A Painted Christmas
| Published on Creepypasta.com | September 2010 |
|---|---|
| Length | 1,049 words · about 5 minutes to read |
| Story level | Short |
| Reader rating | 4.9/10 from 224 votes |
| Category | Christmas and Holidays |
Patrick Finn arrived home from his Christmas conquests, beating out the snowstorm by mere miles, mere minutes. He felt not only the foreboding presence of a hazardous blizzard, but also that of something else. Something darker. It felt as if it resonated not only within his soul, but also within the souls of those around hi, within the very ground itself. Patrick had never bothered to check, but he was sure that beneath the grass and soil of Winter Harbor, Maine, therein hungered a gaping mouth or a chasm yearning for the flesh of the innocent, and anchored to the physical world only by a desire to seem normal. It had not yet been appeased because the residents of Winter Harbor were all but innocent.
Patrick had moved to Winter Harbor hoping to escape the despondency and despair he had felt in his hometown, Belmont, Maine. So far these feelings had only amplified, magnified, by both the wintry death that he felt tiptoeing in the town’s midst and the lingering scent of paint that seemed to permeate every building in the city. It was as if the town was constantly being repainted in some sort of halfhearted attempt to cover something up. Still, he felt it necessary to stay, so as not to make matters worse for his wife, whom he barely saw anymore, and his son, who always seemed so distant. He and his wife were going through a rife time in their marriage and their son was feeling its effects. It was akin to what one may feel after a tumultuous earthquake. Patrick felt that he had to make it up to his son, so he went out and bought him the most expensive and extravagant thing he could his hands on this late in the shopping season, a brand new video game system. He had assured his son that, evne though he had acted out often this year, Santa would bring him something good. Throughout these charades, Patrick felt empty at the prospect of shipping for a boy that he knew nothing about, a boy whose existence was forgotten every so often.
On the Even of Christmas, Patrick arrived home before the snowstorm and quickly crept into the garage to wrap the present and place it under the tree. It was in this garage that he often felt abrupt changes, as if within its small space, it contained secrets beyond human comprehension. The musky smell of the old holiday decorations coupled with the omnipresent scent of fresh paint, varnish, and gasoline all seemed to meld into one personified force, whispering sweet nothings to Patrick as he exited his car. This caused him to shudder heavily, as if beset by a fit of delirium tremens. He shrugged off the dull headache and dry mouth before quickly and sloppily wrapping the gift. Following this, he slipped it under the tree and began to creep upstairs. He couldn’t help but grimace at the thought that he was as far from Santa as humanly possible.
As he reached the top of the landing, Patrick glanced over at the clock. It read 11:49. He stood there, as if to wait for some fleeting childhood feeling that may accompany the arrival of Christmas. It did not come, as he soon found. Nor did cheery music, nor the scent of evergreens and cookies. Just deafening silence and that damnable scent of paint. It was everywhere, he couldn’t escape it. The arrival of yet another disappointing Christmas struck Patrick like a blow to the face. He fell to his knees then subsequently onto his stomach. He couldn’t tell if he had passed out or not.
Suddenly, a loud sound in his son’s room jarred Patrick awake. He quickly got up and stumbled into the room. The popping sound he had heard made him wonder what made it, and when he finally found out, he was confused even further. A large, black humanoid, adorned with goat horns and a tongue that writhed like a snake, stood before him, clutching his son. Patrick stood dumbfounded, seemingly incapable of recognizing not only the creature, but anything else before him.
“What do you want?” Patrick asked. Innately, he knew that the creature wanted something.
The creature smiled, licking his lips.
“Thine tender fruit, not spoiled by the worms of new but by the tree that bore it… ripened not into ambrosia but a rotten, hollow core…”
Patrick stared at the creature. Sweat began to collection on his brow. He felt as if his brain itself had been lit afire. He couldn’t breathe.
“I… I can’t say I understand…” Patrick stammered out.
The creature smiled again.
“Not by love of a dying star can a a planet be adorned, but by the eruption of its most sacred peaks? I desire the treasures from which you hope to find salvation. The gift to your boy. It is a gift for me, now.”
Patrick couldn’t understand why the creature would want the game system, but he felt it necessary to give it up. He quickly bolted downstairs, grabbing the box and, clutching it tight, he sprinted back up to his son’s room. The creature, upon his arrival, thrust Patrick’s son to the floor and held out one long, beckoning hand. As Patrick handed over the present, he couldn’t help but feel as if he were Faust himself, exchanging an eternity for one single moment of gratification. The creature licked his lips once more and disappeared in the time it took Patrick to blink.
When he was sure he as alone, Patrick fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around his son. He expected a “thank you,” an “I love you,” something. He heard nothing. He looked down. He found that his son was withering away, becoming the very shadows that inhabited the night around him. Patrick knew at that moment that he was entirely alone, swallowed finally by the chasm beneath his feet. He stumbled to the garage before sitting down, embracing his solitude and his communion with the musky smell of paint that seemed to beckon invitingly.
Credit: Anonymous
This story was submitted to Creepypasta.com by a fellow reader. To submit your own creepypasta tale for consideration and publication to this site, visit our submissions page today.
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Who the hell wrote this shit?
That sucked.
HAHAHA little mother fucker wants an Xbox 360.
I kinda like the writing. Not a very good story though. 5/10
Keep trying, author. I see some potential.
Typos abound, nonsensical plot, and, as Jack said, filled to the brim with purple prose.
Ummm…. okay.
Okay, a few things.
1, Creepypasta is meant to be creepy. Having a weird creature appear does not make something creepy.
2, Long words do not sophisticated writing make.
3, Use a spellchecker. There weren\’t loads of errors, but there were enough to be annoying.
4, Look up the word \"rife\" in a dictionary. It doesn\’t mean what you think it means.
5, Next time, have your creepypasta make sense. Even if it\’s just creepy demonic illogical sense. The main character gives a demon his son\’s christmas present, which is somehow comparable to signing over one\’s soul, and so the son turns into shadows? I can kinda see the metaphor you\’re going for, but it just feels unnecessarily random.
so a guy has a house with fresh paint and then a demon comes and takes a nes and the guy’s son dies so then he sits in his garage and smells the fresh paint in his garage.
what the fuck
Everything except the last paragraph was decent, but good lord I couldn’t stand some of the terminology. It was like Lovecraft on his worst day ever.
Wow, that was really awful.
what is this i dont even…
That was awfull. 0/10
I’m only on the third paragraph but I have to stop and say that this is so purple you could paint Barney’s ass with it. @woomobile I sort of had the same reaction at first and closed the submission email, but for some reason it was lingering in my mind so I decided to say fuck it and post it anyway. There’s something about it that I like, even if it’s just a really vague and abstract feeling that I get after reading it.
lolwut?
fail pasta is fail
I’m with woomobile.
I didn’t love this but it’s a hell of a lot better than the last few. Ending seems a bit out of the blue and unfinished, but on second reading makes sense with the rest of the story. The story resonates on an allegorical level despite the fact that it makes very little coherent sense on the literal level.
There’s an overdone kind of Nathaniel Hawthorne-esqe feel to the prose, but that’s not terrible, makes it kind of interesting.
A few, wait no, a lot of typos. Still trying to tilt my head at the right angle to understand the pasta, but Sarah’s right, it lingers. I guess.
If this pasta is now good enough to serve, I need to call the Health Department to have this restaurant shut down.
Too many spelling errors, too cliche, too badly written, the list goes on and on. I had to force myself to continue after “It felt as if it resonated not only within his soul, but also within the souls of those around hi, within the very ground itself.”
All of it was being built up to this huge climax, but a deal with the Devil that wasn\’t even really a deal was so disappointing I was happy.
That was…interesting. Not creepy at all, and the ending was pretty lack luster after all the build up. Why was the “paint” smell even mentioned? Was he hallucinating after too long an exposure to that smell, and just imagined everything? Didn’t seem that relevant to the story, and then… Hmm. Just a very odd story.
Creepy. I don’t know what to make out of it. But it’s so….creepy.
This took me FOREVER to read, I kept getting bored and zoning out. The spelling/grammar mistakes didn’t help either.
Aaanyway, rubbish story.
Its okay, but I’m not sure this is rubbish it’s
quite scary.
Is the narrator addicted to huffing paint which led to his bad marriage which led to his son’s suicide?
…Here I figured the paint would be covering up blood stains on the walls or something, and something about sacrifices on Christmas.
Eh. Average pasta was average.
What the fuck was that? Probably the most overdramatic and purple pasta it’s ever been my misfortune to taste.
I hope the author was being facetious when he or she wrote it.
Wtf? That made no sense. The appearance of the creature(an obvious rip-off of the Christian image of Satan) and the reason it wanted a simple video game system when it obviously has unimaginable powers are not explained, not even hinted at. Quite a mediocre story.
The Krampus is actually older than the christian idea of Satan, you have it backwards.
I found this story strangely interesting despite the grammar and spelling mistakes, I swear though, this story is going to be stuck in my head forever.
I’ve finished reading it. To be more specific, it’s obvious that you’re trying to write eloquently without actually knowing exactly how to use a lot of the things you’re using. Examples:
“Patrick had never bothered to check, but he was sure that beneath the grass and soil of Winter Harbor, Maine, therein hungered a gaping mouth” — If you research the definition and usage conventions of “therein” you will see how this is redundant. It may be grammatical. I don’t know for sure. But it certainly doesn’t make for smooth reading.
“He and his wife were going through a rife time…” — What in this time was rife? The time itself? You know that just means “abundant”, right? It doesn’t really say anything if you don’t specify what thing or quality is rife. Misery is rife, money is rife, but a period of time cannot be rife.
“The musky smell of the old holiday decorations coupled with the omnipresent scent of fresh paint, varnish, and gasoline all seemed to meld into one personified force, whispering sweet nothings to Patrick as he exited his car.” — “Sweet nothings” are “inconsequential expressions of affection”. At first I gave this one the benefit of the doubt, thinking that the character may have actually thought of the scent in this way, but the same smell is later described as “damnable” so I know this isn’t the case. Yet again it seems you’ve used a flowery expression without making sure you know what you’re saying.
“Thine tender fruit” — “Thine” is prevocalic, meaning it goes before a vowel. The correct singular second person possessive determiner to use before a consonant is “thy”.
He couldn’t breathe.
“I… I can’t say I understand…” Patrick stammered out. — I’ve never seen a person who can’t breathe talk. I wonder how he pulled that off. (Just kidding, I get it.)
Seriously though, it seems you tried to make the creature’s speech cryptic, and succeeded all too well. I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about.
Overall, I don’t understand the story. The place smells like paint because it’s constantly being repainted to cover the presence of a creature that steals game consoles and makes children wither away? And is this guy drunk or something? He seems to stumble around a lot. I’ve just got off work and I’m tired so maybe I’m overlooking some nuance. Enlighten me if I’m mistaken.
I didn’t mention all the typos and misspellings because those are standard fare and my focus was on the failed attempts at flowery prose. I wish I could say I enjoyed the story despite these shortcomings but they prevented anything but critical reading altogether.
LoL rife…
@woomobile I sort of had the same reaction at first and closed the submission email, but for some reason it was lingering in my mind so I decided to say fuck it and post it anyway. There’s something about it that I like, even if it’s just a really vague and abstract feeling that I get after reading it.
I’m only on the third paragraph but I have to stop and say that this is so purple you could paint Barney’s ass with it.
I had to stop after the 1st
Hopefully this is first
wtf
I’m pretty sure he’s trying to make a reference to the Krampus. It’s a German myth that is used to keep children nice, he doesn’t kill children though he take them into the woods and beats them NEAR death. To make the point that the misbehaving child should act kindly to others on a season dedicated to god. If you look up the Krampus you are most likely to see a clear comparison between the creature in the story and the Krampus.