Jingle Bell Rock

The surround sound system plays Christmas music throughout the whole house. Jake and Sarah are hosting a large party on Christmas Eve in their new home, which they just constructed. They moved to the country, far away from friends and family, to escape the city. After obtaining loans, they found someone who put up their dream farmhouse. They invited old and new friends to a Christmas and housewarming party. They both started working new jobs when they moved out of the city and made some new friends as well.

"Isn't this amazing?" Sarah whispers into Jake's ear as she hugs and kisses him in the kitchen. He looks around and takes in the moment.

"Our house is a bit packed!" he says and laughs. It's crazy how many people showed up." Their families showed up, bringing food, gifts, and drinks. Old friends arrived, bringing the party with them, and their new friends from work seemed to fit in. It was a struggle to get to this point in their lives: making a big move like this, switching jobs, having a new home built, and now they are considering trying to have a baby.

Jake gives her a big squeeze and kisses Sarah on the top of her head. "I love you. I'm going to say hi to some people. I'll see you in a bit." Sarah smacks Jake on the but and giggles as he walks away.

"Hey Sarah!" a voice calls, "Come take some candy cane shots with us!" It's one of Sarah's new coworkers.

"You don't have to tell me twice!" Sarah responds. She meets up with her coworker and a couple of other girls from her new job, and they hand her a shot glass with white liquor inside and crushed candy cane on the rim.

"Bottoms up!" her coworker says, and the girls all take the shot. Sarah's face winces due to the strong combination of peppermint and liquor, and she exhales a long breath. "I guess I won't have to worry about being caught under the mistletoe after drinking one of those things," Sarah says, and the girls all laugh. "I have to go make my rounds and say hi to some people. I'll see you girls in a bit!"

Sarah's friend laughs and responds, "Come find us when you're ready for another! You know where we will be!" The girls laugh in unison as Sarah makes her way from the kitchen into the dining room, where an intense game of beer-pong is underway. Some of the players, adorned with fake Santa beards, toss a ping-pong ball into the other team's cups from across the table.

She made her way through the crowd and entered the living room. Looking around the room, she saw people sitting on the sectional couch, deep in conversation, laughing and talking over the music. I knew we should have bought more chairs. A few couples were dancing and enjoying themselves. Clearly, they had plenty of booze-filled egg nogs, but hey, who's judging?

"Sup bitch?" Sarah hears from behind her. A large smile spreads across her face, and she turns around to see her older sister, Jessica. "Hi!" Sarah replies and gives her sister a tight hug. "I didn't think you would be able to make it."

"Well, I'm single on the holidays and knew there would be free booze, so where else would I be?" They both laugh and hug once more. "Well, let's grab a candy cane shot and get the real party started." Jessica smiles and laces her arm around Sarah's, and Sarah leads her into the kitchen for a drink.

A little while later, Jake was heard over the surround sound. "Sorry to interrupt everyone, but for everyone participating in the Yankee swap, we're going to do it in just a few minutes, so make sure your drinks are full!."

Sarah grabs her sister, "Come on!"

"I didn't bring a gift," She replies.

"That's okay. I put a few extras in the pile in case people didn't bring anything and still wanted to play. There will be enough."

An equal mix of people chooses to participate in the Yankee swap and not. That beer-pong game has gotten quite intense. They are using our whiteboard calendar to keep track of all the winners. Everyone settles into the living room. Guests squeeze onto the sectional couch, and some sit on the floor. Jake stands and speaks to the group, "Alright, everybody, here's how it goes. Each player will pick a number from the hat. There is one number for each person. Each person gets a turn to pick any gift in the pile according to which number you have. After you pick a gift, you show it to the group. The person who goes after picks a gift and gets to unwrap it or swap it for a gift that has already been unwrapped. This goes on until everyone opens a gift, and in the end, whoever unwrapped the first gift gets to either keep their gift or swap it with anyone else. Any questions?" One of Jake's friends yells, "Let's go!" then proceeds to hold up a shot glass for everyone to see, then chugs it back. The group laughs in response.

Jake walks around the group with the hat, handing out the numbers. He gets to Sarah and holds the hat out, smiling at her. Sarah reaches into the hat and pulls out her number—a piece of torn paper with the number 15. "Alright, that's not bad! I got last! Now I get to steal whichever gift I want!" Sarah says aloud. The others laugh and finish picking numbers out of the hat.

The guests open the gifts one after the other, which is an absolute blast. The rule was that all gifts must be twenty-five dollars or under. Some gifts are practical, and some are just outright ridiculous. One person got a box of different hot sauces; I'm definitely stealing that, Sarah thinks. My sister opened her gift, and it was a blow-up sex doll. The group laughed, and Jake's friend from earlier laughed the hardest; it was probably the gift he had bought. "Oh great," she says, rolling her eyes.

Sarah's turn arrives, and two presents remain. "Huh, that's strange," Jake says. "There shouldn't be any leftover presents. Did anyone miss a turn?" He asks. Sarah interjects, "No, I put a couple extra gifts in there in case someone wants to play or forgot a gift."

"Oh, well, did you put both the gifts there?"

"No, just one of them is mine," Sarah says as she stands up. She walks over to the large box that wasn't hers. Tempered to steal a gift from somebody else, she looks back at the box. The box isn't heavy, and the wrapping paper looks like it was wrapped by a professional. Others hold out gifts that they don't want and joke around about exchanging them for what may be another gag gift. Sarah makes up her mind, "Fuck it," she says and tears the wrapping paper. A brown unmarked box is underneath the wrapping paper. She opens up the top and looks inside.

Sarah screams at the top of her lungs and throws the box to the floor away from her. It makes a thump on the carpeted floor, "What the actual fuck! Who brought that? Jake!"

The crowd is silent; even the beer-pong players stop their game to investigate the commotion. Jake walks over to the box. "Jesus, Sarah, what is it?" He looks into the box. What the, Okay, who brought this?"

One of the girls Sarah works with asks, "What is it you guys?"

"It's a fucking dead cat!" Jake answers back. "Who the fuck did this?"

The group spoke in low voices, suddenly becoming suspicious of one another. Then, people started saying which gifts they brought to clear up any confusion. One guy in the corner of the room, sitting on the floor, was silent by himself. He was the only one who participated in the Yankee swap who kept quiet about which gift he brought.

"Who are you? Jake, is this one of your new coworkers?" Sarah asks, "Did you wrap a dead cat in a fucking box to give as a gift."

"No, I thought you knew him," Jake snaps back.

With great speed, the man leaped from a sitting to a standing position, causing people to jump back, and some of the girls reflexively screamed. As the guests scrambled to make sense of the chaos, the stranger changed form. His face twisted, his eyes red like Christmas tree lights, and his fingers long and pointy like stalactites.

"Your cheer and joy have called to me." His voice is deep and guttural. "I feed on turning your joy into fear."

The lights flicker, plunging the room into intermittent darkness. When they return, one guest is missing, their scream echoing faintly. Panic erupts. People claw at the doors and windows, but the house won't let them leave. Locks are jammed, and the windows shimmer as if frozen solid.

Jake grabs Sarah's hand, pulling her into the kitchen. "We have to get out. There has to be another way." The warmth of their earlier happiness is now a distant memory. They tried the back door, but it was sealed shut, and frost was creeping up the glass.

The stranger's laughter echoes through the house. Jingle bell, Jingle bell, Jingle bell rock is heard overhead from the surround sound, growing louder and more distorted. Guests in the other room cry out as ornaments explode, showering them with shrapnel.

Sarah's eyes dart toward the living room. People scramble around the house, searching for an exit. The stranger has moved to another part of the house. The lights flicker off and on, and screams grow louder. Sarah notices the box with the dead cat still lying where she threw it. The box glows faintly, pulsing like a heartbeat. She tugs Jake toward it.

"The box... it's doing something," she yells to him. They crouch by the box, some oblivious to it because they are overwhelmed by fear. Sarah carefully lifts the lid of the box open again, her hands shaking beyond control. Beneath the cat's body is something she didn't notice before: an old tarnished Christmas ornament- a glass sphere cracked down the center. Inside the sphere, a tiny shadow swirls, alive and writhing.

Jake picks up a card from the box. The writing is jagged and uneven.

"You built your home where it does not belong."

Sarah stares at the words, her voice trembling. "What does it mean? Where does it belong? Jake, what is this?"

Jake's expression hardens as he remembers something. "The land. Sarah, remember what the builder said? The farmer who sold us the property said no one wanted it. Locals thought it was cursed." He tries to swallow, but his mouth is dry. We didn't believe him."

The lights flicker off and back on, and the stranger towers over Sarah, Jake, and the wounded in the room. He let out a bone-chilling laugh: "You built your happiness upon a graveyard of sorrow. And now, it comes for you."

The room's temperature begins to plummet, and the house vibrates. Desperately, Sarah grabs the glowing ornament from the box and holds it up. She spots the fireplace, the fire still going despite everything else.

The stranger's glowing eyes fixate on her. His grin widens, revealing sharp, jagged teeth. He stretches out a clawed hand. "Break it," he growls. "Do it, and all will be undone. Free yourselves."

Sarah looks back at Jake, snatches the ornament from the box, and hurls it as hard as she can into the fire. Flames burst from the hearth into a blinding light, and the room plunges into total darkness. Sarah feels herself falling, and she screams, but no sound comes out—no noise at all, just a soundless void. She makes an impact into soft, cold snow.

She is lying in the snow outside the house when her eyes open. The fridged air burns her lungs as she sits up, dazed. The home sits before her, dark and silent. Around her, the yard is empty.

"Jake?" she calls out weakly, her voice trembling. "Jake!" she strains her throat, but her voice does not grow much louder.

There was no answer. The guests had vanished without a trace. Her breathing became rapid, the steam from her breath escaping into the air. She noticed something glinting in the snow beside her. It was the metal cap of the shattered ornament. She picked it up with her frozen, numb fingers and turned it over.

"This land was never yours. Leave or join the others."

Her heart pounds as she looks back at the house. Deep inside, she hears faint strains of "Jingle Bell Rock," warped and distorted. Something moves in one of the upstairs windows—a flicker of a shadow watching her before it disappears.

The snow begins to fall harder, and Sarah stumbles to her feet. She turned away from the house and started to run toward the road. The faint music follows her, growing quieter with each step until the darkness swallows her whole.