Christmas Curse

They say it was two people in the woods that cursed our town. Two loners with too much time on their hands and a penchant for the macabre. The story goes they were seen performing some ritual, chanting and praising a demon, asking him to grant them the gift of immortality.

It began on the 15th of December. I was sitting alone in the classroom, my students had run out the door for lunch not five minutes before hand. I remember I was grading some math homework when I heard a child scream. I looked out the window to see that the first snow of the season was falling. More screams caused me to stand up and approach the window, to see if I could find the cause of the painful cries.

At least fifteen children were running back towards the school, a look of terror on all their young faces. At first I couldn't work out what was causing their distress until I noticed that they all were trying to shield themselves from the snow. Blood was streaming down their faces, holes in their thick winter clothing were appearing, growing at an alarming rate. I saw one flake land on Tammy, a young girl in my class. On hitting her face, it immediately began to burn and she cried out in alarm and agony.

Over one hundred people in our town died that day, another hundred were left disfigured. The snow had eaten through people's flesh like a strong acid. Since a good quarter of our town had either died or had been badly injured, you can imagine the sorrow and fear an incident like this caused everyone to have.

The Mayor all but cancelled Christmas. How could we have our annual festivities when so many of our own had suffered? It also didn't help that our town had become the circus in a media frenzy that reached every corner of the globe. Reporters were everywhere, a look of sorrow on their face, and greed in their heart. They milked us for all we were worth, the more tears that were shed the better. My wife and I ignored them, refusing to talk to the vultures.

When no more "freak occurrences" happened for five days, most reporters grew bored and left us to continue our mourning process. Had they only stuck it out until Christmas, I dare say they would have covered the story of their careers.

On Christmas eve I awoke to a loud smash from our living room downstairs. Still groggy, I turned in my bed to see that my wife wasn't there. I called out to her, thinking she might be in the en suite, but got no reply. I got up and started downstairs. I paused as I heard another smash, thinking I might have an intruder in the house. On hearing my wife's screams, I bolted down the final few steps and quickly made my way to the living room. My wife was on the floor, a two foot tall Christmas elf standing on her chest, scratching and biting her face.

I raced towards them and with one swift kick sent the elf across the room. I ran to hall and grabbed the first weapon I could find, the axe I used for firewood. Returning to the living room I saw my wife still lay on the ground clutching her face crying. She didn't look too badly hurt. The elf had recovered from my kick and was stand on the lounge, staring at me with glowing red eyes, and grinding its teeth in rage.

Without thought I raced towards the elf and took a swing at it with my axe, striking the neck, and taking its head clean off. I turned my back on the carnage I'd wrought and went to check on my wife. She was seated now, still sobbing but physically fine. I hugged her tight, telling her everything was going to be ok, wondering to myself if it really would be. Her scream answered the question for me.

Spinning around, I looked at the remains of the elf. Both the head and body, two feet away from each other were moving, shaking from side to side. Feet started growing out of the base of the head, getting larger and being pushed out by the legs that followed them. The headless body was going through a similar transformation. Within a minute both metamorphosis were complete and two elves stood before me, the same glowing red eyes, the same menacing gaze.

We ran. I grabbed the car keys from the counter and pushed my wife out the front door. The street was alive with activity, everyone else was under attack as well. Mrs. Lawson, my neighbor, lay on her back on the front lawn, an elf had just torn out one of her eyes and was eating it. She was dead, there was nothing I could do.

My wife was in complete shock, but I kept her moving, shoving her in the passenger seat of our car then getting in myself. It wasn't too cold an evening so the engine fired up after just three tries. I tore out of the driveway and made for the main road. I didn't know where we were going, only it was as far away from here as possible.

I'm still driving, I don't know how long it's been, but I've been going for at least a couple of hours. I turned the radio off around twenty minutes ago, the last I heard the elves are multiplying at an exponential rate, leaving the boundaries of the town, and overwhelming people everywhere with their numbers.

I turn to my wife. Her cuts have completely healed now. The ritual had said the demon would require a large sacrifice to fulfill our request and that we would be tested. My wife turns to me, makes eye contact and smiles. We are immortal now.

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