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

by Dr. Freud Funkenstein, ed.

  For his part, Jack J. Polo continued to be the most unknowing of men. He had always been that way; indeed his history was littered with the victims of his naпvetй. When his late, lamented wife had cheated on him (he'd been in the house on at least two of the occasions, watching the television) he was the last one to find out. And the clues they'd left behind them! A blind, deaf and dumb man would have become suspicious. Not Jack. He pottered about his dull business and never noticed the tang of the adulterer's cologne, nor the abnormal regularity with which his wife changed the bed-linen.

  He was no less disinterested in events when his younger daughter Amanda confessed her lesbianism to him. His response was a sigh and a puzzled look.

  "Well, as long as you don't get pregnant, darling," he replied, and sauntered off into the garden, blithe as ever. What chance did a fury have with a man like that?

  To a creature trained to put its meddling fingers into the wounds of the human psyche, Polo offered a surface so glacial, so utterly without distinguishing marks, as to deny malice any hold whatsoever.

  Events seemed to make no dent in his perfect indifference. His life's disasters seemed not to scar his mind at all. When, eventually, he was confronted with the truth about his wife's infidelity (he found them screwing in the bath) he couldn't bring himself to be hurt or humiliated.

  "These things happen," he said to himself, backing out of the bathroom to let them finish what they'd started. "Che sera, sera."

  Che sera, sera. The man muttered that damn phrase with monotonous regularity. He seemed to live by that philosophy of fatalism, letting attacks on his manhood, ambition and dignity slide off his ego like rain-water from his bald head.

  The Yattering had heard Polo's wife confess all to her husband (it was hanging upside down from the light-fitting, invisible as ever) and the scene had made it wince. There was the distraught sinner, begging to be accused, bawled at, struck even, and instead of giving her the satisfaction of his hatred, Polo had just shrugged and let her say her piece without a word of interruption, until she had no more to embosom. She'd left, at length, more out of frustration and sorrow than guilt; the Yattering had heard her tell the bathroom mirror how insulted she was at her husband's lack of righteous anger. A little while after she'd flung herself off the balcony of the Roxy Cinema. Her suicide was in some ways convenient for the fury. With the wife gone, and the daughters away from home, it could plan for more elaborate tricks to unnerve its victim, without ever having to concern itself with revealing its presence to creatures the powers had not marked for attack.

  But the absence of the wife left the house empty during the days, and that soon became a burden of boredom the Yattering found scarcely supportable. The hours from nine to five, alone in the house, often seemed endless. It would mope and wander, planning bizarre and impractical revenges upon the Polo-man, pacing the rooms, heartsick, companioned only by the clicks and whirrs of the house as the radiators cooled, or the refrigerator switched itself on and off. The situation rapidly became so desperate that the arrival of the midday post became the high-point of the day, and an unshakeable melancholy would settle on the Yattering if the postman had nothing to deliver and passed by to the next house.

  When Jack returned the games would begin in earnest. The usual warm-up routine: it would meet Jack at the door and prevent his key from turning in the lock. The contest would go on for a minute or two until Jack accidentally found the measure of the Yattering's resistance, and won the day. Once inside, it would start all the lampshades swinging. The man would usually ignore this performance, however violent the motion. Perhaps he might shrug and murmur: "Subsidence," under his breath, then, inevitably, "Che sera, sera."

  In the bathroom, the Yattering would have squeezed toothpaste around the toilet-seat and have plugged up the shower-head with soggy toilet-paper. It would even share the shower with Jack, hanging unseen from the rail that held up the shower curtain and murmuring obscene suggestions in his ear. That was always successful, the demons were taught at the Academy. The obscenities in the ear routine never failed to distress clients, making them think they were conceiving of these pernicious acts themselves, and driving them to self-disgust, then to self-rejection and finally to madness. Of course, in a few cases the victims would be so inflamed by these whispered suggestions they'd go out on the streets and act upon them. Under such circumstances the victim would often be arrested and incarcerated. Prison would lead to further crimes, and a slow dwindling of moral reserves – and the victory was won by that route. One way or another insanity would out.

  Except that for some reason this rule did not apply to Polo; he was imperturbable: a tower of propriety.

  Indeed, the way things were going the Yattering would be the one to break. It was tired; so very tired. Endless days of tormenting the cat, reading the funnies in yesterday's newspaper, watching the game shows: they drained the fury. Lately, it had developed a passion for the woman who lived across the street from Polo. She was a young widow; and seemed to spend most of her life parading around the house stark naked. It was almost unbearable sometimes, in the middle of a day when the postman failed to call, watching the woman and knowing it could never cross the threshold of Polo's house.

  This was the Law. The Yattering was a minor demon, and his soul-catching was strictly confined to the perimeters of his victim's house. To step outside was to relinquish all powers over the victim: to put itself at the mercy of humanity.

  All June, all July and most of August it sweated in its prison, and all through those bright, hot months Jack Polo maintained complete indifference to the Yattering's attacks.

  It was deeply embarrassing, and it was gradually destroying the demon's self-confidence, seeing this bland victim survive every trial and trick attempted upon him.

  The Yattering wept.

  The Yattering screamed.

  In a fit of uncontrollable anguish, it boiled the water in the aquarium, poaching the guppies.

  Polo heard nothing. Saw nothing.

  At last, in late September, the Yattering broke one of the first rules of its condition, and appealed directly to its masters.

  Autumn is Hell's season; and the demons of the higher dominations were feeling benign. They condescended to speak to their creature.

  "What do you want?" asked Beelzebub, his voice blackening the air in the lounge.

  "This man…" the Yattering began nervously.

  "Yes?"

  "This Polo…"

  "Yes?"

  "I am without issue upon him. I can't get panic upon him, I can't breed fear or even mild concern upon him. I am sterile, Lord of the Flies, and I wish to be put out of my misery."

  For a moment Beelzebub's face formed in the mirror over the mantelpiece.

  "You want what?"

  Beelzebub was part elephant, part wasp. The Yattering was terrified.

  "I – want to die."

  "You cannot die."

  "From this world. Just die from this world. Fade away. Be replaced."

  "You will not die."

  "But I can't break him!" the Yattering shrieked, tearful.

  "You must."

  "Why?"

  "Because we tell you to." Beelzebub always used the Royal 'we', though unqualified to do so. "Let me at least know why I'm in this house," the Yattering appealed. "What is he? Nothing! He's nothing!" Beelzebub found this rich. He laughed, buzzed, trumpeted.

  "Jack Johnson Polo is the child of a worshipper at the Church of Lost Salvation. He belongs to us." "But why should you want him? He's so dull."

  "We want him because his soul was promised to us, and his mother did not deliver it. Or herself come to that. She cheated us. She died in the arms of a priest, and was safely escorted to -”

  The word that followed was anathema. The Lord of the Flies could barely bring himself to pronounce it."- Heaven," said Beelzebub, with infinite loss in his voice.

  "Heaven," said the Yattering, not knowing quite what was meant by the word.

/>   "Polo is to be hounded in the name of the Old One, and punished for his mother's crimes. No torment is too profound for a family that has cheated us."

  "I'm tired," the Yattering pleaded, daring to approach the mirror.

  "Please. I beg you."

  "Claim this man," said Beelzebub, "or you will suffer in his place."

  The figure in the mirror waved its black and yellow trunk and faded.

  "Where is your pride?" said the master's voice as it shriveled into distance. "Pride, Yattering, pride." Then he was gone.

  In its frustration the Yattering picked up the cat and threw it into the fire, where it was rapidly cremated. If only the law allowed such easy cruelty to be visited upon human flesh, it thought. If only. If only. Then it'd make Polo suffer such torments. But no. The Yattering knew the laws as well as the back of its hand; they had been flayed on to its exposed cortex as a fledgling demon by its teachers. And Law One stated: "Thou shalt not lay palm upon thy victims."

  It had never been told why this law pertained, but it did.

  "Thou shalt not…"

  So the whole painful process continued. Day in, day out, and still the man showed no sign of yielding. Over the next few weeks the Yattering killed two more cats that Polo brought home to replace his treasured Freddy (now ash).

  The first of these poor victims was drowned in the toilet bowl one idle Friday afternoon. It was a pretty satisfaction to see the look of distaste register on Polo's face as he unzipped his fly and glanced down. But any pleasure the Yattering took in Jack's discomfiture was cancelled out by the blithely efficient way in which the man dealt with the dead cat, hoisting the bundle of soaking fur out of the pan, wrapping it in a towel and burying it in the back garden with scarcely a murmur.

  The third cat that Polo brought home was wise to the invisible presence of the demon from the start. There was indeed an entertaining week in mid-November when life for the Yattering became almost interesting while it played cat and mouse with Freddy the Third. Freddy played the mouse. Cats not being especially bright animals the game was scarcely a great intellectual challenge, but it made a change from the endless days of waiting, haunting and failing. At least the creature accepted the Yattering's presence. Eventually, however, in a filthy mood (caused by the re-marriage of the Yattering's naked widow) the demon lost its temper with the cat. It was sharpening its nails on the nylon carpet, clawing and scratching at the pile for hours on end. The noise put the demon's metaphysical teeth on edge. It looked at the cat once, briefly, and it flew apart as though it had swallowed a live grenade. The effect was spectacular. The results were gross. Cat-brain, cat-fur, cat-gut everywhere.

  Polo got home that evening exhausted, and stood in the doorway of the dining-room, his face sickened, surveying the carnage that had been Freddy III.

  "Damn dogs," he said. "Damn, damn dogs."

  There was anger in his voice. Yes, exulted the Yattering, anger. The man was upset: there was clear evidence of emotion on his face.

  Elated, the demon raced through the house, determined to capitalize on its victory. It opened and slammed every door. It smashed vases. It set the lampshades swinging.

  Polo just cleaned up the cat.

  The Yattering threw itself downstairs, tore up a pillow. Impersonated a thing with a limp and an appetite for human flesh in the attic, and giggling.

  Polo just buried Freddy III, beside the grave of Freddy II, and the ashes of Freddy

  Then he retired to bed, without his pillow.

  The demon was utterly stumped. If the man could not raise more than a flicker of concern when his cat was exploded in the dining-room, what chance had it got of ever breaking the bastard?

  There was one last opportunity left.

  It was approaching Christ's Mass, and Jack's children would be coming home to the bosom of the family. Perhaps they could convince him that all was not well with the world; perhaps they could get their fingernails under his flawless indifference, and begin to break him down. Hoping against hope, the Yattering sat out the weeks to late December, planning its attacks with all the imaginative malice it could muster.

  Meanwhile, Jack's life sauntered on. He seemed to live apart from his experience, living his life as an author might write a preposterous story, never involving himself in the narrative too deeply. In several significant ways, however, he showed his enthusiasm for the coming holiday. He cleared his daughters' rooms immaculately. He made their beds up with sweet-smelling linen. He cleaned every speck of cat's blood out of the carpet. He even set up a Christmas tree in the lounge, hung with iridescent balls, tinsel and presents.

  Once in a while, as he went about the preparations, Jack thought of the game he was playing, and quietly calculated the odds against him. In the days to come he would have to measure not only his own suffering, but that of his daughters, against the possible victory. And always, when he made these calculations, the chance of victory seemed to outweigh the risks.

  So he continued to write his life, and waited.

  Snow came, soft pats of it against the windows, against the door. Children arrived to sing carols, and he was generous to them. It was possible, for a brief time, to believe in peace on earth.

  Late in the evening of the twenty-third of December the daughters arrived, in a flurry of cases and kisses. The youngest, Amanda, arrived home first. From its vantage point on the landing the Yattering viewed the young woman balefully. She didn't look like ideal material in which to induce a breakdown. In fact, she looked dangerous. Gina followed an hour or two later; a smoothly-polished woman of the world at twenty-four, she looked every bit as intimidating as her sister. They came into the house with their bustle and their laughter; they re-arranged the furniture; they threw out the junk-food in the freezer, they told each other (and their father) how much they had missed each other's company. Within the space of a few hours the drab house was repainted with light, and fun and love.

  It made the Yattering sick.

  Whimpering, it hid its head in the bedroom to block out the din of affection, but the shock-waves enveloped it. All it could do was sit, and listen, and refine its revenge.

  Jack was pleased to have his beauties home. Amanda so full of opinions, and so strong, like her mother. Gina more like his mother: poised, perceptive. He was so happy in their presence he could have wept; and here was he, the proud father, putting them both at such risk. But what was the alternative? If he had cancelled the Christmas celebrations, it would have looked highly suspicious. It might even have spoiled his whole strategy, waking the enemy to the trick that was being played.

  No; he must sit tight. Play dumb, the way the enemy had come to expect him to be.

  The time would come for action.

  At 3:15 a.m. on Christmas morning the Yattering opened hostilities by throwing Amanda out of bed. A paltry performance at best, but it had the intended effect. Sleepily rubbing her bruised head, she climbed back into bed, only to have the bed buck and shake and fling her off again like an unbroken colt.

  The noise woke the rest of the house. Gina was first in her sister's room.

  "What's going on?"

  "There's somebody under the bed."

  "What?"

  Gina picked up a paperweight from the dresser and demanded the assailant come out. The Yattering, invisible, sat on the window seat and made obscene gestures at the women, tying knots in its genitalia.

  Gina peered under the bed. The Yattering was clinging to the light fixture now, persuading it to swing backwards and forwards, making the room reel.

  "There's nothing there -”

  "There is."

  Amanda knew. Oh yes, she knew.

  "There's something here, Gina," she said. "Something in the room with us, I'm sure of it."

  "No." Gina was absolute. "It's empty."

  Amanda was searching behind the wardrobe when Polo came in.

  "What's all the din?"

  "There's something in the house Daddy. I was thrown out of bed."


  Jack looked at the crumpled sheets, the dislodged mattress, then at Amanda. This was the first test: he must lie as casually as possible.

  "Looks like you've been having nightmares, beauty," he said, affecting an innocent smile.

  "There was something under the bed," Amanda insisted.

  "There's nobody here now."

  "But I felt it."

  "Well, I'll check the rest of the house," he offered, without enthusiasm for the task. "You two stay here, just in case." As Polo left the room, the Yattering rocked the light a little more.

  "Subsidence," said Gina.

  It was cold downstairs, and Polo could have done without padding around barefoot on the kitchen tiles, but he was quietly satisfied that the battle had been joined in such a petty manner. He'd half-feared that the enemy would turn savage with such tender victims at hand. But no: he'd judged the mind of the creature quite accurately. It was one of the lower orders. Powerful, but slow. Capable of being inveigled beyond the limits of its control. Carefully does it, he told himself, carefully does it.

  He traipsed through the entire house, dutifully opening cupboards and peering behind the furniture, then returned to his daughters, who were sitting at the top of the stairs. Amanda looked small and pale, not the twenty-two-year-old woman she was, but a child again.

  "Nothing doing," he told her with a smile. "It's Christmas morning and all through the house -” Gina finished the rhyme.

  "Nothing is stirring; not even a mouse."

  "Not even a mouse, beauty."

  At that moment the Yattering took its cue to fling a vase off the lounge mantelpiece.

  Even Jack jumped.

  "Shit," he said. He needed some sleep, but quite clearly the Yattering had no intention of letting them alone just yet. "Che sera, sera," he murmured, scooping up the pieces of the Chinese vase, and putting them in a piece of newspaper. "The house is sinking a little on the left side, you know," he said more loudly. "It has been for years." "Subsidence," said Amanda with quiet certainty, "would not throw me out of my bed."