My story “Maggot Party” will be featured in Violent Advents: A Christmas Horror Anthology, coming out on December 12th, 2024. While I’m super thrilled to be part of the anthology and absolutely love how Maggot Party turned out, it’s not the first story I wrote for the anthology.
Maggot Party was actually a completely different story I had started writing months before I was asked to contribute to Violent Advents. For whatever reason, the story never found its legs and I’d abandoned it. That was until the Christmas theme of the anthology breathed new life into the work and it took off running.
Before I reworked it though, I began writing “Poor Things” which was written specifically for Violent Advents. I was tasked with writing a horror story dealing with a Christmas tree (the theme of the anthology) and decided to really go balls-to-the-wall. Having recently read (at the time) The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers and beaten the video game Fear and Hunger, I was super interested in creating a cosmic horror tale that delved into terrifying alternate dimensions and ancient Gods. So that’s what I set out to do!
Unfortunately, I hit the word limit pretty quickly and despite my best efforts, I wasn’t able to shave enough of the story down to shoehorn in an ending. I quickly lost passion for the project and moved on to Maggot Party. These things happen sometimes, no big deal.
Here’s the thing though, even though the following unfinished story is only a first draft, I still think it’s a pretty solid read. So I thought it would be fun to share a “failed” story to build up a little excitement for the anthology. The following story doesn’t have an actual ending, but you might enjoy trying to figure out where it was going to go had I completed it. Enjoy!
Poor Things
by Caleb James K.
In the Bailey home, Christmas neared with all the fan fair of a wet fart in church. This year had been unkind, and the holiday season proved a stark reminder of what the family lacked. While most kids would wake on Christmas morning to shiny gift-wrapped boxes, the Bailey kids knew disappointment was all they had to look forward to.
Their father, Martin “Tinny” Bailey, had prepared them over the past six months with his constant complaining about inflation and the state of the economy. Losing his job in October only confirmed that gifts were off the table this year; figuratively and literally since he’d sold the kitchen table at an impromptu yard sale. The sale had left their home naked and cold, and the kids often worried the house would be next to go.
One gloomy Sunday morning, little Mikey Bailey walked into the kitchen with hopes of breakfast, but instead, a countertop littered with empty beer cans and overdue bills greeted him. With hunger nagging, the ten-year-old boy opened the refrigerator to prepare his meal—something he now did often since his father had gotten into the habit of sleeping in late—but the only ingredients he could scrounge up were some near-empty condiment containers, expired milk, and a little bit of orange juice.
After raiding the pantry, poor Mikey realized he would have to eat a familiar yet undesirable meal: a mayonnaise and potato chip sandwich with a small glass of orange juice. Not ideal, but it was better than nothing. With some reluctance, he set to work.
“You better save me some.”
Mikey turned around to see his sister Tabitha glaring at him. Though only two years older, she stood some four inches taller. Since their mother had been admitted to the Hellington Psychiatric Institute the previous year—due to a nervous breakdown—a permanent scowl had been affixed to the young girl’s face. This gave her an aura of maturity beyond her years, but not in a good way as people tended to avoid her. Mikey was no exception.
“There’s only crumbs,” Mikey said meekly. He shook the flat potato chip bag. The remaining pieces rattled pathetically.
“Seriously!” Tabitha stamped her foot. The impact rocked the pantry door on its loose hinges. “We never have any food. I’m sick of it!”
Mikey nodded. He didn’t like his sister’s yelling, but he did agree.
“Where’s dad?”
“I think he’s still in bed—”
“Of course!” she yelled out. Rage lines creased her forehead. “All he does is sleep.”
With balled-up fists, she stormed out of the kitchen. Her mousey brown hair swayed side-to-side as she reached the staircase. The steps cried out in anguish as she stomped up toward their father’s bedroom. Not knowing what was going to happen, Mikey held his breath.
The sound of his father’s bedroom door smacking into the doorstop startled the boy. This can’t end well, he thought.
“Dad!” Tabitha’s voice screeched down the hallway like a haughty hawk. “There’s no food! Again.”
Though he listened intently, Mikey couldn’t hear his dad’s response, if the man had made one. Despite his faults, Martin was wise enough to avoid arguing with a teenage girl facing the onslaught of puberty. It’s a battle countless fathers have fought, but none have won. Entering the fray would end in a massacre, so Mikey wasn’t surprised when his groggy father stumbled into the kitchen rather than dealing with his daughter’s anger.
“Put that away,” Martin said as if he was speaking with a throatful of gravel. “We’re going out for breakfast.”
When their father had told them they were going out for breakfast, the made-to-order kiosk at a nearby gas station wasn’t quite what the kids had in mind. Still, the MTO’s mealy foodstuffs far surpassed the nutrient and flavor-deficient “breakfast” they would’ve had at home. For that, Mikey and Tabitha were elated. Their father, on the other hand, didn’t share the same enthusiasm as his kids.
As they sat and ate in the gas station’s small cafe area, Mikey looked at his father with genuine concern. “Hey, Dad, aren’t you going to eat anything?”
Martin looked back at his son. Worry showed in the boy’s eyes, but all this did was irritate the hungover man. “Nah.” He sipped his too-hot coffee and grimaced at its bitter burn. “Not hungry,” he said, his mind elsewhere.
Feeling small and unimportant, Mikey took a half-hearted bite out of an overly salty hash brown. Having gotten her way, Tabitha wolfed down a sausage and egg sandwich with a big smile. Her joviality didn’t last though. After eating, her mind wandered back to the holiday season. They should at least have a Christmas tree. It wasn’t fair. All her friends got to decorate their houses, but she couldn’t.
Tabitha understood why they weren’t getting gifts this year. Seeing her father’s money struggles firsthand made her almost sympathetic to the man, but there wasn’t a good reason why they couldn’t at least decorate. She knew they still had boxes of Christmas stuff in the attic. Her mother had been a hoarder of sorts, and even though their father had sold a lot of their belongings at the yard sale, he never touched the decorations in the attic; it was as if he was afraid to venture up there; like he thought he would catch the mental illness that had incapacitated his wife. So since they had the decorations, Tabitha figured, all they needed was a tree. Their father, at the very least, could get a stupid tree.
“Hey Dad,” Tabitha said in a soothing voice. She knew now that he was more awake, he wouldn’t let her get away with the same bossy attitude she’d given him earlier. Her next request required some tact. “Did you see the Christmas tree Jayden’s dad brought home last week?”
Martin sipped his coffee and stared out the window at the empty parking lot. White wisps of winter threatened a storm, but no accumulation had been forecasted for the weekend. So far, it had been a dry, drab December.
Tabitha cleared her throat and tried again “Dad?”
“Huh?” he grunted.
“Did you see the tree Jayden’s dad got them?”
With a glunch of disdain, Martin glared at his daughter through the slits of his eyes. It was as if a dark veil had been dropped over his face. “Yeah, I saw.”
Sensing his bubbling anger, Tabitha eased back and played it cool. “I bet he got ripped off. Jayden said he got it at Dorman’s Farm.”
As if her words tore the veil free, Martin’s attitude changed instantly; a smirk replaced his irritated aloofness. “Dorman’s is a scam,” he said as if he was too smart to ever overpay for a tree as Jayden’s dad had. “All those crappy Christmas tree farms are,” he said to drive home the point.
Unknowingly, he’d bitten the hook his clever daughter had cast. All Tabitha needed to do now was reel him in.
“That’s why my friend Jameson’s dad always gets their tree at City Mile Lumber.”
Martin knitted his brows. He didn’t remember ever hearing about this Jameson person before, but he wouldn’t let Tabitha know that. He’d already learned that lesson a few times.
“Oh yeah?”
Tabitha nodded emphatically. “They sell the weird-shaped ones real cheap. Sometimes they even give them away for free!”
The suddenness of her over-the-top enthusiasm elevated Martin’s mood. Until she mentioned it, he’d never considered buying a real tree. In the past, they’d always used a fake one. That was until last Christmas when his wife Linda had her breakdown. In a rage, she took the cheap plastic tree and—
“Do you think we could maybe get one?”
Tabitha’s voice pulled Martin out of his thoughts. “What?”
“Can we go to the lumber store and get a tree today?”
“Um.” Martin considered her question and couldn’t think of a reason not to. “Sure,” he relented. “But only if they have a cheap one.”
“Yay!” Tabitha cheered.
Mikey, who’d been watching quietly as his sister played their father like a master pianist manipulating the keys, beamed with excitement. He’d often wondered what it would be like to decorate a real tree. All of his friends—which there were only a few to speak of—also grew up with fake trees. In his short life, the boy never got to experience a proper Christmas.
“Hurry up,” Tabitha whispered, nudging his elbow.
Realizing they were waiting for him to finish eating, Mikey made quick work of his remaining food. When they walked outside, the bruised sky had turned a bilious yellow. It was looking to be a grim day.
Martin had no intention of dilly-dallying around the lumber store. With a stride that left the kids chasing the dust kicked up at his heels, he bombarded the first employee he saw.
“Hey.” Martin maneuvered around an endcap where a worker was on one knee stocking a shelf of nitrile-dipped gloves. “Christmas trees?”
Startled, the worker looked up. “What was that?”
“A tree. I’m looking for a Christmas tree.” Martin tapped his foot anxiously. “Something cheap. Free, if possible.”
“Oh.” With some effort, the worker—an older man with shaggy gray hair sticking out from the sides of a blue ball cap—stood up. “Well, it’s a bit late in the season,” he said in a slow, laid-back drawl. “I think we’re all out. I know we don’t have any on the floor.” He rubbed his white-stubbled chin. “There could be some misfits left in the yard though, if you wanna try your luck.” He nodded toward the automatic doors leading to the outdoor lumber yard.
“Thanks.”
Hurridly, Martin left the old man to his work and headed outside. Again, Mikey and Tabitha struggled to keep pace. Their father was on a mission and would not be hindered. Both kids rejoiced; they hadn’t seen him show such determination in a long time.
It wasn’t raining outside, but a fine, cold mist dampened the lumber yard, giving the various wood slabs, planks, and beams a darker, more natural look. The outdoor LED lights reflected off the moisture in the air creating an opaque fog. Martin stopped in the middle of the yard and squinted. Something near the far corner caught his eye.
“There!” he barked, pointing to a wooden pallet pressed up against the yard’s tall fence. “One left.”
Before the kids could figure out what their father was pointing to, he was off again. When they caught up with him, Martin was already pulling the pallet loose.
“Hey, Tabby. Grab this side.”
Someone had stood the pallet upright against the fence, and though barely visible, there was a tree sandwiched between the two. Tabitha had no idea how her father had spotted it through the fog.
“Hurry up. I’m getting wet here,” Martin barked.
Tabitha wasn’t strong enough to pick up the pallet, but she was able to help guide it as her father pushed it along the fence until he uncovered the tree.
“Ah, it’s perfect,” he announced with a victorious fist pump.
Though he hadn’t seen many Christmas trees in his young life, Mikey knew the semi-mangled Fraser fir clinging to the fence wasn’t good. Around six feet tall, the bent tree stood at eye level with his father. Mikey thought its gnarled branches and browning needles gave it the appearance of a sick old man hunched over.
Tabitha used her pant legs to wipe off the wet wood debris the pallet had left on her hands. When she looked up at the detestable tree, her earlier ardor vanished.
“We’re getting this one?” she said in a voice almost too quiet to hear.
Martin scowled. “It’s fine.” He unhooked some of the branches that were clutching onto the fence. “It’s either this or nothing.” He motioned to the empty pallets lining the ground.
Tabitha relented, “Okay.”
“Wait here,” he said as he stepped away from the tree. “I’m going to find someone to load it into my truck bed.”
The kids watched as a wall of fog swallowed their father on his way back into the lumber store. With no adults around, unease settled upon the two; something about the ill tree made them want to be as far away from it as possible.
“It’s so ugly,” Tabitha whispered.
Mikey scuffed his heels nervously against the concrete. “Yeah,” was all he could think to say.
“I’m going to tell Dad we don’t want—”
“That one,” Martin hollered from the lumber yard entrance.
The employee they’d talked to earlier was plodding along behind him. Once the older man caught sight of the tree, his entire demeanor changed. It was as if he’d stumbled upon a dead body.
“That one?” the employee said. “You sure?”
Martin’s earlier scowl deepened. “Unless you have a better one that I missed.”
The employee glanced at the empty pallets and frowned. “No, this looks to be the last one.” He hesitated to step near the tree like he was afraid the thing might bite. “I’ll call a few of the younger guys to load this up for you.”
“Thanks,” Martin said flatly. “By the way, how much is it?”
The employee contemplated the question for a moment. “No charge,” he finally said. “You’re doing us a favor by taking the thing off our hands.”
For the first time since entering the lumber store, Martin smiled. Wide.
It had been almost two weeks—Christmas was only a few days away—and the ugly tree sat undecorated in the corner of the living room. The kids detested the thing.
Having made no attempts at finding a job, Martin had taken to sitting on the couch where he would stare at it with a morbid fascination. Day in, day out. He barely ate. Never showered. Occasionally, he would give the kids his credit card to order a pizza, but most days they had to make do with the remaining canned goods they’d picked up at the food bank.
Since school let out for the holidays, Mikey hardly left his room. Tabitha was a bit more social, visiting her friends occasionally, but at night she often felt trapped by her father’s presence. He was changing. Whatever mental illness had claimed their mother, she now feared it was going to take him.
“It’s that tree,” Tabitha whispered to her brother.
Mikey studied his father from the safety of the kitchen’s entrance. “He hasn’t moved all day.”
“We should call someone.”
“Like who?”
Tabitha picked at dry skin on her elbow. “I don’t know. The cops?” she said, unsure of herself. The only phone in the house was their father’s cell phone, which he always carried in his pocket. “We would have to go next door to call.”
Mikey fought to push down the lump that was forming in his throat. He sniffled and worried his sister would get mad at him for crying, but to his surprise, she laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out.” She chewed her bottom lip for a moment. “After Christmas, we’ll get rid of the tree. Things should go back to normal then.”
This did little to ease the boy’s worries. It wasn’t like things were good before; though, they were a lot better than now.
“Look,” Mikey said suddenly. “What’s that?”
Her eyes followed the trajectory of his pointed finger. It led her to a bulbous black brick dangling off one of the tree’s twisted branches. The brick glistened with an otherworldly sheen.
“Stay here,” she said to her brother.
As his sister entered the living room, Mikey cowered behind the doorway. While his father’s comportment had been peculiar as of late, it was the insidious tree that filled the boy with dread. Since Martin first placed the cursed thing in the living room, the kids refused to go near it. This enraged their father. “Why the Hell did you make me get the fucking thing if you’re not gonna decorate it?” he had said when he realized they were avoiding it. “Fine, I’ll decorate the Goddam tree myself!”
He didn’t decorate it though. Instead, he moved the couch in front of the tree and took to watching it. Tabitha was first to notice the bizarre behavior, going as far as questioning the man, but that only yielded a grumbling response about how ungrateful his children were. Martin would say nothing more.
Now, weeks later, a single decoration adorned the tree.
“Hey, Dad.” Tabitha neared her father with slow, deliberate steps as if she were walking toward a wild animal. “Started decorating the tree, huh?”
Offsetting Martin’s pallid face, dark bags weighed down his eyes. If not for the delicate rising and falling of his chest, one might mistake the man for a corpse.
“Beautiful,” he rasped.
Tabitha jumped back. “What?”
“The void,” he wheezed, “calls for us,” the breath seeped from his lungs like air from a punctured innertube, “to become a part of it.”
Her father spoke, but the voice didn’t belong to him. It sounded ancient like it came from eons long past.
Tabitha didn’t understand—couldn’t understand—but the man sitting before her was now a vessel for an evil beyond the limits of this world. She saw it in his milky-white cadaver eyes; she smelled the sulfuric miasma; she tasted the decay clinging to the air. Her father was no more.
“D-D-Dad,” she said naively. “Wh-wh-what’s going on?”
Martin flashed a black-toothed Cheshire grin. “Look into the void!”
The sight of his rotten gums and coal-colored teeth was so unexpected that Tabitha couldn’t suppress a scream. Clapping a hand over her mouth, she rushed back to her brother’s side.
“We need to get help,” she said so quickly her words ran together. “Something’s seriously wrong with him.” Panicking, she looked back to the living room. To her relief, Martin hadn’t moved. “Come on.”
Tabitha took Mikey’s hand and led him upstairs as quietly as possible. Once they reached the second floor halfway, they rushed to Tabitha’s bedroom and locked the door behind them.
Doing his best not to cry, Mikey sat on Tabitha’s bed and hugged a pillow. “What are we gonna do?”
Tabitha paced back and forth. Since getting their father’s phone was out of the question, they would have to get help from their neighbor. She stopped at her bedroom window and studied the layout. There was no way to climb down to the backyard.
“Ugh,” she groaned. “We should’ve run over to the Jordan’s when we were downstairs. I’m stupid.” She smacked her forehead with an open palm. “So stupid.”
With a quivering voice, Mikey said, “The Jordans aren’t home. They asked Dad to keep an eye on their place. Remember?”
Tabitha’s face dropped. “That’s right. They’re spending Christmas with their family in Wisconsin.” She took to pacing the room again. “What about Jayden’s house?”
The gears in Mikey’s head began turning. Jayden was a bully and picked on Mikey and Tabitha whenever he could. His dad didn’t treat them much better.
“There isn’t anywhere else we can go?” he whimpered, knowing the next closest neighbor lived ten minutes away.
“I hate that jerk and his idiot dad as much as you do, but we don’t have a choice. You remember—” Her voice cracked unexpectedly and it took a moment to regain her composure. “You remember what mom did last Christmas, don’t you?”
Mikey blinked away a sudden influx of tears and nodded. He still had nightmares about his mom destroying the plastic tree while screaming, “It’s not right! Where’s the light? Where’s the light?” That terrible voice was never far from his thoughts.
Dad’s,” Tabitha swallowed hard, “acting like mom did before she freaked out.”
Though his memory of the previous year was hazy, Mikey could still clearly remember the look on his mother’s face during the days preceding the incident. Like their father, she’d developed an unhealthy obsession with the tree in the corner and sported the same twisted grin he wore now. Tabitha was right. They needed to get help before the inevitable happened.
“How do we get to Jayden’s without Dad seeing us?”
It was a good question with terrible implications. The only way to leave the house was through the living room.
“Okay,” Tabitha began, “I hate to say it, but I think we’ll have to—”
An abrupt knock outside the bedroom froze her stiff. Wide-eyed, the siblings looked at each other. They listened intently hoping it wasn’t what they thought it was, but then a faint tattoo sent them into a full-on panic; someone was casually tapping the rhythm of Jingle Bells against the door.
“Follow me,” Tabitha mouthed, motioning her head toward the closet.
“Time to go!” a demonic voice boomed from the other side of the door.
Frightened to the point of being immobile, Mikey stared at the door in horror as the tapping grew louder. When it turned violent and threatened to displace the hinges, Tabitha grabbed her brother’s arm and forced him to the closet.
Once inside, she opened a second door that led to the attic. Without delay, she pushed Mikey from behind, urging him up the dark narrow stairs. When she heard him reach the top, she shut the closet door which left her in absolute darkness. Feeling her way around, she entered the staircase, closed the door behind her, and then latched the deadbolt.
Having secured a modicum of safety, she flipped a switch on the wall. A Hanging light bulb flickered to dim life, revealing her brother kneeling on the top step. Dust motes flittered beneath the bulb giving the musky attic a decrepit air.
“We’re safe up here,” Tabitha whispered. “I locked the door.”
Mikey didn’t say anything. The attic was small, no bigger than his sister’s bedroom, yet it felt safe. The pounding on the bedroom door continued, though the sound was greatly muffled by the distance between them and it. Then it stopped.
Seeing the fear still in her brother’s eyes, Tabitha reassured him of their safety. “The attic door is really heavy and the lock is huge. Not even a monster could break through.”
Realizing she was right, the boy breathed a little easier.
“Oh, man,” Tabitha said. “What happened up here?”
Having focused all of his energy on the pounding, Mikey hadn’t noticed that the attic was in complete disarray: old boxes of clothes had been ripped open, yellowing papers were strewn about, and a box of Christmas decorations looked as if it had exploded.
Tabitha threw her hands up. “Holy crap.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Dad must’ve done this. But when?”
“I, I,” Mikey stuttered, “heard noises last night when you were taking a bath. They came from up here.”
The thought of her father—the raving lunatic she’d talked to earlier—having gone through her bedroom and up into the attic without her knowledge sent a shiver down her back. Not wanting to scare her brother more than he already was, she chose not to say anything.
“Hey, what’s that?” she said, pointing to a purple book that caught her eye. It was lying on the floor next to Mikey’s foot. She’d never seen it before.
Picking it up, the boy handed it to his sister. She flipped through its moldering pages and was amazed to find that it was a diary dating back at least 20 years. Squinting, Tabitha found the cursive handwriting to be nearly illegible, though she did recognize it as her mother’s. Only the last entry was clear, as it had been printed. It was dated December 24th of last year. Christmas Eve.
“The gateway,” Tabitha read aloud, “won’t open. It’s the wrong tree. Need the crying tree to enter the void—”
Turning the page over, Tabitha gasped. Scratched into the paper in rust-colored lines, was a crude drawing of a tree. The tree. The gnarled, abhorrent tree standing in their living room right now.
“We can’t stay in this house,” Tabitha announced.
Mikey’s eyes bulged. “You mean—”
“Yeah.” Tabitha shook her head. “We have to sneak out.”
The boy’s lip trembled. “I, I can’t.”
She took his hand and gave it a little squeeze. “I’ll go. You can stay up here, okay?”
“By myself?” The thought scared him as much as the idea of going downstairs with his insane father.
“It’ll be okay. Just lock the door as soon as I leave. Can you do that?”
He nodded. Tears stained his flushed cheeks.
“I’ll be back soon.”
“Promise?” he said with a tiny voice.
“I promise.”
With every downward step, the stairs groaned, “Look at me! I’m running away!” Tabitha’s nerves were frayed to nubs.
Opening her bedroom door had nearly caused a panic attack, but this was so much worse. She’d expected her father, or whatever was masquerading as her father, to be on the other side of the door. When she’d opened it to the empty hallway, she realized he could be anywhere.
Easing off the final step, she peeked around the banister to the living room. There, where the tree had been, the brick-like decoration had transformed into an obsidian obelisk the size of the wall. At its center, a gaping maw threatened to devour all who would dare enter.
“Now you see its glory!”
Before Tabitha could react, Martin grabbed her from behind and carried her toward the opening. She screamed and repeatedly slammed her heels against his shins, but he didn’t slow down.
“Stop,” she bellowed.
Nearing the obelisk, icy death called to her in an ancient tongue. Images of a desolate hellscape flashed in her mind. Tabitha’s eyeballs pulsed in their sockets and began rolling over white. Then she saw the true obelisk. Not the one in the room, but instead a monstrous monolith that towered over the wasteland flashing through her mind.
Plowing ahead all catawapus, Martin tripped over his feet and crashed against the wall. In trying to catch himself, he dropped Tabitha and her gaze broke free from the obelisk. As soon as the visual tether disconnected, her senses returned to normal and she scrambled to her feet. She only made it a few steps toward the exit when Martin’s bloated fingers dug into her wrists from behind.
“No! Leave me alone!”
“You can’t run from this, Tabby.” It was her mother’s voice.
Stunned, she turned and gaped at Martin. He held a sadistic grin. “MY SWEET DAUGHTER.”
This time, the voice came out in an unnatural harmony of three: Martin, her mother, and the ancient one. The sound terrified her. Tabitha, with all her strength, grabbed Martin”s arm and pulled. With surprising ease, his arm skin sloughed off like she’d pulled free a sweater sleeve. Holding the flesh wad, Tabitha shrieked.
“NOW, NOW,” Martin said with three voices. His raw, exposed arm muscles twitched in the gateway’s light. “DON’T FIGHT IT. THE DESOLATE ONE NEEDS A HOST.” He inched forward, forcing Tabitha closer to the gateway. “YOUR MOTHER CAME AROUND TOO SOON.” Ice crystals pelted Tabitha’s back. “YOUR FATHER ISN’T PURE.” Howling wind messed her hair. “THAT LEAVES YOU!”
Martin suddenly lunged forward. Tabitha dove to the side out of instinct. An explosive whirlwind blew through the living room, flipping the couch and launching the girl across the room to the stairs. A hideous scream bellowed from the gateway. Then the whirlwind shot back through with such force that it created a vacuum.
Taking hold of the banister, Tabitha held on as the gateway sucked up the couch and everything else in the living room. Her grip began to falter and right as the vacuum’s force peeled her fingertips from the smooth wood, a hand grabbed hers…
Caleb James K. 