The Submission:
“I’m gonna admit something,” I said through gritted teeth. “Something I’ve wanted to admit for years but keep putting off for one reason or another.”

She stared back at me; her eyes betrayed no emotion, no suspicion.

I turned away from those big blue glassy eyes. She always had a way of seeing right into my soul and I made me as uncomfortable as it did excited.

“I suppose you probably already know,” I soldiered on, taking a swig from my beer. It was rancid and stale and had been sitting out for way too long but I needed the confidence boost. “I mean, it’s pretty obvious. At least I always thought so…I dunno about you?”

She said nothing; she simply sat there and watched me, silently and expectedly.

I took a deep breath that hissed through my pursed lips. “Basically…I think I’ve been in love with you since the day we met.” I cringed; it sounded so corny, and yet I couldn’t stop myself now. “Did you ever wonder why I was always hanging around you? Any chance I could get, I’d come see you; we used to walk out of lectures together, I’d always be there with the first drink at the bar. I fancied you so badly…it almost ate me up inside.”

I flicked my eyes to hers. She knew. Of course she knew; everyone had known.

“I wanted to tell you so many times but there was always something, y’know!? Friends, drinks, those blokes of yourself that kept coming in and sweeping you off your feet…then all that time spent pining after them after I convinced them to leave you alone. I tell you…it wasn’t easy. That last guy was a big one, and people started asking questions afterwards and you were so upset that he just up and left you…”

I looked down at the floor; stained and cracked and littered with broken porcelain. “I hope you understand that I had to do it…I did it for you…”

Her face wore a blank expression that I took to be understanding. Her eyes were so wide, so knowing; her skin so clean, even with that one flaw…a small dribble of bloody salvia trickling from the corner of her lips.

“I did it all for you…and now we can be together forever, just like we were always meant to be!”

She slowly slumped forward in her chair, collapsing down to the table in a lifeless heap.

I love her so much.

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The Submission:
“You don’t know what it’s like!” Mum wailed from across the basement. She was still holding the crowbar; in the dim light I could see flacks of rust being swamped by the dripping blood. “The moaning…the screaming!”

I sat in a crumbled heap on the floor, my hands wrapped rightly around my knee as blood seeped through my fingers. Roger lay across from me, sprawled out on the dirty stone floor with his gaping, vacant eyes staring lifelessly at me.

“It gets worse every year!” she insisted, her eyes bulging behind her straggly, bloodstained hair. “The demands, the scratching…oh God, the scratching! And…and then, one day, they came calling…”

I turned my head slightly, following Mum’s gaze, and immediately regretted it; corpses, skeletal and ripped to ribbons, were piled in the far corner of the basement. Flies buzzed all around them and hollow, black skulls screamed back at me. So that’s what that smell was, I thought incoherently.

“They just wanted to spread the Lord’s word…they had no idea…” Mum continued; she lowered the crowbar, but her grip remained so tight that he knuckles turned bone white. “I invited them in, sat them down right where you had been sitting…we had cookies, lemonade, and I could hear him shuffling around down here and I just snapped…!”

As if on cue, a shambling figure lurched out of the darkness; the thing that my father had become dragged itself across the floor on limbs malformed into rudimentary stumps. His face was a dropping, gaping wail, his eyes glistening with an impossible darkness, and I turned away with a whimper as he clamped rotten, jagged teeth down on Roger’s neck.

“You see!” Mum cried. “You see what it’s like! You try listening to that every goddamn day!”

The crunch of flesh, sinew, and bone was sickening; bile boiling up from my gullet and exploded from my mouth. My shambling wretch of a father glared at me as is jaw worked ravenously, viscera dripping down his cracked and leather-like lips.

“I’m not proud of it, sweetie,” Mum said softly, stepping closer. “But I can’t take another second…”

Dad’s warped form heaved in my direction. Mum loomed over me, crowbar raised, her woolly Christmas jumped splattered with Roger’s blood, and I consoled myself that at least I wouldn’t have to hear that nightmarish chewing anymore…

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The Submission:
“But why, Nanna?”

My nanna squinted at me through wizened eyes hidden behind rimless glasses. She rocked in a great wicker chair before a roaring log fire, a bundle of knitting in her lap. “Oh, child,” she answered, her voice a gravelly whisper, “T’was a time when all magic lived here. When people dec’rated trees an’ sang carols an’ made merry in street. But those times have long since passed.”

“But I’ve been really, really good!” I whined, pouting. I was sat on the large, fluffy rug at my nanna’s feet and gazed up at her with watery eyes, feeling like I had done something bad.

Nanna chuckled and laced her gnarled fingers together. “It don’t matter, child,” she soothed, a sympathetic look on her face. “Not since the Hooved-One was born.”

“Did…did He scare Santa away, Nanna?”

Nanna sighed and briefly gazed out of the frosted-up window at the perpetual darkness and steady snowfall that glared at us from behind the glass. “In a way…The Hooved-One had no time for Chrissmus cheer. As a youngling, He bawled every Chrissmus Eve; as a pint-sized babe, He torn down th’ tree an’ threw bricks when t’other chillun threw snowballs.”

My eyes widened in awe as my nanna continued: “When fully grown, the Hooved-One spread despair an’ darkness through th’ hearts of all men, good and bad. It dinnunt matter than that some dinnunt want to turn, jus’ like it don’t mater now how good you’ve been, Child. The Hooved-One turned all, an’ the light o’Chrissmus died out with each word He spoke and each heart He touched.”

“What’re we to do, Nanna?”

Nanna reached out and gently stroked my chin with her skeletal hand; her touch was ice cold despite the blazing heat filling the room. “Same thing we always do, child,” she cooed lovingly. “Praise Him.”

I turned my dark eyes up to meet Nanna’s vacant gaze. “Praise Him?”

“Yes,” she croaked. “Praise Him. Praise the Hooved-One. Praise His name.”

As the snow fall, I spoke my praises, hoping that He would hear them…and be pleased.

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The Submission:
Sebastian was busy gawping at the Christmas tree; he couldn’t help himself from fiddling with the boxes and packages wrapped up underneath it, even the ones that weren’t his. Marie liked to reprimand him, but he was a good kid, really; he didn’t pick or rip at the wrappings and was very gentle. He was just curious, and excited for Christmas.

“I dunno, Nan,” I was saying into the phone as I watched him. “It’s probably better we stay at home this year.”

“Oh, but we haven’t seen you in so long, Josh,” my nan whined down the line.

“Well, I can’t help that, Nan. You know how things have been.”

“All the more reason to bring that lovely wife of yours over. I’m planning on doing turkey with all the trimmings, gravy, roast tatties…”

My mouth was watering at the thought; Marie was a vegetarian, which meant we had to have nut roast. I wasn’t bad, but it couldn’t beat the succulent taste of perfectly roasted turkey. But still… “Nan, I really don’t think…”

“And your grandfather is just dying to see that boy of yours!”

“Nan…Grandad’s…”

“Josh, he won’t be with us forever. You simply must come or else I’ll be just heartbroken.”

*

Sebastian had been excited throughout the entire drive. He was singing and giggling on the back seat of the car, but Marie sat scowling in the passenger seat, staring daggers at the countryside as it sped past us. I couldn’t blame her; last time we’d been to see my grandparents, it hadn’t exactly ended well for her. Luckily, the creams we’d picked up had soothed the worst of the scarring, but it couldn’t be denied that Nan was really starting to lose touch with reality.

When Nan opened her front door, Sebastian ran into her arms for a big, warm hug and I could swear I could see tears in her eyes. I was blasted with a soothing warmth and the succulent smells of meats, cinnamon, herbs… dinner was definitely in the oven. “Oh, Josh! I’m so glad you came!” she cried, slapping a big wet kiss on my cheek.

The little cottage hadn’t changed at all in the last five years. Everything was still exactly as I remembered it: the beaded covers on the chairs, the old CRT television in the corner, the maned framed pictures of my, my brothers, my mother… and, of course, innumerable tacky ornaments strewn all over the place. A small fibreoptic tree sat between the sofa and the electric heater, the lights fading from red to green to orange.

“This is for you, champ!” Nan cooed, handing Sebastian a box.

“Fank ‘oo, Nanna!” he smiled a toothy grin.

“Save that for later, sweetie,” Marie said.

“Oh, pish!” Nan snapped. “The boy can open it now; it’s Christmas!”

Marie seethed but said nothing. Sebastian tore open the wrapping and unpacked a toy police car; the packaging promised it had “flashing lights!” and “realistic siren action!” Marie shot a look at me, but I pretended to not see it.

*

Nan had prepared a massive spread in the small dining room. The old table was decorated with a vivid red cloth, matching placemats, and a festive glass at each place. Cream candles burned in jars surrounded by holly, and a cracker had been laid out for each of us. “Sit, sit, I’ll bring out the food!” Nan insisted.

Marie sat at the far end of the table, cringing, fussing over Sebastian and making sure that he was facing away from my grandfather. Pap sat at the head of the table as always and, as always, Nan had decked him out in his finest festive duds. He wore a maroon-striped shirt under a sleeveless cardigan, brown slacks, and already had a paper crown on his forehead. No amount of Christmas apparel or clothing could change the fact that he had significantly deteriorated, though, and Nan’s best efforts were starting to fail her.

“Well, dig in!” she encouraged as she sat down.

The were piping hot serving trays laid out on the table, each one holding sliced turkey, honey roast gammon, crispy roast potatoes, and steamed vegetables. Marie reluctantly began spooning stuffing onto her plate and Sebastian, completely unaware, began cramming pigs in blankets into his mouth. I dropped a couple of slices onto my plate and was picking up a Yorkshire pudding when Nan lightly gripped my wrist with her cold, gnarled hand. “I’m so happy you could all make it,” she said, her eyes swimming. “We both are!”

She glanced lovingly at Pap.

Marie visibly shuddered and kept her eyes down.

I sighed and looked at my grandfather’s dead, soulless eyes and grinning skull. He sat there, rigid and unmoving, festering in the candlelight and stared out lifeless at his family.

As I regarded Pap’s skeletal remains, I could’ve sworn I saw his head tilt ever so slightly.  

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The Submission:
‘A cactus?’ Kathy frowned, clearly unimpressed.

‘Yeah!’ I replied. ‘I thought it’d be a quirky little thing you can keep on your desk. Even you can’t kill a cactus.’

‘Thanks…I guess?’ she set the spiky plant aside amidst her other gifts. I knew that she was less-than-impressed by her haul this year; books, DVDs, a CD (who even buys CDs anymore?), socks… I just didn’t know what to buy her any more so just grabbed whatever I could.

Kathy turned back to the tree sullenly and, without much interest or enthusiasm, picked up the last present. It was a cube-shaped box wrapped in glittering gold paper and finished off with a silver bow, and she had definitely saved the best for last. ‘What’s this one?’ she asked with a touch of annoyance. ‘A set of Allen Keys? Maybe a paperweight?’

I chose to remain coy and keep my mouth shut. I uncurled my legs out from under me and felt pins and needles shoot up them. We were sitting on the floor, on the big comfy rug, by the three as we always did on Christmas day. A bag full of torn up wrapping paper sat between us, and I was surrounded by all the gifts she had gotten me. As always, she had gone above and beyond, piling on the presents in a desperate attempt to placate me. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy having some items ticked off my wish list, or that I wouldn’t get a lot of pleasure out of making use of her gifts, but they didn’t come from a place of love or a desire to give.

They came out of guilt.

I winced as I made myself comfortable; my arm still ached and there was a nasty bruise forming on my thigh, but I could smell the turkey and gammon and roast tatties cooking away in the kitchen and I couldn’t help but smile, knowing that I would actually be able to enjoy it this year without fear of having my face scratched off or being attacked by a searing hot saucepan.

‘Just open it,’ I encouraged, giddy with excitement. ‘I put a lot of effort into this one, trust me.’

‘I need something,’, I’d said to the vendor. ‘Something to stop her… to make sure it never happens again’.
‘I think I have just the thing…’ the wizened man had said.

As Kathy apathetically tore at the wrappings and handled the velvet-lined box, I steeled myself, biting my bottom lip with anticipation. A scowl lined her face as she popped the box open, expecting something cliché like earrings, and got a face-full of twisted razor-wire. It exploded out of the box like a loaded spring, slicing and churning into her flesh and silencing her screams by forcing itself down her throat. Her struggles were hopeless as spiked clamps bit into her hands, shredding her skin, and her one eye gawped at me with a pained horror as she felt the chains retract.

I simply sat and watched, shivering with delight as Kathy was wrenched towards the open box, her skin bloody ribbons and her other eye little more than a gooey mess. ‘Glhelp…’ she choked pitifully, and then the chains full retracted and, with a meaty rip, tore the remains of her face off. Kathy’s gory visage wore a startled expression as she collapsed to the rug, slimy blood pooling from her exposed tendons, and the box snapped shut and tumbled to the floor.

‘Just the thing indeed,’ I smiled and then heard a ping from the kitchen.

Dinner was ready.

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What did you think to this week’s writing prompt? Did you submit anything for it? Have you ever written any flash fiction before? I’d love to know what you think to my snippets and writing prompts, so feel free to sign up and let me know what you think below or leave a comment on my Instagram page. You can also follow Gillian Church to take part in her Weekly Writing Prompt challenge.