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

by Dr. Freud Funkenstein, ed.

  There was the rustle and flutter of feathers against branches.

  A low warbling sound, and then a single hoot.

  It was our owl, and he had come to speak to Dylan.

  He'd startled me. Through half-closed eyes I watched as the shadows of the branches shimmered across the bedroom wall. Tangling into twisted claws.

  Dylan would sit for hours on the window-ledge. The owl came often. Dad said that it was unusual to find a bird like that in Brixton.

  Dylan and the owl were friends. But now he'd have to find somebody else.

  I pulled the sheet up tight to my neck, eyelids heavy with sleep.

  There was a high-pitched whistle outside.

  The owl was preparing to fly from the tree.

  It shook its feathers and then let out a strange kind of 'hoot'.

  And then another… it was really scary.

  Almost a whistle.

  Just after that I heard a strangled muffled growl, far away, from deep beneath the still cold earth.

  I sank and sank, down and down, into the softness of dream.

  My eyes were not quite closed. Not yet. But I knew.

  From the distance the owl cried out once more. I couldn't do a thing. Couldn't even move. I didn't know if I was awake or dreaming.

  There was a familiar scratching on the bark of the tree outside my window. A slow and perhaps painful kind of shifting.

  The shadows of branch claws trembled across the wall as something pulled itself along a main bough.

  There was a shape framed within the window, dead eyes that glowed, and then the soft plop as it dropped from the sill down on to the floor.

  I heard a gasp, the momentary 'puff of the eiderdown as though something heavy had landed on the bed.

  Outside the branches rustled. Twigs cracked.

  I became aware of a gentle repetitious pumping at the bottom of the bed, and then a warm comforting vibration in the small of my back like an electric motor.

  I was afraid. At first.

  But I'm a big girl now.

  Mum was very excited. 'Hysterical,' Dad said. She kept asking him over and over about the white and ginger hairs at the bottom of the bed. He told her not to be so silly and to 'lay off the sauce'.

  I think it was the blood that really bothered her. That and the soil-clogged Burger King bun she found next to the pillow.

  I can understand why she was so upset, but she's all right now.

  What pissed me off most was Dad, saying that I could never bring another freebie into the house again.

  I'll do what I want!

  Have I got a surprise for them, for Christmas!

  I've been practising my whistles, and I've got lots of ideas for using those key-rings now. I went to Brixton and caught the tube, all the way up to Chinatown, and all on my own too. I got a whole bunch of the tags from the old Chinese wok man.

  We did a deal. I'd keep quiet about his fiddle with the batteries.

  Tonight I'm going to go and see Grannie at the cemetery.

  It's just up the road.

  Mum misses her so, and it'll serve Dad right.

  The key-ring works fine now. Fine.

  Best freebie I've ever had.

  Bentley Little

  WAITING FOR SANTA

  AT FIRST, I thought she was joking.

  “What do you think Santa’s going to bring you?”

  I looked at her. There was no “cute” look on her face, and she hadn’t said it in a babyish voice. Thank God. There’s nothing I hate more than a grown woman who pulls that baby shit. Still, why else would she say it? “I don’t know. Dog crap.”

  She slapped me, laughing. “Come on. I’m serious.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Santa. Santa Claus. What do you think he’s going to bring you?”

  Was it possible? Could a person actually have lived twenty-three years and still believe in Santa Claus? I looked at her again. Yes. It was possible.

  It wasn’t one of those questions that come up in conversation. Even though I’d known her for six years, and even though we’d been going together for the last three, I’d never thought to ask her whether or not she believed in Santa Claus. Of course, I’d asked her what she’d received each Christmas, but I didn’t think to ask her who’d given what. It didn’t seem to matter.

  But now we were married.

  I thought briefly of calling her parents and asking them about her belief, but then decided against it. We all have little idiosyncrasies. Hell, I’m afraid of the dark.

  I decided to humor her. “What do you think he’s bringing you?”

  She smiled and put a finger to her lips. “Can’t tell.”

  “Why not?”

  “I won’t get it then.”

  I shrugged and turned back to the tree decorations. What the hell. So she had a few weird ideas to go along with her unshakable faith.

  I put the star on top of the tree. What kind of parents did she have? I wondered. They seemed all right to me; a little conservative, perhaps, but that was to be expected for Orange County. In private, though, with just their daughter they had to be real looney tunes.

  I’d have to ask her about it someday.

  We finished trimming the tree, then went on to the other decorations. She had several varieties of nativity scenes, a stack full of advent calendars and a life-sized cardboard cutout of Rudolph. In addition, there was a series of green construction paper letters hooked together with string. “Wa-who-voorhees-Da-who-doorhees,” I said aloud. “What’s that?”

  She laughed. “It’s from ‘The Grinch.’ You know. That’s the song the Whos sing. I made it when I was twelve. That’s my favorite Christmas show.”

  I didn’t remember the song, but then I hadn’t seen ‘The Grinch’ for the past few years. I’d have to check it out.

  “Where are your decorations?” she said.

  I unwrapped my sole contribution—a little glass sphere filled with water and fake snow which fell on little plastic pine trees when shaken.

  She put it on the living room table and shook her head. “Pitiful,” she said. “Really pitiful. You have no Christmas spirit.” She kissed the tip of my nose. “But I love you anyway.”

  I kissed her back. “I love you too.”

  * * *

  The weather was cold, unnaturally cold, and we spent most of December huddled around the fireplace under an afghan. It was our honeymoon, so we were able to fend off the holiday party invitations without too much trouble. It was just as well. I hated parties. And, to be honest, I didn’t want my friends to find out that I’d married a girl who still believed in Santa Claus. At Christmas parties, the main topic of conversation is Christmas, and the subject was bound to come up sometime.

  So we stayed home. We talked, read, made and drank a lot of hot tea, fucked a lot. She was good in bed. Damn good. The best I’d had, in fact. She knew some tricks that would make a man’s hair stand on end.

  I asked her about her previous experience once, and she surprised me by saying she had none. I asked her how she knew so much, and she just smiled. “It comes naturally,” she said.

  As the big day grew closer, she grew ever-more excited. She started whistling and humming Christmas songs under her breath. She smiled all the time. She talked real fast.

  It was catching. I must admit.

  Christmas Eve we watched Christmas shows. She’d videotaped ‘The Grinch,’ ‘Rudolph’ and all her favorites. Mostly kid shows. She laughed and clapped and giggled through each one like she’d never seen it before.

  The tape only had about two hours worth of stuff on it. I wanted to watch another movie after but she insisted we go straight to bed. Santa wouldn’t come unless we were fast asleep, she said.

  That was fine by me. I’d bought maybe twenty dollars worth of small items that I planned to stuff in her stocking, and the sooner she fell asleep the sooner I could put it out.

  She was too excited to make love, and all my amorous a
dvances were met with slight slaps or giggled “not nows.” So I left her alone. Ten minutes later, she was dead to the world, her sexy lips parted, her mouth half open, almost snoring. I crept out of bed, got the presents from their hiding place under the bathroom sink and filled up her stocking. I put a few token presents in mine as well, just so she’d think Santa had really been there. The things we do for love, as the song says.

  I went back to bed and crawled under the covers, snuggling against her warm, soft ass.

  I was awakened by a noise on the roof.

  I sat up and looked over at Patty. She was still sound asleep. The blue light of the digital clock above her head said two o’clock.

  The noise came again. A scuffling sound, like the roof was being raked. Or reindeer hooves, a voice in the back of my mind said.

  The scuffling sounds moved. From above our heads to over the living room. To the fireplace.

  My heart was pounding now. I knew this was no normal noise. I also knew it was no burglar. Something was up there which I was afraid to acknowledge. Something in a red and white suit.

  This was crazy. There was no such thing as Santa Claus. Santa was a myth, a joke played on little kids by their parents and reinforced by the marketing powers that be. He was a fictional figure, a cartoon character. Like Paul Bunyan or Bugs Bunny. I was letting Patty’s childish talk get to me. I was starting to imagine things.

  The sound came again.

  I was not imagining it.

  Oh God. The sound of those pawing hooves on the roof is something we wait for our entire child lives. The sound of presents arriving. The happiest sound in the world. But when you hear that sound as an adult it is no longer so cheerful. You no longer want to hear it. And when you do, it scares the shit out of you.

  I was tempted to hide my head under the covers and plug my ears and wait for morning. I could feel the fear rising in my body like bile, causing a wave of cold to travel from the soles of my feet, through my arms, to the top of my head. I started to shake; not just small trembles, but huge, wracking spasms.

  But I didn’t hide. I ran over to the switch, turned on the bedroom light and stood there listening. Patty was still asleep.

  There was a sudden, jarring, growling sound, and I jumped. It moved from the roof, down the fireplace and into the living room. I didn’t know what to do. “Patty!” I hissed. “Patty!” but she wouldn’t wake up.

  I thought of calling the police, but quickly discarded the idea.

  Something—or someone—was definitely moving around out there now. I could hear its heavy footsteps moving from the living room to the dining room/kitchen area. The refrigerator was opened, then closed.

  The noises moved back to the living room by the fireplace, and I heard several small, thudding sounds followed by several small crashes. Then came a whistling. My God, the thing was whistling a song to itself! I listened carefully: the bastardization of a popular Christmas carol.

  What was out there? I wondered. What the fuck was it?

  There was only one way to find out, I knew, but I wasn’t ready yet. I stood next to the light switch, trying to gather up my courage, trying to formulate some sort of plan.

  My feet started moving without my consent, carrying me through the door and out into the hall. The hall light was on—I always kept it on—so I stayed close to the right wall, moving slowly. I didn’t want him to see me.

  Like the hero in Clement Moore’s story, I peeked around the corner and saw a red suited figure stuffing things into a stocking. Patty’s stocking. He had thrown out all my presents and they were strewn over the living room floor, crushed, apparently stomped on. He’d left my stocking alone.

  I said nothing, but watched him work. He did indeed have a large canvas bag with him, just like everyone said. It was filled with all kinds of goodies—mostly toys. He was also fat, just like expected.

  Then he turned around. And I gasped.

  His skin was dark green with mottled brown splotches all over it. He had no beard. His eyes, beady and close-set, were yellow with no iris or pupil. His mouth, set below a large, hooked nose, was filled with several hundred infinitesimal baby teeth, all pointed and the same color as his eyes.

  But I hardly noticed the face. For underneath the red coat he was nude; his skin the same green and brown all over his body. And sticking straight out was a large priapic penis.

  He looked toward me, hearing my gasp, and he smiled. His dimples weren’t merry. “Happy holidays,” he said. His voice was a whiny squeak, barely human at all. His eyes bored into mine and the world disappeared in a yellow haze.

  I could not have been out for more than a few minutes, but when I awoke he was gone. His bag was still there, though, so I assumed he must still be in the house. I shook my head, trying to get rid of that drugged-out feeling. I tried to stand up. My body was heavy. It felt like I was suspended in water.

  “Yes! Yes!”

  I heard the whiny voice coming from our bedroom and, with a puking feeling in my guts, started staggering through the hallway.

  Patty was kneeling on top of the bed, ass up, her nightie flipped over her back. Her head lolled to one side and her eyes were closed. She was still asleep, somehow, though her body appeared to be animated.

  The creature was on his knees directly behind her, his oversized organ shoved all the way into her. “Yes!” he chanted. “Yes! Yes!”

  “No!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, but the sound came out a whisper. He looked at me and my body froze as if paralyzed. But I remained awake, conscious, and I realized as he moved in and out of my wife that he wanted me to watch. He grinned, his yellow teeth glowing strangely.

  NO! I wanted to yell. GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! But my mouth would no longer work. My face muscles were frozen. The tears rolled silently down my face.

  He pulled out of her, and I realized as he positioned his massive cock a little higher that he was going to fuck her in the ass.

  Names, curses, obscenities assaulted my brain as I was forced to watch. He leaned onto her back and grabbed her large breasts from behind; squeezing them, kneading them, fondling them. My frenzied mind planned innumerable deaths and exquisite tortures.

  He came, his whole body suddenly jolted by a series of shudders, and once again he pulled out. I saw sickening yellowish liquid dripping from the tip of his penis.

  Patty rolled onto her back at a whisper from him, and opened her mouth. He shoved the entire organ into her mouth, balls included, and I could see her cheek muscles moving and bulging. Her eyes, however, were still closed and I knew that, somehow, some way, she had not awakened. He was doing this to her without her knowledge, probably against her will, and he was able to keep her asleep.

  He came again and hopped off the bed, cackling. He put a finger aside of his nose and ran out of the room. A minute later, I heard the strange growling sound, now moving up the chimney. After that, the shuffling noises reappeared on the roof and then disappeared. From far off, on the wind, I heard the whistling of Christmas carol travesties.

  * * *

  She awoke in the morning happy and refreshed and rushed immediately to the fireplace to look at her presents. She laughed and squealed with delight as she sorted through the contents of her stocking.

  I felt like hitting her across the mouth, like beating the shit out of her. I blamed her. I knew that what had happened was not her fault, but the feeling remained, irrationally, that she had been unfaithful to me, that she had fucked someone—something—else.

  At the same time, I realized that this was the logical extension of Christmas—the grown-up version. This was what took the place of candy canes and small toys. This was what Santa brought to adults.

  I looked into her innocent eyes. She was so happy, so ecstatic, so full of holiday joy.

  But Christmas had been metamorphosed, for me, to hell.

  I thought about it all day. And I knew that I had a year in which to convince her that Santa Claus was not real, that first her parents a
nd now I filled her stockings with presents. I had a year in which to shatter her faith. I had a year in which to transform her into a normal, well-adjusted unbelieving adult.

  It seemed like plenty of time.

  * * *

  But now it is March. And after three solid months of attempted brainwashing, her faith in Santa is still unshakable as ever.

  And lately, she’s been talking about the Easter Bunny.

  I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.

  Anonymous

  THE WEIRD WOMAN

  MY BROTHER OSWALD and I had long been orphans. Our parents—of good position, but small means—having succeeded in placing us tolerably well in life—I, as an officer in the Indian army, my brother as a barrister—died, leaving us little more than their blessing.

  We had no nearer relation to us than ourselves—neither sister, sweetheart, nor wife—and our mutual affection was great. In fact, we were all in all to each other, having no more family ties than Cicely Mostyn, a cousin, who dwelt in Scotland, and an eccentric, rich, old bachelor uncle, the head of the Tregethans, and the possessor of Holme Grange, North Wales, an estate which had belonged to our race for centuries.

  Having stated that Uncle Jaffery was rich, old, and a bachelor, it follows that we nephews paid him much deference, and regarded with veneration, as with curiosity, the iron safe, which, on our visits to the Holme, our worthy relative, with a gloating chuckle informed us held his last will and testament.

  ‘It must come to one of you—to one,’ he ever concluded. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know which? There’ll be rare fighting and scratching. You are true Tregethans. I only regret dying, because I shan’t see it!’

  In vain we strove to discover which of us he most favoured. Had we not felt his pride of family would prevent it, we might have feared his bequeathing his wealth to a hospital, and cutting us off without a shilling.

  As it was, we never got a penny from him while living, but struggled on as we could, I, with my pay, Oswald with his briefs, till the joyous—yes, I own that was how we regarded it— intelligence reached us that Uncle Jaffery had died suddenly in his bed.