It was Christmas Eve. Penny had just finished washing the dishes from her family’s annual Christmas dinner, consisting of a plump seasoned turkey and creamy mashed potatoes. Bloated and drowsy from stuffing her face, Penny lugged her legs up the stairs, intent on at least starting on the heaping amount of holiday homework she had been putting off. After wishing her parents good night, she headed to her room.

10 minutes into her homework efforts, Penny’s little sister Jill burst into her room, waking her up from her daze.

“Penny! Penny!” Jill cried, out of breath from running up the stairs. “Santa’s coming, Santa’s coming tonight!” Penny smiled, shaking her head in amusement.

“He sure is, Jill,” she laughed.

“You wanna help make cookies for him and his reindeer?” piped Jill excitedly. Look at her, Penny thought. How could I say no to those puppy dog eyes?

“Sure thing, Jill. But we need to be quiet, because Mom and Dad are asleep.”

“Yaaayyyy!”

Jill stomped away happily. Penny chuckled to herself. It wasn’t like she was getting anything done anyways.

Penny and Jill spent the next hour baking cookies and setting up treats for Santa. By the end of it, they were both covered in flour and cookie dough, which Jill quickly licked up. Jill merrily set out the treats, almost dropping a plate on the floor. Good thing Penny was a ninja, and was able to catch it before it smashed into a million pieces.

After finally getting Jill to bed, which took a lot of convincing and several reminders of Santa’s “nice list”, Penny was able to get back to her homework. Look at me, Penny thought. It’s Christmas Eve and I’m sitting at my desk doing homework. How lame am I?

Dozing on and off, Penny was able to get through half of her chemistry worksheet and three quarters of her english project. Good enough, she concluded, after she smacked her head on her binder from falling asleep for the second time.

Too lazy to brush her teeth, Penny switched off her light and hopped into bed. Just as she was about to doze off, her window slammed open, the cold winter air bursting through and finding Penny’s face. Disgruntled, Penny got up to close the window. Then, she heard a sound. It was a faint sound. Penny strained to hear what it was. It sounded muffled and chaotic.

Unable to identify the source of the noise, Penny called out, “Jill?”

Nothing. But the noise had momentarily stopped at the sound of her voice, followed by a low grunt.

Penny felt a shiver run down her spine. Someone was in the house.

After a moment of fear, Penny loosened up, feeling silly for getting scared so easily. Maybe Santa came! she thought humorously. It was probably her dad on one of his midnight “snack attacks”, as Penny liked to call them. I guess I could go for some hot chocolate, Penny thought to herself, suddenly not tired anymore.

She shuffled downstairs towards the kitchen. The lights were all off. Weird.

“Dad?” she called. To her surprise, all that she heard back was a low huff. No, a growl. Something’s definitely wrong here.

Before she could take another step, a bag was shoved over her head and Penny was grabbed by 2 strong arms. She tried to scream, but her voice didn’t seem to work. A loud thud followed by a deafening silence led Penny to conclude that she had been hit with something hard. The pain started to set in after the immediate shock. She fell unconscious.

Penny awoke to the sickening smell of chocolate chip cookies. She blinked her eyes open. As her vision started to come into focus, Penny felt a throbbing pain in the back of her head and felt a big lump forming. She looked down, only to find thick black ropes constraining her limbs and chest. There was a gag around her mouth, which was dry and sticky from the humid temperature of the small room she was in. She struggled to move, but she was trapped. Her eyes fell upon a heavy old man. He had thinning dead hair and a look of fervor in his yellow-tinted eyes. He was foaming at the mouth.

What the…

Penny frantically scrambled to recollect her thoughts. Who was this man? What had happened? What hit her? All these questions, no answers.

“Surpriiisse, little girlll,” the suddenly ominous stranger drawled. “You’ve been veeerry naughty this yeeeaarr.”

Penny wanted to scream. What was happening?

The greasy stranger cackled obnoxiously and slipped his hand into his pocket.

“Are you scared, Penny?” he whispered in a low voice, his head cocking eerily to the side.

Unable to move, Penny watched in horror. As the strange man crawled closer and closer to her, a pungent odor wafted into Penny’s nostrils, causing her to gag. She wanted to throw up. She could feel blood dripping from her wound in her head.

The man revealed what was in his pocket. It was a sharp dagger. Despite being in the hands of a disgusting being caked in dirt, the knife shimmered cleanly in the dim light.

The stranger licked the blade, his smile growing wider, his glaring eyes never leaving Penny’s. This is it, she thought, petrified.

Suddenly, he pounced on her. Instead of plunging the dagger into her heart like she thought he would, he took the blade and slowly dragged it across her arm. It cut deeper and deeper until it reached the bone.

Penny wailed in agony. The man slowly sliced up her arm, scraping off chunks bit by bit. When he was finished with her arm, he moved to the other, and when he was finished with that one, he moved to her legs. He collected all her pieces in a large cauldron that was oozing from the tips. Soon, Penny was a bloody remnant of a body. She was about to pass out from the pain. Her world was spinning and her hands were clammy and cold. She did not dare to look down. She wondered how she was not already dead.

As if he could hear her thoughts, the creepy fat man snickered, “Well, I’m not finiiished with yooouu kiddooo.”

He set his cauldron inside the firepit and poured a red substance into it, mixing it with his bare, bloody hands. When he was finished, he dumped the solution into different vials. It was sickening to watch, but Penny couldn’t look away. She had no choice; she couldn’t move.

“No, no, I’m not going to consuuuumme this, sickooo,” he tittered. Then, he shouted, “Elves!”

All of a sudden, dozens of little creatures seemed to come out of nowhere. They surrounded the man, seemingly desperate for something.

“Drink up, darlings!” the revolting man shouted cheerfully, distributing the vials of the concoction to the elves. Penny was sure she was hallucinating. What was going on?

“Weeelll,” the man exclaimed. “Where else do you think they get all the energy for making millions of toys we need each year?”

The elves started gulping down the vials, chunks and all. They licked their lips, hungry for more.

Penny whimpered. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught an elf who had finished his drink turn his small body towards her. He looked thirsty. Thirsty for human blood.

He started to advance. He was followed by a dozen other little elves. Blood was dripping from their lips, and there were chunks of Penny in their teeth. Their eyes were locked on Penny.

Penny said her last prayers as the elves started closing in. She began to feel faint. The second she felt one of them on her, she died of fright. The elves devoured her body.