“Maybe, if you catch them right as they fall out of the chicken’s ass,” Sashabelle snorted. “But to make eggnog you have to add milk and sugar and things, and by the time you’re done, all the bloody lifey goodness will be long gone.” She refilled his glass with Type AB. “So, no. We can’t drink eggnog.”
Ivar mutters into his glass. “I remember celebrating Yule.”
Julius nods. “It was Saturnalia for me.”
“Why don’t we do that anymore?” Erik asks. “I mean, why do we have to be surrounded by this idiot plastic holiday the way they celebrate it nowadays? Why don’t we do it like we used to?”
The Roman vampire shrugged. “Too much trouble, and for a while, doing anything in the least bit pagan was an invitation to have neighbors burn you at the stake as a witch. No thanks.”
“Fucking witches,” Barney opined.
Paulina objected mildly, “Hey, now. I don’t pick on you for your religion, old man.” She put her arm around Barney and leaned her chin on his shoulder. “But… you know, we could get away with it now, up to a point.”
Daniel knew nothing about the ancient ways of his friends. “What would that entail?”
“Well, a lot of Christmas traditions are actually based on Saturnalia.”
“Yule,” Erik objected.
Sashabelle mixed a drink, O and A with a splash of sherry, for herself. “Both.”
“Whatever.” Julius hated to be interrupted when he was busy pontificating. “It had greenery that was brought indoors as decorations, gift-giving, feasting, dancing, singing... Just like Christmas.”
“You forgot the human sacrifices,” Erik pointed out.
Julius gestured to the four victims behind the bar. “Did I? Did I, really?”
Barney groused, “Fucking Saturnalia.”
Daniel had an idea. “I think I know what you need, Barn.”
His friend looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “What’s that?”
“You need to celebrate Festivus.”
Sashabelle rolled her eyes. “Oh, God. Another pop culture reference.”
“Is it?” Julius asked, clueless.
Daniel grinned. “Didn’t you ever watch Seinfeld?”
“What’s a Seinfeld?” Erik asked.
The Roman squinted at Daniel. “Sounds Jewish.”
“Well, sort of, if you mean that we Jews corner the market on comedy and the entertainment industry. You Italians are only good at crime.”
“Yes, crime, which brought us these lovely vessels.” He indicated the four humans who were slowly being bled to death. “You’re welcome.”
“Festivus was featured on one of the episodes, but people really do celebrate it now.”
Erik laughed into his fifth shot. “Humans are weird.”
“Says the guy who used to braid bones into his facial hair,” Julius sniffed.
“It was bone beads, and it was a look. You have to be Norse to understand it.”
“Well, I’ll thank the gods that I was spared.” He turned back to Daniel. “Continue. Do please bore us with your modern celebration.”
He was happy to continue. “There are four components to a Festivus celebration. There’s the Festivus pole, to begin with.” He went to the door and retrieved the coat rack. He put it down in the open floor space in front of the bar. “This’ll do. It’s a stand-in for all of those overly-decorated Christmas trees.”
Barney grunted. “Fucking trees.”
Sashabelle leaned her elbows on the counter. “So we have a Festivus pole. Now what?”
“Then we celebrate the Airing of Grievances.”
For the first time that evening, Barney laughed. “I win.”
“God, no kidding,” Sashabelle agreed. “You’re a walking grievance.”
Daniel nodded. “Good! Keep going.”
Paulina frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“The Airing of Grievances is something we do so we don’t carry our bad feelings toward each other into the new year,” he explained. “We get all of these things off our chests, and then we start over with a clean slate.”
“Ah, I see.” Julius crossed his arms and turned around in his stool. “So we can spend the rest of the year gathering more grievances, which we air at the next Festivus. Am I correct?”
“You are.” Daniel pulled a chair over from one of the empty tables. “So… Age before beauty. Julius, what grievances do you have?”
Barney tapped his glass. “Fill me up. This is going to take a while.”
“I don’t have many grievances,” the Roman began. “Other than Erik stealing Paulina’s attention and monopolizing her from time to time.”
“You can’t steal what’s freely given,” his girlfriend retorted. “And I give you attention, too.”
“Not as much.”
“You jealous fuck,” Erik laughed. “It just galls your Roman pride that you’re not the best man in the house, is that it?”
Julius rose. “If I’m not the best man, then who is?”
Barney grinned, and that was usually a precursor to chaos. “Paulina.”
“I’m not a man!”
Julius glared. “Hey!”
“Well, she’s toughest…” Erik shrugged. “I don’t disagree.”
He was rewarded with a kiss, and Julius slapped his hand on the counter. The wood creaked.
“Careful!” Sashabelle scolded. “You’re going to break my bar again.”
“You can get a new one.”
“You can get a new hand.”
Daniel laughed. “This is perfect. We’re all letting our grievances out.”
“Not all of us,” Sashabelle said. “What about you, Danny? Don’t you have any complaints?”
“Honestly? No. I love my life. I love everybody in it. I enjoy drinking blood and never catching a cold and being stronger than every steroid jockey at the gym. I like having ridiculous stamina…”
Sashabelle waggled her eyebrows. “I like that about you, too.”
Barney turned and looked at him. “Seriously? Nothing pisses you off?”
“Nothing that matters.” He shrugged. “We’re going to live forever. Why let something like seasonal decorations or taxes or other things that are just temporary get you down?”
They looked at one another, and Erik said, “The kid has a point.”
Daniel nodded. “And look around here. We have people from all walks of life, all ages, all faiths. And yet we’re good friends. We’ve been coming together every night for ten years, and every night we get closer. There’s nobody here I wouldn’t die for, and I believe that you’d all do anything you could for me.”
“As long as it served my purposes,” Julus sniffed. The corner of his mouth turned up and his dark eyes twinkled. “Kidding.”
“Oh, God,” Barney complained. “Are we going to have to hug or something?”
Sashabelle leaned over the counter and hugged him. He pretended to protest, but he ended up hugging her back. She kissed him on the cheek.
“I have to admit, when I was first Turned, I wasn’t thrilled,” Paulina confessed. “But since meeting all of you… I’m glad it happened. I’m glad it happened for all of us. None of us but Daniel would be alive, and we’d have missed out on some really good times.”
“Like when we broke into Coney Island and ran the rides until the cops came?” Erik said.
“And when we ate all the people in that park in Jersey?” Sashabelle asked. She sighed. “Good times.”
“The best,” Daniel agreed. “We’ve had the best of times.”
He picked up his glass and saluted his friends.
“Happy Festivus, Happy Hanukkah, Glad Yule and Happy Saturnalia.”
Barney raised his glass and sheepishly added, “And Merry Christmas.”
Sashabelle held up her glass, as did everyone else. She looked around at her friends and smiled, but Daniel could see a tear in her eyes. “To us,” she said.
They clinked their glasses together.
“To us!”
When they’d finished drinking everything the humans behind the bar could give, Julius said, “When we celebrated Saturnalia, we would have bonfires.”
“We had bonfires for Yule,” Erik nodded.
“I say we have another fire.”
Sashabelle glared at him. “Don’t you dare burn my bar down. Not again.”
“No, no. But we have empties to dispose of, and in honor of this year, I think we need a dumpster fire.”
The vampires laughed. “It would be fitting,” Paulina agreed. “Human politics just make me want to go on a killing spree.”
“We can do that tomorrow,” Erik suggested.
“Deal.”
“Not my dumpster,” Sashabelle said, “but… good plan otherwise.”
“Where should we go?” Julius asked.
They looked at one another, then said in unison, “Jersey!”
“Then let’s pack up the bodies and go find a dumpster.” The Roman nodded to Daniel. “You had a good idea with this Festivus thing.”
He shrugged. “I blame Seinfeld.”
“Blame whoever you want, but you should learn to take a compliment.”
Sashabelle leaped over the counter and landed in front of him. She sat on his lap and put her arms around his neck so she could kiss him deeply. He returned the kiss with gusto.
“I’ll take you. Is that all right?” he asked when they had parted.
“You’d better,” Barney said. “Can’t have her roaming around on her own.”
“What about you, Barn?” Paulina asked. “Don’t you want to hook up with anyone? Have a little private celebration?”
He went and picked up one of the dead humans. “And miss a perfectly good dumpster fire? Not on your life.” He kicked the door open and stepped out into the street. Bat wings extended from his shoulders, and he grinned back at them. “Last one to Jersey is a rotten egg.”
Laughing, some of them carting their victims, they followed him into the night.
The End
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About the Author
J. A. Cummings was born in Flint, Michigan and was raised in a nearby town called Clio. Appropriately enough for someone growing up in a place named for the Muse of history, she developed a passion for reading and the past that continues to this day. Her love of poetry and storytelling quickly followed.
Her life has been one of numerous false starts, unexpected endings and fascinating side trips that lasted far too long. All of that chaos has informed her writing and improved her understanding of what it means to be human, both the sorrow and the glory.
She still resides in Michigan and also writes as Tiegan Clyne.
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Arthur Rex: Volume One
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J.A. Cummings writing as Tiegan Clyne
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Cryptomorphs Series
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No Treats for Charlie
Krampusnaughty
Edeline Wrigh
Krampusnaughty
Lainie Wiles was bad at her job.
Lainie Wiles was bad at her job, and it was entirely because she didn't give two fucks about her job. Sure, it paid the bills, but her fancy "Administrative Assistant" title aside, her job really just boiled down to receiving calls, filing papers, and making coffee. And, gosh, she hadn't been the most popular girl in high school, but she'd been a cheerleader and dated the quarterback until he went off to a big college on a sports scholarship where he'd cheated on her. If you'd asked her at her graduation a decade ago where she thought she was going to be at 28, it definitely wouldn't have been here.
She sighed. The dentists were gone for the day, and they left her to guard the phones for any last-minute calls that came in before the office closed for the holidays. Christmas was almost here, and she had no plans that didn't involve sitcom reruns and a large box of wine. There were worse ways to spend the break, she supposed, like with her dad and his new girlfriend—a woman just five years older than Lainie.
Then again, there were better ones.
She spun in her chair. At least they'd sprung for the one she wanted, though she'd made it a point to extol its virtues in terms of health and productivity rather than amusement.
She hadn't always been bad at her job; in fact, she'd been good at it long enough to build a rapport with her boss and coworkers. If they'd noticed her slacking off recently, they hadn't said anything.
If they'd noticed her sexting on the clock, they hadn't said anything about that, either.
She checked her phone. Lucas, the guy she'd most recently been... "seeing" would be a liberal word for it... had not responded to the nude she'd sent him 37 minutes ago. He'd left her on read, though. Ouch.
She sighed, glancing over at the stack of papers she was supposed to file. She didn't feel like it, and there wasn't anyone to remind her. Besides, it'd be a week before she'd have to handle the consequences, if ever. That was future Lainie's problem, not hers. So instead, she opened Tinder, swiping lazily for about fifteen minutes before saying "Fuck it," grabbing her purse, and leaving early.
----
Lucas never responded to her. It'd been a few hours now, and a night she had been hoping to spend underneath him had turned into one wearing PJs on the couch and opening that box of wine early. It was disappointing, but that was how it went with most men nowadays, she found.
One of her friends had suggested this mindset was probably why she'd had such bad luck with guys. She couldn't disagree, but a lot of good it did her to shift it when it didn't seem like a guy worth a damn would give her the time of day, anyway.
She sighed, grabbing the remote and turning on the television. Might as well start that butt imprint on the couch early, she thought, flipping through her options. Reruns? A Christmas movie? This new series her friends keep trying to get her to watch?
She had finally decided on a Christmas Hallmark-style movie and settled in with her wine and her popcorn when the power went out.
"You have GOT to me kidding me," she nearly screamed. Then again, she was having the kind of day where she considered just continuing to drink her wine and eat her popcorn in the dark rather than getting up to investigate the cause of the power outage. She wasn't sure she wanted to watch beautiful fictional people get their happy endings when she wouldn't get hers anytime soon—in any sense of the phrase.
But the darkness let her think too much, so she had to at least light a candle or something. She fumbled around on the table, pushing magazines and random papers onto the ground to set down her food and beverage, then swung her around to stand.
"Hello," a voice said, low and deep. She jumped, the blankets she was huddled in hitting the table, and a clinking sound and splash told her she'd knocked over her wine. Just fucking great.
"Who's there?" She tried to sound confident and assertive as she spoke, but even she picked up on the shaking in her voice. This was the beginning of a horror movie, was it not? Except usually in a horror movie, the first one to die had others around to hear their screams. Maybe she would be the ghost giving warnings to the people who owned her house later instead of being the protagonist herself. That would figure.
A clanking and jangling noise reverberated through the room. It sounded to her like metal chains in movies, and she felt her heart race at the sound. Yup, definitely about to become a ghost.
"I've heard you've been a very naughty girl this year," he responded. His voice was velvet
y, with a cadence that felt like dark chocolate to her ears, and she found herself wanting to hear more of it.
Was it fucked up? Yeah, probably. Then again, she kinda was, at least beneath the once-cheerleader, current-peppy-assistant veneer she maintained with more sensible adults. And if his words gave her any clue, that was probably a major part of why she was about to become a ghost.
Maybe the guy would fuck her first if she asked nicely, though.
"Look, if you're going to kill me, just get it over with," she said, dropping her arms to her sides. She still couldn't see him, but maybe he could see her, and she figured it was worth a shot to convince him not to draw out her demise.
A deep, guttural sound rumbled through the room, shaking her body. Then the lights turned on.
She blinked. The whole thing felt almost like magic. She'd always believed in the supernatural, and if you'd asked her before today, she would have told you she was sure she'd seen a few ghosts over the years. But now, faced with a voice from a person she couldn't see and the lights flickering? Well, she was entirely certain-
"I'm not invisible," the man said, and she thought she could hear his eyes roll with the sentiment. "I'm behind you."
Oh. She felt like a dumb ass... until she turned around.
Then? She screamed.
"What the FUCK-"
"Quiet!" he interrupted her. "You don't want your next-door neighbor to overhear, do you?"
She thought about Mrs. Rushford, the old woman who always gave her a hand knit scarf before the first snow hit and who covered almost her entire balcony with plants during the warmer months, swallowed, and bit her tongue.
He nodded. "That's what I thought."
She breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth, an anti-anxiety trick an overeager counselor had given her in her early 20s. And stared.
Curse of Christmas: A Collection of Paranormal Holiday Stories Page 38
