Claus Trilogy (Boxed Set)

by Tony Bertauski

  In his final days, he’d become a beaten elven.

  Jack was his twin brother and a formidable foe. He brought the elven under his rule with a cold fist. Had the warmblood Nicholas Santa not stumbled into the Arctic region at the turn of the nineteenth century, the world would look much different than it does today. There would be no choppers carrying gifts to children across the world, no strands of lights twinkling on rooftops, or stockings decorating fireplace mantels. No eggnog, no tinsel, no Christmas trees, or ornaments. No cheer, happiness, or joy to all mankind.

  Then again, mankind might already be extinct.

  The chopper lifts off with a final thumbs-up, the rotors drumming the air. Templeton returns to the back steps and watches it recede into the clouds.

  “He will return within the hour,” Templeton says. “One of the containers appears to have stalled in a port outside Windsor Alberta, Ontario, but outside of that, all shipments have reached their destinations. We are ahead of schedule.”

  Mr. Frost’s neck itches. Just as the helicopter fades, another appears. This time of year, the plantation is rarely silent.

  Sir, I have bad news.

  Mr. Frost nods to Templeton and leisurely walks towards the garden. Not until he passes through the arbor, once the ice statue is in sight, does he answer.

  Yes?

  Joe has taken Sura.

  Where?

  We don’t know, sir. He packed the truck with camping gear and left the house. They turned off their phones.

  Did the helpers follow?

  Yes. But he crossed the Cooper River Bridge. They’re a bit sluggish across water, sir.

  Have them wait at the bridge.

  She pauses. They’re not coming back; I think you know that, sir. Sura saw another picture and Joe promised to tell her everything. They’re running, sir.

  Mr. Frost meanders down the path and sits on a bench facing Jocah’s continually weeping effigy. It always brought him comfort to see Jack’s mother, reminding him of what the elven once were: peaceful, thoughtful, and kind. She embodied all of that, what every elven should strive to become. But she was not perfect, either.

  Life is imperfect, she would say.

  Mr. Frost closes his eyes, troubled by the events he knows were inevitable, focusing to keep his thoughts still, to not let his innermost motivations rise to the surface, to keep them hidden from Freeda’s watchful presence. Instead, he only lets her see his concern and worry, which is legitimate. Everything he’d worked to achieve for the last hundred years will come to fruition in the next couple of days. Sura needed to be ready.

  Joe will reveal everything. What if it’s too much?

  I’m going to make a suggestion. Freeda waits for him to acknowledge her. Templeton and May are required to operate Frost Plantation and, to some extent, so is Jonah. Sura has become problematic.

  Mr. Frost bristles.

  I allowed your experimentation with her because I sensed your loneliness. You have used her to establish an emotional understanding of humans and that has healed you, allowed you to function. She’s become a distraction.

  There are several billion humans in the world, Freeda. I think it’s worthwhile to understand them.

  I fail to understand why you should take such a vested interest in a species that will soon become extinct.

  Perhaps it’s best to know what the world will become without them.

  We aren’t destroying them, sir. They will do it to themselves.

  WE are not doing it, Freeda. It’s Jack. Jack plans to destroy them. He paces around the statue. Not ME. This has never been me!

  This argument is moot, sir. I’m programmed to assist you in your destiny.

  Jack inserted the root. That is not destiny.

  I’m afraid it is, sir.

  Mr. Frost exits the garden. It’s senseless to argue with the voice in his head. He stands beneath the arbor, watching the arrival of another helicopter.

  Another shipment.

  Another step closer to the end.

  An end he cannot resist.

  What about the children, sir?

  She is digging in, asserting her will. She can do what she wants, but she’s learned to make him feel like he’s making his own decisions. It’s much easier on his psyche that way.

  I’ll consider suspending Sura and Joe at New Year’s.

  It’ll be over before then.

  -------------------------

  Jack sleeps with the lamp shining on his face. Once that light brought him comfort and warmth, now it feels like red-hot coals on his eyelids.

  He’s been shedding like a dog. He scratches his cheek and peels off a thin sheet of skin. Good one.

  Onto the dead-skin pile he keeps under the bed.

  His skin has gone from pale blue to just blue—not Blue Man Group blue, though; blue like winter sky. His skin is smooth and icy; the darker the blue, the colder it feels.

  But the more hair he drops, the more skin he peels, the warmer he feels. The bed has become less of a mattress and more like a skillet. The sheets crackle like frozen blankets.

  He doesn’t have to stay in the shelter; he knows where he’s going. There is just a little unfinished business to tidy up first, and then he’ll be on his way.

  He feigns sleep—sometimes snoring, sometimes farting—and around the wee hours, he thinks maybe he made a mistake. Maybe he should just leave now and stop wasting time. Or maybe he’ll have to be assertive, go get what he wants. He doesn’t want it to end that way, but time is money.

  Somewhere, footsteps fall on the polished floor.

  I knew you wouldn’t let me down.

  A thrill rushes through Jack’s belly. He watches through narrow slits. A figure creeps up behind the lamp and reaches for the switch.

  Click.

  It takes a moment for Jack’s eyes to adjust, to see Pickett twisting the pillowcase, soup cans knocking inside. He looks around, one last time, before reaching back. He is going to whack Jack in the fat belly. He means to hurt him, teach him a lesson, show him who is king.

  The big dummy.

  He grabs Pickett’s bare thigh, just below the bottom of his boxers, and gets a good handful of flesh, all soft and hot.

  Pickett doesn’t yelp.

  Or move.

  Jack feels the cold leave his fingertips, creep through Pickett’s flesh, penetrate the tissue and muscle, and paralyze the nervous system. Pickett’s anger melts like a chocolate drop on summer asphalt. It dissolves into something much more tangible, something acrid, slightly bitter. Jack can taste it through his hand and feels it linger in the back of his throat. That’s why he stayed. He wanted to taste fear.

  Pickett is full of it.

  The pillowcase slips from his fingers.

  Frost creeps across his skin, beneath his shorts. Pickett lets out a whimper.

  Jack closes his eyes. And savors.

  J A C K

  December 20

  Saturday

  Willie arrives for the morning shift.

  He checks with the overnight staff, inspects the kitchen, and peeks into the bunkroom, where the men are already up and dressed.

  Jack’s bed is empty.

  Willie feels guilty. He can’t help it. Doesn’t matter if a resident deserves it or not, he doesn’t like to tell someone they’re not welcome. Once they leave, their future is cold and short.

  And it’s Christmas.

  He straightens an ornament on the artificial tree, thinking if Jack comes back, that he’ll take him to the doctor. If something is diagnosed, maybe he can make an exception. At least until the holidays are over.

  “There a phone over there?” Mark asks.

  “On the tree?”

  “No, on the floor or something. I can’t find my phone.”

  “Want me to call it?”

  “No, I’ll find it. Probably left it in the kitchen. By the way.” Mark holds up an envelope and slides it across the front counter. “Someone left you a note.”

&
nbsp; Willie adjusts the star at the top and steps back to ensure everything looks good and balanced before looking at the white envelope.

  Willie, it says.

  He has no idea who it’s from. In fact, he’s shocked to see Jack’s name at the bottom when he opens it. The little man scrawled like a third grader when he first arrived.

  Even his handwriting has changed.

  You’re a pal, Willie.

  Seriously, you got a good heart for a warmblood. I’m not saying all warmbloods are bad, most of them, yeah, sure, but not you, Willie. You’re one of the good ones. Probably the only one. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.

  But I’m not.

  And you belong to the problem, Willie. Warmbloods, that is.

  So nothing personal, pal.

  Bye.

  Willie turns it over, nothing on the back.

  Nervously, he looks out the front door, aware that he’s envisioning a short fat maniac marching up the steps shouting “WARMBLOODS!”

  “Willie!” Mark rushes out of the bunkroom.

  “What is it?”

  “Call 911.” His face is chalky. “Something’s wrong with Pickett.”

  Willie doesn’t move for a second, clenching the note.

  Later, when no foul play was suspected, that Pickett simply blacked out and couldn’t remember why he was lying next to Jack’s empty bed, Willie still kept the note. It always bothered him there was frostbite on his leg.

  -------------------------

  A wave slides across the hard-packed sand, sloshing over Sura’s bare feet. It recedes back into the ocean, disappearing into the foam. She remembers coming out to Edisto Beach with her mom in the winter months. They’d cuff their pants and walk in the wet sand. Her mom loved the horizon. She used to say there’s mystery out there—that you don’t know what’s beyond the flat line or what life has in store for you.

  “Why don’t we just sail out there and see?” Sura would say.

  “Patience,” her mom would say. “Life will come to you.”

  Sura didn’t like that answer. There was a sense of hopelessness when she said it, like she was trapped, that she didn’t have a choice to explore her life, didn’t have an option to see what was out there.

  “Think of it this way,” her mom would say, “if we sail in that direction long enough, where do we end up?”

  She would make a circle.

  “We end up right where we started. We end up here. So let’s not run; let’s be here.”

  “What if we take a right turn? Think of all the new things we’ll discover.”

  “We still end up here.” Her mom smoothed Sura’s hair. “It’s not that easy, child.”

  Sura’s footsteps dent the sand, fading as the water rolls in. The sweater Joe gave her is moldy and oversized. She slept in her clothes, hunkered down in the sleeping bag, too afraid to poke her head out. Joe’s breaths were easy and long. He wouldn’t tell her why he brought her out to Edisto, why they were hiding. They sat by a fire until the sun went down, and then crawled into the tent until the next morning.

  Sura doesn’t know how far she’s walked or how long she’s been out there, just that she needs to keep moving. The world is steady again, as long as she keeps moving. If she stops, maybe a monster will appear.

  And Joe knows what it looks like.

  She faces the horizon, the cuffs of her pants wet with salty spray. A few beachcombers are far to her right. A boy is coming towards her, bearing gifts wrapped in plastic, his pants rolled to the knees, bare feet in the surf. Joe is chewing on a cinnamon roll. He offers her one. She shakes her head.

  They watch the sun climb.

  “Why’d you bring me out here?” she asks.

  He struggles with the words. She’d asked him that when they were sitting at the campfire last night, but he just shook his head. This time, the words come out slow and unsteady.

  “I grew up out there,” he starts, not looking at her. “So I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “Grew up where?”

  “The plantation. Jonah and I lived on the first floor in the southwest corner of the house. I had my own room, May cooked all the meals, and Templeton did the laundry. That’s all I knew. Honestly, I remember thinking that’s how it is when you’re born, that living on a plantation with other servants is normal.”

  “And that’s why you brought me out here?”

  He digs at the sand with his toes. “Our parents used to be together.”

  Her stomach sinks. “You said that wasn’t true.”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with us.” He pokes at the sand. “Jonah said you wouldn’t know anything about the plantation and I wasn’t supposed to tell you, either; he made that clear. So I guess when I got to the house and that picture somehow got on the refrigerator…”

  “What do you mean ‘somehow’?”

  “Someone told me it was time you knew the truth.”

  He was talking to someone upstairs. “Someone?”

  He waves his words off, like maybe he shouldn’t have said that. “I figured you should know, that’s all. It’s not fair that your mother moved off the plantation and took you with her.”

  “I never lived there.”

  “Jonah says you were there in the beginning, but not for long. He says Sesi was too smart to play along, that she’d evolved some instinct to leave.”

  “Play along?” Sura hugs herself tighter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means Jonah loved your mom. He says she loved him, too, but there was something wrong with it. At least, that’s what Sesi told him. She didn’t want to keep loving him, didn’t want to be in a relationship until she knew who she was. It was the reason for the whole Zen thing.”

  Joe didn’t say it spitefully, although there were bitter undercurrents in his words. He sits in the soft sand, arms propped on his knees.

  Her mom never spoke about Jonah. She never mentioned living on the plantation, only that she wouldn’t stop working there. Sura always assumed it paid well. Maybe she couldn’t leave it for other reasons.

  Joe is picking up washed-up reeds, breaking them into little pieces. “You don’t know what it’s like holding all these secrets,” he says. “Mr. Frost… you’ve seen him. He’s not normal. I don’t think he’s even human.”

  “You think he’s an elven?”

  Joe shrugs. He doesn’t want to say it, but what other explanation is there?

  “Elven don’t exist,” she adds.

  He laughs. It’s unsettling. Long minutes pass as sandpipers scurry across the sand.

  “He does experiments,” he says. “Down in the basement. It’s the reason why Sesi left the plantation, Jonah says. The reason why she left him.”

  “What kind?”

  He breaks apart another reed, flicking the pieces. He starts chuckling, shaking his head.

  “Why do you keep laughing?” she says.

  “Because I’m afraid you’re going to start running.” He glances up, as if she might already be down the beach. When he sees she’s still there, he takes a deep breath. “There are these little people that help out around the plantation. It’s how we get everything done. Think about the gardens and the crops, the entire plantation. Jonah can’t do all that. The helpers do it.”

  “What do you mean ‘little people’? You mean like dwarves?”

  “No, not dwarves.” Joe holds his hand a foot from the ground. “These are tiny, little wrinkled men that move fast and talk even faster. They all look the same and wear crumpled-up clothes and bright color hats.”

  Bright hats.

  The cypress knee.

  The concrete statue.

  The plantation kitchen is big enough to feed an army.

  Sura feels woozy again.

  “I used to know their names when I was little,” Joe says. “They used to play with me. We’d hike through the woods, climb trees, and hunt rabbits. Imagine wrestling a hundred of these little guys, all at the same time.
It was like a mountain of puppies. They never slept, always laughing.”

  He breaks off a small piece and compares it to a long reed. His smile fades.

  “They changed, though.”

  “How?”

  “A couple of weeks ago, they got more serious and stopped talking to me. Jonah says that’s what they’re supposed to do, not treat me like a baby. Says I’m supposed to be normal, interact with other people, not the helpers. I guess it was the same for him.”

  “He grew up on the plantation?”

  “We all grew up on the plantation.”

  “What’s that mean? Who are ‘we’?”

  Joe takes a deep breath. “When it comes down to it, Jonah says the helpers work for Mr. Frost; they do what he says. Something’s going on and I got a bad feeling. I think they’ve been following us. Watching us.”

  “They were in the house.”

  “They’re not mean, just up to something. One of the yellow-hats was upstairs and told me we needed to run away.”

  “I thought you said they changed.”

  “The ones with the yellow hats haven’t. That’s why we left so quickly and turned off the phones, so the rest wouldn’t follow. They can’t cross bridges, at least not very quickly. We lost them on the bridge. They’re probably waiting for us to come back.”

  “That’s why we came out here? So you could tell me all this?”

  He holds the sticks and looks up. “The helpers all look the same, Sura, because they are the same. Mr. Frost is trying to make someone in his basement. The helpers are part of the experiment, like practice. They do other things for him, too, but I think he’s been practicing and he doesn’t want us to know about it.”

  “Know what? That he’s cloning little people, making them work like slaves?”

  She’s focused on the injustice, the crimes against nature. If the authorities knew what he was doing, they’d throw him in jail for life.

  Joe doesn’t say anything else. He’s waiting.

  Her knees weaken. Her feet are like bricks. It’s the way Joe’s looking at her, waiting for her to put it together.

  The helpers all look the same.

  He takes a big stick, breaks it in half, and holds the smaller pieces side by side.