Revenge: The darker side of Christmas

At first, I loved the Hendersons. I was overjoyed to have been adopted by them and accepted into their warm home which smelled of cooked apples and spice.

I'd had a tough time of it in my short life. I'd fallen victim to evil traffickers who had ripped me from my homeland. I was scarred, bewildered and frightened, but the Hendersons took me in and gave me a new home, and a family. I loved them, and I thought they loved me, too.

I remember the day Mr. Henderson carried me over the threshold into their little terraced house. It was warm after the cold winter air. He set me down tenderly on the living room floor and called to his wife. She came rushing in to look at me, and gasped with delight. "Absolutely perfect!" She beamed.

Mrs Henderson gave me food and water to drink and then she dressed me. I was amazed at the things she had for me. Such beautiful jewellery! I had never seen anything like it before. My reflection in the window was splendid indeed. I was so pleased they had chosen me, above all the others, to adopt. I knew I was going to feel right at home here.

When she had finished dressing me, Mrs Henderson sat down next to me and turned on the TV. I'd never seen a TV before - they don't have them where I come from, and I was entranced by it. The music, the lights, the colours! It was brighter than a forest floor in springtime, for all its wild flowers.

I had a lot to learn, naturally, about the new culture I found myself inhabiting, and the family I was now part of. There was Mr. Henderson, who worked at something called the tax office, which meant he was away from the house most of the time, but in the evenings he would return, put on his slippers and sit by me to watch the news. I soon learned by the comments he made that he didn't like a man called the "prime minister" all that much, but he loved it when a man in a red shirt managed to kick a ball between two posts.

Mrs Henderson stayed home all day. She said her job was taking care of her family and she did that very well.

Olivia was the eldest daughter, and I liked her because she gave me a beautiful set of beads in red and gold. Her brother Sam was less likeable. He was noisy and boisterous and would kick a football around the room when no-one was looking. A couple of times, it hit me. Still, I know he didn't mean to do it and his mumbled apologies were sincere.

The one I really didn't like was Tess. She was there when Mr Henderson brought me home and she just sat on the chair, staring at me with her bright green eyes and saying nothing. She would eye my jewellery jealously and once or twice, tried to steal it, but Mrs Henderson would always take it away from Tess and give it back to me. I suppose that's why Tess would settle herself beside me and silently dig her long nails into me. I never trusted her. Thankfully, she seemed to go out a lot and mostly only came home for meals and sleep.

The ones I liked best, though, were Spider and Vera. I felt a kinship with them. They were adopted like me, and we were similar in many ways. They spoke a little of my language and we could understand each other. We could have conversations between the three of us that none of the other Hendersons could understand. It was from them that I learned the things I really needed to know.

One thing I learned very quickly was that I had arrived into the family just in time for something they called Christmas. From the conversations I heard, from the TV programmes I saw, I learned that Christmas was a special family time that happened every year. It was something to do with the birth of a baby a very, very long time ago, and that everyone was supposed to be nice to each other and give each other gifts. It seemed like a fitting time to have arrived.

There were lots of visitors to the house. They would sing outside the door and Mr and Mrs Henderson would invite them in for mince pies and wine. Alcohol was a big part of Christmas, I discovered, as even I was allowed a little tot of vodka in my water every few days. The guests would come in and meet me, and they would always say how pretty I was. I knew the Hendersons were proud of me.

One night, soon after I arrived, Olivia came into the room. She looked lovely. Not quite as lovely as me, but lovely just the same. She'd piled up her hair and put on make up. "What do you think, everybody?" She said, twirling around so that her dress glittered and sparkled under the Christmas lights. "You think Callum will ask me out?"

"He's a fool if he doesn't," Mr Henderson grunted.

"Yuck, is that mistletoe in your hair?" Sam wrinkled his nose. "Kissing... ugh!"

"You look gorgeous, darling," Mrs Henderson said. "Have a great time and I'll come and pick you up at eleven."

She left for her Christmas party and Mr Henderson went to the pub. Sam disappeared up to his room to play computer games, and Mrs Henderson went upstairs for a bath. Tess was out - I don't know or care where. Spider, Vera and I stayed where we were.

Then at about half past nine, Olivia came in, slamming the door behind her. There were dark smudges all down her cheeks and her eyes were red. She flung herself down next to me and wailed, "It's not fair! I hate Callum! He only gave me a peck on the cheek, but he was snogging the face off that Michelle, the common bitch! He ignored me the whole rest of the night! I hate them both!" She covered her face with her hands and cried. I knew there was nothing I could possibly do to comfort her, but I felt privileged that it was me she had confided in.

I so loved being part of this family.

Then Spider told me something that chilled me to the core.

"They're planning to kill you, you know," he whispered to me one night.

"They wouldn't do that," I replied. "They're good to me. How can you say such a thing?"

"Oh, they're dressing you up nicely and feeding you well now, but you're not part of the family. You never will be. Come the new year, they'll strip you of all those fancy things and throw you out in the cold to die."

"You're lying. You're just trying to scare me."

"He isn't," said Vera, in her soft, soothing voice. "It happens every year. They always do it. We've seen it time and time again."

"It's always the same. You're to be sacrificed. I've never worked out whether it's to Santa Claus or Jesus or Old Father Time - but you have two weeks to live, tops. Look, I'm sorry to have to tell you this. Vera and I have been agonising over whether or not to tell you for days, and how to put it."

"We're so sorry," Vera said.

For a time I refused to believe what they'd said. It had to be a cruel joke.

Then Mrs Henderson herself inadvertently gave herself away. She had started vacuuming the carpet every day, and seemed to dislike having to do it. I heard her grumble to herself. Perhaps she thought the noise of the hoover would drown out her voice, but I still heard her say it. That she'd be glad when they'd got rid of me. So they really were going to kill me. How could they do that?

My love for the Hendersons turned to loathing, but I gave no sign that I knew what they were plotting. Only now, as we all sat together watching the TV, I was plotting myself. I was fantasising about ways to kill them all before they killed me.

I would spare Spider and Vera, of course. They were different, like me. It wasn't their fault; they had no part in it, and they had warned me. They didn't deserve to die. I didn't tell them what I intended to do, though.

On the fourth day of Christmas, Mr Barry Henderson was found dead on his living room floor. Water had got into the plug socket and had dripped onto the floor, making the carpet around it sopping wet, but not so much that he'd notice when wearing his slippers. He'd bent to turn on the Christmas lights; there had been a spark and a puff of smoke and he'd collapsed, twitching, onto the floor, his finger still on the switch. He twitched for a good ten minutes before falling still as I stood there and watched.

Nobody suspected me for an instant. It was just one of those things; a freak accident, rendered all the more tragic by its proximity to Christmas.

Tess was next. On the fifth day of Christmas, The Hendersons' black cat was found crushed under the weight of the pot of soil and the Christmas tree, which had toppled over in the night. It was assumed she'd been trying to reach a particularly tantalising bauble and pulled the whole lot down on top of her. There was no suggestion it could have been my fault.

On the sixth day of Christmas, Mrs Christine Henderson was found dead, too. Another freak accident. A broken Christmas ornament had sliced the major artery in her arm as she'd struggled to put the fallen Christmas tree back. She bled out over the living room carpet. And still nobody suspected I was responsible for any of it.

The seventh day of Christmas was meant to be Sam's turn. Another freak accident, but that day a strange couple came to take Olivia and Sam away.

She glanced into the room where Spider, Vera and I were, and quickly closed the door behind her. "That room gives me the creeps," she declared. Especially that Christmas tree. There's an evil vibe coming off it, I swear."

"Don't be silly, Dorothy," the man said. "No doubt it's just some energetic residue left by the deaths. That's what they say hauntings are. It's an inanimate object. It can't hurt you."

Spider and Vera and I watched silently as the Henderson children were led down the garden path and bundled into a waiting car. We had the house to ourselves. We could live here forever, just the three of us.

I was wrong, of course. A few days later, Dorothy came back. She muttered as she entered the house. I could only make out snippets of what she was saying. "...unlucky to leave them up after the 6th... enough bad luck to last a lifetime... don't need any more... " She began stuffing the cards and tinsel into black bags. Then, finally, she looked at me, her eyes narrow slits. For the first time I feared someone might actually suspect me; that she'd guessed what had been going on. But then she turned away.

"Steve! I'm going to need your help with the Christmas tree. I don't want to do this alone. It still creeps me out."

Steve came into the room with a small pink case. The sleeve of one of Olivia's jumpers was poking out of the top. "Be with you in a sec," he said. "I'll just put this in the car. Is there anything else you want me to put in the car?"

Dorothy glanced quickly around the room. "Yes. You can take the spider plant and the aloe vera plant. Poor things probably haven't been watered for days."

They stripped me of all my finery, and as predicted, I was dumped on the pavement. I watched Spider and Vera being driven off to a new home while I was left to die in the dust.

*******

If you like this story you can buy a collection of my short stories, Jigsaw, on CreateSpace, Amazon, Amazon Kindle

My novel, Death and Faxes, is also available. It's the story of a young psychic juggling her life and her powers in London.

Paperback - CreateSpace or Amazon 

Or get the E-book: Amazon Kindle (Follow this link to look inside and read the first few pages).

A Christmas Novella! 

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle