The Christmas Offer

Billy was a troublesome kid. No child is perfect, but this Christmas will be different. He lived in a place called Harrington, which was full of at least four hundred residents. He lived with his father Jack, his mother Jill, a brother named Caleb and a sister named Felicia. His siblings were not perfect either, but shined better to their parents, to the classmates and teachers, to the neighbors, and to others. Despite the vast number of residents the town was in close contact. Some children were good, quite a few were bad. However, each Christmas had a dark secret. Each Christmas the residents would vote on which child Krampus could take. After all, they wanted to maintain a happy, healthy place. First the children voted. Then the adults did. Then the council. They would all settle afterwards. Were they that heartless? No one knew for sure what their intentions were. They merely thought it was better. For friends. For families. They thought it was merely punishment for the children. They did not know what true horrors lied in store though. "What will we do about Billy?" Jill wondered. "We will just raise him better," Jack insisted. However when the children voted for Krampus to take Billy. The adults soon followed. Jack and Jack did give in thinking it was perhaps the best for Billy but the utmost for them. Sure they would miss him (to some extent anyway) but they did what they had to do and they had no hesitation in doing so. It was unanimous and it was time for the residents to beckon Krampus. Surely enough this Christmas Krampus did come. Billy screamed, he tried to escape, but had no such luck. No one wants to help in saving a bad person even if this was just a child. Krampus took young Billy away and surely the family was happier. The rest of the town was happier. Everyone was happier. No one knew what Krampus exactly did to poor little Billy, only Billy himself, but everyone would go on spending Christmas and the rest of the year as well as they could without him. That is until next Christmas.