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by J.S. Douglas
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Jessie
“Hi, guys, welcome to the Humbart Family channel! It’s Christmas Day, so you know things are about to get wacky here in Casa de la Humbart! If you want to see wacky pranks and funny antics, be sure to Like and Subscribe to watch our videos. They drop daily!”
Jessie stood in the stinking semi-darkness of the living room, her father’s voice booming down from the top of the stairs. White Christmas lights glowed on the fake tree, around the windows, and in the garlands coating the fireplace mantle. Fake pine scent floated through the air, mingling with an underlying smell of rot. Bile rose in the back of her throat whenever she took in a breath.
Halfway down the stairs, the red recording light of a camera glared at her. Down the hall to the right, another camera watched Jessie and her two brothers, Jaxson and Jace. Yet another angled toward them and the stockings on the left.
Surrounded by unblinking lenses, Jessie opened her mouth to say her lines. The lines she said every single year since their parents had become YouTube influencers and taken their kids with them.
“Daddy, is it time to open presents?” she called. She held perfectly still as her father continued their call-and-response.
“Not yet, little girl. Are your brothers with you?”
“Yes, Daddy,” the sixteen-year-old said. “Jaxy and Jacy are here.”
Jessie glanced at her brothers. Jaxson covered his nose with his right hand, his left clenched into a fist at his side. Jace stood straight-backed, his face a mask of perfect calm.
The overhead light above the staircase switched on, activating the studio lights above the siblings. White light glared down from every angle, giving the cameras a perfect view of the action to come.
“You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” blared across the living room’s surround sound speakers.
“Uh oh!” her father bellowed from above. “Sounds like trouble!”
Jessie heaved a breath, her pulse thudding in her ears. She glanced right, then left. No “Grinch.” But past Christmases had taught her that her mother hid somewhere downstairs, dressed in a green fur suit, giggling gleefully and ready to ruin the holiday. Jessie nodded to each brother in turn.
“Go time,” she murmured. Then, the next line in the tried-and-true script came to her lips.
“Oh no, who could that be?” she shouted over the music. She stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking innocent while her brothers fanned out. Jaxson, her Irish twin, moved to the door marked “Calm Down Corner.” A door that was supposed to remain locked at all times. A door that currently stood slightly agape, the deadbolt shot, keeping it from closing completely.
Jaxson
Jaxson positioned his body at an angle, hoping to block the door from sight. Touching the door was forbidden, so he couldn’t lean against it. Instead, he stood in front of it and tried to predict which direction his mom would come from.
Unhinged laughter floated into the living room from the right-hand hallway. He jerked in that direction, then took a deep breath and gagged at the stench of vomit and car air fresheners that permeated the living room. He tried a shallower breath.
Glancing to the left, Jaxson spotted little Jace in front of the stockings. His brother stood rigid, eyes ahead, smile plastered across his face. Jaxson tried to catch Jace’s eye, but Jace wouldn’t even give him a glance.
“Jessie, Jaxy, Jacey,” a menacing voice bellowed. “Where are you?”
Jaxson kept his head on a swivel. Was that movement on his right? He whipped his head in that direction.
“Have you been good girls and boys? Or have you been NAUGHTY?” a running figure screamed. A menacing mask covered the face. Jaxson knew it was his mom, but this was no Grinch face. Curved horns overhung the long, brown-furred mask, a wicked mouth slashed into the plastic. “Will Krampus have to put you in his bag?”
On cue, the music changed to an ominous heavy metal riff.
Jessie screamed, and Jaxson’s stomach did a backflip. His stomach felt heavy, his bladder full.
“It’s just Mom, it’s just Mom, it’s just Mom,” Jaxson whispered.
The figure grabbed his arm and pushed him toward his siblings, away from the door. Jaxson exchanged a glance with his sister. She stared at him with her deer-in-the-headlights eyes. Her glance flicked to the open Calm Down Corner door.
Fuck, she mouthed.
“No!” he shouted, letting some of the fear slip out. “We’ve been good.”
Jaxson glanced at Jace, standing with his heels against the hearth. If they got their parents to face the stockings, they wouldn’t see the door.
“I don’t think you haaaave!” his dad taunted, coming down the stairway. Jaxson looked up and saw the camera lens staring at him, unblinking, unforgiving.
“Krampus knows you have been naughty boys and girls, and you’re going to pay!”
The Krampus herded 15-year-old Jaxson into a huddle with Jace and ordered, “Come here, Jessie. You and Jaxy and Jacy are going to get the Christmas gifts you deserve.”
Jaxson watched as Jessie stepped toward them. She angled her body awkwardly, keeping her back to the living room camera and all eyes away from the door.
They’re gonna be pissed, thought Jaxson. She’s supposed to face the camera.
“The world will see what NAUGHTY CHILDREN you have been!” Krampus screeched, pushing Jaxson so his slipper-clad toes hit the stone hearth. A miasma of vomit stench slapped him in the face. Brown stains striped the three red stockings.
Krampus grabbed his brother Jace’s shirt, pulling him a stumbling step toward her. She pressed his face against her mask.
“Put your hand into your stocking and find out what Krampus got you for Christmas,” Krampus ordered Jace.
Jace
“No.” 10-year-old Jace gagged, staring into the eyeholes.
“Yes.” His father appeared behind Krampus, lifting his phone high over the kids’ heads.
“Please.” Tears ran down Jace’s face.
“Do it!” Krampus screamed.
Jace’s ears rang. Krampus spun him around and pushed, sending him stumbling up to the row of stockings pinned to the mantle.
The stockings changed every year, sometimes several times a year, when they did unboxings for different companies. They’d unboxed these two months ago. Some company that specialized in making personalizing items paid their parents to feature them this Christmas. Before tonight, the stockings were pretty standard, oversized red socks with white trim. Names stitched in swooping cursive identified which stocking belonged to whom.
Jace’s stocking hung at the end of the mantle. Discolored condensation beaded through the fabric, dribbles forming at the bottom. Splashes of something vomit-smelling dripped onto the gray stone hearth below, pooling into a nauseating puddle.
Jace locked his knees. Gray flooded his vision, crowding out the hearth, his sibling’s stockings, and even the glaring Christmas lights. The stocking dimmed. His ankles wobbled.
Snap
Something flicked his left arm hard. Jace’s knees unlocked, and he staggered. A warm arm wrapped around his waist, supporting him until he regained his balance. It slipped away.
Jace looked up to see Jaxson smiling down at him. Sweat rolled into his right eye, blurring the welcome vision for a moment.
“You got this, bro,” Jaxson whispered.
“YOU GOT THIS, BRO,” Krampus mocked.
Jace nodded. Breathing through his mouth, he lifted a shaking hand to the stocking. Clasping it between thumb and forefinger, he plucked it off the hook. The weight of the sloshing stocking pulled at his fingers. He pinched them tight and peeked inside. Brown and green vomit filled half of the large stocking. The stink of it stung his eyes. He turned his face away.
“Please,” he gagged.
“Put your hand in, you naughty boy,” the voice behind the Krampus mask growled. “Don’t worry, it’s yours. I collected it when you got sick earlier this year, and it’s been in the deep freeze ever since.”
“What?” Hot saliva flooded Jace’s mouth, the precursor to a retching fit.
Jaxson put his big hand on Jace’s shoulder.
Jace closed his tear-filled eyes and plunged his hand into the stocking.
Jessie
“Now,” Jessie screamed.
She whipped her own stocking off the mantle and upturned it over Krampus’s head. Stinking wetness spewed out.
Gagging sounds came from behind the mask as her mother screamed, “You’ll pay for this, you little shit!”
“Hannah, are you okay?” their dad demanded.
Jessie smooshed the stocking into her mother’s hair, making sure it dripped down her back. Next to her, Jaxson elbowed their dad in the face, then kicked his knees out from under him. The tall man who so often loomed over them crashed to the ground. Jaxson didn’t let up, slamming a slippered heel into their father’s nose again and again until blood spurted.
Jessie stared into the Krampus’s eye sockets and grinned.
“Why do you have to ruin everything?” their mother demanded.
Jace appeared behind the costumed woman and pointed at her knees with a vomit-soaked hand. He nodded. Jessie grabbed her mother’s shoulders, bracing herself against the rough fur of the costume. She lifted her leg and kicked the creature’s right knee just as Jace hit the left knee from behind.
Krampus collapsed.
Jessie tottered for a moment, then recovered her balance. Leaning down, she yanked the mask off her tormentor’s face. Her mother thrashed out an arm, grabbing Jessie’s leg with weak hands. Jessie kneeled, cocked her elbow, and smashed it into the woman’s nose once, then twice. She felt more than heard the cartilage crack, her arm going damp with blood and snot. Cotton filled her ears, muffling her mother’s screams.
Staggering to her feet, Jessie grabbed her mother’s hair with both hands and pulled. She looked up at Jaxson, and he followed suit with their dad. Together, they dragged the two adults toward the door of the Calm Down Corner.
“Get that door open,” Jessie panted. Jace stared at the white closet door, visibly shaking.
Jessie’s own stomach churned when she saw that cheerful sign with its yellow block letters.
Whenever a kid refused to go on camera or screwed up a Live or asked when they’d get to go back to school or mentioned that Jace was only born because their parents needed more content, they went to the Calm Down Corner for an unspecified period. It could be five minutes or five hours. All you knew when you went into the closet under the stairs was that it was dark and hot and cramped.
Jaxson dragged their father to the door. He yanked it open and turned, grabbing their father under the armpits. Jessie watched, her heart thumping into her throat as Jaxson backed up into the room, first disappearing into the darkness, their father’s body following him.
Jessie stared down at her mother’s bloodied face, her swollen nose turning puffy. She put her arms under her mom’s armpits, gritted her teeth, and followed Jaxson’s example.
The cramped space contained one rarely lit light bulb and an overflowing travel toilet meant for potty-training toddlers. The four of them crammed into the urine-scented space, barely able to move.
Once inside, Jessie dropped her mother’s shoulders, letting her head slam against the ground with a hollow thunk. Her mother moaned but didn’t move.
Jessie climbed over the woman and stood in the doorway, her hands twitching toward the door.
“Wait for Jaxson,” she told herself. “Jax…” she started. Then, her churning stomach and racing heart caught up with her. She folded in half and retched onto the hardwood floors. Wiping her mouth, she started to straighten up. A cold, slick hand gripped her ankle.
It yanked, sending her foot flying out from beneath her.
Jaxson
Bees filled Jaxson’s ears. Buzzing, buzzing.
“G-g-g-g-e-e-e-t-t-t o-o-o-u-u-u-t-t-t,” they told him.
They flew in front of his vision, blurring the world around him. Now that he stood at the far end of the Calm Down Corner, as he had for so many hours, day, years? of his youth, he couldn’t move past the gray static of the bees.
“Jax?” his dad’s blood-soaked voice seeped in past the bees.
“Yes, Dad?”
“Please, son.”
“Yes, Daddy?”
“Son, let us out.”
“Let me out, Daddy.”
Thump
The cloud of bees scattered long enough for Jaxson to see his sister fall, his mother crawling on top of her like some kind of hell-spawn. Something about the vision, the unreality of it, felt right. Jaxson was in the Calm Down Corner. He had been bad. Mommy was being bad. She was hurting Jessie. She would send him to the Calm Down Corner if he helped. But he was in the Calm Down Corner.
Jace appeared at the door, grabbing one of Jessie’s arms and pulling.
Jaxson moaned.
“Not Jacy,” he said. “Mommy, not Jacy.”
“You’ve been NAUGHTY,” their mother screamed.
The bees disbursed, leaving Jaxson alone with his father’s labored breathing and the scuffling fight that his siblings were losing.
Jaxson’s legs moved without him thinking. He had folded nearly double to fit in the closet, and now he stretched lower, knuckles almost touching his toes. His father let out an “Oof” as Jaxson stepped on his chest, then a tea kettle hiss as Jaxson’s heel came down on his balls.
The bees filled Jaxson’s ears, making it almost impossible for him to hear. He hunched over to the scuffle of parent and children.
“Stop hurting them,” his voice blurred by bees.
Then, as the bees cleared his throat, “Stop hurting them!”
His mother flipped onto her back, her feet and arms scrabbling over his brother and sister. She grinned. Snot and blood coated her teeth. Vomit turned her blonde hair into a stringy, greenish-brown mess.
Jaxson didn’t recognize the woman who had once sung lullabies as she pulled the cover snug under his chin at bedtime.
“You’re not my mother,” Jaxson told her. He lifted his arm and sliced it down with the side of his hand, catching her in the throat.
His mother collapsed, hands clawing at her neck.
Jaxson scooped up his sister and shoved her through the door. He grabbed his brother’s arms and yanked him out from under their mother.
Jaxson slammed the door shut.
Jace
The door rebounded off the shot deadbolt, opening slightly. A bloody hand dragged itself through the opening.
Jace stomped on it with his bare foot, but the hand gripped him and pulled.
Hitting the floor, Jace couldn’t breathe. His mouth flapped open and closed as his chest compressed tighter and tighter. The hand yanked his foot again, a wrist emerging from the gap between the door and the frame.
Air punctured Jace’s lungs, and pain burst along every air sac. Jace screamed.
Jessie
Jessie swung around, her head on a swivel and hands shaking as she stared at the vomit-slicked wood floor.
“Gotta find…” she started. Then she saw it. Her father’s cell phone gleamed black and sleek at the foot of the stairs. She scrabbled over to the phone, grabbed it, and scrambled back to her brother. Gripping the phone in her right hand, she used it to club her mother’s knuckles.
Whack, whack, whack, whack.
Finally, the hand jolted back, releasing Jace’s ankle.
Jessie dropped the phone. She pushed her brother out of the way and slammed the door against the hand. This time, she heard a satisfying crack and a scream from within.
Pulling herself up by the doorknob, she turned the deadbolt lock, retracting it. Then, she banged the door closed and clicked the deadbolt home.
She leaned against the door, grinning and panting.
“Got ‘em,” she declared.
Quiet seeped in. The door rattled against the lock. Jace sniffled. Jaxson’s breath hissed through clenched teeth.
Jessie leaned forward, pressing a hand to Jaxson’s chest. He didn’t move, still locked in his blank-faced post-Calm Down Corner posture. Jace stared up at her from the floor, tears streaking down his face.
Jessie straightened, brushing her hands against the damp fabric of her pajamas. An idea as bright and cheerful as Christmas morning struck her. She stretched a grin across her face.
“Let’s raid the fridge and then go upstairs and find the real presents.”
“Mom and Dad never give us presents, just unboxings,” Jace sniffed.
“Yeah, but I bet they bought each other presents,” Jessie winked, reaching down and helping Jace up.
“It stinks in here,” Jaxson whispered.
Jessie wrapped one arm around Jaxson and one around Jace. Heaviness filled her limbs as adrenaline seeped away. Pain pushed against her temples, and her knee wobbled, threatening to fail her. She ignored it all and tried on another grin for her brothers.
“Come on, there’s that Christmas feast breakfast board mom was saving for a shoot. Let’s go to the kitchen, open a window, wash up, and eat it ALL.”
Jace looked up at her, a small smile threatening to dry his tears.
“Really?” he asked.
“Really,” she nodded, squeezing her brothers.
The kids took a shuffling step toward the kitchen. The Calm Down Corner door thudded and rattled.
“The door will hold,” Jaxson whispered.
Jessie’s right shoulder locked up for a moment, reminding her of the time she’d dislocated it by running full force against the Calm Down Corner door. The lock hadn’t budged.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
The siblings stepped out of the studio lights and into the softly lit hallway. The red light of yet another camera glared at them as they walked.
Jaxson reached up and grabbed the camera, pushing it so it faced the ceiling. Jessie’s smile widened, genuine this time.
“This will be our best Christmas ever,” Jessie said.
Want another gripping story by J.S. Douglas? Read “Dysmenorrhea” in Horrific Scribes November 2025.