by Mike Ashley
Santa Claus, the gift-giver, then set about taking everything of value and stuffing it into the empty bag. Whatever was fastened or bolted down, he lifted with the wrench or the back end of the hammer. He dragged me along beside him, making me hold the sack open as he dumped in all sorts of stolen goods.
When he was through with the furniture and the other valuables in the room, he tiptoed through the rest of the house looking for money and jewelry. He found a wall safe in the den, and chuckled sardonically when it popped open under his sensitive fingers, revealing a small horde of gems and gold jewelry to his flashlight beam. When we came back to the living room he hoisted the stuffed sack and drove us to the fireplace. The room was completely bare. We’d even taken the lights and ornaments from the tree, which now stood naked and forlorn in the corner.
Before hustling us back up the chimney he turned to the living room, put his finger to the side of his nose, and said, in a grotesque parody of his normal self, “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night – ha ha.”
We loaded the sleigh, and with a slap of the reins we were off to the next rooftop. Santa took a fresh empty sack with him, and we went through the same routine.
We finished with the last house at about three in the morning. My arms ached from transporting stolen property. I dragged myself into the front seat, and we rose, the reindeer straining against the load, from the last snow-covered roof.
Santa kept an eye on me for a while, but as the sleigh turned up toward the North Pole he finally forgot about me. He sat with a bag filled with the biggest diamonds and silver pieces he’d taken, and after telling the reindeer he’d “roast them alive” if they didn’t find their own way home, he put the reins aside and sat with all the precious stuff in his lap, scooping big handsful up and letting it run through his fingers.
I slipped silent as a shadow over the seat into the back. Fritz was wedged between a sack of paintings and a bag filled with patio furniture that Santa had spotted piled up on someone’s back lawn. The two apprentices were exhausted, snoring in odd positions on top of two bags filled with bar stools. I pulled the gag out of Fritz’s mouth and said in a low voice: “Is there anything we can do?”
He nodded. “There is in my left coat pocket another syringe which I brought for just such an emergency. If you could somehow give him an injection, we might still do something. But you must hurry.” I took the syringe from Fritz’s pocket and made my way back up front. Santa was still drooling over the jewels. I leaned over to push the needle into him, but as I did so my foot came down on a champagne glass that had rolled out of one of the bags.
He whipped around at the grinding noise. “More tricks!” he said, grabbing me and lifting me off the floor. I hid the syringe behind my back, but he saw it, and his face went red with anger. He reached around me with his free hand, and I kept it away from him by squirming this way and that. He stood up to get a better hold on me, and the sudden movement panicked the reindeer. They started weaving crazy patterns in the air. Santa lost his balance for a moment, and I gave him a kick in the belly. He said “Ooof!” and dropped me. I ran into the rear of the sleigh and hid behind a sack.
Santa came after me, blubbering and huffing, and climbing over filled sacks as I darted between and around them. The reindeer were still flying out of control. The apprentices woke up; they started screaming and tried to crawl up front to calm Rudolph and the rest down. Santa bounded over one sack and came down inches from Fritz’s head; he was close behind me, his hands almost around me when I suddenly saw a tiny opening between two bags. I dove through it, scooting around to the right.
I found myself face to face with Santa’s rear end.
I froze there in surprise, the needle held out before me, when suddenly the sleigh lurched ahead and I fell into Santa and the needle hit the bullseye. He yelped once, went stiff as a board, and fell over backwards.
I quickly untied Fritz as the two apprentices managed to calm the reindeer down and get them flying in a straight line again. Fritz examined Santa, nodded his approval, and then, at his instructions, we took Santa’s suit off and tied him up with the rope that had bound Fritz.
When he finished, Fritz looked up into the night sky. “We have about two and one half hours of darkness left, Gustav,” he said. “I suggest that if we are to save Santa’s good name you put this suit on and go up front and take over.” He then told me his plan, and I balked and screamed, but finally I gave in. The suit was forty sizes too big, but I put it on anyway and climbed into the front seat; we were soon heading at top speed back to the North Pole.
When we touched down in the courtyard everything was dead quiet. We were expecting the worst from Momma Claus, and while Fritz ran over to try to find another syringe in the wreckage of the infirmary I climbed out of the sleigh and cautiously began to look around. My feet kept getting tangled up in the too-long legs of Santa’s suit, and I kept falling down. I looked in the toy shed, but found no one. When I tip-toed into the sleigh shed, hiking the suit up around me like a skirt, twenty-five elves jumped out of every crack and corner in the place, yelling like bandits and pummeling me with rubber toys. They wrestled me to the ground and had wound about two hundred feet of rope around my neck before one of them saw my face and shouted, “It’s Gustav!”
They helped me to my feet, and I stood panting for a few minutes before I told them to go out and get Santa. They carried him off like triumphant hunters bearing a huge wild boar. I found Momma Claus already bound and gagged in their cottage; she’d passed out after drinking an uncounted number of bottles of claret while making everybody dance the rumba out in the snow. Good old Shmitzy had then rounded everybody up and set up the ambush for Santa’s return.
After making sure the two of them were safely salted away, I got everyone together and quickly told them what had to be done. Their eyes all went wide, but they moved like jackrabbits. In fifteen minutes the sleigh, already packed solid, was piled twice as high with great sacks filled with toys. The Toy Shop was emptied. We harnessed a couple of back-up reindeer – Dintzen and Pintzen – to the rig for extra power. Fritz informed me that we had about an hour and a half to succeed. I pushed Shmitzy and the two apprentices who’d gone with me the first time into the front seat, and we made our take-off.
It was quite a ride. Everything went by in fast motion. The reindeer, though obviously straining under the mountainous weight, didn’t offer a squeak of complaint as they moved like lightning from rooftop to rooftop. We hauled two bags down each chimney – one filled with toys and one filled with stolen goods.
I’m almost sure we got all the stolen stuff back in the right place, though somebody probably ended up with an extra golf bag or can opener. If something looked like it didn’t belong in a particular place, I put it with the Christmas presents.
The only time we came close to being caught in the act was in one of the very last houses when a little girl walked sleepy-eyed into the room where I was madly stacking gifts. She took a long look at my baggy suit and dark beard, and stared suspiciously at me. “I’ve been dieting,” I said, and darted up the chimney.
We finished as the first crack of orange sunlight broke on the horizon. I tumbled into the sled, and the reindeer just barely managed to pull off the last roof and into the sky. Shmitzy and the two apprentices fell dead asleep in the rear, and I had to fight to keep my eyes open to guide us home.
When we touched down at the North Pole there was a cheering welcoming committee waiting, but I stumbled through them with a tired smile on my face and went to my office and fell asleep on top of my desk for twelve straight hours with the red suit still on, the legs and arms draped over the desk like a tablecloth. When I awoke it was broad daylight, and the North Pole had been pretty much cleaned up – at least, all the wreckage had been swept into high piles. I was proud of my elves.
Santa and Momma Claus, just as Fritz had predicted, awoke late in the day in apparently normal condition and were appropriately astounded by what they h
ad done. Santa seemed quite depressed for a while, but I gave him the thumbs-up sign a few times and kept patting him on the back and before long he was rubbing his belly merrily once again and giving booming “Ho ho ho!s” that made me cringe. We drew up tentative plans to rebuild the North Pole.
We had a long conference with Fritz, who explained all the psychological implications and convolutions and repressed reasons why all of it had happened. None of us had the faintest idea what he was talking about, but the upshot was that he thought he understood why it had happened – why it had to happen – and that there was nothing wrong with Santa and Momma Claus. He assured us that according to all the scientific data he had it shouldn’t happen again for at least another eight hundred years; he even said it might be possible to offset its happening again by the use of encounter sessions, mind expansion, and other ego-soothing measures.
“I am positive the effects are not cumulative, and that once this so-called volcanic gush of bad feelings is expelled, it will not build up again for centuries. And I believe that by using precise psychological techniques we can bleed off these feelings before they build. I am certain of this.”
His lecture finally ended, Fritz gathered his notes together and prepared to leave.
Momma and Santa had sat very still through all of this, but when it was all over they nodded slowly in understanding. I saw them turn to one another and smile sheepishly, and this was all very touching until Santa’s smile suddenly widened into that horrible toothy grin and both their eyes went big and white. I could swear I heard Santa say “Heh-heh-heh.” But it was all over in a second, and Fritz missed it, and the two of them were as normal and healthy as one of Momma’s pies again. The sheepish smiles were back, and they even kissed and held hands.
I thought I’d imagined it until we were all leaving and Santa suddenly turned to me and winked, flashing his fangs. “Everything back to normal for another eight hundred years. Right, Gustav? All in my head, eh?”
I gulped, gave him the thumbs-up sign, and scooted by him as he whacked me on the can. His smile had turned back to normal by then.
That’s why I’m getting out of the North Pole tonight while the getting’s good. I’ve told Fritz and the rest of them, but they just won’t believe me. They think everything’s back on track.
Maybe I’ll buy a house in Florida.
Wherever it is, it won’t have a chimney.
RUELLA IN LOVE
Molly Brown
Chicago-born and now London-resident Molly Brown has rapidly established herself as a writer of science fiction, fantasy and thrillers. She wrote the historical mystery novel, Invitation to a Funeral (1995), in which Aphra Behn and Nell Gwyn feature as investigators. This novel grew out of Molly’s short story “The Lemon Juice Plot” in the anthology Royal Crimes edited by Maxim Jakubowski and Martin H. Greenberg, and she has now become something of an expert on Restoration London, developing her own website on the Internet (http://www.okima.com/) where you can explore late seventeenth-century London. Her other books include a novelization of the TV series Cracker – To Say I Love You and a science-fiction thriller for children, Virus. None of the above, however, prepares you for the following story.
Queen Ruella of the combined kingdoms of Tanalor and Hala, twice-widowed and still a virgin, opened her eyes to bright sunlight streaming through her window. She yawned and stretched like a cat; then she sat up and planted a big sloppy kiss on the Lord of Darkness poster mounted beside her bed. Of course most of his features weren’t visible – just a single red eye glaring out from beneath a dark hood – but she’d smeared a bit of glue where she guessed his mouth should be, so every time she kissed the poster, it stuck to her lips and made a satisfied smacking noise that made her giggle.
She’d just had the most wonderful dream: she’d married the Lord of Darkness, who was madly in love with her, and she’d gone to live in his huge black tower, where orcs waited on her hand and foot, granting her every wish, and everybody, but everybody, addressed her as “Your Dark Ladyship”. She winked at the poster and hugged herself in delight – it had to be a premonition, it just had to be.
She was standing in front of the mirror, trying out some new devastating poses, when there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” she said.
A tall, skeletal figure in hooded black robes loomed in the doorway. It pushed back its hood, revealing a head divided into two sections – one half was bare skull, the other covered with rotting flesh – and fanned itself with a batwing mounted on a stick. The creature had one eye loosely hanging from a socket on the fleshy side. One long black string of hair, twisted into a perfect corkscrew curl, sprouted from what was left of its scalp. An occasional maggot could be seen crawling down its face. “Oh honey, it’s like an oven in here,” the creature said, “mind if I open a window?”
“Go ahead.”
The creature crossed the room, pushed the shutter open, and sighed. “That’s better.” It turned back to Ruella, the fleshy side of its mouth raised into a smile. “So how’s the birthday girl?”
Ruella shrugged. “I’m okay.”
The creature grabbed her by the shoulders and planted a huge kiss on her cheek. “I could just eat you up! You know that?”
Ruella sighed and rolled her eyes, wiping bits of rotted lip off her face. “Oh please. Can we just get on with it?”
“Tetchy tetchy,” said the creature. “All right, sit.”
Ruella sat down in front of the mirror. The creature positioned itself behind her. It shook its head, tsk tsk’ing and clucking disapproval. “Your ends are dry as dust! Girlfriend, you need some long-term intensive conditioning and you need it bad.” Like so many of the hangers-on around the palace these days, the creature didn’t have a reflection, so in the mirror Ruella’s hair seemed to be moving around all by itself.
“Let’s just worry about tonight, okay?”
“All right, all right. So what did you have in mind?”
“I want it all spikey on top, and then I want this bit here,” she took hold of a large strand at the front, “to sort of come down over my forehead and cover one eye.” She pulled the strand across. “Like this.”
“Oh no no no! Look,” the creature pulled Ruella’s hair back, “you’ve got beautiful eyes and a high intelligent forehead – you don’t want your hair hanging over your face. A nice upsweep, that’s what you want.”
“No it isn’t!” Ruella snapped. “Stop trying to make me look like an old lady. Do what I tell you or I’ll chop off your head!”
“Ooh, get her!” The creature placed its hands on its hips and rolled its one dangling eye. “That’s your idea of a threat, is it? Well, let me tell you, Missy, I’ve been beheaded more times than you’ve had hot breakfasts! So you’ll have to do better than that for a threat now, won’t you?”
Ruella slumped down in her seat, pouting. “But it’s my birthday!”
The creature pursed the fleshy side of its mouth. “Oh all right,” it said, picking up a comb. “I can never stay mad at you for long, can I?”
There was another knock at the door, and another tall skeletal creature in black robes entered. It approached Ruella and leaned down, briefly pressing a fleshless mouth against her cheek. “Happy birthday,” it said in a rasping voice not unlike the sound of gravel crunching beneath a pair of heavy boots.
Ruella brushed away a few worms the rasping-voiced creature had left on her face.
“Sorry,” said the rasping voice.
“No problem. So what’s up?”
The creature reached inside its robes and produced a scroll, which it unrolled with a quick flick of its wrist. “Behold the guest list for tonight.”
Ruella scanned the list. “I don’t see the Lord of Darkness – hasn’t he RSVP’d?”
“Well, the Lord of Darkness doesn’t go to many sweet-sixteen parties.”
“But this isn’t just any sweet-sixteen party! This is my sweet-sixteen party!”
“I sent him an invitation. The
re’s nothing more I can do.”
“Don’t worry, honey,” said the one with the dangling eye, “he might still turn up.” It turned towards the rasping voice, “You better put him on the list, just in case. You don’t want him vaporizing the guards or anything, do you?”
“You’ve actually met him, haven’t you?” Ruella asked the dangling-eyed one.
“Once or twice.”
“What’s he like?”
“All seeing, never sleeping . . .” the rasping voice broke in.
“No, I mean is he cute?”
“Cute?” said the rasping voice.
“Cute?” said the dangling eye. “Honey, he’s absolutely horrible! He’s the epitome of evil! Cold and cruel without a shred of human decency or feeling. Of course he’s cute.”
“You think he’d be the type to mind that I murdered my father in order to take over the kingdom, then murdered my first husband in order to take over his kingdom, and then forcibly married my stepson who was actually kind of cute but then committed suicide on our wedding night rather than consummate the marriage? I mean, if he and I were dating?”
“He’d probably take it as a recommendation,” said the dangling eye. “Now hold still and be quiet; I’m almost finished.”
“Why don’t you put her hair up?” the rasping voice asked the hairdresser. “She’d look so pretty with her hair up.”
The party was well under way long before Ruella came downstairs. The throne room was packed with sorcerers, wizards, lesser despots, and corpses in various states of decay, all bopping to the latest music. Dozens of Dwarves were stationed on high platforms around the room, waving their hands in front of wall-mounted torches to make a strobe effect. Outside, a queue of nearly two thousand people and creatures waited in vain – the guards were under strict instructions: “If your name’s not on the list, you’re not getting in.” And in the unlikely event that any woman or girl might possibly be considered even slightly prettier than Ruella, she was to be sent away immediately, list or not.
