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Clyde had begun to realize something over it’s past few nights out on the streets of Eastridge.
They’ve become more…unwelcoming to it, although not through anything like increased police presence or the people utilizing a buddy system, nothing like that. The citizens still made the foolish mistake of assuming a walk was short enough to be safe, that their path was lit brightly enough to stave off the town’s signature monster, but it’s hunts for those idiots were made harder recently. It’s been effectively banished through the town’s new method to stave it off, to throw it back to it’s shadowy place in the woods. It’s been inhibited, restrained, forbidden from it’s behavior as a predator, starved to hone it’s instincts.
The reason? The curse? It’s weakness?
Colorful lights.
They cast glows from across the entire color spectrum on previously darkened streets! The lit up where it’s typical hunting grounds lay, denying it the chance to prowl, to stalk in the dark! And they hurt it’s eyes, perfectly carved for nights where the only way to see was through a flashlight or cryptic biology!
This wasn’t a new thing for Eastridge-typically, it could just treat this annual timespan as a starvation period and sleep more than usual, but damn was it hungry! It had grown much past it’s infant stages, when it was a small, poorly formed amalgamate of goo that was able to survive off one binge for quite a while, but that era had long passed. It wasn’t sure if it was completely done growing, but its appetite was considerably larger than a few years ago.
And it tried to work past this roadblock, it really did! But all the changes had made its activities much more difficult. It was sure it had at least 3 or more run ins where it had nearly been hit by a car going much too fast, all the while blaring “SIMPLY, HAVING, A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS TIME” audible even from several hundred feet away.
Well, there’s no chance it’s catching anything or anyone tonight, yet again. The emptiness in its stomach makes itself known rather painfully, and it decides to make a pathetic trudge to Alex’s place, dodging red and green all the way. It’s mortifying, sure, but survival is survival, no matter how it comes about. Sometimes it’s through kicking and screaming, and sometimes it’s through showing up at the house of the dumbass who opened their door willingly.
Eventually, said house of said dumbass appears through the thicket of trees, pale yellow window lights illuminating it’s path in a way that’s significantly more welcoming than it’s seen over the past while. It skitters quickly through the open yard to make it’s way to it’s favorite back window, snickering to itself as it reaches it’s hand over the windowsill-
Hey, wait-
Did they leave the window open for it?
It feels a twinge of insult-it didn’t need to be convenienced! Should the window not open using it’s typical method of undoing the latch with it’s tail, it could just break the fucking thing! It snarls to itself, and then proceeds to take full advantage of their good deed despite its qualms.
“Hey,” it announces into the silence of their living room, landing on their floor. It’s many voices echo off the walls, some ending quicker than others. “You don’t need to leave the window open-”
Oh, what the fuck.
There’s too many new things in their house! It looks to the left-there’s some sparkly silver…string thing lining the tops of their kitchen cabinets! It squints as the flares of light hit each new piece of tinsel with every twitch of it’s head. It looks to the right-a small plush of a rotund bearded man sits pleasantly atop their fireplace! He has a little red outfit on, lined with white fur, and a small gift box sewn into one of his hands. His creepy eyes drill right into Clyde, watching, listening, observing-
“Hey, you,” they interrupt it’s bewilderment with a smile and a mug of something in their hand. “It’s pretty cold out right now, right?”
It completely steamrolls over their comment. “What the hell is around your house?”
They tilt their head quizzically. “What do you mean?”
It gestures it’s arms around in a manner that looks like it’s swatting away a swarm of bugs. “All this! Are you having a party or something?”
“What, no, why do you ask?”
“Who is that?” It points to the plush, it’s plump, reddened cheeks and much too long facial hair pissing it off more and more by the second.
“What-Santa?” They ask, disoriented by it’s questioning.
“Yeah!”
“What-oh, did you not know what month it is?” They ask.
“Why does that matter?!” It asks, its voice raising several octaves.
They sigh. “Clyde, it’s December. Christmas is coming up.”
It reaches through the human memories it’s absorbed, trying to garner context. It’s primarily memories from the children, of tearing open wrapping paper and throwing it asunder to reveal a toy or doll or book and several other flashes of things it can’t make out. It feels some warmth wrapped around it, the recollection of a hug in gratitude, voices of “Thank you! I love it!” echoing through it’s conscious. There’s some others in there as well-the parents sneaking downstairs in the dead of night, choosing how to arrange the ‘proof’ of Santa’s presence, of wrapping gifts in anticipation, of intentional meetings under mistletoe.
It’s nauseatingly sweet.
“Can you move away from the tree?” Their voice interrupts it’s grimacing, and then it has the horrifying realization it’s standing directly next to some fragile-looking ornaments, all adorning a rather skinny pine tree. It’s needles were already beginning to scatter on the floor around it, branches drooping dangerously under the weight of a single bauble.
“Why is there a tree in your house?”
“That’s like, the main thing!” They wander to their kitchen to put their mug down on the countertop. “Anyways, I’m going outside to put up lights. Do you wanna be useful and help? I think most everyone is asleep now, so no one would see you.”
“Hell no.”
They roll their eyes. “Fine. Sit in here and laze around.” They disappear behind a wall and Clyde hears the door to their garage open and close behind them.
Its eyes instantly rip away from their pace and begin to dart around their living room, only to hiss once a bit of light hits the tinsel in a way that drills into its pupils. It gnashes its teeth together, squints its eyes, and stomps over to tear every last bit of the sparkly menace away from their cabinets.
After several swipes and some collateral damage, it has all of the blinding strands within its grasp, eyes narrowed all the while. But what to do with it…? It considers stuffing it into the trash, although that’s too obvious, and Alex could just take it back out afterwards. Could it…eat it? Surely if it could consume an entire human body whole, some decorations wouldn’t be too bad? It then thinks back to the time it tried to eat part of a tire it found in the woods, and the memory of the pain afterwards sends shivers down its spine spikes. Then, its eyes make their way back to the tree, and what’s right next to it.
It balls up all of the material and tosses it out the open window it came through.
It hears Alex knock against their front door a few times, jumping at the sound. “Don’t mess with anything in the kitchen, please. I’m making something, you can have some once it’s done.”
The request goes in one ear and completely out the other. It turns around and glares directly at the old man on the fireplace. It stares it down, looks into it’s beady, darkened eyes. It then makes its move, slowly prowling from the kitchen to the fireplace, its tail twitching to follow its steps. After several seconds of the horror beyond comprehension glaring down an inanimate object, it wraps its knife-sharp claws around the plush’s abdomen and throws it with the velocity of a pitcher of several years out the window and into the night. He flies impressively quick, and lands several hundred yards away onto a soft patch of long-dead grass.
And finally, the centerpiece.
The tree was so…meager, compared to it’s memories. It had a few passing images of huge bushels of branches, both artificial and real. A few flashbacks of either packing the thing back into a box or dragging it to the street corner made themselves known. What was with this one, then? It didn’t really seem to have a theme to it either, all of the ornaments being simple, single-color shapes as opposed to anything personalized or unique.
Whatever. Hopefully they wouldn’t miss it. It makes quick work of taking all of the ornaments off of the tree and stuffing it into it’s clothing, some of the hooks catching on the inside of it’s onesie. After removing the star and placing it onto the couch behind it to deal with later, it takes both ends of the tree in each hand and lifts it above itself, preparing to launch it outside where it belongs like a spear.
It nearly leaps out of it’s jumper once it hears Alex opening their door. “Well, I only really had enough for the porch, but what can you do…” Their voice trails off as they begin to comprehend the image in front of them, pine needles still actively falling onto Clyde. One ornament falls out where the top of it’s zipper is, and another out of the bottom of it’s pant leg. They tilt their head.
“Whatcha got there?”
Clyde thinks before speaking, although not nearly enough. “Tree.”
They sigh. “Okay. Why?”
It is not about to admit it’s because it’s hunting eyes were weakened by the glimmer of their household decorations, that it’s feet hurt from stepping onto the pine needles, and that it was freaked out by the little fat Santa. So it just stands in silence, foliage collecting all the while on the hardwood beneath it.
“Do you…” they collect their thoughts. “...not like Christmas? I mean, it makes sense why you’d like Halloween more cuz it’s like your birthday, but…”
“I don’t like your house having new things in it.” It’s honest enough, but still obscures the other reasons. “I don’t want to break anything.”
“Seriously? You actually care about the state of my house?”
“Yes?” It says, then shakes the tree above it, more pine falling with the motion. “I could have toppled this onto you.”
“Sometimes they just fall. It’s not a big deal.” They shrug. “But I can take the other stuff down if you’re worried about it getting caught on your tail or something. Just-” They lift their hand to gesture towards Clyde. “Leave the tree, please?”
“Why?” It asks. “Aren’t they usually bigger than this?”
“Ouch. I mean, yeah, but…” Their hand raises to the back of their neck. “This is the first year I thought of getting one. I haven’t actually had one in a place that’s been fully mine before.”
And with that, it concedes. It slowly lowers the tree back down to it’s original place and-to their surprise-starts to put the ornaments back on without being asked.
“Did you shove all my ornaments in your onesie?”
“Shut up.”
Eventually, all the baubles and the centerpiece star are back in place, and Alex has now two mugs of something, approaching once they see it admiring it’s work.
“Hot chocolate.” They say, pushing one of the mugs towards it. It looks down at the mug and tilts it’s head.
“It looks…really thick. Are you sure you made this right?”
They nod. “This isn’t the microwave type-I made it from some ‘real hot chocolate’ recipe one of my coworkers told me about.”
It, for the first time since it’s known them, is slightly worried about consuming something they’ve made. But it sees them drink a fair amount, and automatically assumes if their human body can handle it, it’s superior biology surely could.
It’s delicious, of course. It absolutely chugs the entire cup, burning it’s throat in the process, and then shoves the empty mug back in Alex’s direction.
“Gimme more.”
“I will if you stay and watch The Grinch with me.”
It squints. “Isn’t that a kid’s movie?”
“It’s an everyone movie!” They defend. “And do you have anything better to do?”
It absolutely does not, but there’s no way they need to know that.
“Only if you give me more.” It says after a few minutes of silence.
They grin. “Go sit.” They wave their hand towards the couch before taking it’s mug and heading back to the kitchen.
It does as they say, throwing itself backwards into the cushions and wrapping it’s tail around it’s arms, outstretched behind it. It stares off to the right of the television in front of it, still slightly offput by the tree. It wasn’t too bad, compared to the other two more annoying things. The tree couldn’t stare back at it, and it didn’t even have any lights on it. It was…tolerable.
And then Alex turns the overhead lights off.
Without any bright light source to reflect off the metal, it was a lot more palletable in the dark. It’s eyes trace the outline of the star and the intricate spirals within it, Alex grinning as they sit down next to it.
The cartoon has already started airing, but they had the foresight to mute the TV as soon as they turned it on. The only light sources now are the glow from the TV, and the pale orange splashed across their living room.
Maybe the lights were better in here, anyway.