Forever After (a dark and funny fantasy novel)

by Jester, David

  “Oh, well--”

  “I’m not the only Santa.”

  “What?”

  “Well, think about it,” Santa said seriously. “How can one man travel the world delivering presents? Hell, I only deliver to one town and even that takes me all season.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “There are thousands of us,” Santa said with a booming smile.

  Naff nodded understandingly. “Ah. Right.”

  “Sounds familiar,” Michael muttered softly.

  “Can we lock this guy up now?” Chip asked.

  Santa seemed taken aback by the comment. The smile dripped off his face and was replaced by a sudden suction of depression that distorted his features like a melancholic stroke.

  “You’re going to lock me up?”

  Naff sighed, shaking his head at the midget next to him. “We just need to take you...” he paused, “...somewhere,” he said, maintaining a smile. “Just to sort a few things out.”

  “Prison?”

  “No. No.” Naff was quick to assure.

  “Hell,” Chip added helpfully.

  “For fucks sake Chip!”

  “You’re taking me to hell?” the big man looked hurt. His heavy frame sagged under the weight of his own depression. “Oh. OK.”

  He staggered over to the couch and slumped down with a heavy sigh. His broad back arched painfully; his head aimed at his big boots.

  “I’m sorry,” Naff offered.

  The big man sucked in a large lungful of air and pushed it out in a longwinded sigh. “You do what you have to do. If you want me to go with you, I’ll go.”

  “I can’t take you back with your powers,” Naff told him. “You have to relinquish them.”

  Santa gave another long and tireless sigh and slowly rose to his feet, standing right in front of Chip and eclipsing him with the shadow of his stomach. He held out his hands, his arms outstretched, and turned his head away dismally. A number of moments passed without his hands being cuffed or touched, he lowered them slightly and turned back to Naff, the studious office worker had sat down and was filling out a form, using a thick TV guide to rest on.

  “What are you doing?” Saint Nick asked.

  Naff didn’t seem to hear. His bookish eyes scanned the paper, scribbling quickly and intermittently on its surface. He turned over a sheet, folded it to the back and then tapped the end of the ballpoint pen against his teeth. “How big would you say you are?” he wondered with his eyebrows arched inquisitively.

  Santa seemed taken aback. “I have no idea.”

  “Twenty stone easily,” Chip said knowledgeably.

  “I don’t think so,” Santa replied, looking a little hurt and sucking his stomach in automatically.

  “Maybe twenty-one, twenty-two,” Chip pushed, gauging the stomach just above his own head. “Twenty-three at a push. No more than twenty-four.”

  “What’s going on” Michael interrupted, watching the scene with strained discombobulation.

  “Twenty-five, put down twenty-five.”

  “I’m taking away his powers,” Naff answered matter-of-factly, jotting down a rough estimate on the form, deciding to go for one of the few numbers that Chip hadn’t mentioned -- the grimy hobbit tended to be wrong when he was so sure he was right.

  “Seriously?” Michael said with a touch of awe. “This is how you do it?”

  Naff ignored his friend and continued scribbling.

  “This is your job?” Michael said when Naff had finished and stood, more of a statement than a question. “You live a truly sad existence mate.”

  “Somebody has to do it,” Naff said out of the corner of his mouth. He handed the man in red the forms and a pen and pointed to a marked spot at the bottom of the first sheet.

  “Well, yeah, but surely there are better ways than this.”

  Santa reluctantly scribbled his signature, a cursive and flamboyant script. Naff took it from his large hands with a bright smile, a smile that soon faded upon seeing the scribble.

  “This says Santa Claus,” he noted.

  “That's my name.”

  “But--” he paused, looked from the big man to the form and then back again. He shook his head, “Never mind, it’ll do. I’ll be right back.” He disappeared out into the hallway and up the stairs, leaving an awkward tension in his wake as the three men stood around unsure what to do with themselves.

  Michael stuffed his hands in his pockets; Santa feigned interest in the cards on the mantelpiece, squinting to see them from a distance of two metres. Chip craned his head upwards to stare at Santa’s beard.

  “Where do you get your presents from?” the little one asked after a few moments of thought.

  Santa looked down at the questionable thing peering up at him. “Excuse me?”

  “Surely you can’t go spending thousands of pounds on toys just to give them away. You get nothing from the kids in return.”

  “I get satisfaction of knowing--”

  “Nothing,” Chip reiterated. “It’s hardly a self-sustaining business is it? And on top of that, you have travel costs, suit hire, food expenses. Wrapping paper isn’t cheap these days.”

  “I don’t...” he struggled to finish his own response.

  “I mean you could make them, but then there’s a limit right?”

  “Right?”

  “Well, yeah, you can’t go around reproducing brand name products can you? You can get away with it a few times but eventually they’ll catch you and fine you. It just takes a few loud mouthed runts to mouth off and you’re fucked. You can’t afford a fine; you barely make any money as it is.”

  “Right.” Santa nodded. He had no idea where the midget was going but he prayed that he would stop before it required any input from him.

  “Done,” Naff strode back into the room; Santa felt an instinctive sigh of relief escape his lips.

  “That’s it?” Michael asked his friend who was grinning with a sense of achievement.

  “All gone,” Naff said with a nod. He nodded at the man in red, gesturing for him to try his powers. He lifted an arm tentatively, staring at the crimson cotton that dangled baggily from his wrist. He swiped it this way and that, slowly at first. Nothing happened. He attacked the air with more aggression, tried snapping his fingers together, but to no avail. He lowered his arm, sunk his head depressingly into his chest and sighed into his long white beard.

  “Gone,” he said.

  Naff looked proud of himself. Santa returned to the couch, flopping onto the material like an angst ridden teenager after losing his first girlfriend.

  Chip was the first to react. He held up a hand to his friends, mouthed, “I’ve got this,” in a confident tone and then plonked himself on the sofa next to the sullen Santa.

  Michael and Naff breathed a sharp breath of consternation as Chip prepared himself. They exchanged pained expressions as their minds capitulated to the inevitable trauma they were about to witness.

  Chip put an arm around the big man’s shoulders, having to straighten and stretch to manage the feat. He cleared his throat, threw a reliable wink at his friends and then began, “Look on the bright side, your job is done. No more trekking from house to house lugging all that shite around. And no more kids.”

  “But I like kids.”

  Chip weighed up a thought and offered an alternative. “Well, at least you’ll get away from the British winter. The dark nights. The downpours. The freezing winds.”

  Santa turned to look at the little man, shaking his arm from his shoulder. “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, it’ll be boiling where you’re going.”

  He stared at the grinning grubby face for an interminable time, a blank expression on his own, once-jolly, facade. He shook his head slowly and turned back to face his own shoes. “I just wanted to bring joy to the children,” he said solemnly.

  Chip sighed and shifted away. “Again with the children.”

  “A lot of them don’t have anything else. Chr
istmas is the one time they can share in the joy that all children should experience.”

  “On the plus, side,” Naff helped. “I’m sure you already brought joy to a lot of children this year.”

  “It's not enough. What about the others? How will they feel?” he looked up at Naff with pleading eyes. “Their friends and classmates were visited by Santa but he rejected them? It’s hardly conducive to the season of joy and togetherness is it?”

  “Fuck ‘em,” Michael offered blandly. “The parents will buy them all the shit they need. I’m sorry, but as much as it pains me to say it, I’m with Chip on this one.”

  Chip glared at Michael suspiciously, refusing the break his sceptical stare even when Michael flashed him an agreeable nod.

  “How can you say that?” Santa snapped. “Some of these kids have nothing. Christmas is their time to feel on par with the kids over the world who do have something.”

  “This is Britain, not Africa, these kids have plenty. There’s only so much crap you can buy them.”

  Santa opened his mouth to discard the comment but he quickly swallowed his words and lowered his head again. “What’s the point,” he breathed.

  “There’s the spirit,” Chip exclaimed.

  “I’m with the big guy on this,” Naff suddenly offered, catching the attention of the room and bringing a glint of hope to Santa’s eyes.

  “Really?” Michael said in disbelief.

  Naff shrugged at his friend. “What can I say? He’s right. To be honest, I quite like Christmas.”

  “You traitor,” Michael uttered.

  “It’s happy, it’s joyful.” Naff declared. “Don’t try to drag down the spirit of the season just because of your own shitty views.”

  “Bu--but. You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

  “No,” he replied defiantly. “I think what he did, or tried to do, was honourable. If it wasn’t for,” he paused with a sheepishly smile. “Well, you know.”

  “The fact that he’s insane?”

  “Yes. That.”

  “Then let me finish,” Santa stood, his pleading eyes beamed at Naff. “Please. For the sake of the children. Let me finish what I started.”

  Michael groaned heavily. “This is turning into a fucking Hallmark special.”

  Santa ignored the belligerent reaper and petitioned Naff. “There are only a few houses left,” he pulled a list from his pocket and thrust it at his ally. “Let me finish and then I’ll happily go wherever you want me to go.”

  Naff studied the list thoughtfully. His eyes shifted from the uncrossed names to the desperate, beady eyes bearing down from the bearded demon.

  “You don’t have your powers,” Naff noted. “I can’t give them back to you and this lot...” he gestured to the list, “will take you more than one night on your own.”

  The hope in the demon’s eyes faded.

  “But we’ll help you,” Naff said with a cheering smile. “We’ll help you finish.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so--”

  “We?” Michael interjected.

  “Yes,” Naff nodded. “We’re all going to do it. That way we can get it done tonight.”

  “You must be fucking--”

  “You owe me,” Naff cut in sharply.

  Michael snapped back with an open mouth but his words strangled in his throat. He cast a forlorn look to the floor. “Fine.”

  6

  “Just so you know in advance,” Chip explained to the demon by his side. “I think this is a stupid idea.”

  The 221 bus plodded along at a stuttering pace with a succession of flicking streetlights lighting its way. The driver, a chunky man in his twilight years, watched his passengers through the rear-view mirror with an expression of bewilderment permanently embedded on his wrinkled face.

  Sampson, still dressed in his Santa suit, was watching a youngster at the back of the bus, a boy of no more than thirteen who dressed like someone much older, his trousers and hoody far too big for him; a mass of dangling chains around his neck. He had initially scowled at Chip and Sampson, as he no doubt did every adult he saw, but he now viewed them with an air of childish curiosity, or so Sampson liked to think.

  He had never experienced life as a human child but he had encountered plenty of children. They possessed an innocence he adored, a sense of the fantastical and the impossible that stayed with them and refused to leave, even when faced with glaring evidence to the contrary.

  That level of belief and innocence remained in every child until adolescence. The world had a way of beating it out of the unfortunate ones and those forced to grow up too young, but he was a firm believer that the faith in the impossible still lingered and could be restored.

  “I mean you can’t even do the door thing.”

  “The door thing?” Sampson asked distantly.

  “Walking through them,” Chip clarified simply. “Not anymore at least.”

  “Well, if you hadn’t taken away my powers...”

  “Not my field of expertise mate, although quite frankly I wouldn’t feel comfortable sitting on the bus next to a demon a few loaves short of a bakery.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Sampson wondered, pulling his attention away from the curious youngster at the back of the bus.

  “You’re insane,” Chip translated

  “I make it my duty to bring joy and hope to children all over the world, you’re trying to stop me, maybe you and your friends are the insane ones.”

  “Nah, mate. It’s definitely you.”

  Sampson, looking a little offended, turned back towards the boy at the back, watching him slyly through a reflection in the opposing window.

  “Naff can’t do the door thing either,” Chip noted to himself. “Seems the two least interested in helping your fat arse out are the two who have to do the most.”

  Sampson didn’t reply, he barely heard. The Christmas spirit had now gone from the face of the youth. His eyes were fixed on the large sack in front of Sampson, he didn’t ponder whether there would be a present in there for him, but rather what he could get at the pawn shop for the contents.

  The bus stuttered to a stop. They remained seated but the youth stood. Despite being on a bus he glanced around himself, almost as a criminal instinct, and then plodded forward with his eyes on the bag. Samson was too dejected to stop him, but Chip called to him without even looking up.

  “Touch that bag and I’ll break your fucking arms,” he said brusquely with a great deal of believability.

  The boy was already reaching out; he withdrew his arms as if his hand had brushed hot coals. He quickened his steps and disappeared off the bus without turning back, Sampson watched him skulk away -- his hood up, his hands in his pockets, his back hunched -- and felt sorry for him.

  “And you wanna give these delinquents’ toys.” Chip said.

  ****

  Michael hated the aspect of giving gifts at Christmas. He had enjoyed it as a child and, as an adult in the living world, he hadn’t objected, but in the afterlife he hated it. He hated the greed and the selfishness on display in the mouths and minds of every child in the Western world. He hated the inept inattentiveness on behalf of the parents, who put their financial futures, and thus the future of their children, into jeopardy by blowing their household budgets on stacks of worthless pomp and plastic, half of which would be forgotten about until the following Christmas when it would be discarded in anticipation of even more worthless stacks of shit that could sit unattended and unloved for another year.

  He remembered enjoying the feeling of waking up on Christmas morning and diving into a pile of presents. As an adult, with the benefit of hindsight, he could appreciate the warmth and pleasantry of being with family during those moments, with the parents in pure devoted mind-sets, the world frozen in motion for a week or more, and the dreams and ideas of the child allowed to flourish, but he knew that as that child the only thing he cared about was unwrapping and playing with those presents. There is no sentimenta
lity with the young.

  “Cheer the fuck up,” Naff told him as he drove them both across town.

  Michael groaned in reply and turned his head to glare disinterestedly out of the window. They had already been to two of the houses on their list. In Michael’s eyes that was just another two kids who would wake up tomorrow morning to one extra piece of mass produced tat -- a sugar-coated start to a day that would probably end up with them crying and screaming at their parents, the result of an exhaustive mix of emotions and an overload of sugar.

  “I don’t recall you ever being this annoyed about Christmas,” Naff noted. “You usually just hole up getting drunk for a few days.”

  “I don’t recall ever being asked to be fucking Santa Claus before,” Michael replied.

  “Touché.”

  The next stop on the list was an end-terraced house in one of the estates on the edge of town. The street was dead as they pulled up. Further down the road a domestic dispute raged behind closed doors -- the calls and clatters of drunken violence broke into the night like a distant whistle. A few lights in a few windows flickered on and off -- televisions and computers playing to those overexcited and unable to sleep or those already asleep and unable to move.

  Michael recognised the street. Just two weeks earlier he had picked up a job from one of the houses. A young man, no more than twenty. He was living alone and had evidently tired of his monotonous and pointless existence. He tried to kill himself with a bottle of whiskey and what he thought were painkillers that he had stolen from his grandmother. The tablets turned out to be iron supplements for his grandmother’s anaemia. Instead of a blissful slide into the abyss, he had suffered a painful and seemingly endless battle with his own internal organs which had eventually given out on him a few hours after the whiskey had worn off.

  Recollection of the misery he had encountered on his last visit only furthered his bad mood. Grabbing the sack from the trunk he sauntered towards the house with a lazy and reluctant swagger.

  “Cheer up,” Naff said as he tottered behind Michael who was slumping down the side of the house like a creeping stalker. “It’s Christmas.”