The Twelve Nightmares of the Holidays: Home for Christmas by J.M. Brannyk
In 2020, Haunted MTL brought you the 13 Days of Krampus. Now we offer another exclusive series of holiday horror stories: The Twelve Nightmares of the Holidays. It’s day (coughcoughcough) of 12 Nightmares of the Holidays. If you missed it, check out the others so far: here for Jen’s, here for Nicole’s, here for Phil’s, here for T.T.’s, here for Court Court’s, here for Eve’s, and here for Nicole’s.
This is a continuation of Christmas Dinner, which can be found here. It can be stand alone, though. It’s a year after the events in the first story.
Christmas is about traditions and family. And Dr. Virginia ‘Ginny’ Kostyshyn is making up her own this year – frozen chicken nuggets for dinner every night, crying while playing Roger Whitaker’s ‘Home for Christmas’ on repeat, glasses of Riesling wine while watching ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, and dodging Dr. Katherine ‘Kate’ Wright’s texts.
Work is harder to dodge Kate, though, since they work in the same lab, in the same office and on the same experiments. And Kate doesn’t like to tiptoe and pussyfoot the way Ginny does.
But thanks to Ginny’s insistent avoidance and quietness, they’ve reverted back to last names. All while Subject 205 a.k.a. Greg, now an off-hand lab assistant, watches the situation darkly.
And he’s not apt to get into other people’s business, far be it from him, a year-old reanimated body. However, he has vague memories of last Christmas with Ginny. Fractured recollections of tinsel, eyes glaring at him, skin sliding off, mashed potatoes, Roger Whitaker…and Ginny crying as she stitched him back up.
He also remembers wiping away a tear and apologizing. For being who he is. For being what he is. For ruining everything like he ruined in his first life. And he recalls her hands being so warm, as warm as her smile, as she told him that they had nothing to apologize for.
And tonight is Christmas Eve, with Dr. Wright putting on her coat, coldly silent, and Dr. Kostyshyn slowly shutting down her laptop and hesitating.
“All right, Greg,” Dr. Wright says, her clipped accent echoing in the white, clean lab. “Have a good night. Dr. Woodruff is on call. He’ll be in tomorrow. Have a holly jolly and all that.”
“Yes,” he grunts and his eyes peer over to Dr. Kostyshyn, the offset orbs wide and inquiring. He earns a stern look for it, so he concedes, “You, too.”
Dr. Kostyshyn peeks up, but Dr. Wright just nods, “Dr. Kostyshyn.”
Ginny Kostyshyn’s face falls and she nods in return. “Yes, good night. Have a happy-”
But Dr. Wright is already walking out the door. Ginny can feel her chest clench, another new tradition. She gathers her coat and scarf listlessly. “I’ll come by tomorrow, Greg, don’t worry.”
“I don’t worry,” he says, feeling some of that heartache. He doesn’t worry, though, when he has a plan.
“Ah, good. Then…I guess have a good night.”
***
Ginny checks her phone but no texts to dodge tonight. Not from Kate and not from her family. One text from Bath and Bodyworks telling her about a special and wishing her a happy holiday season.
At least someone cares.
She sniffles as she flops into her couch and searches around for a half empty bottle she left last night. This isn’t like her. She knows that, so why can’t Kate know that?
The last argument they had, Kate told her to grow up and stop pining over a love that wasn’t reciprocated. Just like that. Ginny’s family didn’t love her.
Yes, maybe it’s true. Maybe they haven’t called her since last Christmas. Maybe they hated her. Maybe they’ve blocked her on social media. Maybe they never would have her come back. Maybe she’d never have her mother’s lasagna again.
Stupid things like that seem so much more significant.
Stupid, stupid traditions she could no longer have, but still remember.
And after the bottle is empty, the tradition of crying herself to sleep begins again, as it did the night before, and the night before that.
***
Kate is angry and getting piss drunk, looking at her phone again. It’s useless, she knows, but still.
She sighs and puts it back into her pocket. Along with other lonesome losers, she’s in a dive bar, watching some American football highlights from a game twenty years ago. Her parents are already asleep in Birmingham, six hours ahead of her.
She tries to watch the television, but it’s just flashing images. It’s just lights and muted sounds. It’s not real, doesn’t feel real. Merry Christmas.
She’s been away from her family for ten years now and she was half-hoping, now that Ginny’s family was bust, that maybe, just maybe, they might have gone to her hometown. It’s been five years since she’s gone back and even though she calls and Skypes, it’s about as real as the television. Just flashing images. It’s not the smell of her mother, the warmth of her father, and the sassy gleam in her granny’s eye. It’s all different.
But when she vaguely brought up the holidays, Ginny shut down.
Ginny shut down, but worst of all, shut her out.
She taps the counter for another and the bartender nods. “‘Kay, but then you’re cut off.”
“Got it.” She had a long, quiet few days ahead of her. It wasn’t so much she was angry at Ginny, it was just hard to have someone keep grieving and not know what to do. Kate had never been the shoulder to cry on. She had put all of her efforts into school, career, study, science, and technology. She wanted to be one of the best.
But being one of the best made her one of the lonliest and she thought those days were over when Ginny somehow wormed her way into Kate’s life and heart.
She thinks about the gift in her desk, sitting there for the next few days. For an eternity, perhaps, unopened.
How disappointing.
How frustrating.
How soft and stupid.
She finishes her drink and cashes out.
***
One empty bottle later in Ginny’s home and one cold, drunken walk later to Kate’s home, and suddenly they both get a call. A call from the lab. It rings to both of them, at opposite ends of the city. It wakes Ginny up and startles Kate into falling off the sidewalk.
“H-hello?” Ginny stutters into the phone, frizzled hair in her mouth.
Kate is still picking herself back up and then joins. “What?”
“Oh, hello,” Greg says, monotone, as usual. “You both may want to come back to the lab.”
Sighing, Kate replies, “Dr. Woodruff is-”
“He’s dead,” Greg states, looking down at the man split in two. Shame, really. Woodruff wasn’t too bad. Just opened his mouth when he ate and clipped his toenails in the lab. “Remember the man-pig hybrid Dr. Chuz is working on?”
“Yes,” they say in unison but with alternating inflections.
“Oh God,” Ginny exclaims.
“What happened?” Kate asks, looking for a cab or something to get her to the lab. It’s hard with everything spinning.
“It escaped…somehow,” Greg quietly explains. “I think it’s a bit sick, though. Reanimated meat probably didn’t do it any good.”
“Greg?! Are you okay?” Ginny asks and gets up, tangling in her coat and scarf.
He looks down, legs half-eaten and chartreuse blood pooling around him. “Hmm, I’m still alive. The legs need work, though.”
“We’re on our way,” Kate tells him, and still looks around at an empty street, “…somehow. I can’t drive. Ginny, can you pick me up?”
“Uh…” She looks at the empty bottle on the ground. “Unfortunately…I probably shouldn’t drive.”
They both sigh.
“Let’s get cabs and meet there. Greg, is it still in the building?”
“Oh yes,” he states, as the mig- er pan, whatever it is, is heaving in the corner, vomiting up bits of the doctor and vile parts of himself. Greg eyes the bits and bobs in morbid fascination. “I don’t think he’s going anywhere for a while. I think I didn’t agree with him.”
“They keep a shotgun upstairs, so we’ll come down with that.”
“A shotgun, Kate?! While we’re- uh…”
“Pissed?”
“I’m not- Oh, no, I’m just tipsy.”
“You’re slurring.”
“And I’m losing blood,” Greg calming brings them back on point.
“Right. Since you’re ‘just tipsy’ and American, you can call, well, shotgun.”
“Oh, Kate,” Ginny admonishes as she flings her shoes on. “Don’t worry, Greg. We’re on our way.”
And just like that, his plan is in action.
***
When they both make their way to the underground lab, Ginny faring better than Kate’s weaving and swaying. However, they find a horrific mess. Just…a mess. Everything is turned upside-down. Blood on the walls, on the floor, on the ceiling and doors.
Calmly, in the mess, Greg is leaning against a desk, playing a word game on his phone. His legs are torn asunder and remain only in strings of cartilage, bone, and muscles. It reminds Ginny of oozing and meaty string cheese. Looking up, he nods. “Merry Christmas.”
“Jesus H!” Kate breathes out.
“Where is it?” Ginny says, shotgun shaking in her hands, almost the size of her.
“I think it’s dead,” he tells them and points to a hidden corner. “I heard gagging and struggling…Serves it right.”
Ginny goes to peek while Kate remains. “Aren’t you a bit calm?”
They share a glance to size up each other as Kate sways and refuses to acknowledge it as much as Greg refuses to acknowledge his string cheese legs. There’s a pause before he says, “Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve done nothing wrong.”
After her investigation, Ginny breathes in relief. “It’s dead! I think it died by aspiration.”
“Hallelujah,” Kate sarcastically replies, still glaring at Greg, who is almost at the next level in his game.
“Well,” Ginny sighs, pulling off her coat. “I guess we, uh…”
She gestures to the bits of Dr. Woodruff, the larger pieces of him, the vomit, the lab, the everything. “Greg is first, I suppose.”
“I guess, the wanker,” Kate mumbles, slipping off her own coat, then having to find the coat rack in the calamity. “You don’t deserve us, 205.”
He shrugs as he contently plays on his phone, continuing to ooze out, without real concern now that the scientists are here.
Ginny puts 205 up into the examination bed and sedates him while Kate goes into her desk to get some supplies. That’s when she finds her present to Ginny with a frown. It seems as good a time as any.
Before they need to scrub up and put on surgical gowns, she tosses it to Ginny. “Merry Christmas. It’s after midnight.”
“Oh, sorry. Your present is at my apart-”
“Just open it.”
It’s small. Very small. Box-shaped. And Ginny is nervous and afraid. It could be something that she’s not ready for. What if it’s a tone-deaf, ‘let me be your family since you don’t have one’? What could she even say if it’s a ring? It just feels cruel.
With shaking hands, she opens it slowly, relieved to find a key instead. A key? To where? Kate wouldn’t be so cheesy as to say to her heart. It’s not a car key, thank goodness.
“It’s to a cabinet,” Kate explains, seeing the confusion. “Remember when we were here the first year and there was that cabinet and you lost the key?”
Blinking, she half-recalls. Honestly, she just remembers being scolded for it and the panic afterwards.
“And you kept looking for it and I got annoyed and just took a crowbar and sledgehammer to it. Remember?”
Ginny laughs. “Oh, yeah. I thought you were crazy.”
“You called me impatient at the time.” Swaying, but sobering up, Kate sighs and walks over to Ginny. Sees the little key in her green-bloodied hands, shining like the star on top of a Christmas tree. “You said it’d turn up eventually.”
“God, that was years ago, though.”
Kate’s hands curve around Ginny’s carefully. “I know that you’re upset with your family. It’s not what you wanted or expected. They’re being shits about it and it hurts to be on the outside.
“I found the key recently and I just wanted to give it back and remind you that sometimes it takes time. You were right. Sometimes you have to be patient. Maybe with them. Maybe with yourself…Maybe sometimes even with me. But you’re going to get back what you lose. Not always in the moment you want it, but you’ll find it. You just have to be patient and remember what you have now.”
Ginny purses her lips so she doesn’t cry like a sop, but leans forward to touch her forehead to the chin there. With a long breath, she replies, “Thank you.”
“Of course. And maybe if you’re not too busy…you can come back with me and meet the Wrights. My mum collects ugly porcelain swans, my dad has the worst jokes, their dog is full of farts, but gran isn’t so bad. And I’m not saying that as-…I want you to meet them. They’re much more normal and better people than I’ll ever be.”
A stray tear falls as Ginny sniffs and chuckles. “You’re not so bad.”
“I’m about to sew up a reanimated corpse that was half-eaten by a pig-headed abomination…I’m not great. But…I’ve got you here, so it’s not awful.” She leans down to punctuate her gift with a kiss.
Ginny smiles and accepts the offered kiss warmly, realizing how much she’s missed it. “Mm, and when we’re done, we get to clean up the body of the aforementioned abomination and get to break the news to Dr. Chuz.”
“That’s okay. I’ll do it. I don’t mind ruining his Christmas; he misspells my name constantly.” Kate smirks and kisses Ginny’s cheek.
“Merry Christmas, Dr. Wright,” Ginny quietly says, hugging tight onto her girlfriend.
“Merry Christmas, Dr. Kostyshyn,” Kates replies and holds her back, just as tightly.
Today on Nightmarish Nature we’re gonna revisit The Blob and jiggle our way to terror. Why? ‘Cause we’re just jellies – looking at those gelatinous denizens of the deep, as well as some snot-like land-bound monstrosities, and wishing we could ooze on down for some snoozy booze schmoozing action. Or something.
Honestly, I don’t know what exactly it is that jellyfish and slime molds do but whatever it is they do it well, which is why they’re still around despite being among the more ancient organism templates still in common use.
Jellyfish are on the rise.
Yeah, yeah, some species like moon jellies will hang out in huge blooms near the surface feeding, but that’s not what I meant. Jellyfish populations are up. They’re honing in on the open over-fished ocean and making themselves at home. Again.
And, although this makes the sea turtles happy since jellies are a favorite food staple of theirs, not much else is excited about the development. Except for those fish that like to hide out inside of their bells, assuming they don’t accidentally get eaten hanging out in there. But that’s a risk you gotta take when you’re trying to escape predation by surrounding yourself in a bubble of danger that itself wants to eat you. Be eaten or be eaten. Oh, wait…
So what makes jellies so scary?
Jellyfish pack some mighty venom. Despite obvious differences in mobility, they are related to anemones and corals. But not the Man o’ War which looks similar but is actually a community of microorganisms that function together as a whole, not one creature. Not that it matters when you’re on the wrong end of a nematocyst, really. Because regardless what it’s attached to, that stings.
Box jellies are among the most venomous creatures in the world and can move of their own accord rather than just drifting about like many smaller jellyfish do. And even if they aren’t deadly, the venom from many jellyfish species will cause blisters and lesions that can take a long time to heal. So even if they do resemble free-floating plastic grocery bags, you’d do best to steer clear. Because those are some dangerous curves.
But what does this have to do with slime molds?
Absolutely nothing. I honestly don’t know enough about jellyfish or slime molds to devote the whole of a Nightmarish Nature segment to either, so they had to share. Essentially, this bit is what happened when I decided to toast a bagel before coming up with something to write about and spent a tad too much time in contemplation of my breakfast. I guess we’re lucky I didn’t have any cream cheese or clotted cream…
Oh, and also thinking about gelatinous cubes and oozes in the role-playing game sense – because those sort of seem like a weird hybrid between jellies and slime molds, as does The Blob. Any of those amoeba influenced creatures are horrific by their very nature – they don’t even need to be souped up, just ask anyone who’s had dysentery.
And one of the most interesting thing about slime molds is that they can take the shortest path to food even when confronted with very complex barriers. They are maze masterminds and would give the Minotaur more than a run for his money, especially if he had or was food. They have even proven capable of determining the most efficient paths for water lines or railways in metropolitan regions, which is kind of crazy when you really think about it. Check it out in Scientific American here. So, if we assume that this is essentially the model upon which The Blob was built, then it’s kind of a miracle anything got away. And slime molds are coming under closer scrutiny and study as alternative means of creating computer components are being explored.
Jellies are the Wave of the Future.
We are learning that there may be a myriad of uses for jellyfish from foodstuffs to cosmetic products as we rethink how we interact with them. They are even proving useful in cleaning up plastic pollution. I don’t know how I feel about the foodstuff angle for all that they’ve been a part of various recipes for a long time. From what I’ve seen of the jellyfish cookbook recipes, they just don’t look that appealing. But then again I hate boba with a passion, so I’m probably not the best candidate to consider the possibility.
So it seems that jellies are kind of the wave of the future as we find that they can help solve our problems. That’s pretty impressive for some brainless millions of years old critter condiments. Past – present – perpetuity! Who knows what else we’d have found if evolution hadn’t cleaned out the fridge every so often?
Feel free to check out more Nightmarish Nature here.
Continuing our junkyard dawg werewolf story from the previous St. Patrick’s Days… though technically he’s more of a wolfwere but wolfwhatever. Anyway, here are Part 1 from 2022, Part 2 from 2023 and Part 3 from 2024 if you want to catch up.
Yeah I don’t know how you managed to find me after all this time. We haven’t been the easiest to track down, Monty and I, and we like it that way. Though actually, you’ve managed to find me every St. Patrick’s Day since 2022 despite me being someplace else every single time. It’s a little disconcerting, like I’m starting to wonder if I was microchipped way back in the day in 2021 when I was out lollygagging around and blacked out behind that taco hut…
Anyway as I’d mentioned before, that Scratchers was a winner. And I’d already moved in with Monty come last St. Patrick’s Day. Hell, he’d already begun the process of cashing in the Scratchers, and what a process that was. It made my head spin, like too many squirrels chirping at you from three different trees at once. We did get the money eventually though.
Since I saw you last, we were kicked out of Monty’s crap apartment and had gone to live with his parents while we sorted things out. Thank goodness that was short-lived; his mother is a nosy one for sure, and Monty didn’t want to let on he was sitting on a gold mine as he knew they’d want a cut even though they had it made already. She did make a mean brisket though, and it sure beat living with Sal. Just sayin.
Anyway, we finally got a better beater car and headed west. I was livin’ the dream. We were seeing the country, driving out along old Route 66, for the most part. At least until our car broke down just outside of Roswell near the mountains and we decided to just shack it up there. (Boy, Monty sure can pick ‘em. It’s like he has radar for bad cars. Calling them lemons would be generous. At least it’s not high maintenance women who won’t toss you table scraps or let you up on the sofa.)
We found ourselves the perfect little cabin in the woods. And it turns out we were in the heart of Bigfoot Country, depending on who you ask. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never seen one. But it seems that Monty was all into all of those supernatural things: aliens, Bigfoot, even werewolves. And finding out his instincts on me were legit only added fuel to that fire. So now he sees himself as some sort of paranormal investigator.
Whatever. I keep telling him this werewolf gig isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, and it doesn’t work like in the movies. I wasn’t bitten, and I generally don’t bite unless provoked. He says technically I’m a wolfwere, to which I just reply “Where?” and smile. Whatever. It’s the little things I guess. I just wish everything didn’t come out as a bark most of the time, though Monty’s gotten pretty good at interpreting… As long as he doesn’t get the government involved, and considering his take on the government himself that would seem to be a long stretch. We both prefer the down low.
So here we are, still livin’ the dream. There aren’t all that many rabbits out here but it’s quiet and the locals don’t seem to notice me all that much. And Monty can run around and make like he’s gonna have some kind of sighting of Bigfoot or aliens or the like. As long as the pantry’s stocked it’s no hair off my back. Sure, there are scads of tourists, but they can be fun to mess around with, especially at that time of the month if I happen to catch them out and about.
Speaking of tourists, I even ran into that misspent youth from way back in 2021 at the convenience store; I spotted him at the Quickie Mart along the highway here. I guess he and his girlfriend were apparently on walkabout (or car-about) perhaps making their way to California or something. He even bought me another cookie. Small world. But we all knew that already…
If you enjoyed this werewolf wolfwere wolfwhatever saga, feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
You’ve seen me as Theda Bara, a Witch, and a Necromancer already (as well as Cleopatra, Elvis, and Andy Warhol) but here are some more fun costumes I’ve worn while figure modeling for the Friday morning art group at Hutchinson Art Center. The group is switching to Saturdays but hopefully I’ll still be able to make it in from time to time… Life’s a circus, or maybe a magic act in a shamanic ritual with Holly Hobbie… At any rate – beam me up Scotty, I have your missing spaceship part…
Yeah yeah, so none of that was really all that terrifying. Just another time warp in all honesty. At least there’s still some residual Rocky Horror vibes to be found, but then again, there usually are with me when I get into the identity based costumes.
But in follow up and in the spirit of so much of my other randomness, here’s a music video for Everything Changes by Eytan and The Embassy. Check it out if you want to see some more fun costumes in an immersive homage montage experience unlike any other. (If the video doesn’t load, just follow the link here.) See how many artists you can recognize in this quick change setup. Ready… Set… Go!
Jennifer Weigel
December 25, 2022 at 4:12 pm
I am glad this is revisited and hope that there is peace for all of them in the aftermath of the two year’s holidays.