Part 6: December 25th
Jon woke in a happy mood at exactly 6:02AM. He got out of bed, wincing slightly when his back twanged in pain and hobbled off to the shower. He nicked himself shaving and grumbled a bit before slapping on a piece of toilet paper and waiting for the blood to stop. Gel sparingly went into his thinning salt and pepper hair and he finally came out of the bathroom just as Maggie was waking up.
She took over the bathroom and Jon smiled as the shower turned on again. He dressed in pressed black slacks and cringed slightly when he had to bend to pull on his socks. A white tee-shirt was pulled over his head followed by a red and green Christmas sweater. He made sure his hair was still styled perfectly before peeling off the hunk of toilet paper on his face and running a hand over his smooth chin.
The shower had turned off by this time but Jon knew Maggie would be another half hour at least. She still needed to apply her make-up and fix her own hair. Jon whistled as he tucked his feet into his green slippers and shuffled down the hall. He pulled out the surprise presents he bought for Tom, Grace, Casey and James and sat them by the front door.
He found Maggie’s desserts in the refrigerator and settled them onto the small table by the front door beside the presents. He stared at the pile for a moment, wondering what was missing before snapping his fingers and heading back into the kitchen. A white envelope with a Christmas card that thanked their neighbours came next and he reverently put it atop the presents.
He shambled back down the hall and watched as Maggie virtually flew out of the bathroom in a whirl wind of bathrobe and hairspray. She quickly donned undergarments, a long red skirt, a white chemise, and a red sweater. She fixed her hair in the mirror and applied a thin coating of petal pink lipstick to her lips.
“You look ravishing,” Jon told her with a grin.
“And you actually picked out a tame Christmas sweater. I’m impressed,” Maggie joked.
Jon laughed and offered her a wink as she gathered the appropriate purse to go with her outfit and hustled down the hallway. Jon followed and toed off his slippers before pulling on his coat and winter boots. Maggie picked a pair of red fashionable but logical heels and pulled on her white winter coat.
“I’ll carry the cake, pie and card. If I don’t we won’t have any dessert tonight,” Maggie told Jon as he zipped up his coat.
“Okay,” Jon laughed but scowled when he bent to pick up the four wrapped gifts.
“You should bring along your pain pills if your back is hurting you that much,” Maggie noted with a little worried frown.
“I’ll be fine. It only hurts when I bend over,” Jon insisted.
“Well you’ll be bending a lot today. Wait right there,” Maggie instructed as she put the dessert back on the table to stride briskly into the kitchen.
“Women,” Jon grumbled but smiled after the thought.
He watched as Maggie opened the pill drawer in the kitchen and dumped in the pain pills and his nightly supper pills. She added her own vitamins and pills and zipped her purse closed. She closed the drawer and Jon was struck by how lovely she looked as she walked back towards him.
“You’re beautiful,” Jon told her again.
“Charmer,” Maggie commented as she blushed lightly and picked up the desserts.
She opened the door for him and he strode through carefully, grumbling at the fresh coating of snow on the walkway. Maggie shut the door but did not lock it and she led the way down the snowy walk towards the sidewalk.
“It’s a pity Jeremy didn’t change his mind,” Maggie sighed out as they stepped through the fine dusting of snow.
“That boy’s as stubborn as they come. No matter how much we tell him we miss him when he’s not around he won’t change his mind about proving himself to be independent,” Jon grumbled.
“I wonder where he gets that from,” Maggie commented lightly as they turned onto the sidewalk.
“Your side for sure but let’s not talk about Jeremy and the grandchildren we’ve never seen. We’ve got a surrogate family we’re about to see and we don’t want to be dour Dora’s,” Jon informed her as they strode up the driveway next door.
“Fine, but we should call him again tonight,” Maggie agreed and took the two steps up to the porch.
Jon nodded in reluctant concurrence and stood back a step so Maggie could knock on the door. Before she could call out, the door squeaked open of its own accord. Maggie blinked at it in wonder and Jon scowled.
“Get back and don’t come in unless I say something,” Jon commanded in a whisper as he sat the Christmas presents on the relatively clean front porch.
“And what are you going to do?” Maggie whispered in slight anger.
“I don’t know, go back to the house and hit 9-1. Don’t hit the other 1 until I tell you,” Jon demanded.
Maggie scowled and opened her mouth but Jon shushed her with a look. She placed the desserts atop the presents and skittered quickly towards the house. A few moments later, she was coming back out with the portable phone in her hand. Jon gave her a peck on the cheek when she got back on the porch and she frowned.
“Be careful,” Maggie demanded curtly.
Jon flashed her a wiry grin and stepped over the threshold of the door. The first thing he noticed was the bloody foot prints that started somewhere upstairs and paused in front of the stairs before continuing into the living room. The prints had made a few trips up and down the stairs and there were copious amounts of blood along either side of the carpet along the stairs. Drops of blood had pattered along the white floor and Jon turned.
Maggie was staring at him, her face white as the crystals outside under her make-up. She swallowed hard a few times before nodding swiftly and pressing a few buttons on the phone. Jon gestured for her to step away and she disappeared from view.
He steeled himself and decided to first check the living room. He stepped around the blood and noted that the Christmas tree was undisturbed. As he stepped into the living room proper, the couches came into view. Jon blinked in wonder as he saw three heads peeking over the back of the couch. A sense of relief washed over him and he prepared a berating speech directed at Tom for the sickening prank. He strode forward and came to the front of the couch, his mouth open and prepared to yell at Tom for playing such a horrible prank on Christmas.
“Heya Grandpa, glad you could join us. Do you want some hot chocolate?” a stranger asked with a little laugh.
Jon felt the bile rise up in his throat. The stranger had wrapped his muscled body in a Santa Claus costume, complete with the hat. The morbid aspect of the costume was that Santa’s beard was drenched in blood. Dark spots showed all over the suit where blood had leaked into the jacket and pants. Blood spattered along Santa’s face and was coating his bare hands.
Jon’s eyes flickered to the other forms on the couch and he began swallowing rapidly, desperately trying not to throw up as his stomach lurched painfully. His heart began beating rapidly in his chest and Jon clutched at it, willing it to slow down.
Tom sat at one end of the couch, his eyes rolled back into his head and his jaw completely slack. A long gash careened across his throat and caused his head to loll to one side, almost completely severed from the neck. The eyes were glazed over and completely vacant and his skin was ashen. Despite this he was dressed in fine gray slacks and a bright red sweater.
Grace was propped up against him, her hair neatly combined and half hiding the matching gash along her throat. Her eyes were staring straight at Jon and he could almost see straight down her ruined throat for how loosened her jaw had become. She was wearing a lovely red skirt with a white and red striped sweater.
Jon tried not to continue looking at the forms on the couch but his eyes would not obey. Casey-May was staring straight ahead, wearing a white skirt and a green sweater. Her eyes had rolled back completely in her head and her throat was slit so deeply her head had been tied back onto her body. Despite this, her hands were clutching a brown teddy bear.
&n
bsp; James was propped up against the other arm rest of the massive couch. He wore a pair of blue jeans and a red sweater. His throat was a mangled mass of flesh and his eyes were peering somewhere to the front. His tongue had escaped out of his open mouth and hung there like a useless hunk of meat.
“I can get more hot chocolate, Grandpa, you want some?” The stranger inquired again, forcing Jon’s eyes to stare back at him.
“Who, who, why did you, oh my God,” Jon gasped out as he fell to his knees.
The stranger merely belted out an enormous belly laugh. Jon could only watch as hot chocolate spilled over the other man’s pants to join the stains that would never come out. Not now that they were embedded into the fabric because of drying time.
“You know who I am Grandpa, it just took me a while to get home,” the stranger informed him with a crazed grin.
Jon had no response to that and tightened the grip he had on the material over his chest. He made it to his feet and staggered forward. He caught himself before falling head-long into Tom and leaned back to cease the forward fall. Gray spots were beginning to cloud his vision and he wanted to get out of the house before he fainted.
“I’m going to get Grandma from the car. You wait here,” he gasped out as he stumbled forward.
He used the doorjamb for support to turn back once. The stranger was happily singling Jingle Bells and had obviously accepted Jon’s excuse for leaving the room. Jon tumbled forward but managed to make it back into the front foyer. He almost tripped over the threshold but Maggie caught him and guided him to the banister.
He gasped in immense breaths of air to clear his head as Maggie’s voice fell over him. He grabbed her by a coat sleeve and began dragging her down the porch towards their house. Maggie let out a surprised yelp and apologized to the person on the phone.
“Jon, what are you doing?” Maggie insisted.
“He’s still in there,” Jon managed to get out between pants.
“Who’s still in where?” Maggie asked in curiosity.
“The guy who killed them, he’s still in there,” Jon informed her as he dragged her up their front walk and pushed open their door.
Maggie gave a strangled half-scream at the information and Jon quickly surveyed their own house before slamming the door closed and locking it. He stumbled into the kitchen and locked their back door as Maggie insisted he sat down. He finally collapsed in a chair and vowed to always keep his doors locked, no matter what.
Blue and red lights flashed over the new coating of snow, bouncing off a snowman in the front lawn and reflecting off the silver reindeer. Curious people peered out picture windows and watched as police charged around the back of the house. Two ran in the front door. No shots went off and soon a man dressed in a Santa costume was being dragged down the front steps by two armed officers.
Parents covered their children’s eyes even as they gathered in front of the house. The man cackled and they knew it was not red food coloring in his beard. Another ambulance pulled up and soon two stretchers were being wheeled up the front porch and into the house. Jon and Maggie finally ventured back outside, Maggie insisting as Jon needed to give a rendition of what he had seen.
Neighbours stared at the now-pale and trembling Jon. They knew he was old but he looked as if he had aged a century since their last sight of him shoveling snow the day before. He was hunched over and had to be supported by a struggling Maggie. His hands trembled as if great earthquakes ran through him. His steps were short and shaky like he was a new-born doe walking for the first time.
An officer told them to step back but Maggie informed him that she had been the one to call and Jon had been in the house all ready. The officer nodded and led Jon to a police cruiser. The passenger door was opened and Jon was seated before the officer knelt down in the snow to whisper to him. Jon began whispering back in a trembling tenor.
A stretcher came out as the neighbours watched in awe. Underneath was a covered form but one hand had fallen from the stretcher when it jolted along the snow. Most neighbours instantly recognized the hand and the sweater that wrapped around the sleeve. The other stretcher followed and another form came out.
Women recognized the outline of the pert form under the sheet and held back sobs. When one maintained a curvy figure after birthing two children, other women made sure to study said figure for flaws in jealously. They had never wished this on the woman that now lay dead on the stretcher.
Two more stretchers went into the house and neighbours held back gasps. They waited with baited breath as the first stretcher was pulled back out, a sorrowfully small form wrapped under the sheet. Couples began to burst into tears and drag their own confused children back inside as a second, larger but not full grown form was taken from the house and put into the back of an ambulance.
The police car containing the grotesque Santa pulled away, sirens flashing once, twice and a third time before disappearing down the street. The unmarked black van that was there stayed behind even when the other police cruisers and the ambulance left. A red mini-van turned down the street and parked in one of the spots an ambulance had just vacated.
A middle-aged man hopped out and told the two children and his wife to stay where they were. He slammed his door closed on the still running vehicle and trotted to the only police cruiser left on the scene.
“What’s going on? What happened to my sister?” He called out loud enough to be heard over the broken sobs of neighbours.
The officer not speaking with Jon pulled him to a side and explained the situation. The man let out a wail of utter agony and dropped to his knees in the snow. His wife came out of the car then, warning her children not to move before rushing to her husband to console him.
“Some demented freak killed her! Grace is dead,” the man howled out when his wife questioned him.
She stared in silence, eyes wide and mouth dropped open in awe. Finally tears dropped over her cheeks and she wrapped her arm around her sobbing husband as silver sedan pulled up to the curb. An older couple got out, looking to be in their late sixties. Both came towards the sobbing younger couple.
“Someone killed Grace, the kids and Tom,” the man keened out again.
The older man screamed in pain and fell to his knees beside the younger man. One could see the resemblance now that they were side-by-side in their grief. One could see the semblance of the two men to the now dead Grace. Another sedan, this one blue pulled up and a man who looked like the older version of Tom stepped out of the car. His face was serious as a final van, this one green pulled in behind the red one.
A young woman came out of the passenger side, her blonde hair the same shade as Tom’s had been. Her dark haired husband followed after commanding the children to stay in the warm van. The two new couples approached the two others.
“Someone killed them all,” the woman on the ground lamented.
The older man closed his eyes to stop the flood of tears from falling but they passed under the lids regardless. His wife wrapped him in a hug and he sunk to his knees when they weakened. The younger woman went into hysterics and grabbed at her husband’s chest while screaming about the injustice of it all.
The police officer stood awkwardly by, looking as if he wished to say something but did not want to intrude. Slowly, neighbours went back into their own homes, driven away by the cold and the grief. Christmas dinner plans were cancelled, gifts that were wrapped remained wrapped and families locked doors they had not once locked before.
As the day wore on, the black van left. Jon was guided back into his home and joined by the extended family of his now deceased neighbours. The two remaining officers hung yellow police tape over the door after gently closing it. It was strung in front of the drive to prevent any other cars from pulling into the driveway. Another ambulance squealed down the street only minutes after the cruiser had finally pulled away.
Neighbours peered back out the window as it stopped in front of Jon’s home. Maggie opened the door and yelled at
the two men pulling out the stretcher to hurry, make-up streaming down her face. Jon was carted away on the stretcher, hands clutching at his chest. Maggie jumped into her car to follow the paramedics and the strangers in her home kindly locked her door before getting into their own vehicles and pulling away with somber looks, the holidays effectively ruined for the remainder of their days.
“Police have captured the mad-man known as the Christmas Killer. Forty-five years ago, Roger Mitchelle, then only a 14 year old boy slaughtered his entire family on Christmas Eve. He was found talking with his deceased family after a visiting family had called the police when there was no response from their phone calls. Mitchelle’s reasoning behind his original crime was that the family, including his seven year old sister and ten year old brother, would not stop arguing and were ruining the holidays,
“His remedy was to silence his family so they could have a happy Christmas for once. When asked why he killed them his response was: “They aren’t dead, I could never actually kill someone.” The deranged teen was taken to a mental institution after he was apprehended from the home.
“Mitchelle’s escaped the facility on the 15th and travelled by bus 200 miles before stopping in our town. No one is sure what he did after that but comparing the images of his old home to the Taylor household produced eerie results. It seems that Mitchelle’s believed he was returning home for the holidays, to the family that was forever alive in his mind...”