Chapter Text
12 DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS
TRAUTWEIN RESIDENCE
NEW BUDA, IOWA
3:40 AM
Mary Jane Trautwein padded downstairs, sleepily. She had gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and then remembered she had forgotten to move that fucking elf on a shelf to a new spot. Her five-year-old daughter, Natalie, had named her elf Bowie after her older sister’s favorite musician, and was taking the whole thing very seriously.
Mary Jane felt the gust of cold air first when she was about halfway down the staircase. Still mostly asleep, she didn’t become alarmed, she just thought it was odd. When she reached the last step, Bowie the Elf’s head rolled into the space on the wood floor at the foot of the stairs. Mary Jane squinted to focus her tired eyes and gasped, snapping fully awake. She leaned down to pick it up, but stopped, frozen with fear, when a muddy, cloven hoof stepped into view.
She stumbled back, bracing herself on the wall, and slowly drew her gaze up, seeing a tall, looming creature standing there staring at her. It had large, thick horns coming out from the top of its head that curved back, pointy ears, a long, hooked nose, and beady eyes—its towering frame was covered in coarse, black hair. Mary Jane opened her mouth to scream, but only a shaky, shallow breath came out.
The figure stooped and picked up the elf’s head with its knobby, grotesque hand. Its fingernails were long and pointed, and yellowed. One left a scratch mark on the floor. Aside from these horrifying features, the hand was human-like, wrinkled and rough with small patches of hair at the knuckles.
Mary Jane started to inch back up the stairs, her back pressed against the wall. The creature’s head tilted, then it opened its mouth, baring two rows of sharp teeth. But it was the tongue that snapped Mary Jane out of her frightened trance. It snaked out from the black cavern of the monster’s mouth, thick and black and pointed at the end, rolling out toward her. There were about three feet between her and the creature, and the tip of the tongue had almost reached her.
She broke out into a run up the stairs, taking two at a time, but tripping over herself in her mad scramble. “Seamus! Seamus!” Mary Jane yelled her husband’s name as she ran down the hallway to their bedroom.
“MJ?” he said, sitting up. “What’s wrong?”
“Th-th-th-” She could not form one word; she stuttered and pointed toward the hallway.
Seamus jumped from the bed and ran out of the room. Mary Jane crouched down in the corner and felt up on the nightstand for the cordless phone with her shaking hand. She tried to dial 9-1-1, and was successful on the third attempt. “There’s something in the house,” she whispered.