It started on Christmas day, when I was eight years old. In the early morning hours I crept down the stairs to gaze upon all the treasures Santa had left for me the night before. I was not disappointed. The presents were piled high around the base of the tree, sparkling in the early morning light. It was every kids dream. My eyes fell to the largest present under the tree. It was tucked away a bit in the corner and it was at least three feet tall, wrapped in the most stunning wrapping paper I had ever seen. It was gold and blue topped with an intricate red bow and the entire present almost seemed to glow and pulse with an energy. I approached it slowly, mesmerized by it’s size and beauty, and delicately read the tag attached to it. “To Carmen, From Santa” it read in the most perfect penmanship. There were even flourishes on the “C” and “S” as if it had been written by a professional calligrapher. I remember thinking to myself that my parents had really gone all out this Christmas for me. We were a fairly well-off family and I was an only child, so my parents tended to dote.
I waited as patiently as I could for my parents to wake up so we could start the morning. Once my grandparents had arrived we began to open all the presents. I had wanted to open the big present first but I didn’t want to seem demanding or ungrateful. My parents were always going on and on about courtesy, respect and proper manners and I didn’t want for them to think I didn’t appreciate the rest of my gifts. And so I patiently waited, stealing glances at the gift as my parents “ooed” and ‘awwed” over their new various useless trinkets. Finally the present in the corner was the only one left. My mother’s eyes fell on it and a look of confusion came upon her face for a brief moment. She walked over to it, read the tag and with a big smile brought it over to me. “Looks like we got a nice big bonus gift, darling.” She said as she set it in front of me. The present seemed bigger in the daylight. I began to enthusiastically rip at the paper. In my rush to open the present I barely noticed the concerned looks on my parents faces as they whispered to each other on the couch. Beneath the paper was a generic, white cardboard box. I tore off the tape at the top, grabbed inside and pull out the most gigantic teddy bear I had ever seen. His fur was a thick, dark chocolate brown and he wore a large red bow tie around his neck. It was love at first sight. He was perfect. I squealed with delight and hugged him noticing how soft his fur was against my cheek. I was so happy.
I named him “Chocolate” because I wasn’t a very creative kid and for the next few months we were inseparable. But like any new toy, you eventually tire of it and move onto something else. Coincidentally I tired of Chocolate right around the time the new Nintendo system came out and pretty soon I was obsessed with the new Zelda game. I forgot all about my brown furry friend.
That’s when the weird things started to happen. It was subtle at first. I would come home from school and things in my room would be moved around. The bed would be messed up as if someone had taken a nap on it. Books from the bookshelf would be scattered around my room in various neat piles. And once I came home and all my clothes in my dresser had been emptied out and scattered haphazardly around the room. This went on for about two months but to be honest I was never really concerned. I figured it was my mother or our rather large family dog who had been moving things. Then I began to notice that when I arrived home from school Chocolate wouldn’t be where I had left him in the morning. I began to find him in various places all over the house. Some days he would be at the kitchen table, as if waiting for all of us to sit down for dinner. Other times he would be in the den sitting on the couch facing the TV as if he was watching a program. This continued for a while and it got to a point where I began to expect it. I truly believed, or at least hoped, that it was my parents moving Chocolate around the house.
I tried to ignore that nagging worried feeling I got each time I came home to Chocolate in a different location. After all, he was just a giant ball of stuffing with arms and legs. An inanimate object. Then I started to have nightmares. In the dream I would come home after school and the house would be ransacked, as if a tornado had run through it and completely dark inside. I would get this feeling of complete terror as I walked inside. I would call out for my mom, she was supposed to be home, but no one would answer. When I would walk into my kitchen the entire floor would be covered with knives of various types and sizes as if our knife drawer had exploded. I would turn the corner to the den and Chocolate would be sitting on the couch, watching TV and holding the TV remote. Then he would turn his head to look at me and in his gaze there would be such hate and fear. I would scream as I realized what he held in his hand wasn’t a remote, but a gigantic carving knife. I knew that I should run, that I should leave the house and get help but I couldn’t move as if I had been frozen in place. As I locked eyes with Chocolate the bear began to vibrate and a dark shape rose up from behind him, tall and terrible. At this point in the nightmare I would wake up in a cold sweat screaming for my parents. After a few nights of this, the stuffed bear got shoved into the deep, dark recesses of my closet, buried by heavy boxes in hopes I would never see him again.
After a few weeks of peace my parents and I came home one evening after eating dinner to find the house a complete disaster zone. We walked in the front door and it looked completely destroyed. My dad made us wait outside while he ran across the street to call the cops. They arrived and searched the house and once the coast was clear they helped us sort through the wreckage to determine what was missing. Our house hadn’t just been invaded and burgled. It had been completely decimated. Our couch was almost ripped in half and the TV looked like it had been thrown across the room. The entire contents of our kitchen cupboards and refrigerator had been emptied out and dumped around the kitchen. All our knives were buried deep within the drywall as if they had been hurled into the wall with great force. The biggest disaster was the bedrooms. Every single item of clothing had been shredded to pieces and the mattresses had been gutted and torn. When I began to sift through the wreckage that had once been all my earthly belongings I took a closer look and realized that everything looked singed as if it had been burnt. I started to register a weird smell almost like rotting eggs and the smell got stronger as I approached the closet. As I peered inside my heart dropped into my stomach and my blood ran cold. The stuffed bear, Chocolate was sitting against the back wall starting right at me with a look of pure malice. I ran downstairs and didn’t go back up.
The next few nights were spent at a hotel while the house was cleaned and re-furnished. When I returned home the first thing I did was grab Chocolate, march him downstairs to the basement and chuck him into the dark corner of the storage room. Hoping that had solved the problem I slept peacefully that night.
For about a week, nothing happened and I had hope that whatever had been going on had stopped for good. Perhaps it had actually all been in my imagination all along. Then one night, I woke up because of a noise. It sounded like someone humming, low and quiet, right next to my ear. I looked around in the dark of my room, trying to see if I could locate the source of the noise when the humming stopped and turned into a low, husky breathing. I could feel hot breath on my cheek as I lay there in the dark. As I stared through the blackness, I began to make out a shape standing over me. It was human shaped, tall with broad shoulders. Although I couldn’t make out its features, I knew it was staring right at me. That’s when it started tugging at the bed sheets. I grabbed at the comforter, pulling it closer and for a moment myself and the creature were caught in a weird, terrifying tug-o-war until it yanked the sheets right off the bed. It grabbed at my arm and I remember feeling the searing hot of its hand as it touched my skin. I yelled out in pain as it pulled me off of the bed onto the floor. I struggled and tried to stand up but it grabbed me by the ankle and began dragging me to the door. I found my voice right then and began to yell and scream like my life depended on it. I don’t know where it wanted to take me but I knew enough that I didn’t want to go with it. After what seemed like hours of me screaming and thrashing my parents burst into my room and whatever it was seemingly just disappeared with the light.
My mother wrapped me up in her arms and rocked me back and forth, hoping to soothe me. Slowly I began to calm down and my breathing slowed. Just as I was about ready to tell them what had happened my eyes fell on a small dark mound by my bookshelf. It was Chocolate. He was staring directly at me with his sinister grin and emotionless black eyes. Deep down, I knew it had been him.
I couldn't fall asleep in my own bed after that incident. I began having vivid, violent dreams about coming home to my parents, slaughtered in our living room with Chocolate sitting on the couch. I viewed it almost as a threat of what was to come. I would enter my house when I got home from school and the air would feel different. It felt as if something evil was watching me, always, just waiting for the right moment to pounce.
Everything came to a climax at the end of that school year. On the last day of school I received an invitation to a sleep over party hosted by the most popular girl in our class. I was so excited that I rushed home, through the front door and up to my room. In my excitement I had let my guard down. I grabbed my overnight duffel bag from the closet and started packing. As I was stuffing my favourite pair of pajamas into my bag when I felt the ominous presence of someone behind me and heard the familiar humming noise. I stiffened and without turning around I said a soft, scared "Hello," praying it was just one of my parents. That's when I felt the breathing, hot and heavy on the back of my neck. I knew what was coming but this time, but my parents weren't here to save me.
It grabbed me by the hair and lifted me straight up off the ground. I screamed and thrashed in the air to no avail. It swung me around and I could feel hair ripping from my scalp as I crashed into the wall. Dazed and in pain I tried to stand up but it grabbed me by the ankle. Again I felt the searing hot pain that came with its touch as it started to drag me out of my bedroom and down the stairs. Whatever this thing was, it was shaped like a human, tall and pitch-black. I squinted at it, trying to bring its features into focus. That's when I realized that it had no features. It was a dark, blurry silhouette. At the base of the stairs my sleeve caught on the wrought iron railing and the creature, not expecting resistance, lost its balance a bit. I used this as an opportunity and I started thrashing around even harder. Its grip on my ankle momentarily loosened enough that I escaped. I scrambled to my feet and ran to the front door, expecting the creature to yank me back at any moment.
Instead, I burst through the front door of my house into the blinding sunlight. I rushed to a neighbors house and they called the police. I don't remember much after that. The police questioned me and took photographs of my injuries. I had some broken ribs from when I crashed against the wall and large, grotesque bruises on my wrists and ankles. After an investigation the police determined that someone had crept into the house and tried to abduct me that day. This creature that I saw was simply my mind trying to process what was happening. I saw a psychiatrist and a psychologist for a very long time and at one point took some very strong anti-anxiety medication. On the suggestion of my psychologist, we moved out of that house shortly after the incident. He also suggested that my parents destroy Chocolate, the teddy bear that I seemed so fixated on, as a way of helping me heal. After a few years of therapy I finally convinced myself that what the police officer had said was true. I had all but forgotten about Chocolate the teddy bear.
I will admit that Christmas gave me anxiety for quite a while but slowly over the years it has dissipated. Now I only occasionally get small twinges of panic approaching Christmas Day which I hear can be normal for a mother of three kids. This past Christmas morning I woke up before any of my children and sauntered downstairs. This is my Christmas morning ritual. I wake up early, make a cup of hot coffee and sit in my favourite chair next to our tree looking out over our expansive snow-covered front lawn. On this particular morning I was just settling into the chair when a glint of silver caught my eye. I looked over the gifts under the tree and my blood froze in my veins. Just off to the side, tucked away behind a few more presents was a gift I knew I hadn't wrapped. The familiar blue and silver wrapping paper and beautiful, hand-tied red bow were unmistakable. I approached the gift slowly, as if it might bite me and looked at the tag. On the tag, written in familiar, perfect penmanship was my daughter's name. I didn't even think. I started up a fire in our fireplace and once it was big enough, I tossed the whole present into the flames and watched it burn.
The rest of Christmas Day this year went along without incident. However, because of how large and spread out my husband's family is, we usually celebrate a late Christmas with them. Today was the day we were to do the whole "Christmas Morning" thing all over again with that side of the family. I woke up early this morning to my daughter's squeals of delight coming from her bedroom down the hall. Curious, I got out of bed to see what was entertaining her so early in the morning. I opened the door to see wrapping paper scattered all over the floor. "What happened in here..?" I started to ask but then I saw it. The generic white cardboard box. My daughter turned to me as she pulled out a large stuffed bear from inside it and said "Oh Mommy I love it! But I thought Santa only came one night a year..."
Submitted December 30, 2016 at 11:17PM by serendipityeffect http://ift.tt/2ipRKKU nosleep
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