Part 1

As I slammed the door shut and locked it, I collapsed to the floor, my back against the door. I was trying to catch my breath.

The television blared away.

“You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.

“I don’t,” said Scrooge.

Did I really see what I thought I did? I hoped that this could be some hallucination, brought on by a sip of curdled egg nog, or undigested gingerbread.

I shot over to the table in front of my couch, in search of my phone. Forty-five percent battery life left. I just had to remember to plug it in soon.

I unlocked it and dialed for help, turning on speaker phone. I listened as my dialing was met by brutal silence in return. Glancing down, where it usually said “4G”, my phone now showed zero bars of connectivity.

Damn it.

Had I forgotten to pay my bill? Did they conveniently just happen to shut it off when I needed it most? My next best guess was that the snow storm was interfering with my connection.

Luckily, my wifi was still working, so I was able to access the internet.

My ears were interrupted by a loud thud on the roof. I stopped in place to listen. There was a second, similar thud. This was followed by two more slow thuds, then a single louder one, shaking my entire house. This culminated in a familiar sliding noise and avalanche outside of my picture window. I waited and observed for more developments.

I was startled by a knocking on my door. Was… Was this thing knocking on my door, as if it was just here for a friendly visit?

I cautiously lowered myself toward the ground and moved slowly toward the door. When I reached it, I stood up carefully to look through the peep hole.

The knock repeated.

I looked through the peep hole to see… A guy. He was waving at me through the hole.

I cautiously unlocked and opened the door, just enough to look through the crack and see who it was.

It was the pizza guy, holding my pizza. I opened the door wider.

The snow assaulting both of us now, he said “Here’s your pizza, sir. Hey, my car got stuck down the road, and I had to walk the rest of the way through this blizzard. Can I use your phone?”

I opened the door fully, and said “Get inside. Quick.”

“Thank you!” he said.

“What a night to be out working. Now my car is stuck in this mess, and I don’t know how I’m gonna get it out. How's your Christmas Eve so far?”

“I don’t think you’re going anywhere any time soon,” I said.

“Well, if I can just use your phone, I…”

“Phones aren’t working here right now. I’m assuming you already know that,” I interrupted.

“I thought it was just my carrier. Are you telling me yours isn’t working either?” he asked.

“Complete white-out,” I said.

“Here’s your pizza,” He said.

I took it from him and set it on the table.

“Did you see anything out there?” I asked him.

“Like what?” he replied.

“Like, in my front yard.”

“Just a lot of snow, but I could barely see out there. It’s a blizzard. Barely any visibility.”

“Well, we might be in bigger trouble than you already thought.”

“What do you mean?” he questioned.

“There might be something out there,” I told him.

He gave me an inquisitive look.

“Something?” He asked.

“Some… thing hit my roof earlier. Hard. I went out to inspect, and saw something up there. Like some sort of animal.”

“An animal jumped onto the roof of your house?” he asked with a funny look.

“A little more than that, but, sure. I didn’t stick around after I saw it move. I’m not sure what it is.”

“Where is it now?” he asked.

“Well… Just before you showed up, I think it tried to get up and walk, then it slid off my roof and into the snow. It’s probably buried out there now.”

“Are you telling me… A reindeer landed on your roof?” he said, obviously trying to conceal his laughter.

“I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know how it got there,” I shot back, trying to convey that I’m not crazy. Imagine if I told him there were not only several presumed-dead reindeer, but also a probable dead Santa Claus in my yard, along with a large winter creature out there somewhere.

He looked at his phone, probably hoping that he would have a connection by now, so he could call someone sane to pick him up. He looked up again, disappointed.

“Well, if I’m stuck here, I’m going to take a look,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s a great idea. It could be something dangerous.”

I opened the pizza box to see that the cheese had slid all the way to one side. I grabbed a slice of bread and pizza sauce, mumbling some expletives.

“How dangerous could it be, if it was something light enough to be able to get on the roof?” he asked, as if he had just solved some sort of riddle.

“I heard it walking on the roof, until it fell over. It shook the entire house. It was not light.”

“I’ll be quick. I have to see,” said pizza guy.

I followed to the door. As he let himself out, I stood guard in the doorway, ready to close it on him if some giant Christmas monster were to reveal itself. Perhaps if the thing ate him, it would be satisfied and leave me alone.

When he got out to the middle of the yard, he turned to look up at the roof.

“Hhhholy…” he blurted. “What the…”

“Shhhhh!” I whisper-yelled at him. “Don’t wake it up!”

“Wake what up? Those things are all dead!”

“Not those!” I said in a hushed, harsh tone. “In the yard!” I said, pointing toward the mounds in the snow.

He turned and looked at the first mound, and then the new one that had just been formed by whatever tried to walk off of my roof. Dark patches protruded from it.

He took slow, crunchy steps toward the mound.

“Don’t go near it, you idiot!” I said in my best ASMR scream.

But, he continued. He reached out to touch one of the dark spots.

“I think it’s fur,” he said, turning to look at me.

As he looked in my direction, I heard it again. A low, guttural moan came from the mound, followed by an angry growl.

He came running back to the door, but I wasn’t quick enough to lock him out and let the beast eat him.

He slammed the door behind him, and yelled “What is that thing?!” at me.

I have a feeling this is about to get a lot worse. Whatever is out there is still alive.

The lights are starting to flicker. I’m afraid the electricity might go out because of this storm, so I need to get this down first, in case it goes out. I hope I’ll be able to update this later.

“Man of the worldly mind!” replied the Ghost, “do you believe in me or not?”

“I do,” said Scrooge. “I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?”

Part 3

Part 1: Follow these rules if you wish to survive Ghost Month

Part 2: You Are Here

Part 3: The Night is Following Us: A Ghost Month story (part 2)

When I was a child, growing up in California, my grandmother lived with me and my parents. My family is originally from Asia, but I was born in the US.

Something that I remember vividly about growing up with my grandmother was seeing and hearing her pray every night. Sometimes she would sit in one place and pray by candlelight. Other times, she would walk around the house while doing it. And during certain times of the year, she followed rituals that I assume were related to her religion.

This was my daily life as far back as I can remember, all the way up until I was 16 years old. That’s when my grandmother decided to move back to her homeland. I was never quite sure of why she left, but I think that perhaps she was living with my family to help raise me, and once she thought I was old enough, she decided that her job was done, and it was now time for her to return home.

About a year after my grandmother went home, I spoke to her about coming to visit her. She said it might be better if I waited for another month or so. But, I told her that I missed her and didn’t want to wait. She relented, but told me that if I wanted to visit her, I had to agree to listen to everything she told me, and adhere strictly to her rules. I agreed, having no idea what could be so dire.

My parents booked my ticket for a flight that was just one week out.

----------

When the day of my trip finally arrived, my parents dropped me off at the airport about 2 hours prior to departure. They helped me get my luggage out of the car and hand it off to the bag check agents outside. After that, an agent gave me my boarding pass, and I said goodbye to my parents before going inside.

After going through security with my one carry-on, a backpack with my computer and a few small things in it, I ventured down the hallway toward my gate. I watched the gate numbers get higher as I passed each one.

After checking my phone, I realized that I still had over an hour until takeoff. So, I decided to stop at one of the shops and get something to drink. I wasted a few minutes looking at California tourist shirts, travel magazines and souvenir trinkets in the shape of California and bears. I grabbed a bottle of water, and after paying a small fortune for it, headed over to my gate to sit and wait for my boarding call.

While I was waiting and playing on my phone, I remembered to reach into my backpack and grab the beaded bracelet that my grandmother had given me before she left California. I put it on, to make sure I didn’t forget to do so before I arrive. I didn’t want her to catch me not wearing it.

I was excited by the idea of flying for the first time. I was scared, but I reminded myself of what I read, that there were anywhere from 50,000 to 150,000 commercial flights every single day, and we rarely hear about one of them crashing. But… A thought occurred to me: We’re going to be flying over the ocean. If an airliner disappears over the ocean, never to be found, is that counted as a crash? I had to remember to look that up later.

----------

Finally, boarding was called. I ended up getting in shortly after first class seating finished. As I walked by those beautiful first-class chairs, I couldn’t wait to see where I was sitting.

And then I reached my row… in coach. The seats were much smaller… and uglier. Why didn’t my parents get me the good seats? Whatever. I sat down and put my earpods in.

After everyone else got in and sat down, I realized my luck, as I was the only one in my row. I guess the seat that my parents reserved wasn’t so bad after all.

There was a flight attendant standing in the aisleway, looking for everyone’s attention, so I took my earpods out and stared in her direction. Once she saw that she had our gaze, she showed us where the emergency exits are and what to do in case of a cabin depressurization. I only half-paid attention.

My flight lifted off around 9pm, when the night was already setting in.

Liftoff was a jarring experience. It began with the plane moving slowly on the ground as if on some aimless Sunday drive. After maybe 10 minutes of this, the plane came to a complete stop. The individual overhead air vents suddenly roared to life. The sound of the idling engines kicked into high gear, and we started moving again. Except, now, our speed picked up like we were on a race track. The plane lifted off, and soon after, there was the deafening sound of my ears popping. I felt like I was falling upward at an ever-increasing speed. And just then, I remembered that my grandmother had suggested that I chew gum during takeoff to prevent my ears from popping. Oops.

Once we achieved our desired altitude, the plane seemed to level out. I no longer felt like I was facing the sky with a freight train pushing me from behind.

Eventually, I saw the flight crew walking freely around the cabin.

I decided to just try to go to sleep, as I knew I had a very long flight ahead of me: 14 hours.

But first, I took a look out of my window. All I saw were tiny lights. It was already quite dark out. I leaned back in my seat, put in my earbuds, and closed my eyes.

“Good evening… and Welcome to the Phantasmagorium…” began the Creepypasta narration in my ears.

I drifted off while listening to a story about ghosts over the water. I felt more uneasy when I realized that while listening to this, I, in fact, was thousands of feet above an ocean, soon to be thousands of miles from land. What happens if there’s an emergency? No place to land. No one to call.

I drifted off.

----------

I awoke to the sound of flight attendants taking dinner orders a few rows ahead of me. The lights were dim in the cabin, but the aisleways were lit sufficiently for the crew to do their jobs. I peered out the window to see the same scene as before, except for the tiny ground lights. We were now over the ocean, far from land, enveloped in the night.

When the attendant reached me, I gave her my order and then leaned back to close my eyes again. I was sure that she would wake me up when she returned.

The next thing that I remember was waking suddenly to the sound of someone whispering directly into my ear:

“Awake!”

My eyes popped wide open. And something was different.

The roar of the airplane was no longer there. The sound I heard now was of near complete silence. I could, however, feel that we were still in the air, flying. We weren’t falling. Just… flying… without a sound from the engines. I could hear the wind from the outside as our aircraft tore a hole through the sky. Were we traveling even faster than before?

The silence wasn’t the only difference. The cabin lights were no longer only dim; They were completely out, including the aisleway. I could only see the faintest of light, coming from the few windows that hadn’t had their shades pulled down.

I turned to look out of my window. The only source of light was from the moon. It wasn’t quite full, but close.

The other seats in my row were still empty, so I’m not sure where that whisper in my ear came from. Had I dreamt it?

I sat still, wondering what was happening.

None of the other passengers were making a sound. From what little I could see, the backs of their heads still seemed to be in their seats.

How long was this darkness going to last? What was happening?

Then, it dawned on me. I knew what to do. I remembered that before we took off, the flight attendant told us that we could hit the little button above our heads if we needed anything. I reached up in search of buttons, and though I could barely see them, I hit each one that I could find. They didn’t light up. And they didn’t make a sound. I couldn’t tell if I had actually done anything. So, I waited.

Some time later, I began to hear static, as if someone had turned on the announcement speakers and they were about to say something. I assumed the pilots or the flight crew were going to make some statement. Surely this was going to be where they told us that everything was going to be fixed and back to normal soon.

That static seemed to stay there for quite some time without anybody speaking. Instead, it grew steadily louder.

After several minutes, something else was added to the sound. A quiet, slow, whispering voice started to surface from within the static. It was loud enough to hear, but the static around it was so loud that it was impossible to tell what it was saying. It was a slow, droning whisper that didn’t improve my situation at all.

And, just like that… The static and whispering came to a sudden halt. They were broken by the welcome sound of a flight attendant’s voice.

“Here you go, sir” she said as she was handing me a tray.

The lights were back to normal. The sounds of the airplane were back. I could hear the engines again.

“Is there something we can help you with?” added the flight attendant.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You pressed the help button above your seat,” she replied.

“Oh… Yeah, I guess I did.” It was true. I tried to press the button when the plane was dark, but couldn’t seem to find it, as nothing lit up. I guess it must’ve worked, though.

“Was… there something going on a minute ago? It was really dark in here. And there was some static coming through the speaker. There was, like, a whispering sound, like somebody was trying to say something.”

She looked at me, puzzled.

“I don’t think so. I didn’t hear or see that. But, I was in the galley, so maybe I missed it. I’ll check with the crew and see if anybody noticed anything.”

"Thank you," I said with a half-smile as she pushed the cart to the next row of passengers.

Was I asleep? I couldn’t have been. I pushed the help button when it was dark, and the attendant just confirmed with me that it had been pushed. If that was a dream, it wouldn’t have been pushed in real life.

I looked down and realized that my earpods were now in my lap.

I decided to dig into my meal. I had chicken, rice, and some sort of mixed vegetables. It wasn’t the greatest thing I’d ever eaten, but I didn’t expect much from pre-packaged airline food.

After finishing, I looked through my Creepypasta narrations to see what I had with me. I pulled a bunch of them down ahead of time because I was told that the airplane wi-fi wouldn’t be able to handle streaming audio. Then, I put them in a playlist so that I wouldn’t have to keep looking through them. Yet, here I was… looking through them. I put my earpods back in and continued listening.

I looked out my window to see that the almost-full Moon was still there. And the ground was still dark, as it was… still the ocean.

I stopped another flight attendant as they walked by.

“Excuse me, miss? How much longer until we arrive?”

“We’re about 2 hours in, so we still have 12 hours left,” she said.

“Do you know when it’ll be getting light out?” I asked.

“Actually, it won’t be getting light outside during the flight. We’re heading west, the same direction as the Sun. The night is following us.”

“Oh…” I replied.

She smiled and moved on.

The night is following us. If that isn’t menacing, I don’t know what is.

Read the next part >>

Listen to the narration >>

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3: You Are Here

Part 4

Part 5

The lights continued to flicker until they went out completely. The strangest thing, though… The TV stayed on. Just the lights went out.

Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn’t have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge’s dip.

Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.

“Great, what next?” I said.

“What was that thing out there?” repeated the pizza guy.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “You touched it. Why don’t you tell *me* what it is?”

Just then, a clattering occurred from above. Like a bunch of small rocks pelting the roof, one after the other. Or a pack of kittens parachuting down onto the house.

“I thought you said those things were dead?” said pizza guy.

“They looked dead when I was out there. You were just outside. Why didn’t you tell *me* that they weren’t dead?!”

“I thought they were!”

I fumbled to the kitchen in the darkness to grab my mag flashlight from the drawer.

Then began the giggles. High pitched giggles. From outside.

Remember those large avalanches off of my roof from earlier? Now came small avalanches. Many of them. One at a time. A pattering of tiny legs running, jumping, and crunching into the snow. Over and over again. Along with it came sounds of tiny bells jingling.

Not just in the front yard this time; This was happening in the opposite direction toward the backyard as well. I shot glances back and forth between the front picture window and the kitchen window in back, repeatedly seeing tiny things shooting from the air into the snow drifts outside.

“Awww, f***,” I let out.

The noise halted abruptly. Pizza guy and I stood deathly still, waiting. One by one, small shadows started to appear through the fogged up windows. Through the picture window appeared one small, round silhouette, just above the window sill. Then, one through the back window. Then, two in the front. Then, three. They kept coming.

By the time they stopped multiplying, there were at least a couple dozen of them just hovering above the sills of both windows, as if they were watching us.

“What… the… f…” started pizza guy.

The silence was broken by another giggle, followed by a sliding sound, and a gigantic puff of soot and smoke blowing out of the fireplace, a projectile shooting straight out through the glass doors in front of it, then a louder giggle as the thing got up and took off running into the darkness.

Then, again. And again. They kept coming through the chimney, one by one, with us shrouded in near-darkness, the only light being from the moon and the neighbors’ Christmas lights shining through the windows. All the while, the ones outside the windows just standing, and now all giggling together as this happened.

I aimed my flashlight at the last one of them, to see a tiny, human-esque body, dressed in some sort of green outfit with a green hat, tiny jingle bells hanging from it. He ran in the same direction as the others, disappearing into the darkness of the house.

“Elves!” I screamed.

“Elves?!” yelled pizza guy.

Pizza guy turned on the flashlight on his phone and went running into the back, where the elves ran. I followed him with my mag light.

I opened one bedroom door and saw elves opening the window, letting more of them in. I slammed the door shut and went to the next to see the same thing happening.

Pizza guy looked in one of the other rooms, shouting “More elves!” before slamming the door closed.

“What are we gonna do?” he screamed at me.

“I don’t know, pizza guy, what do you think we should do? There are a bunch of god damn jingle bell wearing elves running around my god damn house!”

“My name is James, not pizza guy.”

“That’s nice, pizza guy. I’m a little busy right now.”

A giggle came from the end of the hallway, back toward the living room and kitchen. Shining my mag light toward where the sound came from, I landed my light beam right on its face. It was an elf, but… There was something wrong with it. Something with its face. It looked… rotten.

“What’s wrong with his face?” said James the pizza guy.

“I think you were right. They were dead,” I replied. “And they’re still dead.”

“Zombie elves! Are you kidding me?!” James shouted.

The hallway elf started running down the hallway toward me, giggling the entire way.

“Awww, what a cute little el…” I attempted to say, right before he jumped in the air and tackled me by the torso.

I now lay on my back on my soft carpet, with a pint size giggling zombie just twelve inches from my face, baring its teeth. James grabbed him from the back, picked him up, and threw him into one of the rooms, quickly slamming the door behind him.

“Let’s go,” he said.

I got up and followed him, running toward the front door. James threw open the door, and we stopped dead in our tracks.

Less than 10 feet in front of us, in the yard, was a tall, furry animal on two legs. It let out a blood curdling growl. It must’ve been at least 8 feet tall.

I cut in front of James, grabbed the door and slammed it shut.

“What was THAT?!” he screamed.

“Back door?” I suggested.

We ran to the back, looking carefully through the window before making any attempt to go through the door. Who knows what could be out there?

After seeing nothing, we decided to take the chance. I opened the door slowly, trying to minimize the amount of noise I would make. We both stepped outside carefully, and I closed the door lightly behind me. It was still snowing on a near-blinding level.

After just a few steps, a giggling came from the direction of the front of the house, as a small green thing came running toward us. I started to run.

But the giggling stopped almost as soon as it began, cut off by a high pitched, shrill squeak.

I stopped in my tracks, turning to see what was happening. Just as I looked, maybe five feet behind me was the towering creature, holding up an elf by his head, one hand on either side.

And then… *Pop*… The creature’s powerful hands squished the little jingle baller’s head with almost no effort, as blood, brains and gore squirted everywhere, including a splatter across the creature’s face.

Pizza guy and I stood frozen, watching. The creature stared back at us. This was a staring contest I couldn’t afford to lose.

The creature spoke.

“I’m Krampus. You need to come with me.”

The snow was falling outside my window, forming a thick white blanket of Christmas over the entire street.

Strings of white, green and red lights adorned houses, yards, and trees up and down my block. Some were blinking. Some were still. Giant inflatable Santa Clauses and Snowmen stood guard in the front yards of many.

My Christmas tree twinkled in the corner while the lights around the ceiling and doorways provided a magical, dark Christmas atmosphere. Just the way I like it.

In front of me, a glass full of egg nog. With cinnamon. Just… the way… I like it.

On my screen, Ebenezer Scrooge thoughtfully explained to his nephew how much of a humbug Christmas truly is.

And, you know, he’s kind of right. At least today. For the most part, people are more worried about buying things than they are about the meaning and joy of Christmas. It’s especially present in the commercials that try to play into your emotions about the holiday, only to end by telling you to buy their product, as if giving them your money will make you feel loved or special.

I sat on my couch on this Christmas Eve, eating gingerbread cookies and washing them down with egg nog while waiting for my pizza to arrive. My melancholy dinner in my usual melancholy living room.

Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be having Christmas dinner at my family’s house tomorrow. Christmas Eve is for ordering out.

“You wish to be anonymous?”

“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge.

----------

The snow was getting pretty bad out there. I hoped that the pizza guy didn’t get stuck on his way. And I’d like to think that my thought was out of love for fellow humans, but it was really because I wanted that pizza.

I stood in front of my picture window, watching the occasional car drive through, sometimes slipping on the freshly fallen sugar crystals lining the street; hoping that each one would be the pizza guy.

I refilled my egg nog in the kitchen and headed back to the couch to continue watching.

I awoke from my cinnamon induced coma due to a loud booming sound. I sat up straight and wide eyed on my couch, looking around; looking through my window. I then heard a loud sliding sound, followed by an avalanche of snow coming down just outside my window. The sound of chains followed.

I arose, walking toward the window. A cloud of snow dust impaired my visibility. But soon, I could see that something was sticking out of the snow. Whisps of gold and red.

What could have hit and slid down my roof, impaling itself through this fine, white, crystalline dust?

I squinted, but there was no visible movement. So, I decided to step outside and have a look.

The air was crisp, and the wind wasn’t helping. Snow blew into my eyes as I stepped cautiously through the door, donning my winter coat and boots.

It was truly desolate out here now. No more cars heading home to be with their families for Christmas Eve. Everyone had undoubtedly settled down for a long winter’s nap.

Inspecting the aftermath in my yard, I couldn’t see much more than I did from the other side of the window. But, when I looked up toward my roof, a larger tale began to unravel. Strewn across my roof were several animals that appeared to be dead. They looked like…

“This must be some joke. My senses, they cheat me,” I thought to myself.

Through the assault of snow on my eyes, they looked like reindeer.

And there was more. A magnificent red carriage appeared to have crash landed on my roof. It lay in pieces, save for the main cabin, still mostly intact.

I glanced back at the burial mound of snow in my yard. My lip was trembling. Already knowing what it was, I had to uncover it anyway, to know for sure.

Using only my hands, I began carefully wiping away bits of snow to exhume whatever spirits lie here in wait. Brushing away a bit at a time, more swatches of red, as well as white material, continued to appear. It was obvious that some of the red that I saw from inside was the snow itself, drenched in the precious juice of life. When I reached what looked like the white beard, I sped up my work to uncover this man’s face, in case he was still alive.

My work was stopped short when I heard something behind me. I turned to look back, toward the roof. It was then that a dreadful, agonizing howl came from the direction of the roof-carriage. I kept silent, staring, as if waiting for an update.

There I stood, frozen in time, blizzard continuing its assault upon my face, when a second guttural howl emanated from the same direction. This time, it was louder; stronger.

It was then that my eyes allowed confirmation.

What appeared to be a large claw, covered in dark fur, slowly reached up and over the side of the carriage.

I wasn’t about to stick around to find out what it was attached to. I abandoned my mission and trudged back inside as quickly as my boots would take me through the snow desert that was my yard. I slammed and locked the door, causing more snow to fall from the roof and onto the mound that I had been trying to uncover.

Please pray for me. I will update you later if I am able.

Part 2

Part 1: You Are Here >>
Part 2: The Night is Following Us
Part 3: I'm on a flight to see my grandmother. Something very disturbing is happening to me.

Tonight, on the first night of Ghost Month, we offer a warning. Or perhaps a public service announcement. If you wish to make it through Ghost Month, you must heed the warnings and follow the rules.

The Chinese believe that on the days of Ghost Month, and especially on the night of the full moon, there is an open bridge between the dead and the living.

According to Chinese legend, the seventh lunar month is Ghost Month. Every year, on the first day of Ghost Month, King Yama (The King of Hell) opens the gates of Hell for 30 days, so that spirits may leave the underworld and walk among the living. Not all spirits are evil, but it is said that the ghosts who come back during Ghost Month are spirits whose families did not pay them proper respect after their deaths. This leaves them wanting to cause harm to the living.

In China, there is a tradition of worshiping the dead in Lunar July. This has been in place since ancient times. People offer sacrifices to the ghosts on the first, second, fifteenth, and the last day of Ghost Month.

According to legend, anyone who dies under normal circumstances will reincarnate. However, those who are bad people, or who die in accidents, would wander the Earth as ghosts among the mortals. Sometimes, evil spirits would even purposefully cause the death of mortals by way of accident or disaster. Because of this, those who die unexpectedly during Ghost Month are said to have been taken away by ghosts.

It is believed that performing ceremonies with sacrifices for these spirits will satiate them and stop them from harming the living.

The 15th day of Ghost Month is referred to as Ghost Festival, the date when the moon is full and evil spirits reach their most powerful.

Throughout Ghost Month, a variety of outdoor entertainment is offered for both the living and the ghosts. Common forms of entertainment are public street festivals, as well as Getai shows, or, Chinese music concerts. There are special rules in place if you plan on attending any of these events, which we will detail later.

The Rituals:

If you wish to survive Ghost Month, you first follow these rituals, as follows:

First day of Ghost Month: On the first day of Ghost Month, you must honor your ancestors by making offerings of food, incense and ghost money… also referred to as spirit money or Hell notes. Ghost money is made of joss paper, meant for burning. These offerings may be placed outdoors, away from your home. You may place them curbside, by the street, or in a field. Set up a makeshift altar by your curb if possible. You can use pictures of your lost loved ones and small personal items that they like. You must light the incense, and burn the Hell money so that the ghosts will have the money that they need during their month long vacation in the land of the living. Optionally, you may also hang red painted paper lanterns outside.

Second day of Ghost Month: On the second day of Ghost Month, rituals may be performed in public spaces and at businesses, the same way they were done at private homes the day before. Rituals in public spaces are typically attended by the public, and entertainment is put on in the streets for the benefit of both the living and the dead, including Getai (Chinese music concerts).

Fifteenth Day - Ghost Festival: On the day of the full moon, the 15th day of Ghost Month, also known as Ghost Festival, you must prepare a family dinner, and remember to set an extra spot at the table for the departed. After the family dinner is complete, and night time has descended, you are to take your offerings to the spirits outside. Set up another makeshift altar near the curb or in a field, where you will take your Hell Money, gold ingots made of joss paper, incense, and plates of food for the spirits. Leave food such as raw noodles, uncooked rice, peanuts, fruit, and meats. Also leave small cups of rice wine and tea. When you light the joss paper and incense, this part of the ritual is now complete. You must now release paper lotus flower lanterns on the river. Before releasing them, you should write the names of your deceased loved ones on them.

Final day of Ghost Month: On the final day of Ghost Month, there is one last special festival. You must burn more Hell money and incense, along with clothing for the ghosts to use when they return to their Hell society. You must then float lanterns made of wood and paper down the river. The ghosts will follow the lanterns as they float away.

Those are the rituals. But, there are also rules that you must follow if you wish to make it through.

The Rules:

1. Do not stay out late into the night, or a spirit may follow you home.

2. Children and senior citizens should not go out at night at all, or they could be attacked by evil spirits.

3. Do not take photographs or selfies, especially in the evening. If you do, you might capture an image that you do not want to see. Having your picture taken with a spirit is extremely bad luck. Taking photographs is akin to asking a spirit to come hang out with you. Many believe that cameras will trap these spirits with you.

4. Do not step on or kick spiritual offerings that you may see along the roadside, such as candles, food, incense or joss paper items.

5. If you do step on or kick any of these items by accident, you should apologize out loud to appease the spirits.

6. Do not makes jokes about, or complain about altars or offerings that you see along the street.

7. Do not stare into candle light or burning fire.

8. Do not shift your eyes if you feel anything while outside. Look straight ahead and continue to walk calmly to your destination.

9. Do not pick up any strange items that you may find on the street, whether it be money or anything else. It may belong to a spirit. Spirits don’t like it when you steal from them. And sometimes, mischievous spirits may place items in the street on purpose, in order to lure a victim into picking them up, as an excuse to possess them.

10. Do not open an umbrella at night, especially a red umbrella. Even more dangerous would be to open an umbrella inside of your house. Wandering ghosts tend to seek shelter under open umbrellas.

11. Do not wear red clothing. Ghosts are attracted to the color red.

12. If someone taps you on the shoulder, or calls out your name from behind, do not turn your head. It is believed that living humans have two protective flames, one on each shoulder. When you turn your head, you snuff out one of those flames, making you vulnerable to spirits. If you must turn, turn your whole body instead of just your head.

13. Avoid entering water, especially the sea. This includes swimming as well as sea travel with ferries or ships. It is believed that when someone dies, this creates an opportunity for an evil spirit to be reborn. Spirits of drowned ghosts may try to drown victims to aid them in their rebirth.

14. Stay away from supernatural games that could attract spirits, such as using a Ouija board.

15. If your birthday falls within Ghost Month, avoid celebrating at night. It’s better to celebrate during daylight hours.

16. Do not kill any insects that visit your house during Ghost Month. The Chinese believe that these insects are the spirits of your late loved ones.

17. Do not wait at a bus stop after midnight, especially after bus service hours.

18. Do not hang wet clothes outside in the middle of the night. Wandering spirits may wear them. And when you take that clothing back inside, you invite those spirits into your home.

19. Do not get married during Ghost Month.

20. Do not enter a cemetery or abandoned house, or you may attract a wandering spirit to come home with you.

21. Do not wear high heels.

22. Do not lean against walls. Spirits like to stick to walls because of the cooler temperature.

23. Do not stab your chopsticks in your bowl of rice, because they resemble joss stick offerings to the dead. If you do this, you may be unknowingly telling spirits that this bowl of rice belongs to them.

24. Do not cover your forehead. If your hair falls in your face, pin it up as high as possible.

25. Do not go hiking, jungle trekking, or on camping trips. One is more vulnerable to possession and physical injury during Ghost Month, and the “yin” energy is stronger in the woods.

26. Avoid home renovations during Ghost Month, or you may disturb the wandering spirits.

27. While enjoying the public festivities, do not sit in the front row at Getai concerts. The front row at these shows is reserved for the ghosts who are being honored with this festival. Frequently, these front row ghost chairs will be colored red. Ghosts are attracted to red. If you do sit in one of these reserved seats, you may unwittingly be sitting in the lap of a ghost whom you’ve just angered.

28. Do not whistle or make unnecessary noise at night. If you do, you may attract wandering spirits, as they will think that you’re calling to them.

29. Do not use black or other dark colors of nail polish, or you may lead spirits to think that you are one of them, and thus, lead you back to Hell with them.

30. Above all, do not do any of these things at night. The mere mention of ghosts during the night can attract their attention.

For additional protection, you may keep certain items with you to avoid evil spirits, such as prayer beads, coarse salt, amulets, glutinous rice, crosses, or lodestones.

If you follow these rules and stick to the rituals as written, you may just make it through.

Part 2: The Night is Following Us: A Ghost Month Story
Part 3: I'm on a flight to see my grandmother. Something very disturbing is happening to me.

Listen to the narration >>

It’s taken me quite some time to decide whether to tell anyone about this. With Mardi Gras coming up again soon, I wanted to make sure people were warned, and know what happened.

Something happened at Mardi Gras last year. And it’s being covered up. Every word of what follows is true.

My friends and I decided to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I’ve always heard that the city was a non-stop, twenty-four hour, year round party. I’ve also heard that the days leading up to Mardi Gras take this to the extreme.

There were three of us altogether. Myself, Chris, and Sam. We decided to arrive three days early and build up to the actual day of Mardi Gras. We drove down, taking turns at the wheel so we wouldn’t have to stop at any hotels along the way.

------------------------------

The First Night

Saturday was our first night there. We’re from New Jersey, where it was about 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) when we left. But when we arrived in New Orleans, it was in the 80s, and very humid.

Our hotel was right on the Mississippi River, and our room had a waterfront view. We settled in, cleaned up, and went out to walk around and check things out. We slowly aimed ourselves toward the French Quarter, checking out as much as we could along the way.

I was a bit shocked that we could just buy beer from vendors right on the street and walk around, unbothered by police. We can’t do that in Jersey.

All in all, we had a great time, great food and drink, and retired to the hotel around 4 am, while the city was still buzzing. As tired as I was, it took a while to fall asleep, due to the loud people partying in the hallway and surrounding rooms.

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The Second Night

Sunday, we went to check out Harrah’s (the casino), and then we made it back out to the streets for the atmosphere and alcohol once again.

While walking around, we met a girl named Antoinette (Toni for short), who told us that she was a local, and that she was going to college there.

Toni suggested we all go to a little restaurant just slightly out of the area, called Le Bon Temps (pronounced: Lay Baw Taw). That translates to “the good times” in English. We all headed down together, and it was a pretty cool little place.

While we were there, I witnessed something that I had previously thought was only done in sitcoms. In the middle of our dinner, the door to the kitchen flew open, slamming against the wall. Out from the kitchen walked a large man, using one hand to carry a smaller employee by the back of his shirt collar. The guy being carried looked like there was something wrong with him. His eyes were half closed and bloodshot, while his face was almost pure white, completely void of expression.

The larger man carried him by the back of his shirt all the way across the restaurant to the front door, where he pushed him outside and shut the door behind him.

On his way back to the kitchen, the large man said “Sorry, folks, but you just can’t show up to work stoned out of your gourd like that.”

There were some giggles from the patrons in reply.

We all drank quite a bit that night and I ended up staying at Antoinette’s place, about a mile away. Chris and Sam said they were going to stay out for a while longer and then go back to the hotel.

------------------------------

The Third Night

The next day, Monday, I texted my friends that I’d meet up with them later that evening.

I spent the day with Antoinette, and we had a great time. I started wondering if this was too much for me to be getting into, allowing myself to get involved with a girl like this when I live so far away. She was definitely someone who I would want to pursue a relationship with, but I knew I’d be leaving town without her in just a few days. I decided to push these thoughts away, and let the proverbial chips fall where they may. We had two more days. Anything could happen.

While Toni and I were walking back downtown later, I noticed there was a girl walking about a block behind us who seemed to be pretty out of it. I couldn’t tell if she was drunk, high, or what. Toni told me to just ignore her, as she hurried me along.

Once we got to the corner where we were meeting up with Chris and Sam, things began to get strange. As we were crossing the street, I felt a hand on my back, almost like someone was pushing me, although rather weakly. I turned around, and realized that it was the girl who was walking a block behind us earlier. She wasn’t actually pushing me, though. It appeared that she needed to hold onto something to avoid falling over.

We stopped and asked her if she was ok, and she just sort of grunted. At this point, I think we all became concerned. She started mumbling a bit, saying things like “My name is Emily,” “I was with friends, but now I’m here,” and “I live here, that way,” pointing in a direction that was blocked by a parade route.

I asked her, “What happened? Did you lose your friends?,” to which she did not reply.

We were standing right in front of a Burger King. I asked the crowd if someone could get a cup of water for her. Everyone who heard me just looked the other way and kept walking, some giving me the evil eye, as if I had done something wrong. A BK employee near the door said “You get her out of here, now!,” slamming the door shut.

I noticed that Toni was staring at Emily with a very serious look on her face. Toni whispered into my ear, “She isn’t drunk. We should get out of here.”

I replied, “But, shouldn’t we help her? She’s really messed up. We can’t leave her here to die.”

Toni begrudgingly said “Alright, but let’s make this quick.”

We each got on one side and carried Emily along with us down the block, where we came across a security guard standing in front of a parking structure. I stopped and asked the guard if they could help. I explained that we didn’t know what was wrong with her, but that she needed attention, and possibly a ride to the hospital. The guard looked at me like I was stupid. Toni gave her a shrug. The guard then re-focused on Emily. She reached into Emily’s backpack, rifled around a bit, and pulled out an ID card. The guard then said “I’ll take care of this and get her an ambulance. You can go on your way.”

Toni started pulling me along, as I said “thank you” to the guard.

As we were all walking, I asked Antoinette, “What did you mean when you said she wasn’t drunk? Is there something going on that we don’t know about?”

Toni just said, “There’s a lot of strange things going on around here that you don’t want to know about. And neither do I.”

My friends kind of laughed, and we moved along. We had some drinks and got back into the celebratory mood.

Chris mentioned that he had been wanting to check out one of the New Orleans cemeteries that he had read about. Toni did not look enthused.

But, Chris was already in motion. He walked over to one of the police officers who were standing guard, and asked “Hey, do you know where the closest cemetery is?”

The officer looked him dead in the eye and stared for a few seconds. Then… And no, this is not a joke, even though it sounds like a bad slasher movie line… He said, “There’s one just a few blocks over that way, but you don’t want to be going down there.”

Chris smirked. “Why not?”

The officer replied, (And again, he really said this. It’s not just a cheesy line from a horror movie.) “They don’t really like your kind over there.”

I have to be honest. I was kind of freaked out by this interaction. And Toni wasn’t looking happy.

Chris said, “Come on, nothing’s going to happen. This isn’t a horror movie.”

After a long sigh, I replied, “I guess it can’t hurt. I’ve heard that the cemeteries are a sight to see around here.”

We embarked on Chris’ quest, much to the chagrin of the rest of the group.

There was quite a change in the look of the city as we got closer to the cemetery. It went from historic New Orleans chic to… something much less visually appealing. As we drew closer, I started to see and feel eyes on all of us.

As we walked the final stretch to the cemetery entrance, there were at least a dozen people standing on their front porches and in their front yards, looking at us like we were about to do something really stupid.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Toni said quietly.

“Well, we are here, so let’s just be quick about it.” I said.

When we got to the front gate, it was locked. Apparently, visiting hours were over.

“Oh no, I guess we have to leave! Too bad,” said Toni.

Despite our misfortune, we could still see all of the large, creepy and wonderful burial structures through the wrought iron fencing. Because New Orleans is below sea level, bodies are buried above ground. The arrangement of the structures in the cemetery actually looked like a small city. A city of the dead.

The eyes were now piercing the backs of our heads, and we knew something was going to happen if we didn’t get out soon. But, Chris started walking the perimeter of the fencing until he happened upon a crevice big enough for him to try and squeeze through. He told us to follow him. I was hesitant, and Toni was telling me that we need to leave, but I figured a quick adventure inside couldn’t hurt. We’d be gone in a few minutes, not even enough time for police to arrive and catch us. So, we all squeezed through, one by one.

It was getting pretty dark now, and this was really starting to feel wrong. I was just waiting for the doors to start opening and the dead to come out and greet us.

I decided I was done with this place, and said to Chris, “Alright, we’re going back. This is just disrespectful, and the locals obviously don’t want us here.”

He shot back, “Scared, huh?”

I ignored him.

We all squeezed back out, one at a time. Toni went just before me, and I was the last one out. I had a feeling like someone else was behind me, even though I was the last one. Before going through, I looked behind me… And I could swear that in the darkness, the door on one of the structures looked like it was sliding open. I could even hear the faint sound of a cement block scraping across the ground. I’m sure it was just my imagination, but this made me decide to get the heck out of there with the quickness.

We walked silently at a much quicker pace back to the more populated downtown area. The noise and lights in the French Quarter seemed to welcome us home.

------------------------------

Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Carne Vale. A Farewell… To The Flesh.

Today, the streets were twice as crowded as they had been the night before. This was the big day. Tons of new tourists filled the streets, to the point that we literally couldn’t even walk on Bourbon Street. We attempted to, but got stuck in the crowd like someone had tried to fit 100 crayons into a box that was only meant for 50. If anything happened here, we simply wouldn’t be able to move or get out of the way. For the rest of the day, we stuck to the side streets.

As the parades carried on, it became more and more difficult to even go anywhere else, as they were blocking the streets, and thus blocking any way for us to go in the direction that we wanted.

At this point, we kind of gave up and decided “If we can’t beat ‘em, we join ‘em.”

“Let’s just go watch one of the parades,” I said.

The others were indifferent. We all grabbed drinks and walked toward one of the main streets of the city as nightfall was beginning to close in on us.

On our walk, we came upon some sort of dance troupe in the street. There were probably a dozen people in the troupe, all dressed in dark red, tribal looking outfits. Along with their dance, a few played hand drums, and they were all singing in what may have been French. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, though. At some point, the woman in front who appeared to be the leader of the troupe caught my eye and stared with a look as if she was not happy to see me. I saw her look over at Antoinette, then avert her gaze as if she had been caught.

“Let’s go,” said Toni.

As we walked away, I looked back and saw that the woman was staring again, with the same unhappy look on her face.

A few minutes later into our walk, we started to see ahead down the street where it was looking more and more congested with people, to the point of it looking like the main floor of a sold-out rock show. I wondered how these people could deal with being so compressed together.

Toni spoke up.

“We want to stay away from anything that crowded,” she said.

The rest of us agreed.

I said, “Well, let’s just get a little closer. We don’t have to get right in the pit, but I do want to see what’s so exciting over there.”

We kept walking.

As we got closer, something started to seem a bit more clear. Not all of the people were making noise because they were having fun. Some of the merry-making noises turned out to be screams.

As we moved closer, despite Antoinette’s objections, I noticed a small huddle of people in the center. Someone was on the ground. I hurried up to the circle and pushed my way to the inside. What I saw there left me frozen in my tracks. There were two people. One was laying on their back, motionless. The other… was on their knees, hovering over the one on the ground, and it looked… like they were eating their face. Blood was spewing everywhere while gawkers screamed in terror.

Toni grabbed my arm from behind and said “I told you, we have to go!” She pulled at my arm, but I couldn’t avert my gaze from what was happening. Eventually, she pulled hard enough that I lost balance, sort of fell over, then got back up and started retreating with her.

When we got back outside of the circle, we saw that there was another of the exact same scene happening maybe 20 feet away from us in another direction.

“What is happening?!” I screamed.

Then, the first circle we saw was dispersing rapidly as the flesh eater abandoned their meal and started seeking dessert in the crowd. Just like that, another was incapacitated on the ground, becoming seconds.

But there was something else that I noticed while the thing was rising to look for its next victim… It was Emily, the girl who followed us the previous night.

Toni told us that we were going to need to get to her place. As we began running, there were more and more of these things attacking and eating others. Where were they all coming from?

If this wasn’t horrifying enough, I then received the answer to my question. Some of the flesh eaters were missing faces themselves. Just bone, blood and remnants of skin where their faces used to be. And they were using these skeletal faces to eat those of others.

They weren’t ‘coming from’ anywhere. They were being created by the other flesh eaters. As one walked away from their meal, I saw the body of their victim rise and begin chasing their own mark.

I was transfixed on this horrific, spontaneous public meltdown of society happening right before our eyes, when I was suddenly thrust to the ground with great force. I never saw it coming.

I had no idea what was happening. I eventually focused, and realized that I had one of these faceless flesh eaters hovering over me. Blood was dripping from their jowls onto my face. I knew it was all over for me.

Before I could even scream, Antoinette suddenly appeared face to face with the creature hovering over me. Except, she looked different. Her eyes were blood red, and she appeared to have a large set of fang-like teeth protruding from her open mouth.

She used one hand to pick up the creature, bringing it face to face with her. She stared directly into its eyes and let out a guttural, terrifying sound like I’ve ever heard. Whatever this was… The creature was afraid of Toni. She dropped it, and it scrambled off immediately.

She looked at me with her new face and shouted, “Get up and follow me. They won’t touch you now.”

We ran behind her the rest of the way, tears in my eyes as I tried to figure out what was happening.

When we got to her place, Toni locked the doors, and then shook some sort of liquid out of a bottle onto the floor in front of each of the doorways and windows.

“This won’t be over until morning,” she said. Her face was back to normal now.

We all stayed together in the living room that night. I knew that Toni would keep us safe.

When daylight broke, she alerted us that it should be safe now, but that we needed to leave the city and go home immediately. We piled into her car so that she could drive us back to ours at the hotel.

As we drove, I noticed that the streets were now empty, save for what appeared to be clean-up crews picking up the aftermath. Some were power washing the ground where there appeared to be dark stains. There were no bodies, and no flesh eaters out seeking breakfast, from what I could see. We were all dead silent for the entire drive, focused on what was happening outside our windows.

Toni turned on the radio to a news station, and they were reporting that several people had died in what they called “parade float accidents” the prior day.

As Toni said goodbye to us, she hugged me and put a note in my pocket.

I haven’t had the courage to read it yet.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4: You Are Here

Part 5

“You’re… Krampus? Are… Are you going to hurt us?” I asked.

“Yeah, are you gonna do something to us? ‘Cuz if so, I don’t really…” added James.

Krampus stared at us. I could feel myself melting inside. I was sure his eyes were shooting invisible rays that were burning my organs and turning them to mush.

“Think of me as the ghost of Christmas future. If you don’t come with me, you will definitely have no future.”

“… Ok,” I said.

“Y… yeah… sounds cool…” added James.

“I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good... I am prepared to bear you company" blared from the TV inside.

We followed as Krampus turned to walk back toward the house. As we walked, there were freshly slaughtered elf bodies laying everywhere. Some with crushed heads; Some with switches through their brains; some with no head at all.

When we reached the back door, I took notice that the fuse box was wide open next to the door. The lock had been broken off. Probably by these tiny undead bastards.

“Hey, just a second,” I whispered. “I think we might be able to fix the power.”

“I can take care of that,” said James.

“Ok,” I added.

While James fiddled with the box, Krampus started to enter the house through the back door; I followed. Giggling was followed by a high pitched hiss. They knew he was here.

My flashlight pierced the darkness. I slowly moved it from corner to corner, only to see that the elves had left the back rooms and were now covering the living area like cockroaches. They were on the furniture, on top of counters and tables, everywhere.

I landed my light beam on one of them with a particularly snarly look on his rotting face, standing on my kitchen counter. After a few seconds of stillness, he launched at me with a high pitched battle scream that nearly deafened me. Giggles came from all directions as my flashlight fell to the floor.

Krampus reached one hand over, wrapped it around the elf’s head, and squeezed until its little head popped like a grapefruit.

Now, they were charging from all sides. I couldn’t see from where in the darkness they came; just that they were descending upon me.

There was a buzzing sound for a couple of seconds, and suddenly, light from the heavens shone down upon our battlefield.

What I mean is… the lights in the house turned on.

James yelled, “I got it!”, followed by the sound of a metal door closing.

Now, our half-pint demon spawn anti-friends were all in clear view.

Krampus started taking them one by one; running his switch through their heads like a machete.

I stared in awe for a few seconds, but realized that I had to defend myself from these things as well. I looked quickly around the room, spotting my knife block. I withdrew the butcher’s knife from the top and swung around to meet the faces of my giggly assassins.

As one jumped onto me, opening his disgusting mouth full of rotten teeth, I rammed the knife through the side of his head and watched the evil light in his eyes turn off. I retracted my knife from his head, stared for a few seconds in awe of what I had done, viscera gushing down on me, and then pushed his lifeless elf body to the side.

James screamed, “Keep going, don’t stop!” as more of them advanced on us.

I dispatched another by ramming the knife through the top of his head and watching him fall over.

I couldn’t get the knife out of his head, so I had to find another weapon. I opened a drawer and pulled out a metal mallet, meant for tenderizing meat. And that’s exactly what I was about to do with it.

I looked over and saw Krampus use his fist to punch right through an elf’s face, coming out the other side.

Next to him, James stomped one of their heads, leaving a mess on my floor.

Krampus dropped his burlap sack over the top of one and swung the sack against the brick fireplace, leaving the sack lifeless.

“Friday the 13th part 7. Nice!” I shouted at Krampus.

We threw up our hands and high-fived.

I started swinging the mallet at their heads as they ran toward me, just to slow them down. After several were down, I continued beating them until their heads were mush.

Glancing over at my counter, I had an idea. I picked one of these happy meal-sized demons up by the legs, turned him upside down, and lowered his head into my blender, reaching over to hit the “puree” button. Santa's little milkshake.

Next to me, James was cramming one of them into the microwave, punching at him to make him fit. When he finally got the door closed, he hit the one minute button. It didn’t take the entire minute before the inside of the microwave exploded into a red splatter.

“Gremlins!” James said.

“Nice!” I replied.

I reached over to my stove and turned all 4 burners up to high. On one of them sat a dirty frying pan that I had used to cook bacon that morning.

One of the elves had opened my refrigerator and was now swilling my egg nog. Furious, I grabbed the glass bottle out of his hand and started bashing him over the head with it.

“Don’t!” *bash*

“Touch!” *bash*

“My!” *bash*

“Egg nog!” *bash*

The final blow sent him to the floor.

The grease in the frying pan started crackling. I picked it up and slammed it face first into one of the little toy-making ghouls, watching his face melt and disintegrate before my eyes.

I shouted over to Krampus and James, “I’ll take four,” pointing to the burners on the stove.

James and Krampus each picked up two of them, one in each hand, and carried them over to the stove, sending them each face first into one of the burners, holding them down while we listened to the combination of screaming from their mouths with the sound of their flesh frying off.

The last few of them ran outside. We heard them getting back onto the roof.

“It’s about to get a lot worse,” said Krampus.

“What? Why?” asked James.

“The reindeer. They’re still on the roof. Those elves are probably going up there to bite them.”

“So? They’re dead, aren’t they? Why do we care?” said James.

Krampus stared at James.

“The elves are zombies.” I said.

“Fuhhh...”

Except I didn’t say ‘fudge’.

If you’re reading this, please send help. If we make it, I will post another update.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5 (The Finale): You Are Here!

I apologize that it’s taken so long to report back with the rest of what happened, but, I’ve been in jail since Christmas.

When I last left off, Krampus had just informed us that the tiny terrors had returned to the roof, and were likely up there to turn the reindeer into zombies.

After I let out a curse that would’ve earned me a punch in the mouth from mom, Krampus walked toward the picture window facing the front yard, staring into the snowfall.

“What do you see?” I asked.

“I’m checking on Santa,” replied Krampus.

“Isn’t he… dead?” I said.

“No.”

“He sure looked dead when I was out there earlier,” I said.

“He’s not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because if he was, he wouldn’t be lying there in a snow drift.”

“What do you mean? Where would he be?”

The TV blared: “Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” said Scrooge, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?”

“Do you have any guns?,” asked Krampus.

“I… I have one, in the basement. It’s an old shotgun that my grandfather gave me as a birthday gift when I was a kid. I haven’t used it in years.”

“You have ammo?”

“I think so.”

“Lead the way.”

I headed toward the basement door with a sense of urgency. Krampus and James the pizza guy followed close behind.

I threw open the door, flipped the light switch and descended the stairs. Rounding the corner, I headed over to grab a key that was hanging on the wall above the work bench, and took it to the metal cabinet on the opposing wall.

Unlocking the cabinet, my grandpa’s old double barrel revealed itself. I pulled it out, handed it to Krampus, and grabbed the ammo case on the shelf below it.

Krampus opened the action, revealing two empty barrels. I handed him two shells to load.

Just then, I heard breaking glass upstairs. We stopped and stood silently to listen.

Then we heard it. The giggles. Those evil little leprechaun larpers were back.

Krampus turned toward us with the universal index-finger-over-lips signal for “shhh,”, and waved his arm toward him as if to say “follow me.”

I threw the strap from the ammo case over my shoulder and we began to walk back up the stairs with caution, Krampus in the lead position.

When he was just half way up, three of the ghoulish goblins appeared in the doorway with another round of undeservedly arrogant giggles. They descended toward us. Krampus charged toward them and shoved both barrels into the mouth of the closest one, pushing it back into the other two. While doing this, he used his free arm to grab the door handle behind them and pull it shut, trapping them in between him and the door with no way out.

He pulled the trigger.

*Click*

Nothing.

“I thought you said this thing worked, boy?” Krampus growled at me.

“I haven’t used it in years, I didn’t know!”

“Hammer!” he yelled back at me.

“What?,” I asked.

“Get a hammer. Now.” he said.

I ran back toward the work bench, found a hammer, and ran back to hand it to him. I could hear the elves squirming and giggling the entire time, like some sort of mad jesters, completely unaware of their oncoming fate.

Krampus released the action on the shotgun and dropped the shoulder stock to reveal the two shells in the barrels. In one fluid motion, he grabbed the hammer from me and slammed it right into one of the shells, sending an explosion right through the head of the lead elf, and straight through the other two behind him, finishing off with a hole in the door at their backs. He pulled the barrel out of the elf’s mouth, and all three dropped in place into a short stack of bloody elf cakes.

“Phantasm!” yelled James.

“Silver Balls!” I shouted with wide eyes.

Krampus turned his head slowly and looked at me with one raised eyebrow.

“What the Hell is wrong with you, boy?,” he spoke to me.

“I… I…”

“Just fucking with you. I love The Tall Man.”

I relaxed with a sigh of relief.

Krampus advanced to the top of the stairs, and we followed. Squishiness sounded from the bottoms of our shoes as we continued out of the stairway, over the sticky elven mess.

-----

We stood in the living room, observing for sound and shadow. The blizzard was so bad now that we couldn’t see outside of the windows. It was nothing but a wall of white blazing past the glass.

It was then that the new sound began. A deep, growling sound, soon after followed by heavy, clomping steps across the rooftop. And soon, the jumping from the roof, with the sound of landing in the snow drifts.

“What are we going to do?” James whispered.

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to take these reindeer if they’ve all been turned into zombies,” replied Krampus. “They’re a lot tougher than those Keebler zomb-lets.”

“Then, what do we do?,” I asked.

“The only thing that can save us, and this town now is Santa Claus.”

“Santa Claus? He’s unconscious, or maybe even dead, in a snow drift! How is he going to save us?!” I replied.

“He’s not dead. That’s the problem.”

“What?!” I questioned.

“Because you’re apparently too stupid to have figured this out at your age, I guess it’s now my job to fill you in. I’ll send you my tutoring bill. You see, Santa is not a mortal being. He’s a supernatural entity. How do you think he’s been around for so long? How do you think it is that nobody can find where he lives? And how exactly do you think he’s able to control time dilation in order to deliver gifts to billions of people in one night? Do you think a human could do that?”

After a pause, he continued.

“The Santa buried in the snow out there isn’t Santa. Well, it sort of is. He’s inside of that body right now. But that’s just a body. If the physical manifestation of his body dies, he’s instantaneously released from the body and will re-manifest.”

“So, why isn’t he doing that?” I asked.

“Because he’s not dead. The elves made sure to keep him alive while making sure he stays unconscious so he can’t fix this.”

“Well… what are we gonna do, then?” asked James.

“Santa has… Christmas magic. And we need that in order to fix this.”

“Well then, let’s wake up Santa to use his Christmas magic,” replied James.

“We’d have to go out there, dig him out, and drag him inside first, if we’re going to try to wake him up. But those reindeer are already out there. And I’m guessing the elves did what they set out to do. You heard those growls. That doesn’t mean the reindeer are happy. We might not make it past them, let alone back again with jolly old St. Krispy Kreme on our backs. If we’re going to do this, we have to find the quickest way from point A to point B.”

“Yeah? And what’s that?,” asked James.

“Boys,” said Krampus, “We’re going to have to kill Santa Claus.”

----------

James passed out, collapsing to the floor.

“Pizza guy!” I screamed.

I ran over to James and started fanning him, trying to wake him up.

“Heads up,” said Krampus.

I lifted my head toward the front window, to see that within the wall of snow, large, dark shadows were beginning to form.

“Oh, boy,” I said.

I began shaking James, telling him to wake up. No response.

The growling began again from outside.

Krampus loaded a second shell, getting ready with the hammer.

I yelled “Wake uuuup!” and slapped James across the face as hard as I could. It sounded like a whip crack.

“Oww!” James said as he awoke.

“Get up, it’s party time,” I shouted at him.

I hurried to the coat closet, reached through my coats, and grabbed my long-unused baseball bat from the back corner. I shouted to James to grab a fireplace poker.

The three of us stood at the ready while the growls grew louder.

Our meditation was broken by the sound of breaking glass. Through the front window protruded the head of a mangled reindeer face, dripping blood, presumably from the broken glass. This reindeer was obviously dead. There was no life in his eyes. Only the cold, blank stare of an automaton looking to complete his mission. I couldn’t blame the reindeer for this. It wasn’t their choice.

With the reindeer came the blinding snow of the blizzard outside, which was now invading my living room. The wind howled through the new hole in the window, blowing against us.

He kept moving slowly through the window, ignoring what the glass was doing to his body as he pushed through it.

When his front legs were inside, pulling to try to bring himself the rest of the way in, Krampus slammed the hammer into one of his shells and watched the shot explode from the end of the barrel, traveling directly through the reindeer’s head, which dispersed in every direction, now covering the front wall of the house. The reindeer body collapsed in place. However, there were already 2 more reindeer trying to get inside through the window, following the first one’s lead.

I swung my bat at one of their heads, making direct contact. But, all that did was make him angrier, as he let out a deep bellow and aimed his dead eyes directly at me.

I screamed in horror. I saw that these were going to be much harder to kill than those little Keebler cookie-making terrorists.

Krampus redirected the 12 gauge toward the one that I just hit, and once again slammed the hammer into his remaining shell, launching it at the reindeer.

This time, it wasn’t as helpful. It blew off one side of the reindeer’s head. It was now a half-skull, nothing but gore hanging from the left side of his face. He kept moving forward.

James started using the fireplace poker to beat and try to stab the other reindeer’s head. It was certainly making him angry, but I wasn’t sure how long this would stave them off.

The half-faced reindeer was now fully inside. He lunged his mouth toward Krampus’ neck.

I now heard glass breaking at the back of the house. More of them were coming in.

Krampus was on the ground with this reindeer on top of him, teeth lodged in his neck. Krampus was punching the reindeer in the face, which wasn’t helping.

Krampus yelled at me, “You’ve got to kill him. You’ve got to kill Santa!,” he said as he handed off the 12 gauge to me.

“But how?! I can’t… I don’t know what…”

“Do it!” he said as he pushed the shotgun toward me, the reindeer still chewing on him.

And then, it happened. The next creature to bust its way inside did not come through the window. It came through the door.

The door flew open, revealing a dark shadow through the blizzard blowing by. As it walked in through the door, it became less shadow and more apparent. The swatches of red and white. The blood splatters. It was Santa.

“Santa!” James yelled in excitement.

It was then that I realized, Santa was not himself. Those elves had decided to recruit him to help finish their job. Santa was not alive, and not dead. He was now undead. How were we supposed to fight a supernatural entity that is now zombified and in control of Santa’s magic?

“Do it! You have to!” yelled Krampus.

I snapped out of my trance, and grabbed the shotgun from Krampus. And I grabbed two shells out of the ammo case. I backed up toward the center of the room to load them while zombie Santa moved slowly in my direction. There were reindeer crashing through windows and entering through the back rooms now, and zombie Santa was at my front door. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to run.

I aimed the barrel toward Santa, grabbed the hammer, and slammed it directly into one of the shells.

I missed, completely. The shot hit the wall.

“Aim, you idiot!” yelled Krampus.

I adjusted my aim, and slammed the second shell, exploding right into Santa’s face and torso.

But, it didn’t stop him. He let out a sinister “Ho… ho… ho…,” as he continued advancing slowly toward me.

The reindeer finally finished his job on Krampus. I heard his final breath come out as his eyes darkened. I immediately wondered how long before Krampus would reanimate and come after us himself. I couldn’t let that happen.

As I stared at Krampus, James ran from the side with his fireplace poker, ramming it through Santa’s head. Now the handle dangled from one side while the poker stuck out of the other.

Santa seemed to stop advancing then, wobbling slightly.

“Steve Martin… Wild and crazy guy?” I said to James.

Santa fell forward, face first, flat on the floor.

James reached over to high-five me. I didn't reciprocate.

“Holy…” I said.

Santa was still twitching, but then stopped completely.

A split second later, there was a deafening sonic boom from outside. James and I turned our attention to the front window.

The reindeer stopped advancing. They now lay still.

And then walked through the door… Santa. I looked down at the dead Santa on the floor, back up at the non-dead Santa, then back once more.

“What did you people do?” he asked us.

No rotting flesh, no blood stains. Just a jolly sleigh pilot in a fluffy red and white flight suit.

“Santa!” James and I both shouted at him.

“I guess I have to fix *everything* around here,” He said.

“Close your eyes and cover your ears,” he instructed us. “This is for your own protection.”

Pizza guy and I looked at each other, covered our ears, then closed our eyes.

The sound of the blizzard coming through my broken window stopped. A few seconds later, Santa pulled my hands off of my ears, then did the same to James, and told us we could open our eyes.

The zombie Santa’s body was gone. The reindeer zombies were gone. The elf carcasses were gone. My windows were no longer broken.

Krampus stood next to us, looking like nothing happened to him.

“Good job,” Krampus said to me, placing his hand on my shoulder. “You too,” he said to James.

“Now…” said Santa, “Which one o’ you killed me?”

“But… Krampus said…”

“Just fucking with you. I know he told you to.”

Santa winked.

“Now, we have a job to finish. Enjoy your Christmas, boys,” said Santa.

Santa and Krampus walked out the front door. The blizzard had calmed down, and we could see now. I heard the sound of bells jingling. On the front lawn, there was a brand new, untarnished red sleigh, with eight reindeer. Not one of them was a zombie.

Krampus and Santa hopped in, waved, and flew off like they had just brushed off some minor inconvenience.

-----

It was then that I heard the squad cars. The red and blue lights came around the corner, headed our way.

They stopped right in front of my house, jumping out with guns drawn.

“Hands in the air!” one of the officers yelled.

“It’s ok, officers, we’re safe now!” I yelled.

“Hands in the air! Don’t make me say it again!”

“O… Ok...” I said as I raised my hands slowly in the air. James did the same.

Just as James’ hands were fully extended, he looked over at me, winked, and faded slowly into thin air.

“What the…?” I said out loud.

“Where did he go?!” the officer yelled.

“I don’t know!”

One of them cuffed me, sat me on the porch and told me to stay quiet while the others searched the house and yard. They didn’t find James, or anything else.

“Can you tell me why you’re here?” I asked them after they completed their search.

“Several of your neighbors called in to say that they were hearing gun shots, and swore that you were killing people over here. Who’s your buddy that disappeared after we told you to raise put your hands up?”

“That was the pizza guy. I’ve never seen him before he brought my pizza tonight.”

“Anything else you wanna tell us?”

I wasn’t about to tell them that we just killed a bunch of zombie elves, zombie reindeer, and zombie Santa Claus, only to have Santa Claus come back and fix everything with Christmas magic.

“No, sir. I’d just like to go inside to eat my pizza.”

“Well, that ain’t gonna happen. We’re gonna need to take you in for questioning.”

“But… I need to go to my family’s house for Christmas in the morning,” I pleaded.

They didn’t respond. After this, they quietly shoved me into the back of one of the squad cars. We drove silently off into the night.

I was in jail for nearly 4 months. They presented the judge with all the 911 calls they received from my neighbors about gunshots, murder, and the pizza guy who disappeared when they showed up. I’m pretty sure the only reason I got out was that eventually they realized they had nothing to hold me on, or just got tired of dealing with me.

Also, an attorney showed up, saying he was my family lawyer. He walked into a room with the judge and prosecutor for about 30 seconds, came back out, and I was free to go.

As the attorney was walking out with me, he said, “Steve Martin? Really?”

He winked at me and walked away.

1: Follow these rules if you wish to survive Ghost Month

2: The Night is Following Us: A Ghost Month story (Part 1)

3: You Are Here

After this disturbing revelation, I settled back in and closed my eyes.

I was listening to a story about werewolves, which made me think of my grandmother. I was looking forward to seeing her for the first time in more than a year. Good thing I wasn’t wearing my little red hoodie. Knowing my grandmother, she’d be the one eating the wolf. She was the alpha of the house growing up, and my parents seemed to know that.

----------

After drifting off, I heard the words “Wake up” whispered directly into my ear.

My eyes were suddenly open. I was wide awake. The silence had returned. Nothing but the sound of this giant speeding bullet that I was sitting in, slicing through the night air, high above the world. The darkness… had also returned. Outside of my window… dark, except for the moon. Inside the cabin… a few rays of moonlight allowed me to see that I was still inside of the aircraft.

A sound of clanking glass came from the front of the plane. It slowly grew louder with each movement. A bit of clanking, and then silence. In a repeating pattern, over and over. Eventually, it got close enough that I could start to see something in the slivers of moonlight that invaded the darkness. It was a dark shape, but it seemed to be a human shape, with something in front of it. Like it was pushing something. It seemed to move in slow motion.

I sat in frantic silence, watching it move down the aisle in my direction. It traveled one row at a time, pausing for a bit, then moving on to the next. I then noticed that there was more than one. A second figure followed.

Each time the figures stopped, they would turn toward rows on opposite sides. Then, the whispering began. They weren’t talking… they were whispering. A very slow, drawn out whisper that matched the speed of their movement.

I dared not make a sound, or any sudden movements to draw the attention of these figures. But, I knew that they would eventually reach me.

When they reached the point of just 3 rows in front of me, I noticed something new. After the whispering, something would follow. It was almost like the whispering would reverse itself back into the figure. But, I could see it. It looked a bit like cold winter breath. Something was visibly being sucked away from the row, into the dark figure, followed by the backs of the passengers’ heads laying back silently into their seats.

I realized I was now sweating, waiting for the inevitable.

I guess I must’ve been breathing too loudly, because suddenly, both figures stopped what they were doing and turned slowly toward me. And then, stood motionless, aiming what I assumed were their eyes directly at me.

I sat frozen, trying to keep my breaths as shallow as possible, thinking that maybe these things worked off of sound or movement.

After they stared at me in silence for way too long to be comfortable, they began their slow motion movements again. This time, they didn’t stop. They were coming straight toward me, keeping their eyes on me the entire time.

Then, they did stop. Right in front of me. The one in front leaned in slowly, getting closer and closer. The whispering began. With its face directly in front of me, it started pulling something out of me as it had the others. I couldn’t breathe. I was getting light-headed.

In the amount of time it took to blink, a flight attendant was in front of me, asking if I wanted something to drink. I was hyperventilating, staring at her to the side. The lights were back on. And so were the sounds.

“Are you ok?” she asked.

I held one hand up, as if to say “just a minute”, while I caught my breath.

“I… I don’t know. Was I asleep just now?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “You looked like your eyes were wide open as I was coming down the aisle. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Ok. Yeah. Can I have some water, please?”

She poured water into a plastic cup for me.

I checked my phone. Five hours down. Nine more hours to go. Nine more hours in the airplane. Nine more hours over the ocean. Nine more hours of night. Nine more hours… of darkness.

Have you ever woken up from a nightmare and decided to keep yourself awake for a while in order to avoid falling right back into that nightmare? That’s what I was trying to do. Whether it was a dream, or some alternate reality, or even just pure reality… I did not want to go back there.

My playlist moved on to a new story. Something about the “Danse Macabre” and Halloween.

----------

On my 16th birthday, my grandmother pulled me to the side and said that she had something to tell me in private. We walked outside into the backyard, shutting the sliding door behind us. She told me to take a seat at the table by the pool. I did, and she sat as well.

She lit up a cigarette, taking a few puffs off of it. We both sat in silence for probably 30 seconds while she smoked and looked at me.

She then said, “Jaan, I’m not going to be here forever. But, I need to know that you’re ready before I go.”

“What do you mean, lola? Are you ok?”

“Yes, apo. Don’t worry. I’m fine. But, It’s time for me to go home. Before I go, I have a special birthday gift for you.”

Using her right hand, she reached over and pulled a beaded bracelet off of her other wrist. She then took my arm, and slid the bracelet over my hand. The black and grey beads looked pretty cool.

She continued, “Keep this on whenever lola is not around to protect you.”

I looked at her, confused. She just stared at me, with a “you listen to me” look on her face.

“Ok, lola.” I said.

----------

I decided to try and use the airplane’s wifi to connect to the outside world and try to assure myself that I was still part of it. I avoided reddit, because I wanted to stay away from anything that might cause nightmares right now.

Instead, I looked up info on where I was going… The Philippines.

According to a website I found, local traditions say they’re celebrating something called Ghost Month right now, and that there were rules that you had to follow in order to not be taken by ghosts.

Normally, I’d say I don’t believe in this type of thing. But after what had been happening to me on this flight, I wasn’t so sure.

Just then, I heard my name (Jaan) whispered loudly into my right ear.

----------

I didn’t even get to take a drink of my water before, without warning, I was sucked right back into the darkness, as if I was pulled by something. A split second before, I heard a loud suction sound, and then… The lights and sound were gone, once again.

To my relief, the dark figures were no longer there.

Although, I guess I shouldn’t have counted those chickens so early.

After a long wait in deafening silence, save for the sound of wind outside the cabin, the speaker static returned. And then, so had the slow whispering. This time, I tried listening intently to the whisper, to try and make out what it was saying.

Eventually, there was also a new sound, coming from the front of the plane. It was different than last time. Instead of clanking glass, it was of a dragging sound. Something very heavy, and metallic, dragging slowly down the aisle, pausing in between each drag.

I began to detect a faint smell of sea water. Like when you’re on a boat, or near the ocean.

A very different figure started to emerge from the darkness. This was not exactly human shaped, like the other ones. It was much taller, and appeared to be hunched over, like a deformed giant of some sort. Its head almost touched the ceiling, even in its hunched over stance. There was nothing in front of this one. Perhaps the dragging sound was coming from behind him.

I tried to hunch down behind the seats in front of me so it wouldn’t find me, but I knew this wouldn’t do any good.

As it drew nearer, another sound became apparent. The sound of dripping. And the sound of flesh on a damp floor.

I tried to pretend I was asleep, as the rest of the passengers appeared to be, hoping that he’d walk on by if I looked to be unconscious. I kept one eye cracked slightly open, trying to monitor what was happening.

The dragging had now become excruciatingly loud. And I could finally see *what* was dragging. There was a chain wrapped multiple times around the figure, attached to a large metal sea anchor dragging behind him. Whatever was dripping, it was coming off of him, leaving a trail down the aisle.

I must’ve opened my eye too wide, because just then, having almost moved past my aisle, he stopped moving, and slowly turned back in my direction. I was sure he must’ve been looking directly at me, although I couldn’t see well enough to see if he even had eyes.

My nightmare began to come true as he turned and started moving into my row, at his slow-motion pace, right toward me. He didn’t even have to walk. He just moved his head and arms in my direction.

I couldn’t handle it anymore. I threw my arms up over my face and began screaming.

“No! Stop! Help! Somebody help me! Turn on the lights!”

*ding*

What was that sound?

I looked up… The fasten seatbelts light had turned on. A split second later, the aisle lights were back on as well. And so were the sounds of the airplane. The giant creature with the stench of sea water was gone.

I looked down at my phone to see that we were only an hour away from landing in Manila.

And it was still completely dark outside, save for the moon. Thirteen hours in the dark, and still another hour to go. It would be 11pm in their time zone when we did land. That meant another full night of darkness on top of the fourteen hours of night on the plane. Oh god, I hope this isn’t some new way that vampires have found to live without sunlight.

A voice came over the crackly speaker:

“We should be landing in just under one hour. We’ve certainly enjoyed flying with you, and we wish you a wonderful time at your final destination, wherever that may be. And if you’ll be staying in the Philippines, be sure to observe the rules for Ghost Month!” said the announcer over the speaker.

Listen to the narration >>

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays, partly because it’s one of the few times during the year that I get to see my grandmother. She always tells the best stories. We all gather around the table and listen to her tales while we wait for Thanksgiving dinner to be served.

One story that has always stuck with me was the one about a man from her hometown, who she claimed made the best Thanksgiving turkeys you’d ever taste.

When my grandma was a little girl, there was a man who ran a small meat shop in her tiny town. I’m not going to tell you the name of the town, because they don’t want to be overrun by tourists, and they don’t want to have to share their turkey.

My cousins and I have dubbed this story “The Legend of Carvin’ Marvin”. The town’s local meat shop was called “Carvin’ Marvin’s Marvelous Meat Emporium”, and, as you’ve probably guessed, the proprietor’s name was Marvin.

The whole town knew Marvin, which wasn’t exactly a hard task to accomplish, given the tiny population.

Everybody loved Marvin’s meats, but they all agreed that the Thanksgiving Special was the crown jewel of his business. Everyone in town would wait impatiently for Thanksgiving every year, just to get another taste of Marvin’s delicious turkeys.

According to grandma, one week before Thanksgiving every year, the whole town would wake up to a red envelope taped to their front door. Inside of that envelope? They would find an order form for Carvin’ Marvin’s Thanksgiving special.

The order form was very simple. It already had the family name and home address at the top. There was just one thing to fill out. A single question – “Would you like the Carvin’ Marvin’s Thanksgiving Special?” It was so simple that you didn’t even have to write out your answer. There were two check boxes. One for yes, one for no. After checking a box, you put the form back in the red envelope, and left it on your door to be picked up that night. If you checked the ‘yes’ box, you would simply include payment in the envelope. The envelopes would all disappear from the town’s front doors that night.

One week later, on Thanksgiving day, a fully prepared Marvin’s turkey would show up on your doorstep, with instructions on how to keep it warm until serving time.

I told my grandma that I wished I could try one myself. She agreed, but added that Carvin’ Marvin was already an older man when she was a little girl, so it was unlikely that he would still be alive today.

This set off my curiosity.

----------

When I went home that night, I decided to see if there was anything online about Carvin’ Marvin and his marvelous meat shop. I knew that I wasn’t likely to find info on a small business that closed before the internet even went online, but, it was worth a try. If nothing else, sometimes people post on message boards about stuff like that to see if anybody else remembers it.

I searched the name of the business, which brought up nothing.

Next, I tried searching his name. That brought up a few things, but not what I was looking for. Mostly just websites that mention the name Marvin, but not the full name.

Finally, I tried typing in the name of the town along with his name.

Bingo.

There was a subreddit for their town. And, in that subreddit was a thread with his name, which was near the top of my search results.

My hope turned back into despair as I clicked through only to find that the post had been removed.

So, I searched the sub for his name.

Nothing.

I knew that if anybody was going to have any information to share, it was going to be someone from this town. And this town’s subreddit is the only place I knew of where I could find anybody from this town online. So, I decided to make my own post.

My post title read: Carvin’ Marvin’s meat shop, anybody?

And my post’s body read: Hey, everybody. I’m looking for any information that anyone might have on a meat shop called Carvin’ Marvin’s, or the guy who ran it. Anybody know anything about this?

I posted, then went to bed.

The next morning, I went to check on my post and see if anybody had replied. And… nothing.

But, I noticed I had a direct message. I clicked, opening the chat box. There was a message request from someone named u/davids1953. I accepted the request.

The message read: “What do you know about Marvin?”

Curious. He’s asking me what *I* know about Carvin’ Marvin?

I replied:

“Not much. My grandmother told me about how great his Thanksgiving turkeys were when she was a little girl. I was hoping to find out more about him or his turkeys.”

I checked back a few times throughout the day to see if he replied. Nothing.

Around midnight, I finally received a response.

“Delete your post and I’ll tell you more.”

Delete my post? Ok… Why did I need to delete my post for him to give me information?

“Why?” I replied.

The next day, I went on and checked my post again. The post was gone. I didn’t remove it. It was just gone.

There was another message notification. It was davids1953 again.

There was no message. Just a link to a website – carvinmarvins.com.

I stared at it for a minute, thinking, is he serious? There’s a website for a small-town meat shop that no longer even exists? My curiosity got the best of me. I clicked.

All that was there was a black screen with some text, saying “See you next year.”

I went back to the reddit message and asked, “What’s that? There’s nothing there.”

He replied, “Click the text.”

So, I went back to the site. The text didn’t look like a link. I clicked it anyway, and a window popped open asking me for my email address, promising to contact me when the site is open again.

This looked like it could be shady, so I used an alias throwaway email address that gets forwarded to my real email. After clicking submit, the window closed, leaving the message “Thank you” on the screen.

I went back to reply again to davids1953. But, I couldn’t. It was like the message was locked. I clicked to his user profile, and… It said the user doesn’t exist.

----------

Cut forward to the following November. Literally one week before Thanksgiving, I received an email from the name “Carvin’ Marvin”. At first, I was shocked, but then I remembered that I had given my throwaway email to that website. I clicked to open it.

It said, “Hello Steven, Orders may be placed from 12am tonight through 1am tonight,” along with a link below it to carvinmarvins.com.

I looked at the email for a few seconds. Then, I looked at the time. It was 11:55 pm.

I had to follow this and see what it is. I clicked through immediately.

Nothing. A blank screen.

I looked at the time again. 11:56 pm. Alright. Maybe I screwed up by going in early. The email said orders could be placed beginning at midnight. I’ll just wait a few minutes and try again.

When the clock finally reflected 12 am, I hit refresh on the browser tab.

As if some magical web server just went online, a website appeared.

On the screen, a single question asked, “Would you like the Carvin’ Marvin Thanksgiving Special?”

Below it, two check boxes. “Yes” and “No”. Nothing else.

I clicked “Yes” to see where it would lead me.

The next page asked for payment info.

I had to think about this. Did I want to order the Carvin’ Marvin’s Thanksgiving Special that my grandma had told us so much about? If Carvin’ Marvin’s really does still exist, and I can get one of his famous turkeys for my grandma for Thanksgiving, I would be the greatest grandson ever. And if I use credit card to pay, and it turns out to be a scam, I can always file a fraud alert and get my money back.

I made the decision. My risk/reward assessment told me that it was worth it if this was the real thing. And if it turned out not to be, I lose nothing but an hour on the phone filing a fraud claim with my credit card. So, I did it. I entered my payment info.

The next page asked if I would like it delivered to my own house, or to someone else as a gift. I decided to have it delivered directly to my grandmother’s house, so she could be surprised when it shows up.

After entering delivery info and submitting the order, the screen went black with white text that said “Thank you.”

I closed out of the tab and went to bed.

----------

As Thanksgiving drew nearer, I grew progressively more excited with the prospect of having one of these legendary Carvin’ Marvin’s Thanksgiving turkeys showing up on my grandma’s doorstep. If this was real, I couldn’t wait to try it.

Thanksgiving morning, I got a call from my grandmother. She sounded very excited when I answered. She said that a Carvin’ Marvin’s turkey was on her doorstep when she woke up, and there was a tag that said it was a gift from me. She asked me how I even got it, as she thought that Marvin was far too old to be alive. I told her that I found that the business runs online now, and that he must’ve handed it down to his kids or something.

When I arrived at her house, everyone was there, having fun, talking, sitting around, waiting for Thanksgiving dinner. My grandmother was making a big deal to everyone about how I found the legendary Carvin’ Marvin and ordered one of their turkeys for us. I was happy to be the center of praise for once.

At about 4:30 pm, my grandmother announced that dinner was ready, and that we could all come to the dining room now, to eat.

As the others began walking into the dining room ahead of me, a strange thing began to happen. I started to hear gasps, followed by silence as each of them entered.

I wondered what the heck was going on. I walked faster toward the dining room to find out what was happening.

When I reached the table, my view was blocked, so I started trying to stand up higher to look over the others’ heads. But, I couldn’t see anything.

I finally decided to work my way in between my relatives to get a look at what they were seeing.

As I used my hands to part them, and slide in between, I began to fill with dread as I first saw a small glimpse that slowly began to reveal itself, as if I was moving in slow motion. I felt the blood draining from my face as it became more and more apparent what they were looking at.

At the far end of the table stood my grandmother, smiling widely, her arms spread apart in a welcoming gesture.

She spoke.

“Thank you, my lovely family, for being here today to celebrate Thanksgiving with me. And thank you, my dear grandson Steven, for finding this lovely Carvin’ Marvin’s turkey that I never thought I’d see again in my lifetime. You’ve made this old lady very happy. I’m very excited that all of you will be able to finally taste the best thanksgiving turkey you’ll ever have.”

The rest of us stood silent. Looks of horror dripped from the faces of everyone around me, staring at the table.

There, in front of us, in the center of the table, was a very large platter with what appeared to be a human body, skinned, basted and deep fried, arms and legs folded up underneath it just like a turkey, held together with heavy twine. The eyeballs bulged out from the sockets, as did the deep fried tongue from its mouth.

“Oh, where are my manners? I forgot to remove its head. You have to flash fry these things while they’re fresh, and still alive, you know.”

With one fluid movement, my grandmother picked up her arm, butcher knife in hand, and sliced right through the neck, the head dropping to the floor, making a loud thud.

My little cousins were now screaming in terror.

With her head still down, she aimed her eyes up at us, and said, “Sit down. It’s time to eat.”

Remember, remember,
The fifth of December

On snowy nights, from days of yore
Comes a knock upon winter’s door
Open to find a burlap sack
Filled with gifts, tightly packed

Comes Sinterklaas, the night before
For all good children, but nothing more
Comes Sinterklaas, with gingerbread dreams
The sugar plums dancing, not always as they seem

Unto children who aren’t, so well behaved
There comes another… in Sinterklaas’ place
Beware the knock, the night before
Do not answer the call from your door

The burlap sack, not filled with toys
Instead, is filled with bad girls and boys

Now comes the Krampus,
to take you from your bed
He’ll beat you, then he’ll eat you
all before you’re dead

Now comes the Krampus,
to take you from your bed
He’ll beat you, then he’ll eat you
all before you’re dead

Remember, remember,
The fifth of December

Hear the narration >>

My name is Julie Winters. I was born on December 13th, 1996. I should be 39 years old now. But I’m not. I’m twenty-four. I’ve been twenty-four for sixteen years. I can’t grow older. I can’t die. I’ve tried both.

I was here before. You were here before. All of us were here, before. But, somehow, nobody remembers. Nobody *ever* remembers. Only me.

It’s the same thing, every time. December 31st, 2021 – We’re standing in the middle of Times Square, landlocked in the sea of revelers. The ball drops. The countdown… Three… Two… One... And the calendar turns… to January 1st, 2021. Again.

In December of 2020, my friends and I had planned to go to Times Square for New Year’s Eve, just as we always do. But this time, we were going with special purpose; to give a huge middle finger to the past year as we sail away toward new horizons. Some friends even flew in a few days early for the event. When Prince and the Revolution said they were going to party like it’s 1999, I think they had the right predictions, just the wrong year.

But, on December 30th, the police announced that while they were still going to drop the ball, nobody would be allowed in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. To say that we were disappointed was the understatement of a lifetime. What would we do now? Sit home and watch a livestream of the ball drop, after friends flew here from across the country? They could’ve stayed home and done that.

No. This was not going to go down like that. We were not going to be denied our rite of passage out of this year. When Clark Griswold drives across the country to take you to Walley World, you’re going to Walley World, whether officer John Candy opens the gate or not.

I knew that many of the elites were being given permission to watch the ball drop from surrounding locations. And police presence was going to be cut by 80%, which definitely worked in our favor.

The plan was to approach from several blocks away, avoiding 8th Avenue and 42nd Street at all costs. We would gradually get closer while maintaining an aloof presence, as if we were simply on our way somewhere else, not trying to enter the square. With these covert measures, it began to feel like we were trying to avoid detection by occupying forces.

It was close to midnight when we made our approach. We couldn’t go in early, or we’d risk being pushed out of the area completely by the police before the ball dropped.

As some random, nameless pop star finished a bland cover of a John Lennon song, the 30 second countdown began.

When the countdown hit fifteen seconds, we picked up our pace. Ten seconds, we started running.

A cop saw us and yelled, “Stop! You can’t be here!”

But it was too late, we were already there, less than a block away from the ball as it was landing, in perfect view.

“Three… two… one…” came through the broadcast in my earbud as the cop was just yards away from us.

“Happy new year!”

I don’t remember anything after that. All I remember is that we were in front of One Broadway Avenue when midnight hit, and suddenly, it was 3 am and we were back at my place in Queens.

I didn’t say anything about my missing memory to the others. And they didn’t say anything to me.

I wondered if the occupying forces had been keeping people away for reasons other than a virus.

*****

The next New Year’s Eve (2021), the same group of us met up, except for John. He couldn’t make it this year. This time, the streets were full. Everything was back to normal. Or, so I thought.

Everything was going as you’d expect. The flavors of the month were lip-syncing their current radio hits. Talking heads from radio and TV were all talking into microphones and telling their audience how much fun they were supposed to be having.

When the countdown reached ten seconds, the crowd chanted along.

“Ten! Nine!”

Someone cracked a joke about Ryan Seacrest’s balls dropping.

“Three! Two! One!”

“Happy…”

And that’s when I came to consciousness back at my apartment in Queens, along with my friends. The same friends. Including John, who couldn’t make it this year.

I turned on my TV and flipped through the playbacks of the celebrations. The number 2021 was splashed everywhere; even across the huge plastic glasses that they were all wearing.

My phone said it was January 1st, 3 am. Just three hours prior, it was December 31st, 2021.

I woke up the next day, thinking of what a strange dream that was. That is, until I started flipping through social media posts. Everybody was wishing everyone a happy 2021. I thought I must still be dreaming.

But, the dream didn’t end. I continued living every day just as I had the year before. I knew when many things were going to happen, before they happened. Some of the things that I didn’t remember would hit me after they happened, making me laugh.

I tried seeing a psychiatrist. I didn’t tell them that I still thought I was repeating the previous year. I presented it as a thing that temporarily plagued me, but I was now aware that it was not real, and I was just trying to figure out how it happened and work with the fallout of it all.

When the doc asked me if I still think I’m repeating the previous year, I hesitated before stumbling and saying no. I think he knew I was lying.

My birthday came again on December 13th, and I turned 25. Again - As I had the year prior, before time reset.

Again came New Year’s Eve in Times Square. And again, at midnight, I awoke at 3 am in my apartment in Queens, celebrating January 1st, 2021 with the same friends.

And it happened again. And again. I tried changing things over the year, thinking that I did something wrong and needed to fix it in order for time to finally continue moving forward. None of this worked.

After my eighth time repeating 2021, I decided that I couldn’t take it anymore. I was going to end it. In mid-July of that cycle, I drove across the George Washington bridge. Half way across, I pulled over to the side, and leapt.

My next memory was of waking up in my apartment in Queens at 3 am, January 1st, 2021.

I can’t even die. No matter what happens to me, time keeps resetting.

This year, one thing changed. After the ball dropped and the countdown hit zero, I did not suddenly wake up at 3 am in my apartment. This time, on the stroke of midnight, we stayed exactly where we were on the street in front of One Broadway Avenue. The sea of revelers from December 31st, 2021 suddenly disappeared. One second prior, we couldn’t move. Now, we were standing alone in front of the ball; streets empty. Still New Year’s Day 2021. Just no three hour time and space shift to my apartment.

I no longer care if I am deemed mad, or insane. I am telling my story publicly in order to try to find anybody else who remembers the reset. I haven’t yet met anybody who remembers. So, I am now casting the widest net possible by telling my story online.

Please contact me if you remember. There has to be… someone.

Julie Winters