I always thought it was one of life's wonderful coincidences that my fiancée was named Noelle and she loved Christmas more than anybody I know.
Every single year, as soon as Halloween was over, she’d be up in the attic fetching lights, baubles and tinsel, ready to transform our home into a space so festive it would put Santa’s grotto to shame. I can picture her now, hanging bows and ribbons over the fireplace in our cottage, blonde hair tied back, stray specks of glitter on her cheeks and with the sleeves of her latest awfully cheesy Christmas jumper rolled up so she could work even harder.
I even joked that the first dance at our wedding would be to the strains of I’ll Be Home For Christmas and Noelle laughed until tears ran down her cheeks. She used to laugh a lot.
That changed this year, in what was to be our last Christmas as an unmarried couple. The cottage had been decorated since the second week of November. We live on a small rural road and there are only three other houses around us. As such, we didn't have much competition when it came to Christmas decorations and we were always the first to switch on the lights on the front of our house.
I’d spent a long time hanging strand after strand, bulb after bulb, and soon the front of our house was almost entirely covered in twinkling, sparkling lights.
It was a time consuming, fiddly job, and the electricity bill was going to skyrocket, but it was worth it, just to see the child-like joy on Noelle’s face when they were first switched on. I know it sounds corny, but Christmas with Noelle really was the most magical time of year.
And if she was excited at the switching on of the lights, she was practically jumping for joy when, two weeks ago, the heavens opened and a sudden flurry of snow drifted down onto our little lane.
‘Come look!’ she squealed, both hands pressed against the window, her nose a mere inch from the glass, as she beamed at the winter wonderland taking shape before her eyes. I slipped up behind her, wrapped my arms around her waist, and kissed her rosy cheek as we watched the snow fall together.
Soon everything was blanketed in crisp pristine snow. I lit the log fire, mulled some wine and we had a truly heavenly evening together.
Sometimes, in my darkest moments, I can take comfort from the fact that Noelle and I shared that amazing night. Sometimes.
The snow fell into the following day, and when we rose that morning it was at least five inches thick.
Noelle warmed her hands on her mug of coffee and stood at the window transfixed.
A short distance along the road we could see our neighbours, Sarah and Kevin who held their infant daughter, Olivia, in a baby carrier strapped to his chest, out in the yard building a snowman. We’d been good friends with them ever since we moved in and it made me smile to see their ruddy cheeks and the small puffs of steam they exhaled that rose around them as they laughed together.
Noelle waved down to Sarah, the diamond and pink sapphire engagement ring I’d agonised over for weeks twinkling in the bright winter sunlight, and the happy family below saw her and waved back. I know this sounds cheesy, but it was an idyllic holiday morning.
By midday it became obvious that we weren’t going to be driving anywhere for the foreseeable future, and my vain attempts to drive my battered old car out of the garage and across the snowbound driveway were very quickly dismissed as futile. Instead I reversed the car back into its home, closing the garage door behind me.
‘It looks like we’re stuck here,’ Noelle had smiled.
I really hadn’t minded, I could think of nowhere I’d rather be.
There was just one blip on our otherwise wonderful day – just after lunch I accidentally brushed against the tree, knocking our star from the top. It hit the floor with a clatter, narrowly missing the assortment of brightly wrapped gifts that were already strewn about, and much to Noelle’s dismay, snapped in two. It had been the same star that Noelle had placed atop her tree for over a decade, and while it looked a little threadbare, it bore some significant sentimental value for her. My attempts to mend the star came to nought and I told a teary-eyed Noelle that I promised I’d take her to buy a brand new one just as soon as the roads cleared. If only that had remained the worst thing we’d have to deal with.
If only he hadn’t come to our home.
Later that evening the fire was crackling away, casting a dancing light about the now darker room, when we heard the voice.
It took a few moments to recognise that it was real, not from one of Noelle’s scratchy old Christmas records.
It was a rich deep voice, slowly and tunefully singing I Saw Three Ships.
Noelle recognised it a moment before I did, a look of unadulterated joy spreading across her beautiful face, as I asked her: ‘Can you hear that?’
‘A caroller!’ she cried, actually clapping her hands as we wandered out into the hallway.
As we moved closer to the door I could see a figure through the misted glass. Even from here I could tell he was a big man – at least 6’5 – broad-shouldered and barrel-chested. ‘I saw three ships come sailing in, on Christmas Day…’
His voice was truly mesmerising. His tone was perfect, not unlike the bassy baritone of a crooner such as Bing Crosby or Dean Martin.
I could never have imagined that a voice such as that could come from somebody like him – somebody capable of the things he did.
I opened the door and stood, my hand on the doorframe, just taking in the sight before me. For a second I thought we might have been visited by Santa himself.
The Caroller was indeed huge, dressed in a thick, warm red winter coat, the hood pulled up over his head, casting his face in shadow. The coat was padded, lined with insulation, so it added even more mass to the hulking figure before me. He even had a long, unruly beard that spilled down his burly chest, but unlike Santa, his was a fiery ginger rather than white.
However, on closer inspection the similarity ended there. The Caroller wore what looked like combat trousers and battered but sturdy-looking, old, black army surplus boots, which were partially buried in the thick snow.
Illuminated by the glow of our porchlight, snowflakes cascading down around him, hands behind his back while his deep powerful voice continued to boom out the classic carol (‘And what was in those ships all three?’) he truly was an awesome sight.
I turned back to Noelle to watch her reaction to the Caroller. I knew her face would be a picture, and, for a few brief seconds it was. She grinned at him, enthralled by his song.
Then, abruptly, the rapt smile on her face shattered, her eyes widened in unspeakable terror and she started to scream.
In that moment I heard three distinct and separate sounds — Noelle’s heart-rending cries; a heavy, dull metallic thud; and the Caroller’s deep singing voice, utterly unfazed and smoothly continuing with his song (‘Pray, whither sailed those ships all three, On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day…’).
I was only dimly aware of a hot, aching sensation in my hand as I turned back to see what had caused such a terrified reaction from my fiancée.
It took me a few seconds to make sense of what I saw.
The Caroller was still singing, just his smiling mouth visible in the darkness of his hood, but he was attempting to tug something from the doorframe, like a dentist trying to extract a tooth. Confused, I looked at what he gripped in his massive, paw-like hand.
It was a meat cleaver, slick and gory, buried in the wood of the door frame.
My blood ran cold as I looked down at the red snow by his feet. Scattered about his boots were some small, pink slugs.
Why are they out in this weather? I thought to myself, as the Caroller wrenched the cleaver free with his powerful arms.
Then it dawned on me — they weren’t slugs.
They were my fingers.
The Caroller kept right on grinning and singing as he raised the cleaver for a second strike and I froze, dumbly staring at the useless, bloody stumps that marked where my fingers has once been on my right hand.
Suddenly Noelle was there, slamming the door shut in the Caroller’s face, still screaming.
‘Chris,’ she cried, over and over. She grabbed my scarf from beside the door, the same warm, wooly scarf I had worn while decorating the front of our home with lights, and then took my wounded right hand in hers. Gently she pulled me away from the door, even as she wrapped the scarf around my mutilated hand as a make-shift bandage.
The dull ache was now a roaring pain, white-hot and sending sparks of agony up my arm with every beat of my heart.
‘The police,’ I mumbled, my vision suddenly starting to swim. Maybe it was blood loss, maybe it was shock, but every step I took away from the door was shakier than the last. Noelle pulled my arm over her shoulder and together we staggered into the lounge, to the phone.
Outside, the Caroller continued to sing.
‘On Christmas day in the morning…’
As we reached the sofa I tripped, stumbled, then eventually pitched forward onto the seat. Without thinking I tried to break my fall, putting my hands out before me.
Even wrapped in the scarf, the sudden jarring impact as the ruined stumps on my right hand struck the hard back of the chair was agony, causing me to cry out in pain.
For a moment or two I could only hear the rushing roar of my own blood in my ears, my vision little more than a white haze, as if I’d fallen face first into the deep snow outside.
I don’t know how close I came to passing out, but when I was next aware of my surroundings Noelle was cradling my head in her hands and telling me that I needed to stay with her.
‘Please, Chris,’ she whispered, frantically. ‘Just stay awake. You need to stay awake.’ I nodded dully, knowing that somehow, fortuitously, I’d ridden out the pain.
‘Phone…’ I whispered again. ‘Police.’
Seemingly reassured that I wasn’t going to pass out anytime soon, Noelle nodded grimly, planted a kiss on my forehead, then scrambled across the room to the phone.
She picked up the receiver, quickly punched the buttons, and then… she started to weep.
‘It’s dead,’ she sobbed, dropping the phone to the floor. ‘The line’s dead.’
‘The snow?’ I asked, but even as I said it I heard the voice from outside, echoing under the moonless sky.
‘...All is calm, all is bright…’
Silent Night. He was taunting us, telling Noelle and I that he knew we weren’t able to place the call.
Then I saw that cleaver again in my mind’s eye, its brutish weight and wicked, sharp edge and I knew he’d cut the cable. He’d silenced us.
‘Your cell!’ I hissed and Noelle nodded, before dashing out of the room and up the stairs to our bedroom. There was silence for a few seconds, then I heard her despairing cry.
‘Call failed!’
She ran back to me, dialling the emergency services over and over, each call ending in the same infuriating beep.
‘Sleep in heavenly peace…’
I saw red, blood pounding in my ears. Before I knew what I was doing I was already lunging towards the door. I don’t know if I really thought I could hurt him, but I know that in that moment I was ready to risk it all to try.
I shouted a tirade of expletives, adrenaline coursing through my veins, and lurched across the room.
Then, once again, Noelle was there. She deftly stepped between me and the door, her big green eyes locked on mine.
‘No,’ she said, quietly but firmly. ‘Don't go out there. Please. I need you.’
And with that she placed her left hand on my chest, the jewels in her engagement ring twinkling like lights on the tree just a few feet away. I felt the rage and fury ebb away, seeming to pour out of me as I realised she was right. If I ran out there and tried to fight him, what would happen if I lost? What would he do to her? It wasn’t a risk I could bear to take.
‘Ok,’ I said, calmer, quieter.
She didn’t drop her hand straightaway, frowning at me for a second longer, unsure if I was truly ready to drop the foolhardy charge I’d been prepared to make moments earlier.
‘Seriously,’ I said, taking her hand in mine. ‘It’s ok.’
With that she nodded, then embraced me, holding me close as we both tried to comprehend the horror of what had just happened.
It took me a moment to realise that, once again, the night was quiet.
‘Do you think he’s gone?’ I asked, gently releasing Noelle and moving towards the curtains.
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered back, already trying her phone again. The look on her face was enough to tell me that she still wasn’t getting through. Coverage had always been an issue in our house, especially when we had atmospheric conditions such as rain or snow to contend with.
We used to joke that the fact nobody from the office could ever reach her on a day off was the clincher in our decision to buy this place. We used to joke about a lot of things.
I inched closer to the curtain, preparing to peek outside.
I don’t think I’d ever been more frightened than I was at the moment my hand closed around the material and prepared to pull it aside. I think we’ve all had that fear of peering out of a window into the dark and finding an unfamiliar face staring back. The difference was that this time I knew for a fact that the face would belong to man who wanted us dead.
We both held our breath as I stood there for what felt like ten whole minutes, yet I realise was probably less than twenty seconds, paralysed with fear.
Then I whipped the curtain back.
There was nothing there. Just our yard and the dark street beyond.
I stood staring out into the night, trying to spot even the slightest hint of the Caroller’s presence. However, snow changes the familiar into something else. It coats and covers everything, obscuring some things, its bright colour lightening and transforming others.
The weight of the drifts on the trees, hedges and bushes outside caused them to lean and sag under its weight. As the wind caused the branches to bob, each of them looked like a pale, watchful face, peeking out from at me from behind a strange, shapeless white blob that could have been anything from a bike, to a climbing frame, to a rosebush.
Time and again I thought, just for a split second, that I caught sight of the monster in the red coat, but I neither saw nor heard a thing.
Finally I exhaled.
‘He’s not there,’ I said.
‘So what do we do?’ Noelle asked me.
The sudden wave of relief I’d been feeling dissipated as I realised that the absence of our tormentor didn’t mean anything — he was still out there, somewhere, and we had no idea if or when he might return. ‘We need to get somewhere safe, quickly,’ I replied.
‘The car?’ Noelle suggested. It was the only course open to us, that or walk out into the dark night where he was waiting for us.
I nodded and then, as fast as we could, we dashed through the house to the kitchen. There was an adjoining door to the garage, so we’d be able to get to the car without needing to venture outside. I told Noelle to wait at the door while I got in the car, started the engine and then opened the sliding garage door to check the path was clear. If that all went without a hitch she was to run straight to the passenger side door and then we would get the hell out of there and not stop until we hit the nearest town a few miles away. If anything else happened, she was to slam the door and lock it.
At first she protested, but I made her promise that she'd do as I asked. I couldn't let him have us both.
It seemed like a good idea, one that could work.
I really thought it could.
With her reassurances that she wouldn't take any risks ringing in my ears, I kissed Noelle goodbye and then stepped into the garage.
As I crept into the shadowy interior I felt the temperature drop drastically. It must have been below freezing outside, yet still I could feel beads of sweat running down the small of my back, perspiration causing my shirt to cling my armpits and sides.
I was terrified, my head snapping back and forth into every corner, expecting the red-clad invader to suddenly bear down on me, cleaver raised, that terrible grin on his face.
It never came but that open space between me and the car left me feeling horribly exposed and vulnerable. I glanced back over my shoulder, once, twice, three times, but each time the only face I saw was Noelle’s staring back at me, tight-lipped and teary eyed.
Finally I reached the vehicle, cursing when I saw that the windows were frosted over. That meant spending even more precious seconds in it with the engine running, even longer that I’d be broadcasting our intentions to the Caroller.
As quickly as I could I awkwardly threw the door open with my left hand, then dived inside, slamming the door closed behind me, a steel barrier between myself and the horrors outside.
I breathed a long sigh of relief, then inserted the key in the ignition. I took a deep breath, turned it, and… it purred to life! I don't think I’d ever been so grateful to hear a noise in my life.
Quickly I flicked the wipers on, hoping to clear my field of vision. I heard the rhythmic squeak as the rubber swept back and forth against the glass, but to my confusion the window didn’t clear.
Frowning, I reached out to the screen and drew my fingers across it. They came away wet, leaving clear streaks that revealed the garage door before me. Condensation, not frost.
I saw the gap beneath the garage door straightaway, the deep mound of snow that had wedged it open when I tried to close the shutter behind me earlier at least two feet deep.
Condensation.
On the inside of the screen…
Then came the voice, deep, melodic, not from outside the car but from the backseat behind me.
‘Do you see what I see?’
I ripped the door open and threw myself out onto the dusty floor. As I did I felt a searing hot pain in my shoulder, down my arm to the elbow.
As I scrambled towards the door to the kitchen Noelle started to scream.
Behind me the door of my car creaked open and the Caroller unfolded himself from its dingy confines.
‘Way up in the sky, little lamb…’
‘Chris, quickly!’ Noelle screamed, beckoning me with her hands, hopping on the spot as she willed me towards the safety of our home.
I don’t know remember regaining my feet or that short dash to the doorway.
Instead my next memory is of bracing the door with my shoulder, leaving an angry crimson smear on the paint from the fresh wound on my arm, while Noelle stood beside me, locking it.
No sooner had she turned the key then came an enormous thump of impact, one that rattled the door in its frame, so powerful that both Noelle and I cried out in alarm.
I honestly believe that the only reason I’m alive now to tell you this story is because we’d placed our refrigerator beside that door when we moved in. Its proximity to the garage door gave us the perfect barricade and, as one and without words, Noelle and I both tugged and pushed it into the corner, causing it topple and wedge against the wall in front of the door.
There came another crash as the Caroller threw his bulky frame against the door again, then again.
Finally, he stopped, seeming to realise the futility of his efforts.
‘With a tail as big as a kite…’ he crooned gently. There was no sound of exertion in his voice, not the slightest hint that seconds earlier he’d been kicking and pounding on the door to kill us. He was like a machine, inhuman, relentless and without weakness.
Noelle and I stood frozen, staring towards the entrance to the garage.
From beyond the door we heard shuffling footsteps heading away from us, his voice fading as he walked back towards the garage door. ‘With a tail as big as a kite.’
We spent the next five minutes pushing bookshelves, tables, sofas, anything and everything bulky that we could lay our hands on against all of the windows and doors on the ground floor. We’d recently had new windows fitted, sturdy, double-locked and double-glazed heavy duty PVC, but we weren’t prepared to take any risks.
‘Upstairs,’ I said, when we’d finished and Noelle nodded and followed me up the stairs.
As I walked towards the bedroom door I heard a sudden crash behind me and nearly jumped out of my skin.
Whirling around I saw the cabinet from our landing now on its side, blocking the top of the stairway, Noelle pushing it into place.
‘Another barrier,’ she whispered. ‘It could buy us time.’
I hadn’t even thought about what we’d do should the Caroller gain access to our home, but Noelle had, adding an extra level of security that could buy us valuable seconds should the worst come to the worst.
I stepped in beside her and shoved the cabinet too, until the entire top of the staircase was obstructed, then I took her hand in mine and we walked into our bedroom.
‘You’re bleeding,’ she said, flatly, her voice dull, numbed by shock.
I glanced down at the floor and saw a steady crimson pitter-patter of my blood raining down onto the old pine floor. Not only had the wounds from my hand started to leak through the scarf, but it was coming from my arm too. Now I had the time to inspect my injury I realised how bad it was. The gash was deep, undoubtedly caused by a wild swing of that damned cleaver, and it would leave an ugly scar.
This whole night would.
‘It’ll be fine,’ I lied, knowing full-well that that I’d need medical attention sooner rather than later. ‘What do we do now?’
Noelle blinked, then lifted her right hand. Even during the confusion and chaos of the events in the garage and our subsequent reinforcement of the house, she’d kept hold of her phone. We had a lifeline.
She lifted it to her ear and again called for help. Again, the call failed.
As she tried again and again, I moved over to our bedroom window and peered out into the darkness beyond the glow of our Christmas lights. In that moment I was grateful for them, there are no streetlights on our little lane and without the bulbs adorning the front of our home there would have been no source of illumination, just the blackness of the night. Instead they cast a glow that lit to just beyond the edge of our driveway. It wasn’t much, but enough to see if our tormentor was again at our door.
There was no sign of him, but, as if to remind me that we were still under his scrutiny, I heard a deep clear voice ring out from the darkness beyond the halo of light surrounding our home.
‘Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen…’
Another message, another warning that he was watching us and knew exactly what we were doing.
I retreated from the window, terrified that at any moment his cleaver would come arcing out the darkness, circling end over end until it crashed through the glass and into my exposed face.
‘I can’t reach them,’ Noelle said, tears of fury in her eyes. ‘This phone is useless, I can’t reach anybody.’
‘It’s OK, keep trying,’ I said, slipping my arm around her. Even as I said this I knew things were far from OK and that I needed to think of something, anything, to ensure that we made it through the night.
Wracking my brain, I sat heavily on the bed and watched as she walked over to the window, pulling back the edge of the curtain to peek out into the night.
She stood there in silence, her back to me for a long time, and as she did I realised that once again the Caroller’s voice had fallen silent.
‘Do you see anything?’ I asked as I climbed to my feet and walked up behind her to join her vigil at the pane.
‘Nothing.’
I looked over her shoulder at the street below… and saw something that made my heart freeze.
Over the road, just a little down the way, I could see light from the windows of Kevin and Sarah’s home. Our neighbours, with their baby daughter, were at this monster’s mercy.
I gasped in realisation and as I did, Noelle followed my gaze, then clamped a hand to her mouth.
‘Oh no…’ she cried, fresh tears springing to her eyes.
I stared out into the darkness and realised that our friends and their child needed to be warned.
I needed to go out into the night and get to them before he did.
To be continued...
Submitted December 19, 2016 at 09:32PM by Mr_Stuff http://ift.tt/2i12srE creepypasta
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