MicroHorror

Christmas Eve, Alissa threw down the cordless phone before she heard the flatline on the other end. She thundered down the hall and into her parents’ room, tears and distress altering her eight-year-old face.

“Mommy, Daddy, an angel just called and told me Santa Claus was the devil and he’s going to come eat me!” Her eyes were wide and searching, bouncing from one grownup to the other; she used their impossibly crystal blue seduction to drag a soothing response from either of them. Alissa wanted, no, needed a refutation from those she trusted most.

Daddy was first at bat. “Honey, no. I don’t know who told you that, but it’s not true.” He scooped her up and brushed back the curly blond locks that had spilled from her yellow bow. Daddy pinched down her nose, wiping away fresh mucous. He raked her hair with his fingers, defusing this bomb with the tactile reassurance only a good parent can provide.

“His voice was all scary. He said you and Mommy were in on it. What does that mean?”

“It’s just someone playing a joke on little girls at Christmas time, sweetie.” Vanessa reached for her daughter. Alissa jumped in the king-size bed and wrapped her limbs like a bow around her mommy who was crying now too; she buried her face between her neck and shoulder, sobbing softly.

Alissa looked over her shoulder to see her daddy pick up the cordless phone, cycling through the caller ID. He pressed a single button twice, two beeps then a pause. Vanessa looked at him questioningly, her eyes swelling to the size of saucers.

“Mitch? What is it?” Vanessa swiveled Alissa around; now they were both alarmed.

“Nothing. Probably a wrong number. I don’t recognize it.” Mitchell returned the phone to its cradle like it was, indeed, a baby. His entire face was strained, skin pulled taut. Alissa thought the thick vein running from his scalp to his left eyebrow looked like a worm lying very still.

“What’s the number? What name?” Vanessa’s voice cracked during the first sentence, a cough to regroup, then the second.

In response, Mitchell scooped up Alissa and spirited her away down the hall.

“It’s okay, honey.” Mitchell eased Alissa back into her bed. “Look.” He cocked his head toward the phone on her bedside table. He picked it up, disconnected it. Mitchell held up the cord in triumph, and now Alissa thought his worm-like vein more resembled this gray thing unceremoniously tossed to the floor. “No more calls tonight. ’Kay? If that mean ol’ prankster calls again, he’ll have to deal with your daddy.”

She extended her arms for a send-off hug and Mitchell happily obliged; a squeeze; a forehead kiss. He closed the door halfway.

Minutes later, Mitchell and Vanessa’s precocious little girl skulked down the hall and crouched furtively by her parents’ cracked bedroom door.

Daddy, chuckling. “It was Judas. Damn it.”

Mommy, snickering. “Are you sure? Last I checked, he wasn’t allowed contact with us on this side. “

“If someone else calls from that infernal area code, I’ll inquire further.”

Infernal. She’d never had that word on a spelling test, but it didn’t sound like a good thing. Alissa then knew the angel was right. No need to hear more; Mommy and daddy knew all about it. She padded into the kitchen and withdrew a large kitchen knife from the utensil drawer closest to the sink. If Santa came and tried to harm her, she’d be ready.

Christmas Morning, Mitchell blinked away the oblivion of sleep to stare into Alissa’s smiling, blood smattered face.

He and Vanessa burst into her bedroom to find a man, clad in a Santa costume, lying dead and twisted on the floor. The bloody knife was buried into Ryan’s stomach, his life turned liquid as copious amounts of blood escaped his new cavity. Mitchell always told his brother, newly released from the state prison, that he joked a little too much at times.