"It extended six triple-hinged, skeletal legs, and moved sideways, crab-like, towards the couch"

By Martin Delaney

“Okay kids, you better to go to sleep now, otherwise Santa won’t come - you know the rules” said the woman.

“Oh, Mom, just a bit longer, please?”

She turned to look at Dad, who was standing next to her, in the doorway of the kids’ bedroom; they’d already discussed this downstairs. Dad spoke.

“Now, you know what we agreed, you have to be tucked in and lights off before midnight; and it’s nearly midnight now - you’ll be getting up for Christmas in a few hours, anyway, won’t you?”

“Aw, okay”, the kids replied in unison, wriggling in their beds, excited minds full of wonder about what Santa would bring - for they still believed in that benevolent gentleman. Mom switched off the bedroom light and left the door ajar, so some light from the hallway filtered in.

As the parents made their way downstairs, they could hear the kids whispering excitedly.

“Hm, didn’t take them long to start chattering again.” said Dad.

“You can hardly blame them, darling, it’s Christmas Eve after all.”

“True enough, sweetheart. Well, let’s leave them to it, and treat ourselves to a glass of wine. You never know, if we have two glasses, we might get off to sleep before the kids do.” They both laughed, appreciating that this was quite likely.

The living room was spacious, though they were not a particularly well-off family. House prices had soared since they purchased the place, early in their marriage; what they’d paid ten years ago seemed like a bargain, in retrospect. The house suited them - a fair-sized property, cheaply furnished, big garden at the back, decent lawn at the front, a garage that usually served as a bicycle repository, and occasionally berthed a car. The house had two storeys, an attic, and a chimney, opening out to a fireplace that they had never used for anything other than to pile up toys. They had no plans to move on, at least until the kids grew up. They weren’t really sure what would happen beyond that; the main thing was they were looking forward to some long-awaited couple-time.

Eventually, tiredness overcame even the excitement of Christmas Eve, and the children fell silent; not long after that, the wine had the predicted effect on Mom and Dad - they didn’t even make it to bed, lying tangled on the couch, warm and content. The TV was still on, quietly, and ‘Night Of The Living Dead’ was playing out, the original black and white version. They loved horror movies, had bonded over this in their early days, and watching this particular zombie story had become a seasonal tradition, as the weeks between halloween and Christmas became a montage of slashers, zombies, and singing Santas.

Outside, the street was still, Christmas decorations on every house, casting their glow over pavements and lawns. A touch of snow would have completed the picture, but there was none forecast. There hadn't been any sign of cars or pedestrians for around half an hour, and so it was that the visitor chose to arrive. The air above the house took on a barely noticeable shimmer, as a white mist - or maybe, a cloud - with a luminous core formed, gradually settling over the chimney and the tiled roof, where the attic was, with the broken chairs, the kids’ old toys, boxes of magazines, and grandmother’s framed photos (on Dad’s side of the family), which they didn’t want, but couldn’t possibly dispose of.

The mist-cloud was not a freak weather phenomenon; it was more like a container, or a means of concealment, or both of those things. Anybody peering into it closely enough would see nine identical withered forms, each one a mummified shadow of a four-legged creature, with an elaborate antenna array on its head. Although no longer sentient in any rational way, each creature was somehow still animated, ready to be put to work - in this case, attached by a system of rods, cables, and hoses filled with an off-white liquid, pulling behind them what could best be described as a capsule, its smooth metallic surface contrasting with the organic horrors of the creatures themselves.

A hatch in the belly of the capsule opened, and something red and alive emerged, and dropped to the roof. Even though it had a certain bulk, it slid easily down the chimney, landed in silence, and unfolded itself, while negotiating the bric-a-brac that had accumulated in and around the fireplace over the years.

The intruder paused on the tatty woven rug in the centre of the living room, red skin shimmering in the glow of the TV screen on one side, and the christmas tree lights on the other, small head upturned, tilted to one side. There was no urgency, it had performed this task many times, on this world, and on others, sometimes in other dimensions. It detected body heat and subtle movements coming from across the room, thus locating the sleeping parents. It extended six triple-hinged, skeletal legs, and moved sideways, crab-like, towards the couch, one leg snagging briefly on the threadbare rug. No emotion, no haste, simply doing what it was required to do. There was an aperture at the lower front of its head, what would perhaps correspond to a mouth, and it positioned this over Mom’s sleeping form. A sticky white fluid emitted from the aperture, and, guided by the intruder’s front legs, it was teased out slowly, rather like candy floss, binding Mom entirely, until only the top of her head, with a glimpse of her dark hair, was visible. She remained still and asleep through this, so slow and subtle was the process. Through his dreams, Dad felt something stir, and half-opened his eyes, but while he was still trying to determine if he was awake or asleep, he in turn was in a shroud of his own. The uninvited guest was ancient, following and instructions it was given centuries ago, performing tasks that had no memory of origin. The intruder searched the rest of the ground floor, but all was still. Superfluous fluid gathered at the bottom of the intruder’s head, forming an inverted white point, from which it dripped to the floor.

The intruder climbed the stairs, fluid still falling, leaving a trail that no-one was there to follow. It entered the children’s room, and halted, listening to their regular breathing, understanding that they slept. A leg searched briefly under the abdomen, the tip of the limb disappearing into a dried sac made of the same fluid that the intruder dispensed so readily. It withdrew a collection of objects, one at a time, individually wrapped in the same white material, and placed them carefully at the end of each bed, near the sleeping children’s feet. What these offerings signified, nobody can say, although their forms remained visible through the bindings. The first was a mummified cat, which had been collected in the street outside. Following that unfortunate feline came a small bundle of —books - popular classics and romantic fiction - with a hand-written note on them saying ‘Free - help yourself’; a child’s play kitchen, moulded in brightly coloured plastic, including a little three-legged stool, of the same material, and finally, an empty two litre cider bottle, gathered from either the sidewalk, discarded by a careless teenage drinker, or taken from a conscientiously maintained recycling bin - it didn’t matter which.

Having distributed this strange collection of items, the intruder approached each child in turn, and enfolded them in the white gauze of slumber, as they joined Mom and Dad. After this, the house was perfectly still, locked down, devoid of human activity.

There had been no haste in any of this. There was no need - unlimited time was available; each excursion in the capsule began at approximately the same point in space-time. The intruder opened the bedroom window, sliding it upwards, clambering out smoothly, scaling effortlessly up to the roof, then into the artificial cloud, and finally, into the capsule. The vehicle required an immense amount of power to function, and as it readied itself to move, as it charged the nine creatures that drew it behind them, all power was drained from the house below. Later, it would draw even more power - perhaps an entire town - to escape the planet entirely, but tonight there was still much to do.

All the way down the street, the house lights blinked out, one by one by one, in slow succession.

THE END

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