Old Man Christmas

Luke Walker

Bill let go of the curtains, shielding his home from the fog, the night, and the winking lights. And Father Christmas in the middle of his yearly visit.

Even with his new glasses, Bill Reid wasn’t sure what he saw hanging from the bedroom window of his neighbour’s house. Fog had clung to the streets for the entire day and while it had thinned marginally in the short time since sunset, enough remained to mute the pavements and the road with a grey blanket. Lurking behind the murk, the twinkling lights in windows flashed. He blinked a few times and realized he was looking at yet another Christmas decoration to go with the reindeer, the snowmen and the plastic sledge. Hanging from the window, linked to a short ladder, Father Christmas looked to be in the process of clambering up the wall of number seventeen.

Bill laughed at the crass sight. He didn’t know who lived in the house, only that it was a couple with at least three kids who’d moved in about two weeks ago. He’d lived on Oak Avenue for twenty years. Plenty long enough to know what the people in the surrounding homes would think. Lights and trees were fine. More, they were expected as long as the lights weren’t ostentatious. A six-foot Santa apparently performing a break and enter under cover of night wasn’t one for Oak Avenue.

Bill laughed again. Sue heard him from the kitchen and called through.

“What’s going on in there?”

“Come and have a look at this.”

A lone supermarket delivery van passed. Two days before Christmas and it felt like the world was more than ready for its annual close down. The road was never busy with traffic at the best of times. Today, a Friday, it looked to Bill like a Sunday afternoon.

Sue joined him and peered through the window. She smelled of dinner and perfume. They were having John and Cathy from next door around for drinks later; he’d been looking forward to it all day.

“What is that? Father Christmas?” Sue asked.

“Yep. Nice, isn’t it?”

Thanks to a nearby street light and the illumination from the lights in the ground floor window, blurry oranges, and winking bulbs showed enough despite the fog. A fat figure dressed in the standard red and white suit (although that red was bleached like a bone); a heavy sack slung over one shoulder, and a plastic hand clinging to the ladder that dangled from the closed window. Although Bill couldn’t be sure, he thought Father Christmas was straining to peer up at the window and the last foot or so of the ladder.

“Yes, lovely.” Sue eyed him. “No, you can’t.”

“Can’t what?” He knew.

“Get one for the house.”

“Really? It’s great. I want one.” Bill stamped his foot in mock anger as if he was ten and not in his mid-fifties.

“It’s tacky and ugly and the entire road will hate it.”

“That’s why I want one. Look at his bulging sack.”

Sue laughed at the entendre and kissed his cheek. Again, he smelled her and loved her with a fire to warm against cold Decembers. “Get ready. They’ll be here soon.”

Sue returned to the kitchen. Bill let go of the curtains, shielding his home from the fog, the night, and the winking lights. And Father Christmas in the middle of his yearly visit.

#

“That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Bill looked up from the paper and his toast. Lisa stood near the windows, facing the front garden, the road and the opposite houses. She breathed on the window, fogging it, then wiped the condensation clear.

In the daylight, the Father Christmas was much clearer. The hat with bells hanging from the tip; the white fluff of his belt; the polished black of his plastic boots; the bag that looked ready to burst with its overflowing presents. The sheer size of the thing. It was there for the world to see. And by world, Bill knew the only people who mattered were his middle-class neighbours. The local Facebook page would be going bonkers.

“I like it, but your mother won’t let me get one,” Bill told his daughter. She pulled a face. Whether it was at the suggestion of Father Christmas stuck to the wall of their house or at the decoration itself, Bill didn’t know. He loved the girl with a force that was occasionally frightening – even after nineteen years – but he sometimes wondered if he really knew her. Lisa did have a sense of humour; she was sharp and quick and destined for great things in a way he had never been at her age, but Christ, everything was black and white to the girl.

But it was nine on a Saturday morning. He had his paper, his toast and nothing bigger planned for Christmas Eve other than a couple of pints at lunchtime and the preparing for the family arrival tomorrow.

“I can’t imagine why,” Lisa said. “Other than the fact it’s tacky as hell and sentimental and a bit shit, really.”

“Just like Christmas.” He said it before she could.

“No.” She dragged out the syllable for a second too long and Bill smiled around his toast. Sue joined them with her coffee. It had been a later night than usual with drinks with their friends and then an unexpected hour in the bedroom. She looked wonderful.

“I’ve already told him he can’t have one,” Sue said to Lisa.

“Spoilsport,” Bill muttered.

“There’ll be a petition to take it down by lunchtime.” Lisa indicated the nearest houses to number seventeen. “They’re probably ready to move out. Or call the police.”

It was a joke and Bill knew it. Still, there was an edge to his daughter’s tone he didn’t care for. He heard the humour; he also heard a slight sneering. A judgement. For the people at seventeen with their tacky decorations, perhaps. Or for the middle-class road. Or for Christmas.

“What’s the problem with it? The people who put it up like it. It’s a laugh, isn’t it?” Bill said.

“It’s cheesy. It’s supposed to be ironic, but it’s just. . . crap. Like that guy you listen to on the radio in the afternoons who’s deliberately not funny. Like not being funny is actually funny.” Lisa pointed to the dangling Santa. “That’s Christmas.” She smiled. “Crap, really.”

“No presents for you, young lady.” Sue sat beside Bill and raised her breakfast to his. “A toast to your toast.”

“A toast to your toast,” he echoed.

“Old people.” Lisa returned to her bedroom where Bill suspected she’d be online in about three seconds to decry her parents to the world. Along with Christmas.

Really, what was the problem? People celebrated; they had a drink and a laugh; they saw friends and neighbours and they were warm against the dying year. If they had to stick up some garish decorations to do so, then where was the harm?

The dim sound of tinkling bells came to their living room. Bill looked up, aware the windows were closed. Across the street, Father Christmas hung from his place on the wall of the house.

Father Christmas had turned around to face straight into Bill’s living room.

#

With the light from the downstairs hall bouncing up the stairs to meet the illumination from the second floor, Bill ascended the stairs without any shadows walking with him. As he reached the hallway, he heard Sue flush the downstairs toilet and smiled. He could have waited for her to finish instead of coming upstairs to the bathroom, but the wine they’d had over dinner along with a few bottles of Bishop’s Finger didn’t want to hang around. He padded past Lisa’s bedroom door, heard the murmur of her voice and a reply from whoever she was talking to, through her computer, and took care of business in the bathroom. Washing his hands, he studied his face in the mirror, not liking the way the light bleached his features or how the sliver of illumination carved a square below the window. It didn’t take much imagination to see the winking flash of Christmas lights inside that white square.

It was just one of those things. It doesn’t mean anything.

He could believe that quite easily. Imagination was fine for writers or creative people and while he loved his books, Bill knew he was long past letting imagination dictate what he saw or believed. The world was made of solid things. His family, his home, his friends, his job in the Council. Christmas.

A phantom ache clung to his elbow from where he’d jerked and knocked his arm into Sue’s plate, spilling her toast to the carpet. She’d cried out in shock, then asked him what was wrong. He’d coughed hard, deeply, eyes blurring for a couple of seconds before he could focus and there was Father Christmas, clinging to the wall opposite, surrounded by lights and reindeer and those inflatable snowmen. St. Nick with his sack thrown over one shoulder, his body fixed to the ladder and free hand straining for the bedroom window. Facing number seventeen and most definitely not staring into Bill’s living room.

“I had a twinge,” Bill said to his reflection. It was what he’d told Sue. A twinge in his stomach as if he’d been about to be ill. It passed, he told her, but he’d go to the loo just in case. Sitting on the toilet, staring at the wall, he’d taken a few minutes to jettison the childish terror of a sodding Christmas decoration moving when it couldn’t possibly do so and then returned to his breakfast, his wife, his world of normality.

Close to twelve hours later, the quiet of Christmas Eve pleasant in the warmth of his home, it was a welcome knowledge to know it had just been one of those things.

You haven’t looked out of the window much, have you?

No. He had not. While he hadn’t gone out of his way to avoid the view of the faint mist on the road and in the gardens, he had drawn the curtains a good hour before the sun went down in its red glory. And when he’d gone out at lunch to meet his friends for a pint, he’d marched in a straight line, breath puffing, the chill icy in his nose and chest. Eyes ahead. Focus ahead. His speed that of a younger man until the stabbing pain in his side forced him to remember he was in his fifties and it was time to slow down.

He left the bathroom. He and Sue would have another drink, then bed. With everyone descending on the house by eleven at the latest the next morning, they needed sleep and time to prepare for his brothers, sister, their spouses and kids, and his parents. This was his last chance at peace until probably seven the following evening.

Bill slowed as he neared Lisa’s bedroom. She was still on her computer, her voice carrying through the closed door. He paused there, wishing she had met up with some of her friends for a drink, but she wasn’t a pub kind of kid. Few of her friends were. Their lives were online, not face to face.

“Yeah. Aunts, uncles, cousins I don’t know.”

Bill listened. Whatever reply Lisa’s friend offered wasn’t clear.

“Well, yeah. I mean I know them, but I don’t have anything to do with them apart from Christmas, you know?”

Downstairs, Sue was in the kitchen. Probably heating another glass of mulled wine and digging through their copious supplies of beer for him.

“Yeah. It’s going to be hell. Grandparents who must be about three hundred by now; all my inbred aunts and uncles. If I can get out before dinner, I’ll come round.”

“Inbred?” Bill whispered.

“What?” Lisa’s annoyance was as clear as her surprise. “Not even for like half an hour?”

Her friend couldn’t get away from family, it seemed.

“Shit.” Lisa sounded much younger than nineteen in that second. Again, Bill wondered if he knew his child as much as he loved her. There was actual disgust here; not even something as simple as disliking the day. Disgust at the whole thing.

“Yeah, I don’t like it.”

Bill sagged, disheartened. It was as if she was agreeing with him, not her friend.

“Like why this one day? Why not meet up with people whenever you want? Why wait for the same day as everyone else? Shit, why do it at all? It’s the same every year. Like, literally the same every year except all my relatives are older and definitely more boring.” She laughed. “Definitely more inbred. I swear, the stuff they get up to out there in the country.”

Bill leaned on the wall, listening to Lisa go on with her mocking just on the wrong side of good-natured. The country. Old. Same every year. Same every year. Same every year.

The terms clung to his heart, bringing a dismay that pained his stomach. Lisa had always been cynical and that was okay. He could live with that. But this was ugly. It was the same judgement she’d given to the garish decorations festooning number seventeen. Judge the decorations; judge the people who celebrated Christmas to such an extent.

Which meant judging her family.

Bill left Lisa to her conversation, returning to Sue and the lights on their tree. They watched TV; they laughed at repeats of Morecambe and Wise, and Bill sipped brandy an hour later while Sue found a mixture of Christmas songs. Nat King Cole followed Bing Crosby while Bill sang quietly to Slade, Wizzard, and Shakin’ Stevens with a humour he did not feel. After the carols from King’s, Sue suggested bed. They hadn’t heard or seen anything from Lisa all evening; she’d be asleep by now.

“I’ll be up in a bit.” Bill shook his brandy glass slightly. The liquid caught the glimmer of the tree lights. He’d filled it with a liberal splash ten minutes before, not admitting to himself he’d deliberately timed it. Because he knew Sue would soon suggest turning in.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yes. I’ll finish this and be up. Keep the bed warm for me.”

She smiled and he loved her. Thirty years and that love was in their home and their curtains sealed against the embers of the dead year.

Sue yawned hugely. “All right, but don’t be long. Big day tomorrow.”

He knew it. The inbred and the old would join them to celebrate light and love and family.

Within minutes, he was alone, brandy in hand, beside the lights on the tree. The TV was on, showing some ancient film, the volume close to non-existent. Floorboards creaked overhead; the faint light from their bedroom reached halfway down the stairs. It went off. His wife in their bed, doubtless asleep in two minutes if the mulled wine was anything to go on. Lisa, up there either still decrying family and Christmas, or also sleeping. Dreaming of days that didn’t involve forced fun and festivities. The same every year.

Every year.

Bill drank, eyes on the screen, attention elsewhere. He’d have to speak to Lisa at some point. Not tomorrow, though. Let the family meet and laugh for the day, then have a word. Point out that just because sociability wasn’t her strong point, that didn’t mean judging those who did want to celebrate the day was okay. Nor was mocking her extended family. Nor was any of it.

Bill shifted, niggled by doubt. Something in those words – same every year – stuck to him like. . .like Father Christmas was stuck to the wall. Reaching for access. Weighed down with his bag of presents or whatever was in his sack. Except Bill thought his own weight wasn’t anything as fun as presents.

It was a begrudging admittance Lisa was right.

It was the same every year. Same people. Same conversations. Same music and TV and routine and routine and routine. Anything meaningful in the day was lost and buried by repeats and ironically bad music and over-indulgence. Christmas was just one big echo sounding out of his childhood into adult life and then into the grave.

Soft bells tinkled.

Bill’s neck turned his head. He had nothing to do with it. He stared at the curtains and heard the gentle tinkle again. The sort of sound one might hear from the movement of a hat with jaunty bells attached.

Because that’s what it was.

“Bullshit.”

The whisper didn’t help. If anything, the tired hiss of his voice was an invasion in the tranquillity of Christmas Eve night.

As his neck forced his head to turn, his legs took over. He stood, still with brandy in hand, and lurched to the window.

Curtains parted, Bill gazed at the houses and gardens shrouded in a thicker mist than earlier.

Father Christmas stood in the middle of the road. He’d descended from the wall of number seventeen, trudged through the frozen earth and black ice, between the inflatable snowmen and reindeer to stand in full view of Bill’s living room. But stand wasn’t the right word for the hunched thing outside. It was too old to stand straight, too weighed down by those centuries and repeated nights trudging from year to year, so it hunched over, head twisted to peer at him with blue lights for eyes. Winking lights, cold instead of warm on a tree or hung in a living room window. This was Christmas of distant time before the houses and cars. Christmas of mud and no sun, of woodlands and hunting not for tradition on Boxing Day, but to eat. To survive. Because that was life. Survive in the killing and blood, or die in the ice and the wind. Harvest in the spring and the summer; hide in the long months of the winter when the wolves howled in the woods and the night never ended and this bent, gnarled creature was the creation born from ever-present fear of the snow and the freeze. A story told by parents to comfort children with promises of gifts and a future beyond the woods and the fog caressing the hedges and leaves as it lay on the detached houses and garages here on Oak Avenue.

This walking Christmas was that story, birthed by people in the ground for a thousand years and a thousand more before then. This stunted goblin with its sack ready to spill its toys to the ice, with its cold fire for eyes and its mouth open to reveal jagged teeth and a pit into its belly. It was outside Bill’s Christmas of family and light and food. And it was hungry.

Whatever gifts Santa had brought shifted inside the giant sack, the movement feeble but still discernible.

The curtain fell from Bill’s hand, shutting out the mist and the silence.

“I did not see that.”

It was all he could think to say, all the words his tongue and lips would create. He swayed but managed to stay upright, and swallowed a large mouthful of brandy. The burn helped to bring him back, and he took another.

Lisa, the day tomorrow; his private wish for more time like tomorrow despite his advancing years and knowing there were fewer Christmases ahead than behind  – they were the issues that mattered. The vision outside was as imagined as Scrooge seeing Marley and then blaming it on indigestion.

Scrooge did see Marley, Dad.

A second away from crying out, Bill flung the curtains wide.

The mist had thickened in the last moment and while the soft grey obscured much of number seventeen, it left the road open. The empty road.

“Christ.” Bill sat and placed his almost empty glass down. Way too much indulgence today. He’d watch his intake over dinner tomorrow and into the evening – food as well as drink – and he’d suggest to Sue they take down the tree and decorations by the twenty-seventh. Let Christmas sleep for another year.

The floorboards overhead creaked.

Bill glanced at the ceiling, unsure why the sound disturbed him. Fingers trembling more than he cared to admit, he reached for his brandy. Then stopped.

The creak had come from the corner of the room, not directly overhead where Sue slept. And in the corner, the fire they rarely used, the fire mostly forgotten in the age of central heating and radiators, was a dark pit with the long since disused chimney breast stretching to the roof of his home.

Another creak. A shifting. A loose patter of brickwork.

Bill stared at the unlit pit, fully aware he didn’t have time to cross the room and ignite the flames before those two blue lights brightened the fake coal. Before Christmas came to him.

All he could do was hope his body would be alone in the hunched thing’s bag when it left his home to set out for the snow blanketing the world.

Luke Walker has been writing horror and dark thrillers for most of his life after finding a copy of Lovecraft’s stories that his brother left in the bathroom. His books include Ascent and Pandemonium.
He lives in England with his wife, cats, too many bad films and not enough books.

Slately

 

Slateley

Malcolm Timperley

A signpost pointed to “Slateley 7 miles”, so I followed it, thinking that anywhere important enough to merit a sign seven miles away must have something. As it turned out it did.

Before I went there I’d never heard of Slateley, and I doubt you have either. In fact, I’ve never spoken to anyone who has. Actually, I’m still not quite sure exactly where it is. Somewhere in the North, but that doesn’t really narrow it down much, does it? I mean, that’s the thing about the North, there’s such a lot of it. Anyway, it was December about twenty years ago, the Solstice in fact, and I was on the motorway, driving home. After a whole day ploughing through rain, snow, and traffic jams, I was tired and hungry, it was getting dark and I still had miles to go. When I saw the sign “Roadworks in 5 Miles”, that was it, the final straw, I took the slip road at the next exit. Anywhere that’d sell me a meal, a couple of drinks, and eight hours in bed would do. A signpost pointed to “Slateley 7 miles”, so I followed it, thinking that anywhere important enough to merit a sign seven miles away must have something. As it turned out it did.

It was only a small village – a church, a few stone cottages and another, taller building, the only one showing a light. It was a pub. And that was where I spent the night. The room was adequate, the food was good and the beer was excellent. But the only person I saw was the landlord. I’m sure he must’ve done at some point, but, do you know, I’ve no memory of him speaking a word the whole time I was there. If I needed something, he’d materialize from somewhere, do whatever, say nothing, then disappear. After a meal and a second pint it seemed pointless just sitting in an empty bar, so, even though it wasn’t that late, I decided to turn in. Getting back to my room seemed to take forever. All the doors I walked past were open. The contents of every room were draped with white sheets as if the place had been uninhabited and unused for a very long time indeed. Mine was the only room without shrouded… things. That was when I started to feel that there was something very wrong with Slateley.

I slept, but badly and not for very long. The moon woke me up, shining through the gap where I hadn’t been able to close the curtains completely, so I got up to make another attempt at shutting out the light. As I did, I looked outside. In the winter moonlight, pall bearers were leading shrouded mourners on a slow trudge towards the church. In complete silence. At the lychgate, they stopped and one of them turned his head. He looked straight up at me. I couldn’t see a face under the cowl, and I know this must sound ridiculous, but I felt as though I was recognizing someone I hadn’t actually met yet. Then he turned back and they moved off through the lychgate and disappeared into the churchyard. Feeling… cold, I retreated to bed. Further sleep was hopeless, and, in truth, I didn’t relish the prospect of what it might bring. Eventually, daylight came, so I got dressed and headed back downstairs. The doors I’d passed previously were all closed now. I called and rang but no one came. Breakfast had been laid out for me though, together with my bill. I ate, stuck a cheque under the teacup, and left.

It was frosty and the sun was starting to work on thick mist. Slateley was silent. There wasn’t even a cat wandering about or a bird on a wire. In the mist, I could just make out the silhouette of the church beyond the lychgate. I was attracted and repelled at the same time. Have you ever felt that? It’s a strange thing – you’re drawn to go and investigate something, but held back by fear of what you might find. Curiosity won, but only just; as I passed through the lychgate it struck me that I was holding my breath. Letting go, I relaxed a bit and, feeling braver, I started walking round the churchyard. The sun in the mist looked peaceful and convinced me that nothing terrible was going to happen, at least not there and then. In fact, what with that and the frost sparkling in the sunlight I forgot all about the spooky stuff. It looked so good that I even retrieved my camera from the car and had some fun taking pictures. I only stopped when I ran out of film, that wouldn’t happen nowadays, would it? Not with digital, you’d just keep on and on, clicking away. So I gave up on the camera and just wandered round the place for a bit. Now, have you ever noticed that when you’re walking through a graveyard, for some unknown reason you’re drawn to particular graves? Of course, usually, they’re the ones with the kitschy statues or something, but not always. Sometimes you just find yourself attracted to completely ordinary gravestones. And that morning it was to a row of new ones. I read the inscriptions. The last one, the one at the far end, had no details, no dates, just a name. My name.

Shock, fear, confusion, and god knows what else. I don’t remember anything about leaving Slateley, how long it took to get home or which way I went. Of course, I kept telling myself that, though I’m not John Smith, there must be hundreds of other folk with the same name as mine. So, obviously, it was all just an incredible coincidence. After a few days I stopped dreaming of Slateley and its silent inhabitants. I forgot. Well, mostly. Now and then something would bring it all back. The first time was when the lab sent a note back with my pictures; your photographs are all fogged, did you forget to remove the lens cap? No, sorry, not with an SLR camera I didn’t. And again, when I noticed that the cheque I’d left at the pub was never cashed. And of course, the time years ago when you and I first met, at that dreadful dinner party. God, the embarrassment when we were introduced and I just stood there, open-mouthed. You said I looked like I’d seen a ghost, remember? You see, the fact is, I was too rattled to tell you at the time, but the landlord in Slateley was the spitting image of you. Well, an older version of you as you looked back then. But at that moment it felt as though I was seeing him again. So now, years too late I’m afraid, I want to say that I’m sorry. Truly.

You see, yesterday I found an envelope on the doormat. Inside was a black-edged card, informing me that next week a funeral will be held. In Slateley. My attendance is required. So, once again I’m dreaming of the wintry village with its empty pub and its silent landlord. And of the funeral procession passing through the lychgate. And of the strangely familiar, shrouded mourner. And of the line of gravestones. And of the one at the end of the line bearing my name.

And, most vividly of all, of the gravestone next to that with your name on it.

 

Yuletide Wraith

Tim O’Neal

The only sounds are the wind’s constant shrieking through the many broken windows …and…

I shiver and pull my wrap closer about my shoulders. I can never get warm anymore; it’s been years since I’ve seen the sun. It went out millennia ago—winked out like a candle’s flame one afternoon. All that’s left is dark and cold.

I am no one. Just a foolish man, alone on another Yuletide Eve. I cannot die. Not from hunger, nor cold, nor any other natural cause. That was the bargain. I am now the last “living” being on Earth.

Ah, my cursed half-life—it’s not something I like to think about too long. Especially not on lonely cold nights such as this when the wind squalls like a nocturnal predator and the snow lays heavily, casting its preternatural silence over everything.

The only sounds are the wind’s constant shrieking through the many broken windows, the disintegrating charred remains in the fireplace, and the creaking of this old wooden house settling in for another lonely winter like the thousand before it.

Centuries ago I made a despicable decision. On a Yuletide Eve just like this one, in fact. Since then, I’ve never had a tree, nor cheery holly berries, nor merry twinkling lights. No gaiety or mischievous mistletoe brightens these gloomy papered halls. I’m afraid that baubles and tinsel are for kin, bosom friends, and invited guests.

The only nod toward Yule within my dusty home is the dying firelight which throws no heat, only the lonely rustle of embers and ashes. Over the long years, I’ve learned it’s best to have light, dim though it may be, for my lone yearly visitor.

The shadows grow longer. The pendulum in the grandfather clock ticks away the empty hours. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Almost time.

While Père Noël once used to give out presents and good cheer, something quite different visits me every year on this night. What it is, I’m still not quite sure, though I’ve met with it countless times. It’s unnatural, something beyond the veil, beyond the grave. A spectre of sorts, always just out of eyesight. An echo, a memory of cheerier times—of carolers and candy canes—reminiscent of an earlier epoch.

A rustle, a scratch, disturbs the cemetery silence. The only clues I’m no longer alone with my armchair and brandy in my empty dark world.

“You’re here,” I say without looking up.

“And a merry Yuletide to you,” answers an inhuman voice. It speaks in a hiss of silvery static, like a poorly tuned radio of misery and wartime—a broadcast not quite properly delivered. As always, it emanates from every corner, impossible to determine its precise location.

Movement flickers in the shadows by the grandfather clock. Unable to resist, my head turns, knowing it will have already moved.

“What do you want, Wraith?”

“Simply to check on you, my sweet,” it replies. “Ensure you’re having a holly jolly holiday and all that…rot.” A harsh grating cackle bursts like static from a warped antiquated speaker.

Shadows by the bookshelf contort. A volume or two tilts as if tipped by a judicious browsing finger. One tome goes flying, thrown carelessly over an invisible shoulder. The book lands with a thump and a rustle.

I focus on the swirling amber liquid in my glass. It’s easier not to track Wraith as it moves about the room. Watching its ethereal presence only leads to head-splitting migraines.

“You’re in a jovial mood this year.”

“That’s because we have a present for you, my sweet.”

My head jerks up. Like a five-year-old, I cry out piteously, “A pet? A dog? A mouse, even? Something with which to share my existence at last?”

I hate the pleading note in my voice—like a child begging to stay up five minutes longer—but it’s been centuries since I’ve seen another living creature. Not even a single scampering rat shares these dreary halls with me.

“Nope, nope, nope!” Wraith chortles. Its voice is playful, delighting in my misery. “You naughty old boy, you recall the terms of our arrangement. No living company. None indeed.”

I slump back into my armchair. “We made that damned agreement a thousand years ago. Surely, we could make adjustments.”

“Ah, but rules are rules, my love. You know that.” A lamp winks off, its flame extinguished in a hiss.

“Can’t you give an old man clemency for his folly after a millennium of darkness?”

“But, my sweet, that hurts us. Hurts us deep, it does,” Wraith says. “Here we’ve always been so good to you. Have we not always given what you’ve asked?”

“But—”

“Have we not given what you desired?” Wraith repeats more forcefully.

“Yes, I suppose so,” I sigh.

“And remind us what it was you asked us for?”

“A miserably long life,” I mumble.

“Immortality you mean, my sweet. And what did we require in return?”

“Damn near everything! You took away my family, the sun, and all contact with the living, I’ve been rattling around this dark house and regretting my decision for every one of those interminable hours.”

From the shadows, Wraith tsks. “You make it sound much worse than it is. We visit you every Yule, don’t we? You’re not completely alone.”

“You don’t count. You’re not even alive.” I quaff my brandy. It burns going down. The only warmth in the room.

“Come, come. Cheer up, my sweet. We said we have something for you, didn’t we? Did our shopping right proper this year.”

“Stop teasing me, Wraith. You’ve made your point, as you have a thousand times over. Please leave me to my misery.”

“Tut tut. Such acrimony. And after we’ve only ever upheld your request.”

“Well—”

“A long life entirely free of disease. Never having to worry about aging, starving, or falling ill. That was our bargain and did we not come through after all these years?”

At the taunting words, I hurl my snifter against the wall. It smashes in a tinkling crunch of broken glass.

“Dammit, Wraith! I didn’t know you would give my whole family an incurable case of consumption and leave them to die, hacking up their own blood. I buried them all in the plum orchard out back.”  My voice breaks. “You took away everything and cursed me with this incessant half-life!”

“Ah, ah, ah. Play fair now, my love.”

“What’s the point of an endless life if it can’t be shared?”

“Hmm, it’s a terrific question, my sweet. Why don’t you tell us? ’Twas your decision after all.”

Staring into the glowing red and black embers, I wish that Wraith will finish its torment soon and leave me alone. Its mocking taunting presence is worse than my ancient house’s endless silence.

“Now don’t be glum, my sweet. It is the holidays after all. We have something that might lift your…spirits.”

“What could a shade like you possibly offer that would bring me any respite from these shadows?”

“Now that’s coarse, love. Very low indeed. You know we desire only your happiness.”

I shiver at a sudden draft and draw my raggedy blanket close. It’s always freezing. Has been for a thousand years. But it’s getting worse all the time.

Wraith notices my discomfort. “Death is proper cold too. Though not much colder than this, really.”

To my left, billiard balls roll smoothly, heavily, across the table’s worn green felt. They clack as they collide and thump against the bumpers.

“What are you insinuating, Wraith? What new devilish trick is this?”

“No tricks, my love. We’ve come to make you an offer, an addendum really, to our original gentlemen’s agreement.”

“Then state your terms and be done. I tire of these games.”

“Now, now. Mustn’t be hasty,” Wraith chides. “Here’s our special offer: how would you like…to die?”

Hearing those words, a strange fluttering rises in my chest. One I haven’t felt in quite some time. It takes me more than a few moments to recognize hope.

“You’re offering to kill me?”

“We prefer the phrase, ‘allowing you to perish.’ Sounds much more virtuous of us, you see.”

A burning log cracks. Sparks fly up the sooty dark chimney.

“That’s uncharacteristically generous of you. Why the sudden change of—”

I stop. ‘Heart’ is not the word I want, for I know Wraith doesn’t have one.

“Tack,” I finish. “I presumed you’d rather let me agonize through my isolation for all eternity.”

“We would, certainly. But our own circumstances have changed, see. Your ‘life’ is, well, a complication for us, my pet.”

A candelabra sways. The flames dance madly, throwing crazy shadows upon the yellowed peeling wallpaper.

“So my death will do you a favour? Is that it?”

“’ Twill make things a spot easier for us, yes.”

“How so?”

A collection of silver spoons clatters as if knocked over by a mettlesome cat. “Come now. We can’t reveal our entire hand, can we? Not good for business, it isn’t.”

“There must be a reason. There always is with you.”

“Naturally,” Wraith said. “Well, in short, my sweet, millennia have passed. New civilizations have since formed on distant planets. They’re in much greater demand of…well, to be modest, our brand of mischief.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Your demise will save us the annual lengthy voyage to this cold dead rock with its single and, dare we say, boring inhabitant. Leave us time for the more consequential misdeeds we much prefer.”

All about me, cold and shadows swirl like Death’s dark cloak. The warped wooden boards creak on the far side of the room.

“To be clear, Wraith, if I accept, you promise me a natural death? Like what anyone else on this lifeless rock would receive? No more games, no more of this twisted purgatory?”

“That’s it, my sweet. Unless you wish to continue alone in this dead house on your dead planet, alone. But we won’t bother you anymore. No, we’ll leave you to your own self, forever and ever per our earlier arrangement.”

I consider Wraith’s offer. The silence presses close, suffocating like the satin lining of a coffin.

“Can you tell me something, Wraith?”

“Mmm. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Most likely not.”

“Will I at least get to see my family once I—?”

“Ah-ah,” Wraith’s ethereal voice teases like a wagging finger. “No questions. That’s cheating. We wouldn’t spoil any surprises. You asked us for a natural death. And that’s exactly what you’ll get. Just like everyone else. No peeking; no opening presents early. You accept it blindly like any other person. Our final Yuletide gift to you. Take it or leave it, my sweet.”

I consider all that I’ve lost—the company of others, my family, even the sun’s warmth. Anything was better than this constant darkness and silence. Even death. No one should live on their own for centuries. At some point, every interminable sorrow must end.

“Alright then, do it. I’m ready. I’ve had a long life.”

“Rest well then, my sweet,” Wraith’s silvery voice whispers.

Deep glacial cold settles in my chest, my throat, my skull. Like a rapid frost it spreads, blotting out my vision, occluding my senses. Wraith’s right. It’s not much worse than the centuries-old chill of my creaky drafty manse. I manage four words before the icy blackness crashes over my eyes and claims me.

“Happy Yuletide, Wraith. Farewell.”

Tim has sold seven previous short stories. His publishers include EG&J Little Press, Red Cape Publishing, Dragon Soul Press, and Horroraddicts.net. He was a judge for the California Writing Club’s Tales of the Pandemic Anthology. He currently lives in California, working on his next story. His Amazon Author Page.