Krampus: The Last Knock
Here’s a piece of flash fiction about Krampus. Can you tell the difference between which section A.I. wrote and which section I wrote? Let me know your thoughts in a comment after reading the post.
The Last Knock
The snow had stopped hours ago, but the village still held its breath beneath a sky the color of old iron. Marta latched her shutters, whispering a prayer her grandmother had taught her—half blessing, half warning—and banked the fire until only embers glowed like watchful eyes.
It was nearly midnight when the first knock came.
Not a gentle rap, but a slow, deliberate thud, as though something enormous leaned its weight against the door. Marta froze. Every child in the valley knew the stories: Saint Nicholas rewarded the good, and the other one—the shadow with horns—came for the rest.
Another knock. Closer this time, somehow, as though the door had shrunk or the world had expanded around her.
Marta swallowed. “I’ve been good,” she whispered to no one.
The latch jiggled. She hadn’t bolted it.
The door creaked open by the width of a breath, letting in air so cold it seemed to scrape the walls. A shape loomed in the doorway—taller than legend promised, fur matted with frost, chains dragging behind it in muted, metallic sighs.
Krampus.
His eyes glowed like coals caught in a sudden wind.
“I’m not on your list,” Marta managed.
A low grunt—almost a chuckle.
He reached into the sack slung across his back. Marta braced for claws, for punishment, for the end of her story.
Instead, he set something on the floor: a small wooden toy, carved with impossible precision—an angel with wings spread wide.
Krampus bowed, a gesture heavy with ancient etiquette. Then he stepped backward into the night and vanished soundlessly into the snow.
Marta stared at the toy, warm despite the frigid air.
Outside, somewhere down the mountain road, chains rattled again—moving on to the next house, the next name, the next judgment.
Marta closed the door gently, this time bolting it not out of fear, but respect.
An hour later, Marta was fast asleep underneath her favorite woolen blanket with a belly full of candied fruits, warm and dreaming of flying with angels resembling the wooden toy she had been gifted by a beast.
It had been like a dream all its own, her first encounter with that giant horned monster in chains— rather, it was more like a real-life nightmare she had been fortunate enough to evade due to her good behavior.
She knew she hadn’t done all those extra farm chores for Ma for no reason, along with all those extra loads of wash and mending. She had even made it a point to say more prayers each night for the last month. And had painstakingly kept quiet and looked the other way when her brother Jack and his friends teased her mercilessly for believing in mythical creatures that only judge children on their conduct once a year at the beginning of winter in the middle of the night as their parents, who are conveniently never stirred awake, sleep in the next room.
“You are such a dumb baby,” were Jack’s exact words. Nasty words he spewed out each and every day on their way home from school. Words that still echoed in the back of Marta’s mind as she slept.
Nonetheless, Marta was proud she had paid Jack and his friends no mind as they threw straw and mud at her, jeering and cackling for weeks. A tortuous feat, because she had wanted so badly to yell back at them and shame them for being fools, to tell them they would be sorry they hadn’t listened to her, and the legend. A legend she knew was true, no matter what they said, because deep in her bones, she believed in justice.
Instead of fighting back or throwing a fit, however, Marta had continued with her chores while humming soothing lullabies to herself, trying her best to ignore their taunts. And it worked! Because here she was, sound asleep, an angel by her side, as Jack tossed and turned without a thing.
The furry fiend had skipped Jack entirely, punishing him with indifference… or so Marta believed.
Until she heard a loud thud and bolted upright in bed, wide awake, the angels in her dreams flying away without her.
Another loud thud. Then another. And another.
Yet no one heard the noise but Marta.
There was only silence coming from the direction of her parents’ chambers, and Jack was still snoring in his bed on the other side of the room.
Was she still dreaming?
Click. Click. Clack. Click. Clack. Click. Click.
Wait.
Was that the sound of claws on the wood floor? Approaching her room?
No, no, no!
It couldn’t be.
She had been so good, and had already been rewarded for her—
The bedroom door shot open, and the beast crowded its frame, but only for a millisecond, before charging across the threshold without hesitating, a burst of cold in its wake.
Marta pulled the blanket up to her chin, frozen and unable to look away as the shadow with horns barreled toward Jack’s bed, scraping its claws on the floor.
Before Marta could protest, or otherwise try to protect her brother, the beast was snatching Jack by his hair and stuffing him in its sack and storming out of the room, as quickly and swiftly as it had arrived.
As soon as it was gone, the room warmed again, as if a fire had been lit.
Marta …
[Feel free to keep the story going. Write about what Marta does next, then share what you come up with in the comments.]
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