The Krampus Organization

The Senior Agent

You glance around the living room, biting your lip as you look over the walls.

It was okay, but it just wasn't... enough.

You turn and dig into the huge cardboard box, pushing things aside and unstacking boxes to see what all you had available to you.

With a little giggle of glee, you pull out what you'd been looking for and immediately hop onto the stepladder, carefully placing the item along a pre-ordained path along the wall. Afterward, you dismount the ladder and look back around.

With another childish giggle, you clap your hands.

The garland shimmered and sparkled, accenting the lights you'd hung previously, and added the final touches to the living room. It felt like a Christmas fairyland... which was exactly what you'd wanted.

This was your favorite time of year. All your friends tended to avoid you during the holiday season, as you would rope them into some form of decorating or seasonal activity. They swore up and down that you were bitten by a Christmas bug the moment Thanksgiving was over. You couldn't really deny it; you honestly loved this time of year.

It was a dear tradition for you; you'd always had a magical Christmas when your family had come together, and you did your best to keep that feeling alive whenever you could now that you lived on your own. You annoyed some folks along the way, sure, and the neighbor's kid tended to pull pranks on you as you decorated outdoors, but it was all in good fun.

After all, it was Christmas!

You happily turn on the television and flip through the channels until you find a station playing one of your favorite movies. Mouthing the script line for line, you head into the kitchen to make some hot cocoa.

With extra marshmallows and a candy cane, of course.

After a few hours of your normal seasonal movie marathon, you yawn enormously; it seemed it was time for bed. Glancing at the clock, you notice that it was already after midnight.

You really needed to head to bed if Santa was going to visit, you think to yourself with a smile.

You take your mug into the kitchen and set it in the sink for the morning, plating up a handful of homemade cookies and setting them by the tree with a small carton of milk with a sign: "for Santa".

You make a quick circuit of your house, turning off most of the lights and such, only leaving on the tree and one strand that ran up the stairs, as well as those outside.

You yawn again, suddenly acutely aware of how tired you were, and happily head up the stairs to bed, dodging over the loose floorboard in the hall as you went.

You really needed to fix that one day.

But for now, you snuggle under the covers and quickly slip into sugarplum dreams.

===

At some point in the night, you turn over, blinking drowsily, and look at the clock.

16:65am.

You stare, not really comprehending what you were seeing. You rub your eyes and look again.

16:65am.

You sit up, staring at the clock in disbelief. What the heck?

A sound catches your ear, and you freeze solid, straining to hear.

It comes again, and you twitch slightly: a clatter.

Thoroughly unnerved, you glance at the clock again before slipping out of bed, listening further as more clattering drifts to your ears. Was there somebody in your house? A burgler, maybe? You step toward the door of your room, only to hear another entirely different sound: