Chapter 10
Icouldn’t stop shaking as I paced through my house, my hands trembling so hard that I dropped the latest gift box on the floor.
The walls felt closer than usual, like they were suffocating me.
George had kicked me out of his place; his horrified face had frozen with fear, ordering me to get out of his house like I was some stranger.
The clock had struck midnight as I raced back home, freezing winds wrapping me in their unforgiving cold.
He wanted nothing to do with the madness surrounding the Xmas Day Butcher. He said it was complete nonsense, and he wanted no part of it.
But it wasn’t nonsense. It was real.
I sat down in my chair, trying to calm down, trying to keep the room from spinning. Eerie voices whispered in my ear: “Angela…she’s gone. You know what you’ve done; there’s nowhere to run…do not trust him…”
My living room was dark, and silhouettes of bodies seemed to dance around me when I wasn’t looking. They slid across the floorboards, jumped around the Christmas tree, and inched closer to me—like they wanted to swallow me up.
I ferociously rubbed my temples, trying to stop the brutal pounding in my cranium.
I felt him taunting me—the Xmas Day Butcher.
That monster wasn’t just out there somewhere, playing their sinister game, toying and torturing my mind; they were with me, twirling me around their finger, unraveling the very last crumbs of sanity I had left.
I couldn’t stop seeing Angela’s severed finger, frozen and red.
The Xmas Day Butcher had left it for me like a deranged trophy of what he had done to my poor wife.
That horrific image was burned into the inside of my eyelids.
When I shut my eyes, I imagined her face contorting in excruciating pain, the pleading sobs as tears ran down her flushed cheeks.
I wanted to hold her close, to tell her it would all be okay. When I found her, I knew nothing would ever be the same again, but that was fine. We’d get through it—together. I had the Xmas Day Butcher to thank for that.
Something shadowy moved outside the window across from me as I jerked my head up, eyes wide.
I froze, my breath becoming quiet. When I blinked, the black shape was there again—a tall, crooked thing staring back at me with cold, dead eyes.
I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. I blinked again, and it was gone.
I’m imagining things…I’m imagining things…it wasn’t real.
I thought about going to Detective Castillo, but the idea filled me with a dull sense of hopelessness. She wasn’t able to recover any traces of DNA from the gift boxes I had given her, and she wasn’t much help, even if she wanted to be. She just didn’t have the resources.
Waiting for her to do something was a death sentence. I needed to find the answers myself. I needed to do what the Xmas Day Butcher wanted. That meant that I needed to check George’s basement tonight, without him knowing.
There was something about him, something different. Maybe I was just imagining things, but it seemed like he was hiding something regarding Clara and Henry Hamonte. There must’ve been something there, but I didn’t know what it was yet.
My eyelids felt heavy, and I had a hard time keeping them open.
I got up from my chair too fast and felt dizzy.
When I walked forward, I tripped over myself and fell to the ground.
I groaned as I turned on my stomach, rubbing my spine as it burned with pain.
I couldn’t take the tiredness anymore—I shut my eyes, engulfing myself in total darkness.
I woke up with a jolt. I was still on the floor, a heaviness draped all over my body. My head was still pounding, though slightly. Then I remembered what I had to do, as I felt a sudden surge of heat on the back of my neck.
George’s Basement.
I checked my watch; it was 11:05 PM. I slid out my phone and checked my call log: no calls. It seemed like I was behaving myself.
I still had time to do what I needed to do. I rushed to my room and pulled clean clothes out of the closet. I took off my own, which were sweated in, and quickly slipped on the new ones, which included: my coat, a beanie, a pair of gloves, and sweatpants.
I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I was doing it for Angela. I walked out of my house calmly and shut the door behind me, locking it.
I set myself on the path back to George’s house. I still had his set of keys, and I wouldn’t think he’d have the energy to change all the locks in the house just to keep me out. I kept my head down and marched on, braving the cold winds that were picking up as I went forward.
George’s house looked dead quiet in the icy darkness. I slowed my walk as I approached it and kept my eyes peeled just in case he was crawling around. I avoided the front of his house altogether and snuck around back. I hopped over the wooden picket fence and crouched down.
I waited. There were no footsteps, no labored breathing. I was good to go. I stood up, maintaining my balance, and gently stepped forward, one foot in front of the other, until I reached the basement door.
I saw the heavy padlock dangling from it—old and rusted. I had the key, but if I didn’t, I was sure I’d be able to break it open with a good swing from a sledgehammer I could get from the nearby shed.
No one ever really went down there, not even George. I took the keys out of my pocket and inserted the right one into the lock, gently turning it until it clicked open. I grabbed it and took it out, tossing it aside on the ground.
When I gently opened the door, the smell hit me first—a musty aroma of old copper and damp air. My stomach almost erupted, but I kept it down.
I went down the steps cautiously, taking out my phone to turn on the flashlight. The beam illuminated the inside, while my throat went dry. My heart raced as I mentally prepared myself for anything to jump out at me.
The basement was creepier than I remembered, the walls lined with old wooden shelves for tools, cobwebs draped all over them, and a few boxes filled with tools were thrown about.
When I approached the center of the basement, I saw it. A dark shape, dangling from the ceiling.
My first thought was a mannequin—some grotesque decoration from the Xmas Day Butcher, in an effort to scare the shit out of me and send another one of his twisted messages.
When I raised my flashlight, I saw that it was a horribly decayed body—a dead one. It was wrapped in strands of Christmas lights, half-frozen and zombified. My breath quickened, and my heart hammered against my ribs as I dared to step closer.
I shone the light on the face of the poor victim. Her dead eyes stared blankly back at me, her lips slightly parted.
It had a pink sweater on, with a name tag.
I staggered backwards, my breathing becoming quick and frantic, my head spinning, my phone slipping from my shaky hand. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at.
It was Clara’s dead body.