There’s No Lights On The Christmas Tree, Mother. They’re Burning Big Louie Tonight.

Matthew Cash

The Nice Lady said that if I told you about what happened she would let me see Saffy, my sister.

Me and Saffy don’t like Louie.

Even Frankie doesn’t like Louie, and he likes everyone.

I hate him I do, hate him loads, more than mash potato.
Louie is a naughty, evil, wicked man. “A devil in disguise,” that’s what Nanna said one day near my birthday before she left on the 57 bus. On Sundays, Nanna would come round really early and wake us up. Me and Saffy was ever so excited every time Sunday came. Nanna used to bring breakfast, sometimes donuts but not the yucky ones with custard in or jam that squirts on you like fly guts and brains. She would bring the round ones with a hole in the middle. Me and Saffy would scoff ’em down, sometimes cuz I’m a big boy she’d let me have two.
Afterwards, she would bring stuff out of her wheelie bag and put it in the oven. “Every family deserves a good Sunday dinner,” Nanna always said.
Mummy and Louie would always get up really, really late, sometimes after twelve o’clock in the day! Mummy would always look tired and sometimes she had purple stuff around her eyes. Saffy used to think that was funny cuz it made Mummy look like a panda. “Panda-Mummy,” Saffy would shout, jumping up and down when Mummy came downstairs for her drink. “Mummy juice” is what Mummy called it but I know it is called COFFEE, cuz I’m good at reading and writing and Miss Farr at school says I’m the best in the class. COFFEE tastes yucky, but I like the smell it does cuz it makes me think of Mummy.

Nanna would always look at Mummy funny, her eyes gone all slitty and her mouth screwed up really little, but she never said nothing. When Louie came down the stairs it was like a elephant. Nanna always looked at him funny too, the same face she made when I stood on dog poo in my trainers once and walked it on her carpet.
Louie would always wind us up like, he would snatch a donut out of our hands and ruffle our hairs like he was joking but he never gave the stuff he took back.
On that day, Saffy was really happy cuz Mummy had got panda eyes again, she danced round and around and around the kitchen singing a song about Panda-Mummy having her Mummy Juice. When Louie laughed it sounded like he had a bad cough, like Jimmy Morgan in my class gets after P.E when he has the asthma. He did that laugh and said, “Mummy had plenty of Mummy juice last night, and loads of daddy juice.” He did the laugh again but I don’t think his joke was funny, or maybe Mummy and Nanna didn’t get it cuz no one laughed.

Louie wasn’t our real Daddy and we didn’t have to call him it either, but he told us off like he was our Daddy, which wasn’t fair if he wasn’t.
Me and Saffy were told to go and play in the garden by Mummy cuz Nanna had started shouting at Louie cuz of his joke that wasn’t funny. It was cold outside and all the ground was wet.

Outside we could hear all the shouting, it was very loud. I held Saffy’s hand cuz she didn’t like the shouting, it made her cry and put her hands over her ears. Cuz it was fireworks three weeks before, I talked to her about fireworks and bonfire night and how we would get sparklies and hotdogs and toffee apples and sweets next year when Mummy took us, and how we would have to wrap up warm cuz in the autumn it gets colder and colder and when you do fireworks it’s at night time so it’s even colder. Cheered her right up that did, talking about fireworks. And we talked about Christmas coming and what things we wanted. We chased each other around and around and around the garden, pretending we was fireworks for ages until I needed a wee and we went back to the house.

The kitchen was a right mess when we came back in, the table was on the floor and there was washing up everywhere, some of it brokened. I told Saffy not to touch it cuz broken stuff could give you a poorly and she’d probably get told off if she got a poorly.
I called Mummy but she didn’t answer.

The door to the base…thingy under the kitchen, was opened. No one was allowed down there or “they’d be in for it” that’s what Louie said. He said it was his man-cave, but I remember when I was really little and before Saffy was borned, Mummy used to have the washing machine and tumble dryer down there and it wasn’t a cave, just a dark, dusty room full of boxes and tools. Caves were all dark and drippy and spiky and trolls lived in ‘em. There weren’t any trolls down there when I went down that time.

But when Louie camed to live with us it was then called his man-cave. He sometimes had his friend Steve round to play and they’d go down and play loud music and drink beer. Beer is also yucky, once I tried some of Louie’s beer he had in a can which said SPECIAL BREW and it made me pull a face and go yuck. Louie saw me do it and I thought I was going to be in for it but he did that laugh of his and then told me to drink it all. I cried cuz it tasted yuck but he did his angry face and told me he’d turn me into a panda too if I didn’t. So I dranked it all and soon as I dranked it I puked everywhere. All over the floor. It was brown with rice krispies in it. Louie laughed and then Frankie came in from digging outside and started to lick the floor which was really really yucky. Frankie is my best dog and I tried to stop him but slipped on the sick and felled on my bottom. It made me cry some more but when Frankie had licked all my puke up he licked my cry away too. I love Frankie. Every time Louie went near Frankie he used to woof and make a thunder noise in his mouth. Once, just after Louie came to live, he kicked Frankie in the tummy for knocking over one of his beers. He didn’t do it on purpose cuz dogs don’t do things like that on purpose.
When we walked to the man-cave door, Louie came out really quickly like he was running.
Louie couldn’t run, he was big and fat. Once him and Mummy took us to the park and me and Saffy ran after the ice cream van as it was getting late and he tried to catch up with us but couldn’t. His big tummy was wobbling all over the place. It was funny, like Daddy Pig in Peppa. But he shouted at us for running off and then at Mummy who said, “Don’t you shout at my children.” And when the ice cream man leant out of the window to ask us what we would like Louie said, “Fuck off you dirty, Paki cunt!”
I don’t know what any of those words mean apart from ‘off’, ‘you’ and ‘dirty’, but he seemed like a nice friendly man, not dirty or smelly at all, and the other words must’ve been nasty as Louie’s face went all red when he shouted ’em and the nice ice cream man looked like he was going to be crying. Saffy cried when the van drove out the park, I just felt upset.

Louie banged the man-cave door shut and locked it with the key he kept in his pocket. “Mummy and Nanna have gone to the shops. Go to your room,” He said before walking to the fridge and getting a SPECIAL BREW out. His boots went crunch on the broken washing up.

We did as we was told cuz we had to be extra good when Mummy was out or Louie might lose his rag. I had never even seen him with it so don’t know how he could lose it. I sawed Nanny’s wheelie bag and thought, blige me, why ain’t she taken that to the shops? She always took it to the shops. Then I remembered it was Sunday and how Mummy told us the shops shut early on Sundays cuz of God and thought maybe they would be back soon and had just gone out to get one thing.
We played upstairs for ages and ages until it got dark and Louie shouted us to come down. Mummy and Nanna still weren’t home and Louie had tidied up all the mess in the kitchen and got the red plates out that we had Christmas dinner on. Nanna’s meat she put in the oven was on the table but instead of all the gravy and vegetables that we had to eat or no pudding, there was just meat and a pack of bread. Louie cutted the meat up all messy, not how Nanna does it and made us red sauce and meat sandwiches. Me and Saffy couldn’t eat our sandwiches cuz the meat was too hard and hurt our teeth, it was always nice when Nanna made it with gravy and roasted potatoes. Louie shouted at us and said we would eat it or starve. I didn’t know what starve was but we had been learning about opposites at school with Miss Farr and I thought that if starve was an opposite to eat it meant we would be hungry. I was clever though cuz I tooked the meat out of our sandwiches and gave it to Frankie when Louie went to the fridge. Louie caught me though and kicked his foot up Frankie’s bum and he made a squeaky noise and ran upstairs. Louie growled in my face but he talked at the same time and said, “eat your fucking dinner.”
We had red sauce sandwiches.

Mummy still hadn’t come home the next morning which was weird cuz she never was out overnight. Louie was sat in the armchair asleep, all around him was cans and cans of SPECIAL BREW. He smelled bad. I tried to wake him up cuz of breakfast and school but he was snoring too loud. I felt really upset and worried cuz I know it’s naughty to miss school if you’re not ill and I like school, especially Miss Farr. She’s my favourite teacher ever in the world and I think I love her.
Saffy was upset lots cuz Mummy not being there still and she wanted rice krispies for breakfast but she couldn’t have ’em cuz I couldn’t reach ’em on top of the cupboard above the microwave. There was still bread on the kitchen table and even though it was a bit stiff it was alright with red sauce on.

After breakfast we went into the lounge and put CBeebies on, it was cool cuz we didn’t get to watch it that much cuz of school and even though I’m nearly seven I still like watching the programmes on there. I let Saffy have the buttons cuz it always cheered her right up but she put it up too loud and Louie woke up really really angry and threw a can of beer at her head. Even though it was empty it still smacked her one and made her cry, and when Louie picked her up by her clothes and shouted, “shut the fuck up you little cunt,” right in her face she did a massive wee right down his t-shirt. Louie’s face went all red like a great big tomato and he threwed Saffy against the TV on the wall. She hit it with a loud bang and it went off just as Mr Tumble came on which was good cuz I don’t like him, he’s a right weirdo.
Saffy laid on the floor and Louie looked at me all funny like Billy Coleman in Mrs Cameron’s class in assembly once when he was messing about with Danny Williams and accidentally knocked the fire extinguisher off the wall. He put his hands on his big fat red face and looked at me really scared, Louie did. He moved towards me but I was frightened he was going to hurt me too so I stepped back. Then Saffy started crying louder than I’d ever ever heard her cry in my whole life and Louie didn’t look so frightened. He all of a sudden smiled and picked Saffy up and said sorry lots and lots and cuddled her even though she had weed herself.
Louie was really nice to us afterwards and even said we could put the Christmas decorations up for a surprise for Mummy and Nanna. It was like someone had swapped Louie for a Nice Louie. He even went out to McDonald’s to get us a Happy Meal each at lunchtime. I was a bit scared at being at home without an adult but he told me not to answer the door to anyone or touch the phone and that I was a big brave boy for looking after my sister.

Saffy was happy she was getting McDonald’s but she kept moaning about her arm being poorly.
When Louie went out to get the McDonald’s I thought I would surprise him and show him how much of a big boy I was by getting the Christmas decorations out from the basement. I remembered the word now. BASEMENT. I knew Mummy used to keep ’em down there cuz before Louie came there was a big box behind the tumble dryer with ‘XMAS’ written on it.
Louie always locked the door but I knew there was a key in the knives and forks drawer which we wasn’t allowed to touch and cuz he knew I was a big boy now I thought it would be okay to go down and get ‘em.
So I told Saffy to stay and watch CBeebies cuz the telly was on again even though the picture was a bit squiggly or else she’d be in for it. She was a good girl and sat watching Balamory and hugging her poorly arm.
I got the key from the knives and forks drawer and was careful not to touch any of the big sharp knives that Mummy used to cut stuff with and went to the basement door.
I undid the door and it was all black down there. I was a bit scared but I knew there was nothing down there that could scare me really, apart from maybe a spider but I don’t mind spiders.

Spiders catch flies and I hate flies.

There was a really nasty smell, worse than farts, that came from Louie’s man-cave and I’m positive I could hear flies buzzing.
I couldn’t find the lightswitch, it might have been too high up but last time I went down here when Mummy had the washing machine and tumble dryer in there it was a string that turned the light on but I couldn’t find it. I checked the other side of the door and all of a sudden I heard Louie shout at me really, really angry, so angry Frankie came running in the kitchen woofing. “DAVID!” He shouted and I turned round and saw the two Happy Meal boxes on the floor. Louie’s face was all red again and he stomped across the kitchen at me. Frankie started woofing around his feet and Louie did something really evil then. He kicked Frankie so hard he flew through the air and down into the black basement. I turned to run down the steps to get my dog, he’s a sausage dog, and Louie grabbed his hand around my neck and pulled me backwards. He slammed the basement door shut and made a fist like people fighting do and hit me in the eye. I fell on the floor and went to sleep for a bit.

When I woke up my eye and face really hurt, my face was all big and felt sore and funny. Saffy was sat on the sofa still watching CBeebies with an empty Happy Meal box beside her and a purple Fruit Shoot. She looked at me and laughed and said, “Panda, panda!”

Now I knew how Mummy got her panda eyes.

Louie sat in his chair with another beer, and beside him was the box of Christmas decorations, Saffy had dobbed us in. All he said was, “you don’t go in my man-cave.”
I ate my McDonald’s cold only cuz I was hungry. I missed Frankie. I wanted to know where he was and if he was okay.

Louie started being nice again and said that whilst I was asleep he fetched the decorations and made sure Frankie was alright and that he had made Frankie a nice big dog bed in the man-cave so he could be warm and cosy.
After that Louie climbed up into the loft and got down our Christmas tree and told me and Saffy we could decorate it ourselves whilst he did something in the man-cave.

I don’t know what he was doing but he must have gone in the garden as well cuz he was all dirty and sweaty afterwards. His white tracksuit trousers were disgusting, they had all kinds of yucky stuff on ’em. We showed him the Christmas tree and asked him if he would help us with the lights. He said we had done a good job but wanted to have a bath as he was tired after all the work he had being doing in the man-cave, and that he would probably have even more work to do when we were asleep. He must’ve seen I was sad cuz he sighed and said he would help us stick the lights on after his bath. Then he took two beers from the fridge and went into the bathroom.

I couldn’t wait to see the lights on and last year Mummy always plugged ’em in before putting ’em on the tree to test they worked as they had been Nanny’s lights when Mummy was a little girl so they was really old. They are little lanterns that light up in all the colours you can think of.

While Louie was in the bath, cuz CBeebies had ended I thought it would be cool to show Saffy the pretty lights and tell her about Mummy having ’em at Nanna’s house when she was a little girl. I made sure she was very very careful, that they weren’t a toy, but she wanted to see ’em turned on. I said no she couldn’t as it was dangerous messing with lecktrics and that only adults were allowed. But she kept going on and on and on and on and on so I put the plug in the plughole by Louie’s chair. They came on after two seconds and they were really pretty. Saffy said that she loved ’em and picked up a blue lantern to look at it closelier. Then one of the red uns made a fizzy noise and popped and went out.
I was upset and didn’t want to get told off so did what Mummy always said. “If you break something, it is better to come clean about it.”
So, even though I was frightened Louie would hit us again I knew that I had to tell him.

I lugged all the lights up the stairs and was careful not to stand on any in case I broked em. In the hallway opposite the bathroom was a plughole so I plugged ’em in so I could show Louie the light wasn’t working. I switched ’em on and a green un went fizzle too. I knocked on the door and told Louie I needed to show him something. He moaned at me and said, “if it’s not fucking important then it’ll wait till after me bath.”I heard him open another can of SPECIAL BREW.
I said to him that it was very, very important and that he needed to see it right now. He said more bad words, I said earlier I didn’t know the words but I had heard ’em before just don’t know what they mean. He said, “oh for fuck’s sake, get in here.”
So I bundled up the lights in my arms and walked in. Louie had been really naughty cuz Mummy said that whenever she got us ready for our baths to put a towel down in case we slid on the wet floor. My Transformers sock slipped on the floor where some of the bath water had spilt and I chucked the bunch of lights into Louie’s bath with him.
They made lots of funny noises and did funny sparkly things, it was really pretty and I have never seen ’em do that before. Louie shouted out and I ran out of the bathroom and fell on my bottom in the hallway. For some reason Louie did a really strange laying down dance in the bath, the water went everywhere, nearly on the hallway carpet. He crunched the SPECIAL BREW can in his hand and stopped moving.
The lights in the whole house went out and I heard Saffy moan from downstairs.

It was dark everywhere, even the light in the fridge was not working. I held Saffy’s hand and cuddled her on the sofa and told her it was going to be okay and that Mummy and Nanna would be home soon and would turn the lecktrics back on so she could have her moon nightlight at bedtime.
We sat there for a long time, until we went to sleep.

I woked up the next morning when it was light and went to see where Louie was. I thought it was funny that he was still in the bath and thought he was asleep but saw his eyes were open. Then I knew he had had a poorly, a bad one. That he might even be dead like Grandpa and Danny Williams’s Daddy. I was very frightened but last month a policeman called PC Andrews came into our class to explain STRANGER DANGER to us and how we should always tell an adult and dial nine nine nine in an emergency. I went and picked the phone up but they weren’t working cuz the lecktrics had broked and our phones plugged into the plugholes.
So I got Saffy and gave her a carton of juice and her favourite My Little Pony and we went round to Charlotte’s next door but one to tell her as Mummy always said that Aunty Charlotte was her “best friend.”
Aunty Charlotte called the nine nine nines on her mobile phone and when the ambulance came and even the police they went down into the basement to look in Louie’s man-cave and found the floor all dug up like the garden with two great big holes that somebody could fall in if they weren’t careful. Don’t know what he was digging for, maybe buried treasure.

Then you took us and we saw the Nice Lady and she gave me a orange squash and a cheese sandwich and I ate it all up even though I don’t really like cheese.
Can I see my sister now?
When will Mummy come and get us?

About the author

MATTHEW CASH

Matthew Cash, or Matty-Bob Cash as he is known to most, was born and raised in Suffolk; which is the setting for his debut novel Pinprick. He is compiler and editor of Death By Chocolate, a chocoholic horror Anthology, Sparks, the 12Days: STOCKING FILLERS Anthology, and its subsequent yearly annuals and has numerous releases on Kindle and several collections in paperback.

In 2016 he started his own label, Burdizzo Books, with the intention of compiling and releasing charity anthologies a few times a year. He is currently working on numerous projects, his second novel FUR will hopefully be launched 2018.

He has always written stories since he first learnt to write and most, although not all, tend to slip into the many layered murky depths of the Horror genre.
His influences ranged from when he first started reading to Present day are, to name but a small select few; Roald Dahl, James Herbert, Clive Barker, Stephen King, Stephen Laws, and more recently he enjoys Adam Nevill, F.R Tallis, Michael Bray, Gary Fry, William Meikle and Iain Rob Wright (who featured Matty-Bob in his famous A-Z of Horror title M is For Matty-Bob, plus Matthew wrote his own version of events which was included as a bonus).
He is a father of two, a husband of one and a zoo keeper of numerous fur babies.

You can find him here:

www.facebook.com/pinprickbymatthewcash

https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B010MQTWKK

Website: www.Facebook.com/pinprickbymatthewcash

Twitter @mattybob1979

Other Releases By Matthew Cash

Novels

Virgin And The Hunter

Pinprick

Novellas

Ankle Biters

KrackerJack