Gift-Wrapped & Toe-Tagged: A Melee of Misc. Holiday Anthology

by Dr. Freud Funkenstein, ed.

  The silence stretched again, until he shook his head. “We’re almost there. You should give me the details. Hit the high points.”

  “Well, the murders, they changed him. Turner became sullen, withdrawn, not that anyone blamed him, of course. He got better when he remarried, that made a big difference. It was almost like he’d been sick for a long time and then recovered. I don’t know. Maybe it’s that some people just need to have family with them to be complete, you know?”

  He nodded. He could remember what that was like.

  “Anyway, last year everything started going south again. He was fine, his new wife, his new step kids, even the new baby on the way, everything seemed like it was perfect and then he just…he lost it.”

  The light on the road ahead turned red and Crowley slowed the car down and stopped. He turned to look at her. Her expression was one he’d grown far too familiar with over the years; she looked quietly, desperately stunned, as if she’d just survived an unexpected car wreck where she was fine and everyone else was mangled.

  When she spoke again the words were rushed, as if getting them out quickly would make it easier somehow. “Turner was fine at Thanksgiving, and for a week after that, but then he started changing. He went from open and friendly and loving to quiet and angry. He wouldn’t answer my calls, and his new wife, Holly, she stopped by three days before Christmas in tears. He was screaming all the time, losing his temper and finally he told her to get out of the house before things got worse. So we took her in, we kept her over the holidays and did what we could to make everything okay. And then three days after Christmas, Turner came around apologizing and said he’d just succumbed to the pressure from work. That he’d basically lost it but he was better.”

  The light changed and Crowley started driving again.

  “He was fine.” Her tone said it all. She couldn’t understand how her uncle could go crazy and get better so fast, but she believed he had done just that. “It took almost four months before Holly forgave him, really forgave him, I mean. The baby’s what made the difference. And Turner loves that little boy, you can see it, you know? Even if he’d had any sort of problems with Holly or her children, he loves that little baby.”

  He could see the house now; there was a tree in the front yard with glowing lights and decorations, an illuminated tribute to the birth of a demigod to some, and to others merely a sign of the time of year when most people seemed a little more tolerant of their neighbors. He looked her way and asked with his eyes if he had the right place and she nodded her answer. A moment later he was pulling over in front of the place and killing the engine.

  Inside the house there were lights and decorations as well, but even knowing that a family lived there, the house felt empty, cored out and abandoned.

  “Finish it. Tell me.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and stared hard at her.

  “The baby, he started crying all the time about two weeks ago. I mean all the time. He wouldn’t sleep, he wouldn’t eat. He just screamed and cried like he was being tortured. And around the same time Turner started acting like he was acting last year.”

  Crowley nodded. “You think he’s being haunted.”

  “Well, yes, I suppose I do.”

  “When did his family die?”

  “It was right around Christmas time.”

  “His family, are they staying with you again?” he remembered the suitcases, and there had been a hint of baby powder in the air.

  “Yes.” She sounded just a little puzzled by his knowing.

  “The baby. Did the baby stop crying when he got to your house?”

  “How did you know that?” She didn’t just sound surprised. She sounded suspicious.

  “You called me, remember?” He stared hard at her, unflinching, until she looked down and nodded her head. “It’s a good sign. It means whatever is affecting your uncle isn’t following the rest of his family, it’s just dealing with him.” That was true enough, but if there had been anything in her house when he came to see her he’d have noticed it.

  “Of course. I’m sorry.” Her voice was a whisper. He looked away from her and opened his door.

  “Well, there it is and here we are. Let’s see what we can do for your Uncle Turner, shall we?”

  Laura nodded and they stepped out of the warmth of the car and into the harsh cold wind. She was bundled into a thick fur coat that probably cost as much as her maid earned in a year. The wealth was something she took for granted, which meant she had changed a great deal from when she was a teenager. She was happy, deep inside where it counted, she was pleased with her world. Crowley envied her that.

  He’d spent fifteen minutes inside her home and taken in all of the details he needed. In addition to the signs of visitors, he’d seen pictures of the woman and her husband, her kids. Three children, two daughters and a son, and didn’t that put an ache in his heart? Didn’t that bring back a special twist of pain when he remembered his past and the family he’d had? Oh, yes, my yes, it most certainly did. The family room had been rearranged to accommodate a massive Christmas tree that already had an explosion of gifts under it. Packages wrapped in every imaginable color and festooned with ribbons and bows. He looked away before he could let himself stare too openly.

  There was no time for sentimentality and really, no desire. The past was best left behind.

  A smile played around his mouth as he looked at the house Laura had directed him to. “Mostly. Mostly the past is best left behind.” He stepped onto the walkway, not as clean as it could have been and in need of repairs, he noted. “There are always exceptions.”

  “I’m sorry?” Laura hadn’t heard his words clearly. That was all right, too. They weren’t meant for her.

  “Nothing to worry yourself about,” he waved a hand to dismiss her query. “Why don’t you introduce me to your friend so we can get this over with?”

  Laura didn’t question him. Few people did. Most seemed to understand on an instinctive level that letting him have his way was the quickest method of getting him to leave, and even the people who wanted his help seldom wanted him around for long.

  She walked up to the door and knocked briskly, her gloved knuckles rapping the wood hard enough to make her presence known to anyone around.

  Almost a minute later the door opened and a young woman peered out: she was either a hooker—unlikely—or hired help. Crowley stared only long enough to acknowledge that she was the maid. He ignored the conversation between Laura and the woman and instead looked around the outside of the house. A nice place, not overwhelmingly fine, but better than average. There was a darkness around the place, however, that made perfect sense to Crowley. Something was wrong. Something had invited itself into the house and made itself comfortable.

  He opened his senses, did his best to find the source of the discomfort, but that was too easy and whatever was there didn’t want to be seen. Not by him, at least.

  Laura looked in his direction and smiled patiently. She was waiting on him while he was off daydreaming. Sloppy. He needed to remember why he was here. He apologized with a smile of his own and moved forward into the home of a man he had never met.

  Once past the threshold he felt them, the spirits of the house, the entities that filled the place and held sway over the head of the household. They were hidden, but they were not quiet. They howled their outrage and cursed the man’s existence with malignant fury.

  He noticed the sounds. Laura walked on as if there were nothing at all to be afraid of, and if he was right, there was no reason at all for her to be worried.

  She wasn’t the target.

  The maid looked toward Crowley and smiled apologetically. “Mr. Hamilton, he’s not himself lately.”

  “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? To get him back to himself?”

  “Oh, are you a doctor?” She was cute and he resisted a dozen different comments he could have made in response. Instead, he just nodded. He hadn’t expected a maid. The house was
n’t really large enough to leave a reason for him to expect a maid and he doubted the man could afford the luxury for his wife.

  “Turner?” Laura’s voice rang out harshly enough to startle the maid. Crowley simply pressed his lips together.

  The man came out of a doorway to the left. His eyes were wide and surprised, his face pale and puffy. His features bore a strong resemblance to the woman who’d called on Crowley in the first place, but stress had aged him more than the five years that separated them, and the haunted expression ruined any illusion of happiness and contentment.

  Laura opened her mouth to speak, and Crowley held out a hand to silence her. He stepped past her and closer to her uncle.

  “You aren’t having a good time of things lately, are you?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m a specialist. Your niece told me you need help and that’s what I’m here to take care of.”

  The man shot an angry look at Laura that was completely out of place for what she had done. Crowley noticed it, but said nothing.

  “I don’t need a specialist. I need to be left alone.”

  “Sure. That’s why your wife and your kid are over at Laura’s place, because everything is just fine.”

  “How dare you?” Like so many people, he was surprised when someone stated the obvious. Manners were a good thing in small doses, but did remarkably little for Crowley’s peace of mind.

  “It’s Christmas Eve and I’m here instead of at home.” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the man over the rim of his glasses. The smile that slipped across his mouth was cold and predatory and Turner blanched a bit. “That’s pretty much all the reason I need to dare anything, sport.”

  “Listen, this is my house.” The expression said it all. He was angry, and that was expected, but he was also worried about something. Not Crowley. He hadn’t even begun to give the man a reason to be afraid. It was something else, and Crowley struck at that particular nerve quickly.

  “Yeah, I get that. But it’s not your house. Not really. If it was your house, you wouldn’t have to send your family away to keep them safe, would you?”

  The eyes widened. A sign that he’d struck the nerve he’d aimed for.

  “Listen, Laura, I want you and this lovely young lady to go to the kitchen for a minute, okay? I need to talk to Turner alone.”

  Laura opened her mouth to say something and snapped it shut just as quickly when she saw Crowley’s expression. Instead she nodded and all but pushed the girl out of the room. Crowley kept his eyes on them until they were out of the room and safely away from the master of the house.

  “Listen carefully. I really don’t want to be here. Your house has a serious shadow on it. I need to know who is haunting you.” He spoke quickly and quietly, knowing fully that the answer he got would be a lie.

  “No one. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  Crowley’s smile bloomed, a dark and venomous expression. “Listen to me very carefully. You want to tell me the truth, because I can help you. I can make them go away, but I need to know what I’m dealing with and why they’re hovering around you.”

  The room grew colder as he spoke, and Crowley, who was used to dealing with dead things and not the least bit surprised by the change, watched Turner flinch as surely as if he’d been slapped across the face.

  “You should leave. Take Laura with you.” Turner’s voice was trying for calm and failing miserably. His eyes looked around with a quiet desperation, but saw nothing. The air temperature dropped substantially for the second time and the man stepped away from the threshold he’d been standing in and retreated back into the room he’d come from.

  Crowley followed and chuckled. “Seriously, you’ve got a bad case of the holiday spooks. Tell me who it is before things get worse.”

  They’d entered the dining room, which was set up with a small feast. The meal was laid out, a spread worthy of a dozen people, complete with settings, opened bottles of wine, eggnog, a ham and a turkey with all of the fixings.

  “You have to leave. They want to eat now.” The man’s voice was hollow, weak. He swallowed, his face paler than before, his skin sweating profusely despite the frigid temperature in the room. Every breath, every word he uttered sent small plumes of condensation past his lips.

  They tried to hide themselves from him but Crowley forced the issue. His hand reached into the thick winter coat he sported and sorted past several stones and two small bags of salt until he found the cellophane strip twisted around a pinch of grave mold mixed with sulfur and ash. A quick utterance, no more than a dozen mumbled words and then the fine black grit in the palm of his hand lifted into the air and dispersed evenly through the room. The cloud of dust settled itself, seemed to stick to the air around Turner. It layered itself in a thin mist and revealed the shapes that did their best to avoid being seen.

  Two women stood in the room and near them, like satellites around twin moons, a half dozen children circled. Turner stared, his eyes bugging wider than Crowley would have thought possible.

  “What? You haven’t seen them before?” He let the humor creep into his tones. He didn’t know exactly what the man in front of him had done, but he suspected Turner was responsible for the spirits that surrounded him.

  “I-I-How did you do that? Why are there so many of them? I only wanted Michelle…” He tried to look everywhere at once, at all of the shapes and the faces hinted at by the black powder draped across their translucent forms. Apparently it was simply too much for him. Turner sat down abruptly at the head of the table, his face a study in misery.

  “Did you kill them, Turner? Or did you just miss them too much? They look mighty pissed off, whatever the case.” He quickly scanned the room and frowned; it was getting colder and more than that, there seemed to be more of the shapes than he remembered.

  “You wouldn’t understand.” Turner hid his face in his hands, mumbling the words past his clasping fingers.

  “What’s there to understand? You missed them, so you called them back. You think you’re the first person to ever summon a dead loved one or two from the other side of death?” Crowley stepped closer, pushing his way through a dead boy who simply dispersed, leaving a thin black powder across the floor in his wake. “You think you’re the only one who’s ever wanted another chance at happiness?” The rage snuck in as he spoke, stoking the fury that always waited just under the surface of the Hunter’s calm demeanor.

  “I just wanted them back to say good bye. I didn’t expect them to keep coming back.” He kept his hands over his face, and Crowley, who had been moving closer, felt the fine hairs on his neck rise and stepped back. You fight enough things in darkness and on unfamiliar territory you learn to trust your instincts.

  “How long have they been after you?” He could hear the women coming back, their steps tentative, uncertain if they should enter the room. The shadowy forms all around them—enough now to crowd a bus station: there were more shapes coming from somewhere, and not all of them could be his family—looked toward the doors with unsettling hunger on their hollow faces.

  “It’s been five years. Just at Christmas at first, but then they started coming for longer stays. I couldn’t hide them anymore; Holly was starting to ask questions and the kids…sometimes they could see them.” He looked at Crowley with a trembling lower lip. “Do you understand? They could see the dead people.”

  “What? You thought they were your special entertainment?” Crowley’s mouth curled into a scowl of disapproval. “They’re dead, you damned fool. They’re supposed to stay that way.”

  He saw the movement, the slight push at the door, and heard Laura’s voice. “Is it okay to come in now?”

  “No! No, Laura Keep away from here!” For the first time Turner seemed genuinely scared. He rose from his seat, his arms reaching as if to block her actions from across the room.

  Crowley was faster. He pushed the door shut violently enough to shake the wall. Laura let out a squ
awk on the other side of the barrier, shocked by the sudden action. “Is everything okay in there?” Her voice had risen at least an octave and her stress was apparent.

  Crowley smiled, though there was nothing kind about the expression. “You really screwed the pooch, didn’t you? They’re here for more than a holiday meal, aren’t they?”

  “They always come for Christmas dinner; I can’t get rid of them.” He looked at the shapes that moved, surging into the room from somewhere beyond the physical plane. Crowley looked carefully and finally saw the rift, understood what was happening.

  “Oh, you damned fool. There’s always a cost, isn’t there?” He’d have to check. He’d ask Laura on the way back to her house, before he wiped the memories of the night from her head.

  “They wanted… They wanted my family. Again.” Turner’s voice broke at last and he shook his head. “I couldn’t give them Holly or the kids. I already lost one family!”

  There had been two women present among the first spirits, and several children besides.

  “How many times have you been married, you son of a bitch?” The words were cold, distant. Any sympathy he might have had for the man he was supposed to save was gone.

  “Three times, okay? I wanted my family back, is that so wrong?” He was pleading, as if there was a chance that Crowley would somehow find it in himself to grant absolution.

  “Last year your family left and you called for someone to cook for you. That’s how this works, isn’t it? You have to offer up someone, somebody to pay the price for letting them back in or sending them away.” He stared at the man, stunned. “You’ve done this before.”

  “I had no choice!” Oh he was crying now, showing his misery for Crowley, showing how he’d suffered for the last few years.

  “Was it this bad last year?” His was almost yelling to be heard over the hissed murmurs of the dead.

  “It was never this bad before.” Turner’s voice was barely audible over the sound of the dead.