinned, fiddle inside my pocket until I fondle my pistol’s steel grip.
I stare at my weapon. It is now a candy cane, oversized, shining, and color-changing with every blink. It starts as classic red and white, twists into purple and yellow, and ends on gray and blue, like the ones Grandma fed to Blitzen.
I lift the candy piece to my right pus-spoiled iris.
“I like your left better.” The Blizzard whispers.
I obey and squeeze my fingers.
“I cannot find the trigger,” I say after trial and error.
Then… PUT IT IN.
“Okay,” I say and continue to obey.
I puncture my yellow pupil with my candy cane. Snow and gore cloak my sight, and I melt into the floor. I scream and cry with my last good eye while my tissue-twisted tear duct coagulates.
I do not understand why, but it cries too, more and more until its cyclone-spinning icicles finally hit the floor.
The Blizzard stops and leaves, like Santa Baby after home-invading. But, despite its dissipation and the sun’s animation, I am not free.
I remain liquid for three hundred days until the Blizzard returns and freezes me again.
Then, I rise back to attention, like a snowman returning from summer break, and the commands begin again, and I scream again.
Each year, the Blizzard wishes.
I obey.
Caleb Delos-Santos (he/him) is an English graduate student at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. In his four years of writing, Caleb has published poetry with over twenty literary magazines, including North Dakota Quarterly and the Madison Journal of Literary Criticism, and released three poetry collections: A Poet’s Perspective (2022), Once One Discovers Love (2023), and Leftover Poetry (2023). Caleb also won the 2022 Esselstrom Prize for Creative Writing and the West Wind Literary Magazine’s 2023 Best in Genre Award for his nonfiction. Today, Caleb teaches English 101 as a teaching assistant and continues to pursue a writing career. Feel free to follow him on Instagram at caleb.delos_santos.
A Timeless Holiday Tradition
by R.D. Irizar
My eyes fluttered awake and the realization set in immediately. I ran downstairs to find my younger brother and sister already sitting anxiously a safe distance from the tree. I giggled at our parents in their matching jalapeño print pajamas, watching from the corner of the room with cozy smiles. They sipped holiday drinks carefully from bright red mugs with tendrils of steam. A cold downdraft blew through the large vent in the ceiling and froze my bare feet. Everyone shivered.
“Go ahead gremlin.” Daddy sensed my nervousness. His words nudged gently.
I walked over to the bright red sack and pulled forth metal masks with magic horizontal glass slits across the eyes. One by one, I handed the masks out, starting with my siblings. My parents set down their mugs to don theirs and double-check everyone had a snug fit.
My hands explored inside the sack for the last item. It was heavy and cold to the touch. Cylindrical canister atop a metal frame. Double trigger. Holey nozzle. A tube connected the back of the gas tank to the handle grip. Inside was the self-regulating flow control system.
I unveiled the majestic flamethrower. A shiny new B1000. Solid white with sparkling silver and gold trim. Magical. My siblings jumped up and down with excitement. Daddy said controlled fire saves forests. Mama said just be grateful the landfills are gone, whatever that means.
I tapped the trigger lightly and a brief puff of fire purred. The recoil was soft. A gentle beast.
A skirt of discarded toys rested in the coal surrounding the tree.
I silently whispered goodbye to my old teddy covered in patches. I pressed hard on the trigger and flames bellowed forth. The tree was engulfed in roaring flames, reflecting in our visors. Old toys melted away. The vent kicked on, sucking the smoke through magic filters that ejected flurries of snow billowing from the roof. I smiled wide under my mask as I purged old memories to make room for new ones. We basked in the glow, filled with warmth and joy.
Ron D. Irizar is a father, husband, and aspiring author with a passion for sci-fi and fantasy. “A Timeless Holiday Tradition” is his first published work after a 20-year hiatus. He bounced around between many cities and rural areas throughout the first chapters of his life, spending the latest 10 years in the Pacific Northwest. During the wet and cold months, you may spot him hibernating in one of the quieter suburban coffee shops around Seattle, WA. When the sun comes out, he seeks inspiration from the beautiful national parks around the U.S. and joins crews sailing the Salish Sea.
Tough Crowd
by Carla Rudy
The third graders buzzed with nervous excitement backstage. The Virgin Mary was near tears in her effort to locate her shawl. The flock of lambs were deep into character as they only communicated with “Baaaaa.” Joseph sulked in the corner because he only had one line. The two halves of the donkey, formerly best friends, were no longer on speaking terms. The Three Wise Men used their staffs to play golf with the Baby Jesus doll.
Miss Randall scolded, “Can we not maul the Baby Jesus?”
The Three Wise Men whacked each other with their staffs instead.
“Thank goodness I made them out of pool noodles,” thought Miss Randall. She gathered the children at five minutes to showtime.
“Baaaaa,” said the lambs.
“Good job,” said Miss Randall. “You all have worked so hard, and you should be very proud of yourselves.”
The noise of the audience, waiting just on the other side of the burgundy velvet curtain, rose up and permeated through the plywood set. It sounded… off. A hum, just out of reach of the human ear.
The children’s eyes grew big. Somebody whimpered.
“No need to be nervous,” Miss Randall soothed. “Remember, they can kill you, but they can’t eat you.”
The children stared. Did she say…
“Places!” She bustled offstage.
The opening music swelled up. Uncanny applause shattered the air as the curtain rose.
Joseph, center stage, saw that the house was packed with angels.
Seraphim, wheels of feathery wings and innumerable eyes, glowed in their beautiful and terrible glory. An archangel stood in each aisle, holding a flaming sword aloft. The children got lost in the sea of eyes and feathers.
Miss Randall gestured for Joseph to say his one line, but he couldn’t remember it. The two halves of the donkey clutched each other. The Three Wise Men wept. The Virgin Mary dropped the Baby Jesus on its head.
One of the Archangels stepped forward to collect the Baby Doll Messiah. The Virgin Mary jumped back from his flaming sword. The audience rose up from their seats, and flew away.
“Tough crowd,” said Miss Randall.
Carla Rudy earned a BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. She immediately went on a side quest through the performing arts, working as a puppeteer, hand model, voiceover artist, improviser, seamstress, movie stand-in, and theme park princess. She has been a speaker at the storytelling series, Strong Words Live, and her writing has been featured on ThriftStoreFitness.com, 101Words.com, and is forthcoming in Helix Magazine. She is currently at work on a novel based on her theme park experience. Instagram and Threads: @CarlaRudyWriter
‘Full To The Brim And Running O’er’
by Rosetta York
A heap of Christmas cards on the doormat greeted Thaddeus West when he returned
home late afternoon from The British Museum. More unctuous greetings from his esteemed
colleagues. He planted his snow-encrusted shoe square on a scene of four dead frogs, legs
upturned on an icy pond, and slammed the front door behind him. He sloughed off his
Inverness coat and set his top hat, gloves, and cane on the hall table.
He warmed the pan of purple smoking bishop Mrs Carson had left for him and poured
it into his white bone china tankard. He carried it, steaming, through to his study and sank
into his leather armchair. Only then did he turn his attention to the post. He tossed the slush-
soaked frogs into his elephant-foot wastepaper basket. The dead robin wishing him ‘A Joyful
Christmas’ with a dagger through its heart clattered after it.
A tart, fruity gulp from his tankard fortified Thaddeus through the rest of the pile until
he encountered Faraday’s hand-written invitation to his Christmas lecture, tonight, at the
Royal Polytechnic Institution. He’d be hanged if he’d sit through ‘The Chemical History of a
Candle’ after Faraday had snubbed his polite bow yesterday. Let the blackguard find
someone else to swell his audience.
Sudden excruciating pain made Thaddeus yelp. One corner of Faraday’s invitation,
razor-sharp where a section of the gilt edging was missing, had sliced his fingertip. Blood
plopped onto the parquet flooring. He sucked his finger and gagged on its bitter metallic tang.
He shook his handkerchief open and bound his finger tight before grabbing the tankard to
swill the foul taste away.
A scarlet stag beetle clung to the tankard’s rim. He froze. It waved one leg at him and
lowered its mandibles to drink the smoking bishop. A large rainbow-coloured butterfly
fluttered down and sipped from the other side.
Thaddeus’s finger throbbed. Purple rivulets slopped down the tankard. Faraday was a
jolly good fellow. He should go to his lecture and wish him ‘A Merry Christmas’. He
chuckled and flew round the ceiling in a kaleidoscope of butterflies.
Horror, time travel, and Gothic romance author Rosetta Yorke lives in the wilds of North Yorkshire, UK, where owls hoot and foxes shriek in the night. She traces her love of all things dark and weird back to her archaeological days
spent ‘six feet under’, releasing restless skeletons from centuries-old graves in a race against time before the earthen side walls crumbled in on her, or municipal contractors redeveloped the site. Her short stories and micro fiction have been published in anthologies by Black Hare Press, HorrorAddicts.net, Dark Rose Press and Dragon Soul Press. Rosetta is active on social media and would love to hear from you. You can find her via https://linktr.ee/rosettayorke
Santa Drop
by Larry Hodges
“I’m Santa Claus!” cried the falling raindrop, who we’ll call Santa-Drop.
“No,” said the other falling raindrop, who we’ll call Doubting-Drop. “You are a raindrop.”
“And this is my magic sleigh!”
“No, that’s a bit of paper that must have been sucked into the sky by a rising warm air mass.”
“Tonight I’m delivering toys to children all over the world!”
“Those aren’t toys, those are cloud condensation nuclei, the bits of dust we condensed about when we were children a few minutes ago. And you won’t be delivering anything tonight. We
fell from a raincloud and in two minutes we’ll hit the ground and go splat.”
“And those are my eight magic raindeer!”
“That’s a swarm of mayflies, of the order Ephemeroptera, that must have been sucked up by that rising warm air mass. They got drenched in the rain and are now falling with us. And it’s spelled R-E-I-N.”
“You guys only have two-minute lifespans?” asked one of the mayflies or raindeer, who we’ll call Splasher. “We get a glorious two days!”
“Except you’re soaked and falling with us, and will go splat with us,” said Doubting-Drop. “Your name should be a hint, Splasher.”
“That puts a damper on things,” said Splasher. It flapped its sopping wings a few times but continued falling. “I sure hope we’re flying raindeer.”
“Just stop it!” cried Doubting Drop. “You’ve wasted half my adult life with your ravings.”
“I’m putting you on the naughty list,” said Santa-Drop. “No toys for you.”
“That’s not a naughty list, you’re just tracing letters in the air without a writing utensil.”
“Well, I still hope you have a merry Christmas,” said Santa-Drop. “Too bad it’s not a white Christmas, maybe next year.”
“Yeah, snowflakes fall slower,” said Doubting-Drop. It glanced at the rapidly approaching ground. “Goodbye all!”
Splat.
Santa-Drop and the eight raindeer hovered above for a moment, watching poor Doubting-Drop’s dissolution, like water in rain.
“Oh well, let’s get going,” Santa-Drop said. “Merry Christmas to all!”
The following morning children everywhere awoke to the glorious sight of neatly wrapped cloud condensation nuclei under their trees.
Larry Hodges, from Germantown, MD, is an active member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) with over 190 short story sales and four novels. He’s a member of Codexwriters, and a graduate of the Odyssey and the Taos Toolbox Writers Workshops. He has 21 books and over 2100 published articles in over 180 different publications. He’s also a member of the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame, and claims to be the best table tennis player in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, and the best science fiction writer in USA Table Tennis!!! Visit him at www.larryhodges.com.
SCI: Whoville
by Katie Gill
“Jesus Christ, Jerry, what am I looking at?”
Marcus Who took a long drag on his cigarette, looking down at the mess of blood, gore, and
shattered bones in front of him. The poor bastard’s corpse was mangled—arms, legs, and head
were intact, but what used to be called the chest was now an open cavity, exposed to the
elements. The Santa suit that the victim was wearing was shredded, red fabric blowing in the
breeze aside green fur.
Jerry, the medical examiner, bent over the corpse, disgusted frown on his face as he gingerly
peeled back some of the suit. There was a squelching sound as he did so—the clothes were
saturated, almost fused to the skin due to the sheer amount of blood from the body.
“Shattering of the ribs, damage to most internal organs. The victim died within seconds of the
event. But as for the cause of death…you’re not going to believe this, Marcus.”
“I’ve got a wife, a kid, and a dinner of roast beast to get back to. Give it to me straight.”
“From the trajectory of the bone shards, it’s obvious that whatever killed the man, killed him from
inside his own body. Something in there…well, it just about exploded. Add in the fact that
certain organs were missing, and aortic tissue was discovered a few feet away from the body—”
“Get to the point,” Marcus snapped. A quiet settled over the scene, only punctuated by the
barely audible whimpering of a dog.
“It’s hard to believe, but all the medical evidence adds up. If an internal organ is rapidly
enlarged, the pressure inside would shatter bones, arteries, skin. Think of it like blowing up a
balloon inside a paper bag. Blow it up enough and the bag would just…” Jerry made a small
popping noise with his mouth, before turning back to look at the mangled corpse in front of him.
With a sad sigh, he proclaimed his diagnosis.
“It’s his heart, Marcus. The Grinch’s heart grew three sizes that day. And it killed him instantly.”
Katie Gill is a librarian who enjoys writing about dead and/or spooky things. She spends her free time dealing with her ridiculous cats and reading whatever nonfiction about polar exploration she can get her hands on. Read her work at The Deadlands, Manor Vellum, or Dracula: Beyond Stoker and follow her on Bluesky, Instagram, and Twitter at katiebeluga.
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