Flash Piece #2: Two Extra Presents

It was Christmas Eve.
Drew worked hard to stay awake. He waited through his parents' wine-fuzzed murmuring. He waited through the somnolent ticking of the kitty-cat clock on the wall. He was sure hours had passed. His eyes were heavy. His blankets were warm and his belly was full of cookies and hot-chocolate. He'd nearly fallen asleep when, finally, he was rewarded for his patience. Downstairs in the dark, he could hear something moving around. This was the big moment, what he'd planned for all year.

Santa.

He hopped out of bed, grabbing his camera from the nightstand. Down the hall to the staircase, swish-swish, in his footie-pajamas. From below, He could hear footsteps wandering around the living room. It sounded like Santa was trying to be quiet.

He reached the bottom and crept around the corner. A shadowy figure was slurping up the cookies and milk they'd left out. Drew raised his camera and pressed the shutter. There was a flash and the figure spun around.

It was not Santa.

Drew didn't know what it was.

It was tall and scaly, like a lizard, with two long, thin arms that hung from its rounded shoulders. Each hand had three fingers that were tipped with long, curved talons. Its head was the size and shape of a large pumpkin with one moist, glaring eye rolling in a loose socket. In place of a mouth it had a  raw, round hole gaping below its eye, ringed with luminous fronds, like a sea anemone, that twitched and pawed at the air. Hunched over, its hands brushing the ground, it regarded Drew with cold curiosity.

With a strange sense of detachment, Drew realized the basement door was open. No one had really spent much time down there. They'd only lived in the house for a couple of weeks, but his mother had warned his father to keep the door shut because Drew might fall into the old well that was down there. His father kept forgetting, though, and Drew suspected that's where this visitor had come from. A dweller in the rank, lightless depths beneath the house.

The thing made a slobbering sound as it shambled towards him, its arms held out greedily. Drew was too scared to scream as it reached for him. Its mouth-tentacles stretched out and caressed his cheeks. He closed his eyes and waited for the end . . .but it never came.

Suddenly, someone else was with them.

The creature was thrown violently across the room, making a horrible squealing noise. A loud voice cried out, "Ho, ho, ho!" and there was a flash of light that blinded Drew. Upstairs, his mother screamed, "What was that?" Then, everything went quiet. When his eyes cleared, he found himself alone in the room. He stood and looked around, noticing, as only a child could, that there were two extra presents under the tree.

He smiled. "Thanks Santa!" And with a yawn, Drew closed the basement door and went back to bed.