December 2023

photo courtesy of the author

By Daniel Feinberg

As she walked into the house the immediate smell of moldy cookies sent a wave of nausea over her. She wasn't expecting much due to the house's broken exterior, and dusty Christmas decorations but she didn't think it would be this bad. The chairs were all covered in dusty white sheets, and in the middle of the spruce floor there was a huge dried bloodstain on a red and green rug that had been torn in one of the corners. You could tell they tried to get rid of it but failed.

She looked around and by the huge staircase in the middle was a portrait of an old man with graying hair and a huge Santa hat atop his head, she shivered, it looked like it was staring right at her.

As she made her way towards the stairs, she tripped on the dusty Christmas rug, when she hit the floor she landed on a patch of black mold.

"Gross" 

She muttered while gagging at the stench, and trying to brush it off of her ugly Santa sweater, it kept her warm but she hated it.

She slowly got up and continued till she was at the base of the stairs. She looked up and sighed. There were at least 50 stairs and she was not in the mood to walk . When she heard a crash from the kitchen, She jumped. 

"What?"

She cautiously walked over towards the kitchen, if you were able to see the look on her face, it was hilarious. She grabbed the door to the kitchen and pushed it in, there were no handles. A pan flew past her face and she jumped, she looked around as another pan levitated up and flew at her, it hit her in the stomach. As she fell to the floor, I threw another pan at her. I missed this time. She tried to get up and run again but slipped and knocked the wind out of her.

Her gasps of air were not helping her. I watched her from the corner of the room, waiting for her to stop and get up. A while later she slowly stood up, clutching her now torn ugly Santa sweater. She sighed and took out her camera. She proceeded to take a few photos of the kitchen and exit. What is she doing?

She walked back into the living room and took 2 more photos, both from different angles, then she walked up to the stairs. She looked up at them, groaned, took a photo, and walked up to them.

she grabbed onto the smooth spruce railing as she reached the top. There were cobwebs everywhere, and a rotting Christmas tree. It kind of smelled like the new car smell, which was a nice difference from the mold.

A black widow ran across her feet and she jumped and tumbled backwards, sending her down the stairs. When she fell to the floor there was a grotesque cracking noise.

“That's too bad. She seemed braver than the others too.”

I was kind of disappointed at how fast this went. I guess I have to clean up this blood, I almost got the last stain out too, I thought while mopeing at how long this would take. 🐾