Silent Fright

Christmas Eve.

All through the house, the warm and colourful spirit of the festive season embodied itself in various forms: the six-foot tall Christmas tree that stood in the corner of the living room, its dark green branches liberally festooned with gleaming balls and sparkling tinsel; the red-and-blue decorations that stretched across the ceiling, between which hung party balloons and various other dangling items, from angels to stars; a plastic talking head of Father Christmas pinned up on the wall by the light switch, its jovial, mechanical voice uttering the typical Santa greeting of "Ho, ho, ho, merry Christmas," each time anybody passed by it; the antiquated radio on the sideboard, from which emanated the much-loved Yuletide tune Jingle Bells, the tinny sound occasionally punctuated by static, but nonetheless enjoyable for all of that.

A house totally redolent with the cosy, comfortable atmosphere of another Christmas Eve.

In front of the big roaring log fire that enhanced the warm, homely atmosphere beautifully, a pretty little blonde girl of seven and her eight-year-old brother were sitting cross-legged on the mat opposite each other. They were both staring fixedly at the small glass tumbler, on which the tips of their forefingers rested lightly, the same glass tumbler out of which, just an hour before, their mother had drunk a few tipples of Sherry to get her in a merry mood for the party to which she and her husband had been invited in the next road. The two children seemed to be willing the glass to move, their expressions etched in deep concentration. All around the glass, the letters of the alphabet had been cut into tiny squares of paper and placed in a circle.

"Hello?" said the blonde girl, whose name was Mandy. "Is there anybody there?"

No response from the glass. It had remained still now for nearly five minutes, and was continuing to show not even the slightest sign of movement.

"Hello?" added her brother, whose name was Billy. "If there is anybody there, please talk to us. Give us some kind of sign."

Nothing. Just an empty, soulless, upturned, unmoving glass.

In the armchair by the fireside, Julie, the thirty-year-old babysitter, watched the two kids engaged in their rather strange little game with a mixture of amusement and mild fascination. What either of them possibly expected to gain from this weird little "party trick" - as Billy had so described it - Julie honestly didn't know. Still, if it kept them out of mischief for a few hours until it was time for them to go to bed to await the arrival of Santa Claus with all their presents, that was okay by Julie.

On the radio, Jingle Bells ended, to be replaced by Blue Christmas sung by Elvis. Julie smiled wistfully at the opening bars of The King's wonderfully deep voice. Julie adored Elvis.

"Please, please, speak to us," urged Mandy, her voice now growing more insistent, more impatient.

"Yes, come on," Billy added, sounding just as eager for the thing to work as his sister was.

"Look, I'm not being funny, kids," Julie cut in, laughing a little at their antics, "but I think you are both wasting your time. That glass isn't gonna move one bit."

The children were too engrossed in what they were doing to even acknowledge Julie's words. The babysitter might as well have not been in the house. Reciprocating their ignorance with a suit yourself kind of shrug, Julie reached forward to the coffee table to pick up the Christmas edition of the TV Times. She flicked through its glossy pages until she arrived at the program page for that Christmas Eve. She tutted to herself and shook her head disapprovingly on seeing the utter dross they had served up as the supposed "Christmas entertainment" for that night: cop shows with people being assaulted; soap operas featuring the main characters being bumped off, one murder being particularly gruesome involving an axe. Honestly, these soaps were getting more and more like Hammer films these days! All this death and destruction on, of all times, a Christmas Eve! Julie couldn't believe it. Whatever happened to all the seasonal music shows they used to put on at one time? Throwing the TV magazine back on the coffee table in disgust, Julie decided that the telly was staying off for tonight, as she certainly wasn't going to watch all that crap. Better stuff on the radio.

"It's moving!"

The sudden shout from Mandy caused Julie to jump in her seat. She shot her eyes down to the excited girl . . . and then down to the glass on which their two fingers still rested. Slowly, curiosity stirring in her, Julie leaned forward . . . and saw that the tumbler was indeed moving. It was sliding slowly, ever so slowly, along the flat wooden board, towards Billy. But how?

"Hey, you're pushing it with your finger, aren't you?" Billy said, eyeing his sister suspiciously.

"No, no, I'm not," Mandy hastened to protest, shaking her head vigorously.

"But you must be," Billy argued.

"No, honestly, I'm not."

"Well, let's ask it something then, shall we?"

"Okay," Mandy nodded slowly, unable to tear her gaze away from the moving glass as she proceeded to think of a suitable question. "Who are you?"

The glass slowly responded by moving, firstly, to the letter S . . . then A . . . then N . . . then T . . . then, finally, A.
It had spelt out SANTA.

Santa Claus?

On the radio, Elvis's Blue Christmas ended, to be followed by Silent Night sung by a church choir. The static on the old-fashioned radio seemed to be worsening. Some kind of very bad interference.

Julie's curiosity at the sliding glass was growing. She began to recall certain stories she'd heard in the past about these little "party games". Most of them had proved to be exactly the kind of phoniness that Billy had implied - somebody slyly pushing the glass with their finger. Harmless fun. However, there were other stories - darker stories - that the glass had been manipulated by . . . well, some unknown force. As well as being amusing, these games could also be downright serious. Creepy, even. Perhaps I should have put that glass away in the cupboard once it was finished with, Julie thought. What was the name people often gave to these "games"? Weejie boards, or something like that. Even so, Julie had always been rather sceptical about the supernatural. She was also very down-to-earth, and a complete atheist. She would take a lot of convincing that there might, just might, be something beyond this physical world.

"Santa?" Mandy's eyes lit up delightedly. You mean Santa Claus? You are Father Christmas himself?"

Again, slowly, weirdly, the glass slid to each chosen letter of the alphabet: Y . . . E . . . S.

YES.

"Wow!" Mandy gasped. "We're talking to Santa Claus himself!"

Billy frowned. "Santa Claus?" He shook his head, looking completely bemused. "But I . . . I don't understand. How can Santa Claus be in that glass if he's out tonight delivering all his presents?"

Mandy just shrugged. "Santa, do you mind if I ask you a question?"

The glass spelled out NO.

"Santa," Mandy went on, pretty eyes glinting with excitement, "are you going to bring me a nice present tonight?"

What the glass spelled out next caused Mandy's excited expression to suddenly fade, her mouth to drop open with shock.

WHY SHOULD I?

"What do you mean, 'why should I?'" Billy cut in. "You're Santa Claus, aren't you, or so you say. You are supposed to bring us kids presents every Christmas Eve. It's your job."

Julie suddenly noticed how cold it was getting in the room, despite the roaring fire in the grate. Odd. She shivered a little, pulling her cardigan closed against her chest, and glanced into the flames.

And shivered more intensely as, just for a fleeting moment, she thought she saw a grotesque, horned, gargoyle-like face glaring balefully at her from the fire. Then the face vanished as swiftly as it had appeared.

"I don't believe in you," Mandy was saying to the glass. "You're not real." She was visibly angry at Santa's apparent reluctance to bring her a present this year.

The glass moved again, spelling out: OH BUT I AM. PEOPLE HAVE BELIEVED IN ME FOR CENTURIES.

Somehow, Julie didn't like the way all this was going. Unease prickling her brain, she rose from the armchair and moved towards the tumbler to snatch it up. "All right, children," she said, trying to make her voice sound as authoritative as possible, "I think that's quite enough for tonight.
Then her hand froze an inch away from the tumbler, as two strikingly weird things happened: first, the radio suddenly switched itself off; second, the plastic talking head of Father Christmas on the wall uttered its jolly greeting of "Ho, ho, ho, merry Christmas", without anybody going near it to trigger its sound off.

A strange, unearthly silence suddenly descended on the house.

Then, a few seconds later, that silence was suddenly broken by the explosion of the tumbler, showering a myriad tiny shards of glass into the face of the babysitter.

"Julie, we're home."

The slurred but chirpy voice announcing their arrival was that of Mandy and Billy's mother, Claire. Closing the front door behind her, she felt thankful that she had remembered to take the front door key, for the babysitter had failed to answer their knocks. Maybe she'd fallen asleep after putting the children to bed, Claire reasoned. The party had been great. Both Claire and her husband, Brian, had enjoyed themselves immensely. Now, the time fast approaching midnight, it was straight up to bed, for neither of the parents wanted any supper, both their stomachs completely full and satiated with all the food and booze they had consumed at the party.

As she slipped the key back into her pocket, Claire noticed how silent the house was. No radio on, no television, no voices. Nothing. It was almost like walking into a morgue. Somehow, Claire didn't like this eerie silence. It perturbed her deeply.

"Blimey, you could hear a pin drop in here," her husband remarked, as if he had read her thoughts.

"Yes, I know," Claire said with a frown. "Don't tell me Julie has decided to have an early night too."

"Doubt it," Brian said. He knew Julie well. He would hardly describe her as the type who loved her bed; on the contrary, she usually stayed up late.

"Julie, we're home," Claire called again, slipping off her fur coat, hanging it on the hook, and walking towards the living room. Brian followed close behind her.

Still no acknowledgement, no movement.

The door of the living-room was partly ajar. In the frost-covered street outside, a strong wind had begun to stir, its howling gusts rattling the windows of the house in their frames. The light in the living-room was on. Claire gently pushed the door further open. It creaked harshly, as if in protest against the intrusion. She entered.

And jumped with shock as the talking Santa head on the wall roared, in a guttural, inhuman voice: "HO, HO, HO - MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

Christmas Day.
Late afternoon.
And all through the house, silence. Total silence. The quiescence of a graveyard.
A foul stench permeated the whole building, its assailing odour just as intense as the deathly silence. The hush, combined with the stink, completely overshadowed the otherwise homely, Christmas atmosphere.
No longer a Christmas house.
Just a death house.

On the floor, by the now totally burnt-out fireplace, the two children were at it again, totally engrossed in their great little game, as they had been last night. They had whipped another tumbler from the drinks cabinet and, once more, had re-assembled all the letters of the alphabet in a circle around the glass.

They were talking to Santa again.

This time, now that he had gotten to know them a bit better, they didn't have to wait too long before the glass started to move. This new ease of contact excited the two children immensely, to the extent that they just could not tear themselves away from the board for one minute. They were utterly hooked, totally obsessed, to the complete exclusion of everything. They weren't even bothered about the three dead bodies of the adults that were sprawled out in various parts of the house. Santa had overdone it a bit last night, he really had. In fact, he had been naughty, very naughty indeed. Viewing his over-the-top actions with sheer awe and shock, the children had at first been rendered speechless, especially when Santa had performed the exploding tumbler trick on Julie, before moving on to an even more amazing feat involving a set of kitchen knives and their parents. However, Santa was so powerful - so possessive - that he soon dispelled any revulsion that the kids might have felt, and eventually won them over. And all this, without even having to materialise in a red suit! Ho, ho, ho - this world was such fun!

Billy's voice suddenly broke the silence of the house: "Come on then, Santa, tell us who is gonna win the World Cup next year. Please tell us it's gonna be England."

"Football again!" Mandy scowled disapprovingly at her brother. "That's all you ever think about. I wanna know when I am going to win some money from somewhere. C'mon, Santa, tell me, please."

The glass proceeded to move in its usual slow, weird way. However, it gave neither Billy nor Mandy the answers they wanted. Instead, it spelt out the sentence: DO NOT CALL ME SANTA ANYMORE.

The children's mouths dropped open with surprise. They frowned and exchanged puzzled glances. "Why not?" Mandy said. "Santa is your name, isn't it?"

The word that the glass spelt out next increased the children's puzzlement: ANAGRAM.

"What the heck is an 'anagram'"?" she demanded.

Billy shrugged. "I don't know."

The glass was moving again, this time faster, faster, as if eager to elucidate on what it was implying. It finally spelt out: PUT THE N AT THE END OF SANTA, AND WHAT HAVE YOU GOT?

"Put the N at the end of Santa, and . . . " Billy proceeded to mentally arrange the letters in accordance with the tumbler's instructions . . . and his face suddenly paled with shocked recognition:

SATAN.

END

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