A Hacked-Up Holiday Massacre: Halloween Is Going to Be Jealous

by Shane McKenzie, ed.

  The sky was not covered in clouds as she’d been expecting. There were very few clouds in the sky at all. The sun had simply not risen. It was still low in the sky just barely peeking over the ocean but it wasn’t rising. It was stuck there on the edge of the sky, boiling on the horizon. Even the clouds did not move, their momentum arrested, hovering in the sky. All movement everywhere had ceased. It was then that Kitten remembered the one deity that had most terrified Jamie, the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli. Jamie had warned her that without a blood sacrifice Huitzilopochtli would cease to provide the world with something he called tonally and all movement on earth would cease. But the sheet of paper with prayers she was supposed to recite to Huitzilopochtli was covered with so much of Jamie’s blood that she’d been unable to read any of it and so, she’d simply skipped them.

  She looked back at the horizon hoping that she was wrong even as she began to feel her own energy winding down. The sun had still not moved and appeared to be dimming as if it too were losing energy. Her sin against the bloodthirsty Aztec deity had damned more than just this world…perhaps the entire solar system, maybe even the entire universe.

  Kitten collapsed onto her back as her muscles lost all vitality and shut down. Her arms and legs went numb, her heartbeat slowed, and her breathing became more shallow. Even her thoughts began to slow. She imagined how enraged Huitzilopochtli must have been, watching as all the other Gods received their offerings of blood while He alone was denied. She imagined how intense his wrath must have been after centuries of being ignored by humanity only to be reawakened by Jamie with the promise of blood and then snubbed.

  With a sigh that emptied her soul Kitten watched the sun turn black and fall from the sky just as the fading spark within her winked out.

  A SPECIAL SURPRISE AT THANKSGIVING DINNER

  by Elle Richfield

  Hector had prepared dinner. There was nothing unusual here, as he always cooked all of their dinners, along with lunches, teas, and breakfasts too.

  “Where’s our soup?” Norma whined, dictating her usual tirade of instructions, too lazy to lift a pudgy finger herself.

  Hector smiled with unusual warmth as his family sat with him at the table for a very special Thanksgiving dinner. He looked at the clock. The roast would be done soon and need to come out to rest, he thought. The dinner was going to be timed just right. “Coming, dear,” he mumbled scuttling off to the stove.

  “It’s so sad I have no grandchildren sat here with me today, isn’t it Hector?” Ilene snapped from the table. There it was, her first cutting remark of many, thought Hector. But this one was particularly sharp—it was always his fault in her eyes they didn’t have any children. He waited for her to continue as she always did.

  “The little cries of joy with Christmas approaching—but if that’s what God wanted, then I’ll accept it. Even when Norma could have tried elsewhere.”

  And right on cue, the same pained look was directed to Norma, who undeservedly lapped up the pity. It was no secret Ilene had wanted better for her daughter, and “trying elsewhere” was her way of letting Hector know that.

  At the stove, Hector’s smile started to feel hotter. Behind his teeth and eyes was an uprising of anticipation. It was as though all of his suppressed feelings, thoughts and needs had fermented to create a deep well of fury within himself that he could no longer control. But most worrying of all, he no longer cared—he welcomed the approaching red void. For a moment he lost himself in the tomato soup as he ladled it into the bowls.

  “So what roast are we having, Hector? Is it beef? Is it duck? It sure doesn’t smell like turkey to me. Why didn’t you ask us what we wanted?” Norma said, rolling her eyes at her mother.

  “It’s a surprise,” Hector called with an excitement in his voice that even surprised himself. He noticed he was grinning again, which was usually quite a rare occurrence.

  Ilene was a little discomforted by his out-of-place glee. “And what have you got to be so happy about?” she said, doing her damnedest to peg him right back down again.

  “It’s Thanksgiving and I want to thank you for all the lovely years we have had together, today,” Hector said.

  Ilene and Norma stared oddly at him, caught off guard by the words, before wolfing down the soup now in front of them, along with plenty of bread and butter.

  Hector smiled some more as he watched them eat. He couldn’t eat much himself; the ticking of the clock distracted him and seemed to grow louder and louder in his ears. Excitedly, he scuttled back to the oven and carefully removed the foiled up roasting tray.

  “Open some more wine. We’re out, you useless man,” Norma barked.

  “A real man would never let a lady’s glass become empty while dining, would he, Norma?” Ilene said.

  Even on special occasions, they didn’t hold back on lashing their tongues. But today, Hector barely heard them, and their words no longer stung. He only heard the clock. He placed the heated trays of veg on the table, and fetched more wine.

  Tick…tock…tick…tock.

  He peeled back the foil on the roast try and looked on with glee—his warm smile now taking on a grimace of joyous proportions. “Perfect,” Hector announced. Things were getting a little quieter at the table.

  There were no sarcastic comments or nasty jibes, but he knew there wouldn’t be now. The hands of the clock had counted ten minutes since soup. He turned around carrying the roast in its tray, and lovingly placed it centerpiece. “Ah…she’s warm now.”

  Silence. A slightly soured smell was filling the air. Ilene had slumped in her chair, so Hector reached for the rope he had prepared earlier to secure her in an upright position. Norma’s substantial size lodged her just fine, her head perching well on her stubby neck, but she was starting to drool.

  The muscle-paralyzing drug had worked perfectly; Hector smiled. And he was enjoying the scenes of panic dancing in Norma and Ilene’s eyes—because they were still very conscious. They could hear everything. They could feel everything. But they couldn’t say a thing. As much as they didn’t want to look—they had no way of not looking at the center of the table. There, lying in the roasting tray, was a small fetus, still in the fetal position.

  Hector could tell you there was a surprising number of abortions at the hospital where he worked. It was one of his jobs to take the bodies to the furnace. He hated this grisly task, which rubbed raw with his emotions. Carefully, he now set out his new carving set on the table, which included an extra sharp 12-inch blade, a 10-inch blade, and a fork. The electric meat carver had been upgraded to pro-chef standards and was purposely attached to a long extension cable. He felt absolutely marvelous. The bubbling well of red had finally burst and was pulsating its force through his veins. He started to hum a seasonal tune.

  “Now, where was I? Norma. It’s Thanksgiving! And firstly I want to thank you for being my wife. And what a wonderful wife you have been, haven’t you?” Hector said. “Did you ever listen to me when I explained how much I wanted a family? How I wanted children of our own? Did you ever hear how much it meant to me?”

  Norma’s eyeballs stared rigidly at him, especially when he rose from his chair and picked up the electric meat carver. He walked over to her.

  “Did you hear me? Because I don’t think you EVER did. Or ever cared to hear me.” The meat carver roared into action, and he held it up to her head. “So I don’t think you’ll be needing these any more.”

  Hector began to hack off one of Norma’s ears sending thick slicks of red into the surrounding vicinity. The sound was like music to him. “I think I’ll leave your other ear for now,” Hector said as the severed ear plunked wetly onto the floor. “I want to make sure you can definitely hear me when I thank you some more.

  “And Ilene.” He turned to face her enthusiastically. “I want to thank you for all those kind and considerate words you have shared with me over the years.” There was much more movement in Ilene’s eyes, a possible sign that the drug was wearing off a little, or
she hadn’t eaten as much of the soup. Her eyeballs bulged out as if on stalks as Hector moved closer. Prying open Ilene’s jaw, he pulled out her tongue. Her eyes darted around in terror.

  “Let’s try the 10-inch out, eh?” In three hacks, he removed a substantial amount of her limp tongue. Blood oozed over her chin, matching her soup stains on the tablecloth rather well.

  He turned back to Norma. “You see, Norma—you don’t seem to have heard me when I said I wanted children,” Hector shouted in her good ear. “Because I found your pills, and I found out how long you’ve been taking them.

  “You NEVER wanted children, did you?” Shock was slowly glazing Norma’s eyes.

  “AND DID YOU HEAR THAT, ILENE?” He shot a look toward his mother in law. “You thought it was me—my fault—and you always made sure I knew it. YOU SAID I MADE YOUR SKIN CRAWL.” Hector was feeling the red—it swelled through him and the release felt magnificent. “Well allow me to make sure that never happens to you again.”

  The electric carver cut a neat circle through the skin around Ilene’s mid upper arm. Hector had been present during numerous operations at the hospital, where he would clear away unwanted debris and the likes. As he peeled the skin down her arm with a little encouragement from the 10-inch blade, Ilene’s eyes went from frenzied to frozen. The skin hung away from the arm like old cloth, exposing the deep red below. Blood and other fluids dripped onto the floor below her hand.

  From Norma, faint grunts and very slight movement were beginning to cloud Hector’s cathartic silence. He looked down lovingly at the baking tray. “Norma, this is Cara.” He placed his hand on the small not-quite-formed body. Rather than roast, he had warmed her through in the oven, and as he closed his eyes and placed his hand on her body he imagined she was sleeping. He wanted her so much. He picked Cara up from the tray, and for a while, nursed her over his shoulder

  Norma’s grunts had now turned into high-pitched squealing, taking Hector away from his daydream. “Look, Cara, mommy wants to play a game,” he said. He placed her softly back down in the baking tray. “She’s the Big Bad Wolf, and if we see her move, we scare her away!”

  Norma’s stubby index finger began to twitch.

  “Look! It’s the Big Bad Wolf, Cara!” and Hector promptly reached for the 12-inch blade and whacked the finger right off. The squeals got louder, but unfortunately for her, her left foot twitched back, and Hector saw it. He lost no time in hacking the foot off with a relish that consumed him, alternating both knives in the procedure. And he just couldn’t stop smiling!

  “There, there, the wolf can’t hurt you now, Cara.” He placed her back over his shoulder and patted her gently.

  Norma moaned as the bloody stump swung gently beneath her.

  “Shhhh—don’t wake Cara up—she’s sleeping now,” Hector whispered. His eyes were closed, but when he opened them, reality came swiftly back, his face twisting in torment.

  “Why, Norma?” he said. “I know you went to a different hospital. Us porters, we all know each other you see…we stick together. My mate Joe—he recognized the name. He got curious, checked the file for an address. I told him to bring it to me. You…YOU…had no right.”

  Norma’s pleas halted as a dawning of realization washed across her eyes that were darting between the tray and Hector.

  “Yes this…this is our daughter, and YOU killed her. I wanted to love her and take care of her… And are YOU too evil, too selfish to be mother to your own child? IS THAT IT? Did you really think I was going to take this? I owe it to Cara.” Hector was now sobbing for what could have been.

  “We’re going to put things right, aren’t we, Cara?”

  He picked up the 12-inch blade from the floor by Norma’s foot, picked up the fork from the table. Walking over to her, the squeals became more desperate. Without regret he rammed the fork into her stomach where he thought her womb might be, and proceeded to cut a neat circle with the blade. The blood sprayed and oozed. He carefully lifted Cara, and tucked her gently into the space—her space—her home. It was quieter again now. After Hector took off his spectacles to wipe away the blood, he saw Norma’s eyes had rolled up into her skull.

  He turned to Cara, and said, “There, there. Happy Thanksgiving, my darling. Thank you so much for allowing me to be your daddy today.”

  WAITING FOR SANTA

  by Bentley Little

  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 t
hat 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 advances 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.