Somebody once said that war is hell, who ever said that was a genius and right on the money. Though, what one thing is and what it is supposed to be are completely different things. Christmas time, the time we all are supposed to be happy and celebrate family and the bliss of the whole giving is better then receiving concept. What a lame and pathetic concept for this season, not more then three inches beneath the surface of this worm infested world of the holiday lies the dark truth, if you do not take, you can not give. It sounds simple enough, but the greed of humanity is simple, yet horrifying at the same time. The adults know this greed well, they know that this season is to buy, to spend and battle over the items.

Underneath this facade of peace and goodwill towards men a figure has emerged that reigns as a terrible king that demands the worship of all children.

There is a commandment written down, among others listed here the most damaging one is the lie. Thou shall not lie is how it goes, or something close to that. The lie is the basis of the King of Christmas and his seat of power. Be good and he will give you what you always wanted is what the parents tell their children, and what they themselves were told by their own. His names are legion, and they are all known by every person on the planet. His name is Santa Claus and children believe in him more then they do in God, or any other being save maybe the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Children are naive and faithful for their invisible provider beyond most people can imagine.

Lies are the most dangerous things humanity can produce. Worse then death, worse then nuclear weapons, worse then any physical thing man can invent. Lies cover up history, truth, and the way things really are in the world. This crimson clad figure is no exception to the rule. Somebody lied, and the whole world believed it.


The past is a horrible thing to dig up but this is one story that must be told. I was a soldier in a conflict known only to me as The Great War. Me and my squad were lost, hopelessly lost after a battle, in the chaos we found ourselves in some northern wasteland, running for our lives and not really worrying about where we went or how we got there. It was cold and snowy. But the sky was clear and the ground was peaceful. There were no enemies out for our lives in the area so we could at least be happy about that little fact. It was nearly that time of the year, the mission was a secret strike to weaken the defenses of the enemy, it failed. There were six of us all together. Brothers whose bonds had been forged with the flames of war, and loss. We were trained to survive in the war, in any land and climate.

The six of us had walked for hours in the icy hell we found ourselves in. This journey was not important, the result is. It was the coming of night, the sun set low below the treeline and it was hard to see anything. But the night saved us, for it was when the sunlight faded we could see the firelight of the village. We had no idea if the place was filled with enemies or people just trying to keep out of the violence. Regardless we had little choice but to check it out.

It was easy getting there, and when we did it was the strangest sight we had ever seen. There was a large bonfire in the center of town, but nobody was there to sit by it. All the doors had strange symbols painted on them, in a white material that looked like paint from a distance, but we could not really be sure. The whole place was quiet and you could just feel the fear in the air. Something was very wrong here.

There was a soft voice behind us then. It told us to come inside, and to hurry. Not wanting to stay out in the cold any longer we didn't question the suggestion. Inside the little place was crowded, but not overly so. We noticed several drawings on the walls, children would have made these. We all introduced ourselves and I decided to ask about the pictures. The lady's head bowed and she went quiet.

Sinter klaas, took them. She said, and nothing more. The guys were dumbstruck. What in the world was that, the obvious question came about pretty fast. The lady shook her head and cleared things up in the best American version she could. It is the one you Americans call Santa Klaus, she said. The horror of this village was the same symbol beloved by children everywhere, this didn't make any sense so we decided to let it be.

Sleeping was a nightmare. Dreams and visions of half terrors in the night of war and monsters that could have represented war as we had known it to be then haunted us. I awoke to the rays of the sun glaring down upon my face and the others were also waking up. Looking out a window I saw the villagers standing in a circle around what remained of the bonfire. Three of the women were sobbing uncontrollably and it made no sense as to why.

We decided to investigate and leave the house, no breakfast of course. Some of the people had signs of depression, hate and terror on their faces. Cursing the name of their tormentor by the daylight and hiding from him in the dark. We needed to know the whole story, something was obviously wrong and we believed it to be the work of some enemy soldiers just being sadistic to this village, it made no sense but ghosts and goblins were something we just had no reason to believe in.

The story they had to tell was nothing short of chilling. They told us of an ancient evil that haunted the area, a monster they called Sinter Klaas who would swoop down from the sky and slither down chimneys to steal children that were considered by it to be evil. The problem was that all children were considered evil in its eyes and they all deserved to be stolen. The only true thing that was known was that once they were taken, the kids were never seen again.

The story was disturbing, but the cause, we figured would have had a more human source, and the reason was for child labor with out being detected by the mainstream battle at large. Being men of honor and courage, for the most part, we decided that together we would end this tragic tale.

It was then they told us that the thing lived deep in the trees, and it smelled like something sweet, like baking, it attracted people to their doom if they were lost. We were given some supplies, and we made sure we were ready to go. Its easy to be fearless against a threat that doesn't exist. We decided to go and be heroes to the people, heroes to the lost children stolen in the night. Despite the longing eyes and the tortured souls around us, we did our best not to laugh at their stories.

It was time to go. We went in the direction were were told to go in, six men moving into the forbidden woods to face something far older then the trees and perhaps even the rocks themselves. The ground seemed to not want us to go this way, as we did it became harder and harder to travel on, not to mention steeper. We were going up the side of some mountain it would seem.

Time became tricky and escaped us. We did not know how long we had been traveling this direction. It seemed like hours had past us by and there was no sign we knew where we were at. It was then the wind blew gently and just under the chilling and burning air was the smell of freshly baked bread. It smelled just like home, but better. It was perfect and easy to follow. How could something like this be bad, maybe it was a misunderstanding.

The smell sped up the rate of time and our perception of reality, we had been moving much faster now and it was not before long we came over a ridge and saw a sight I will never forget until I die, if I am lucky. There was a shack, no it was more of a shop. We could see faint outlines of decorations outlining the place like a ghost of an illusion. But we could see what the place was really made out of quite clearly. Human bones. The place was made out of countless human bones of varying sizes and shapes.

The blood ran cold and instantly we knew this was something else, something much darker then enemy soldiers. The darkest parts of our minds awakened with images of childhood fears long put to rest. A promise was not to be broken. None of us really wanted to go back anyways because we were liable to be shot due to running away, they didn't take that stuff lightly. We walked forward into the area and heard moaning coming from the back of the place. Instead of going straight into the place we circled around back.

There was a sleigh, and attached to it were eight horrible things, masses of flesh with mouths, and a pair of eyes. They didn't seem to notice us and upon closer inspection they were revealed to be conjoined parts of humans, twisted together with some unknown force. The ground they stood upon was covered in blood as they constantly dripped and oozed the stuff upon the snow. They were tethered not with harnesses and normal equipment, no they had black steel hooks in their sides and upon their backs would be a similar device leading straight to the sleigh. The wounds were bleeding, they were in constant pain on their hands and knees. Naked and mutilated flesh was nothing but suffering and frozen.

One of the men threw up, the others could look no longer at the horror before them. This monstrosity had to be put down, I lifted my rifle and fired at one of these things, the bullet pierced the flesh and blood sprayed out on to the ground. The gunshot seemed to attract no attention from anything else. The mangled being of flesh seemed to fall to the ground, dead. The others seemed to notice and their moans increased. Some of them even sounded like begging for the same thing, begging for death. We obliged.

The gunfire attracted no attention what so ever and just echoed through the trees, one of the men set fire to the sleigh. The black thing that was adorned with small human skulls burned brightly, green smoke billowed into the air. The monster was next. We had to go into the dark place.

The door was easily found and forced open. The inside of the place smelled like decay, the sick smell of a freezer turned off and not opened for along time. It was enough to make the eyes water and flesh want to betray the mind and leave. Despite this we were able to maintain ourselves and press on. The insides were a disaster, it was a complete mess and we could find nothing useful to tell us where we were. Although we did find some obviously clean children clothes here, just like what a kid from a small village would wear.

We found a door that lead down into a weird place. It was the only place to go down to so we decided to check it out. Now we know why there was no attention from the gunshots, the place down here was noisier then a windstorm in hell. There were children of all ages wearing what looked like to be long shrouds of human skin, more like a sack over their head with holes for arms. They were making what looked like to be toys. Some of the kids had bloody fingers from working so much. I closed my eyes for a moment to rush in. It seemed so easy but we had to know more so I signaled for my men to stay where they were.

It was then the whole room shook with the sound of enormous bells from somewhere in the darkness above. Then he appeared. The large man that must have been responsible for the whole thing. He appeared at the back of the shop on a dark throne. All the children cowered in terror of his appearance and dropped to their knees with their head bowed. The man, if you can call him that, was huge. Eight foot tall and a coat of blood red, his whole suit was blood red actually. He had a beard that was grey and long. Instead of being the jolly old man we were told. He was a monster of nothing but muscle and cruelty. In a scratchy voice he told the children how they were bad, and not deserving of presents. But little Timmy here was the worse. The man stood up and snapped his fingers.

Two creatures came into to the place and grabbed a child. The kid struggled to get free but it was no use. A great fire appeared behind the monster, he told the slaves this is what bad people deserved. Little Timmy was tossed into the fire, and disappeared. It was not a fire, but a passage way to somewhere else.

That was the last straw. I pulled the rifle to aim and fired. The little creature fell dead with a shot to its neck, no order was needed and soon the other was dead as well. Everybody turned and looked at us. And silence was there, for the first time it would seem.

The six of us decided that we could take this freak pretty easily, so we came down the stairs and stood there side by side. Guns in hand and at the ready. We offered the monster a deal, to let the kids go, or die. Of course there was no question of what was going to happen. More of those twisted creatures came out of the darkness. They were elves, skin was as pale as if they were already long dead. They had teeth and claws, but little else. To a child they would have been terrifying, to us nothing more then little monsters in the way.

Several little dead monsters later it was just us and that thing. He was obviously not used to fighting his own battles, or if he was it had been a very long time since he had done so. I decided that three of us should get the kids out, and the rest should take down the monster. Not waiting for any kind of a speech or monologue of what we were doing was right or wrong us three opened fire and the monster and it was largely ineffective, this was a problem we didn't see coming. And it laughed with an all too familiar catch phrase of "Ho Ho Ho".

There was only one chance it seemed to defeat the monster, I was not fast enough and my two companions decided to do it first. They rushed the monster in an attempt to push Sinter into the very flame passage it had summoned.

The first man had was taken by the throat with a powerful hand, with one swift motion was lifted up and into the mouth where his entire arm was bitten off with one bite. The blood sprayed all over the demon as it swallowed the flesh. No doubt it would have consumed all of the human flesh had it not been for the second man who was strong enough to pull the demon's leg into the fire.

It screamed and howled in massive amounts of pain, but the mystical flames would not let him go and seemed more then eager to swallow him up. It did so and the monster screamed all the way down. I lost two of my best friends that day as they went into the flames with him. Then it was all dark and quiet, for the most part. I heard more screaming deeper into the chamber, this wasn't over quite yet.

I went alone into the darkness and found a large door. Inside I found two very disturbing things. The first was a large glowing window, and on it seemed to be millions of images of people doing something different, some good, others bad. This monster must have been able to spy on the whole world. The second one was comatose women on steel tables, each with something moving inside of them, something that I didn't want to think about how it got there. Not all of them were alive, and they were half eaten by something much larger then one of those small elves or even the Sinter Klaas it self. I had no desire to stay here, there was no saving those who could not walk on their own power. I left the room and tossed my grenade belt inside after pulling the pins. I ran as fast as I could to the exit.

I made it out just as I turned to see the house and everything in it and associated with it, disappear into nothing. All the kids had gone too. It seemed that what ever evil power was keeping them here had dispersed. They all went home and the four of us remained there, not quite sure what we had seen or just done. Nobody would believe us.

On our way back to the village we got lost in the trees for what seemed again like hours. We never made it back to the place, instead we came to a road and shortly after that a convoy came through and we hitched a ride back to home base. We tried to tell people of out adventure, but the story was dismissed because the last village in these backwoods was decimated by the Black Plague, there was no village there to speak of.

Years later the four of us got back together, and went looking for this village. We never found it again. Its never made any sense to me of how any of this could have happened. Slowly but surely the passage of time got the better of us, and death did come. I am all that remains now and I see the images of the cruel monster and his false images.

Late at night in the late December nights I can hear bells faintly jingling upon my roof and laughter echoing into the night.


Lately children have been disappearing once more in increased frequency around the world. I am afraid that Santa Claus is truly coming to town and there is nothing anybody can do this time.