Merry Fucking Christmas

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six years old. I walked into the living room to find my parents putting the presents under the tree. I asked why Santa wasn't doing it. They said Santa was busy, so he had dropped off the presents and left.

I knew at once this was bullshit. If Santa can deliver a billion presents in one night, he can take the time to put them under the tree. My suspicions were confirmed with the discovery of several receipts in the trash. My parents had bought those presents. Santa Claus? Fictitious.

I discovered the same thing about the Tooth Fairy the year before. (Funny story: I didn't ask for a dollar, which was the going rate of teeth back then. I asked for a book. I woke up to see my mom trying to sneakily put the book I wanted next to my bed. I didn't tell her I caught her, but I did give her a big hug the next day.)

The Easter Bunny isn't real either. Neither is the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, Yeti, the Abominable Snowman, Bloody Mary, vampires, ghosts, goblins, fairies, and God.

Do you know what is real?

Fear is real. The sound of your heart beating, the sweat on your forehead, the hairs on your arms standing up. Santa Claus isn't real, but there's a man who sees you when you're sleeping. The Tooth Fairy isn't real but there's something out there that will take away a piece of you. There are many things that aren't real...but there are so many things that are. Bad things. Terrible monstrous things.

And on this darkest of nights, what do we do? We wait for a fat man to bring us presents. We don't despair into the night. We sit and laugh and watch cheesy movies and give each other gifts. Fear is real, but so is hope.

I learned that Santa Claus wasn't real when I was six. It took me over thirty years to figure out that I was wrong. Just because something doesn't exist, doesn't mean it isn't real.

So have a merry fucking Christmas. And a happy fucking New Year.

Them 8: The Convocation of Birds

They look like a flock of birds. Hey, they can't all be tall, slender men or little frozen kids. Some of them look just like dogs or birds.

Okay, they look just like birds. A flock of them will generate electricity, passing it through themselves. I don't know how or why. They've been known to cause lightning strikes. They are probably the reason for the myth of "Thunderbirds" (not the Gerry Anderson show though).

Like the Slender Man, they have proxies. They are called Nests. And there is a very good reason for why they are called Nests. Take a guess.

That's right, they are nests for the Convocation. The Convocation nests within a person's body and they become a Nest. I don't know what sort of special powers this conveys (does it convey any powers besides creepiness? no idea), but they are dangerous. They can cut open their skin to let out birds of the Convocation and the birds? Will mess your shit up. I have seen a flock of birds carry away a full grown man and drop him from a great height so that he ended up just a splatter on the pavement.

Supposedly, they come from or travel through a place called the "Bleak Shore." I have no idea if this is true or bullshit someone made up.

Them 7: The Eye of Judgment

It looks like an eye. That's it.

Okay, that's not it. Those targeted by the Eye of Judgment (or just the Eye, I guess) start to see it everywhere. It...grows on surfaces. In people. Victims of the Eye will see it everywhere they go. Big eyes, little eyes, brown eyes, blue eyes.

And it passes judgment. That's why I call it the Eye of Judgment. It judges people for their sins. No matter how small their sins may be. Murder, rape, genocide, littering. It will judge you.

And then? Then it takes someone else (preferably someone you have wronged) and possesses them. It turns them into a killing machine named Judgment. They will come after you and come after you and if you beat them back, the Eye will just possess someone else and come after you again.

It will never stop until it gets you. Until you disappear.

Like the blink of an eye.

Them 6: The Black Dog

It looks like a black dog. See the name? That's it.

You want more? Sometimes it's a big dog, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it looks like a Rottweiler or a Bullmastiff or a Boxer or a Bloodhound, but it always has black fur and red eyes.

If you've done something bad and you've hidden it away, if you are hiding something in your past, it will find you. It will always find you. I don't know why exactly it goes after certain people and not others - why it will let one bastard live and another die - but then again, at least I know a little motive behind it, rather than the zero I know about the rest.

There are survivors of the Black Dog. Yes, one of Them has survivors. However, I think it's just toying with them. The Black Dog can take years to finish off one of its victims. Years of psychological torture, of paranoia, of trying so hard to hide from it. But the more you hide, the better it will find you.

Sometimes, a survivor will say they escaped by revealing all of their secrets. They go to the police and confess all of their crimes. However, the person who told me this died a month later in his cell. His cellmate said he had been complaining about a dog in his dreams. Cause of death was inconclusive. Perhaps that's how the Dog finally gets the victims that escape - through their dreams. I don't know. All my secrets I've revealed. They are all out there.

Except for one. One secret waiting to be found. And yet, I have never seen the Dog.

I wonder why.