“Santa’s never lived anywhere,” I told him.
“Oh no little one,” the elf couldn’t help himself, “This was his holiday home. It makes Christmas a reality for people every day of the year, and sometimes, when we’re lucky, the Big Man himself pays us a visit to thank us for doing such a fine job. His most trusted helper, Christopher, guides us now.”
I said, “You’re fucking fruitcakes. How’re any of you still alive?”
“Embracing the Trials, and the seasonal cheer, keeps us strong.”
“Forget it. Just tell me where the keys are.”
“All the repossessed gifts are kept in the store. Behind the lodge.”
I told the kid to stay put and pushed the elf around the perimeter of the building, keeping quiet and low. Heavy Metal Jingle Bells gave way to a crooning White Christmas. It sounded like a good old fashioned Christmas party, until I got a view through a window.
There was a dining hall filled with people, braying and swaying as they drank from tankards and shoved one another around. The whole lot of them were dressed in juvenile get-ups, half a dozen Santas, a bunch of elves, one or two Rudolphs, the lot of them skinny adults looking like they’d raided a fancy dress store then crawled through a junkyard. Something about living in the wastelands seems to make it hard for people to keep their skin clean of blood and oil, or their clothes in one piece. This tragic mob were no exception.
There were women and men, and one or two of these drunk derelicts were shoving tongues down each other’s throats. There were people dancing, if you could call their jerky movements that, and there was someone throwing up into a plant pot, the tree in it already bare, long dead.
It could’ve been a Christmas party like back before the war, this crowd getting twatted in some country hall, except for the man in the middle of it all, above a bunch of tables lined with buckets of multi-coloured sweets. He was tied to a pole, naked, bleeding all over and lolling his head from side to side like he wished someone would just finish the damn job. He was hoisted high enough that I could see his foot, half black and half red, like a mutilated spit roast.
I asked the elf, “That what you meant by Missile Toe?”
12
The Linford Christie Elf kept his voice down as we snuck away from the main building. He said “That man didn’t get his candy cane in time. I don’t have long myself. We must be quick.”
“You lot are torturing each other for not collecting sweets? Those are your trials?”
It was unreal. But it brought another thought to mind.
“You got a store of alcohol?”
He nodded, and kept leading the way to an outhouse, lower and plainer than the rest of the grand complex. It was locked behind a thick chain and a weighty padlock. As he took the lock and shook it, I realised the music had stopped. The revelry inside was dying down, a few sporadic shouts here and there but nothing like the chaos from before. I turned back to the building as he lamented, “Oh God, it should be open – they always leave it open during the party. Why would they lock it?”
“Someone saw us coming,” I told him, backing towards the outhouse, pistol up and spare hand rifling through my bag. Yeah, there were already people in the shadows by the lodge, moving slow and unsteady. At least a dozen of them, listing into the moonlight in their scrappy costumes with long, nasty leers. Some had makeshift weapons: a table leg here, a metal bar there. One or two knives. The rest were bare-handed and didn’t seem to care.
“Party crasher,” someone said from within the crazy crowd. After it was uttered once, a bunch of them repeated it. It came as a whisper first, then raised to something firmer, more threatening. “Party crasher. Party crasher!”
They were dragging their feet towards me. With ten metres or so between us, I didn’t fancy firing a warning shot. It might set them all off. I bumped into Linford as I tried to pick out the biggest of them. They all looked skinny as hell, like a pack of Halloween smack addicts.
“Party crasher!” one of them shouted like a war cry. A shape in the crowd threw his head back and beat his god-damned chest. That was the limit. No matter my desire to punch these people in the throat, this was a time to run. I grabbed a pipe-bomb from the bag and rolled it towards them, then gave Linford a shove in their direction and pegged it.
The moment the banger hit the ground they charged, all manner of possessed noises rising out of them. I skidded past the outhouse and off down a grassy bank as the grenade exploded, its bang met with thumps and screams. A smoking hand dropped down in front of me, cuffed in red and white with bells on and all.
I ran past a swimming pool and towards another bunch of trees. There were roads and buildings to the side, which seemed safer than the woods. Some of the shouts faded, those who couldn’t keep up, and I heard a splash as a drunken muppet fell into the pool, but a couple were keeping pace with me. Reaching the first building, a little holiday cottage, I half-twisted and fired back into the horde. A psycho Santa was lifted up in the air before body-slamming to earth and squirming and crying as he clutched his chest. One shot, one kill, living the dream.
I let off a couple more shots, but the other lunatics were moving wildly, spreading out to the sides. Swearing away, I kept running.
The silhouettes of a dozen identical cottages stretched down this long road that led to more trees. Some of the crazed costume-wearers ran out into the open ahead. They’d somehow got around me. And more were filtering out between the cottages, a whole swarm of holiday locusts. I looked back, the ones giving chase moving the fastest, coming at me with all they had, and I decided to keep going. A pair of elves were blocking my path not five metres ahead, just enough space for me to get up to a velocity that I could shoulder-check one before kneeing the other square in the groin. They both went down, but another couple had already appeared, and one on the ground lashed out to grab my ankle.
I fell smack into the ground and lost the pistol, so swung the machine gun round from my shoulder. I fired up into someone’s face as he attacked, tearing his head apart but not stopping the body flopping onto me. Second time in one night I got caked with some other fucker’s blood as their corpse pinned me down.
This time there were too many of them to roll out from.
13
I took a bit of a beating on the way back to the lodge, but I gave better than I got. I know how to take a punch as good as I know how to throw one, so even though five of these pricks got a tight hold of me, and laid in a few digs, I did leave two of them wheezing on the floor before we made it inside. Three more had piled in to help by then, though, so it was a small victory.
They were all over my arms and legs, weighing me down and clawing at me with their bony frames. Give me a chance, I knew, I could’ve snapped them in half, but it was too many all at once. They shoved me all the way back to their party hall, then up to the pole in the middle of the room, where Bloody McNaked Bloke was being cut down. Two mule-faced women in reindeer onesies got under his arms and carted him past me. He met my eye as he passed, expression the very definition of Oh Thank Fuck Now They’ll Hurt Someone Else.
I was still kicking at them, getting some hooks in, when they threw reams and reams of Christmas decorations around me, binding my arms and legs so I couldn’t move. In the fervour I kept my cool. I took a deep breath the moment they started tying and I held it well in, right until they’d knotted all their tinsel and fairy lights and taken a step back.
The partygoers made a ring around me then, looking at one another like they weren’t sure what came next. There was a commotion at the other side of the room and a bunch more of them bowled in dragging Linford squirming between them. They threw him to the floor as he pleaded, said he had done what he was asked, shouted that he was worthy, that he had the candy cane. One of his mates threw the stick of sugar down near him, though, snapped in two. On his hands and knees, Linford looked horrified.
“Party crasher!” a voice boomed, the deep jolly kind of a big fat bearded guy. I twisted on
my pole to see someone pushing to the front of the guests. A tree of a man, well over six foot. He was bony as the rest of them, though, his Santa suit so loose it might’ve been a cloak. His beard was longer than most, and matted, his eyes wide, mad, black. A thousand years ago he could’ve been a medieval heretic waiting for some crusading soldiers to smoke out his mountain cave. He pointed a long finger at me and shook as he spoke, like he had too much emotion for his thin muscles to control, “You have sullied the holiday!”
The crowd cheered this award-winning speech. I did my best to look disinterested.
“How many were hurt by this monster’s intrusion?” Medieval Kringle boomed. There was a murmur of discussion, a bit of disagreement, no one quite sure how many loons I’d taken down.
“Reggie’s dead,” someone said.
Someone else chimed in, “Paisley, too!”
“He shot Alf!” a third person cried with passion.
“Oh fuck Alf!” I joined in, “He shouldn’t have bloody well run at me, should he?”
“Silence!” Medieval Kringle roared. He shook a skinny wrist in my direction, “You’ve been a bad boy! Santa doesn’t like bad boys!”
The crowd went nuts for this one too.
“You,” he spun towards the Linford Coe Elf and the people between them parted like the Red Sea. Linford looked all around, head up, down and left to right, about to make a run for it. The reindeers at his sides held him tight. Medieval Kringle advanced on him in loping strides. “For failing to retrieve the candy cane, your punishment is…” He turned to his audience, drumming it up. They were stamping their feet, really getting pumped. He screamed above the clamour, “Christmas Cracker!”
If you thought they’d gone nuts before, this was a full blown pecan explosion. One of them jumped three feet in the air he was so excited. A short prat in a pumpkin suit pumped two fists forwards as he did a pelvic thrust. I’ve seen the wildest psychosis of war, people completely snapping in the worst conditions, but nothing compared to that pack of vagrant Christmas characters celebrating ritual torture.
Linford was screaming in the middle of it all as the crowd descended on him. They shoved him over, piling in to grab at his limbs. He lashed about, but it was just his hips bucking up and down as hands locked all over his arms and legs and hoisted him into the air. The crowd divided around him, half at his head and half at his feet, all stretching to get a hold on him, Medieval Kringle standing in front of it all laughing and goading, people chanting “Christmas Cracker!”
I wriggled on the post. The breath I’d taken didn’t help much, but it gave me a tiny bit of slack. With a little struggling I’d be able to get some of these bonds loose.
I kept an eye on them pulling at Linford, the lot of these psychos moving away from each other like it was a human tug of war. He was shrieking, pure animal terror. I squirmed and stretched, doing everything in my power to move the slightest inch. The lunatics heaved, then started chanting, counting down and pulling as one.
“3, 2, 1 – pull!”
With each sudden jerk Linford roared.
Behind all the cacophony of the party, there was a horrible crack. Linford went limp as half the crowd let go of him and stumbled, tripping over each other. The rest let go, then, and dropped him to the floor. People were laughing and celebrating all around him as he groaned, all but out for the count.
My bonds had stretched enough to get my fingers moving. Clenching and unclenching, little bit at a time, I got hold of my wrapping and tugged. A few more movements and I’d be out of there.
“Party crasher!” Medieval Kringle announced, and all the eyes of the insanity ball turned my way.
“Try me and I’ll rip your throats out!” I shouted.
“The penalty for party crashing?” Medieval Kringle said, walking closer. He never seemed to blink, must’ve been on something. “Party crashers go back up the chimney.”
The chanting started up again, “Up the chimney! Up the chimney!”
I’d heard of all sorts in the wastelands, the madness of isolation, the after effects of chemical poisoning, but this was something else. They hadn’t just embraced their insanity, they’d developed it into some kind of fucked up order. I wondered, what did these people do during the day?
“Tell you what, mate,” I addressed their leader, “Come and have a go. You and me. Winner takes all.”
His mad eyes followed mine, but if the words sunk in he didn’t respond to them, just spun back to his people and roared “Chimney Sweep!”
Before the crowd could lose their shit over this one, a high-pitched voice sent them all silent. The kid, at the back of the crowd, yelping “No one move! I mean it!”
They didn’t. Two dozen psychos stood staring his way, stone cold. I’m not sure if it was the presence of a child or the pipe bomb he was holding above his head. A few hushed remarks of “One of the pure!” didn’t exactly clarify it.
“I’ll drop it if anyone moves!” the kid warned, tearful, his voice almost breaking. The way his hand was shaking it seemed a fair bet he’d drop it anyway. He came towards me, the nearest costumed clowns stepping back. “This isn’t right! None of this is right!”
“That thing will take out the whole building,” I said, more for the mugs around me than the boy’s benefit. A few eyes looked my way, buying it. “Don’t set it off.”
“I will!” he insisted. “Unless you untie him!” His voice upped a notch, from puppy in pain to terrified chimp, “Untie him!”
The crowd looked to Medieval Kringle. He kept steady, despite the lunacy in his eyes. He spread his hands to the side and said, almost gently, “Son, don’t you know where we are? You wouldn’t want to upset Santa, would you?”
“You’re not Santa!” the kid cried at him, shaking the bomb in his direction. “You’re terrible people! This isn’t Christmas!”
“It is, my boy! You have to believe! Only those that don’t believe are punished!” Medieval Kringle smiled a yellow-toothed grin, moving slightly towards the boy again. Another shake of the pipe and he held up both hands, but he kept talking, “We are kind and giving. We are happiness. We are pure. This holiday, the Court of Chrimbo has turned the wasteland to a wonderland.”
The boy had reached me now, was looking from me to the surrounding crowd.
“Someone untie him,” he said, then shouted it, “Untie him!”
None of them moved, though. They weren’t scared enough to follow orders.
“He’s been a bad boy, son,” Medieval Krimble said, still trying to soothe him. “Bad boys must be tried by the Court, so the Season’s Spirit can save this world. He’s hurt people. Murdered people. That makes him a very bad boy.”
“You’re worse!” the kid snapped. Bless him, he had no idea.
He was almost within grabbing distance of me, and seeing the way everyone was afraid of the bomb, and maybe even more afraid of their unwashed leader, I saw a chance to get away. The kid stayed out of reach, though. He looked at me with teary, desperate eyes and said “Promise me. Promise me you’ll get my dad back.”
“Your dad’s gone, kid,” I couldn’t help but say, and he replied, louder than ever, “Promise!”
“Alright, just come here!” I snapped. The kid still hesitated.
“This bad boy cannot save you, child!” Kringle warned.
“Hey cocksucker,” I replied. “If you die is the party over?”
The kid took a step closer to me. Medieval Kringle let out another of their garbled war cries, then bolted at the kid. The other lunatics took their leader’s cue and piled towards us, apparently no longer afraid of dying. I pulled the bonds around me and got an arm loose, grabbed at the kid rather than pulling the rest free. Half tied in place, I caught the pipe bomb and swung it round, just in time to catch Kringle in the jaw as he jumped at us. It was a tough piece of metal and it knocked him back with a startled sob. The others froze, feeling his pain. That gave me enough time to get the other arm free, to twist the bomb to activate it and t
oss it out. They jumped over it, shrieked and pushed one another over to get away.
The bang brought pandemonium. People were thrown off against the walls, knocking others down in their wake. The brief flash of light was replaced a moment later with a thick cloud of smoke, it was raining candies and body parts with wet thuds.
I wrestled myself free in the commotion, and as I dragged my bag through the crowd I found the kid attached, clinging on for life. We were at the hall’s door by the time Medieval Kringle had regained his senses enough to order “Get them!”
14
The lodge was a damned maze, corridors barely lit. I didn’t care where we were going, just ran full pelt down one hall after another, turning corners wherever I found them, listening for the charge of feet behind me. Down one long passage, a guy with a gun stepped into view and offered a helpful shout of surprise. It gave me just enough time to jump through a doorway, pulling the kid with me as I went, before bullets bit at the walls around us.
We’d ended up in a bedroom with a window. That was good enough for me: I whipped the duvet up from the bed and thrust it in front of me like a shield, ran headlong through the glass. It was tougher than it looked, jarring my shoulder on impact, but it gave way all the same, and a moment later I was rolling across the grass, glass twinkling above me like a starry night. I jumped back up to my feet to see the kid hesitating at the window. If I’d been thinking logically I would’ve ditched the brat and got out of there, but some dumb instinct took me back to him. I grabbed his arm, ready to haul him out, and someone pulled him from behind.
The gunman had caught up to us, and had the idea to take the kid. I saw the flash of his gun and reacted. Jostling through the broken window, I tugged the kid with one hand and the barrel of the gun with the other. The chump managed to get off a shot that went wide, the sound and the recoil of it bucking all three of us, startling the gunman more than me. I gave him a hard shake and the gun came free, then I dropped back from the window, gun in one hand, kid in the other, threw the kid aside and spun the weapon back around. There was a brief moment as the guy realised he was fucked, then I sent a cluster of shots back into the room. It knocked him down and, sweet bonus, caught an elf-garbed man as he ran into the doorway to join us.
A Most Apocalyptic Christmas Page 4
