The Holiday Box
By Kathrin Hutson
The tin box bounced in the back of his pickup truck as he floored it through the dip in the road. The truck used to be red. Red for Santa, red for Christmas. It made sense. Now the paint peeled in jagged edges along the sides, showing the flat grey flesh beneath. It was because he drove like this.
How much money was in that box? Four thousand? Five thousand? It was hard to say exactly; the time ran together now. After weeks of sticky hands tugging at his beard, of being pissed on, cried on, drooled on, it was worth it. A couple thousand didn’t seem like much, but it was more than he had ever had in one place. The whores didn’t last very long, and neither did the drugs. Plus, he was getting too old for dodging bullets and beating in faces. Once he had run out of money to shave, the beard had inspired him.
Two cities before this, two shining stars on his connect-the-dots map, and nobody had followed him. Yet. It was too risky to get cocky now—a self-fulfilling prophecy. Patience was a virtue, and he had cultivated that crop. Years of playing Santa, for eight dollars an hour and a free dinner, would pay off in the end. The box last year had come to almost ten thousand, but that was then, in a big city. The kiddies wanted Santa, crying, begging, and their parents wiped their tears away with dollar bills. This town was different. But he could still move on.
The lights were small out here, spotting the one-lane street like the back of a giant leopard. Ten o’clock on a Thursday night in any other town might have been busier. He wasn’t used to small; he wasn’t used to rural. Something floated in the darkness between the street lights, threatening much more forcefully the possibility of getting caught. Brick alleys and red-lit hallways might not hide him this time.
A neon billboard shone at the limit of his vision. Green, blue, and red, a nauseating combination amid the cool night air and the open fields. The sign grew closer, huge letters crawling forward, a brightly lit shell on a stick of a snail. Frowning, he pushed further on the accelerator as the wording came into view.
Celebrate Jesus.
“Celebrate” in an intricate font, “Jesus” exploding across the board like the second coming would take place right there. A landing beacon for Christ’s mothership. His foot eased as relative darkness enveloped him again, pushing the landmark behind.
Celebrate Jesus? Jesus had never celebrated him. Even beyond middle-age, what did he have to show for it? A broken truck, stolen money, and no one in the world he could call. He didn’t have a cell phone, but if he did, he was sure it would never ring.
Chrisanne had bought him a cell phone for Christmas one year, so long ago he couldn’t remember which one. It was a flat-looking silver, like a dime that had sat in someone’s pocket for too long. Small, square, not the latest in current technology, but she said it would get the job done. She knew how he felt about “trying to stay modern”. The monthly plan was under seven dollars, a price which most consumers would have scorned with skepticism and disgust. Who would only use a cellphone for less than three hours of phone calls a month?
She had tried to bring him to church with her that Christmas. It had been so long since the last time she’d asked, but she was six months pregnant, growing every day, and had no one else in the empty apartment. He tried hard to ignore her husband’s existence, and although Scott was away on tour in Afghanistan, he never could forget the man’s name. She was alone, pregnant, urging him to go to church on a sunny Christmas morning, and he was going to be a Grandpa.
He threw the phone in the kitchen trash later than night, and never paid a penny.
Would the family be celebrating Christmas now, hundreds of miles away? Maybe Scott was home, on a break from saving the country. Maybe his granddaughter had learned how to ride her bike, not quite understanding the cookies and milk she left by the fireplace were not in fact eaten by a fat man in red. A man like him. The kid would have been six by now. No, seven. Maybe. Time was blurred, and he had never met her, never knew her name. Would they be celebrating Jesus?
He tried to pretend they never crossed his mind. Every time he emptied the boxes and counted the bills, he wondered what they would have done with the money. Elementary school tuition, birthday presents, a new puppy, fresh paint on the house. Speculation never served a purpose, and as soon as he remembered that fact, he shoved the bills under the front seat and moved on. Drove away as quickly as he drove now.
The street grew an extra lane and the lights shone more brightly and frequently. Red lights blinked into green a few streets down, and another town materialized out of the darkness, welcoming him with sleepy sighs. He contemplated blasting through the stoplights, but thirty-five miles an hour would get him where he was going anyways. It was slow enough to find a motel for the night.
Most of the town’s buildings were dark, but the streets he drove had an eerily green hue in the early darkness, a color that hinted of wholesome freshness and smelled of something different. He remembered the silhouettes of cows on his way in.
A lone light flickered high above on his right. He turned the corner, refusing to use his blinker, and watched the light shine out again in the open shape of a cross. His eyes adjusted to the domed roof and the rounded windows, the stone walls and wrought-iron rails. Huge pine wreaths hung every few feet, sparkling with electric white lights that would stay lit on their own. Even churches decorated for the holiday, and were completely blind to him.
Chrisanne had tried to convince him, once, that God was everywhere. The Lord of the Universe was never blind, never turned away in disgust. She tried to tell him there was nothing in the entire world he could do that would make God abandon him, that everything could be forgiven. He didn’t believe her then, and he had come to believe it even less now. If there was a God, He had probably written a book of all the things this poor, fake Santa had desecrated, insulted, hurt, failed to do. Blessed were the perfect, not the weak.
The light at the top of the church flickered again, and he couldn’t keep from glancing up one more time. Of course Christmas wasn’t worth it; it never had been. The holiday spirit never caught him, never inspired love or even patience. It was a waste of money, of energy. It was a profitable endeavor when one treated it like he did. What other reason was there to throw away money for a five-by-seven photograph and a stranger in a beard hugging your child than for mere foolishness? He understood this, and he took what he could. Happy Fucking Holidays. Nobody would miss it.
The truck rolled to a stop at the side of the church, decided on its own to let him have a closer look. He hadn’t seen a church in so long. He waited for a moment, staring at the brickwork, and managed a sigh. No rumbling call of justice, no lightning bolt to strike him down. Just a small, dying hum as the light in the cross flickered. What did people see in a building like this? If anyone wanted a House of God in this town, they better start over and make a bigger one.
A shadow eased across a lit window, the light soft and buttery on the lawn outside. A woman’s figure filled the open glass, and he felt like he’d been transported to a Nativity Scene in the Twilight Zone. She turned from the window, knelt, and held her hands up in perfect form toward her face. Her profile was unmistakable, her hands puncturing the roundness of her shape. She prayed in the church, on her knees, and he watched her.
He envied her ignorance. To pray, on her own, late at night in a church. Not a care in the world, fire and color t.v. waiting for her at home while the cat warmed a small spot on the couch. He ignored the world too in that manner, laughed harshly at time as it had laughed at him. But at least he didn’t put his trust in things that did not exist.
After a few minutes the woman stood and opened the window. She had a round and swollen face, masked only by the darkness and middle age. He was about to drive away, step on the gas and disappear forever, when she put a hand to her face and spent several seconds wiping the tears away. The truck rumbled idly, but his foot stayed where it was. Chrisanne used to do that same thing, when her mother died, when he�
�d yell at her. She would stand by the kitchen window, open the glass to the breeze, and wipe her face against the open sky. He made her cry so hard she never noticed he was watching.
The lump in his throat was slimy, wiggled when he swallowed. How could this woman, so far away, have something so like his own daughter? What made her cry, in a church, in the dark? It was Christmas, for Christ’s sake; people weren’t allowed to cry. Her pain was obvious; her prayers celebrated Jesus. But did He celebrate her?
The engine coughed out when he turned the keys, left them dangling from the ignition. He was already walking across the lawn before he realized what he was doing, felt the weight of the tin box in his arms. He would have given Chrisanne and her daughter all the money he took, would have bought all the toys she asked to get from Santa. But Chrisanne never wanted it. She never took a penny from him, and would have turned him completely away, he knew, if he had ever given her this box. It was better to turn away himself, before he lost the ability to choose completely.
This woman, though—she would take his money. He didn’t have to tell her it was from parents who only wanted to fuel a dream for their children. He didn’t have to tell her it was the third box of three, that he had two others waiting for him—his Christmas present to himself. He could tell her it was for the church, that maybe God had heard her prayers, if that’s what she wanted to hear. He could tell her anything he wanted, just as long as she got this money. She could give it all away, for all he cared, but he would never have to see his daughter’s tears reflected in the way that woman wiped her own.
Her shadow played gently on the walls, though she had stepped from the window. He knew she was there, could feel her, and he tried to hurry his way to the church doors. He had never walked so slowly. Something rustled from the bushes at the side of the church, some bird waking in the night. Then a scratchy voice removed the bird and shined a flashlight on his face.
“Well, what’s this?”
He froze, a scared deer on two legs. The flashlight was bright and harsh against the glow from the church, and he couldn’t see a thing. Grunting, he tried to turn away, tried to keep going. He cringed when he backed into something only slightly solid and felt a hard shoe slip beneath his own.
“Oh, wrong way,” a different voice called, and the two guffawed.
“Get the fuck away from me,” he grumbled to the voices, and tried to pick a path they had not found. A gloved hand gripped his arm and he shoved it away forcefully, breathing heavily.
“Whatcha got in that box, Santa?” the first voice asked. The flashlight bobbed up and down as it neared him and he smelled cigarette smoke. They couldn’t know. It was just a joke; it had to be. He wasn’t wearing his costume, he wasn’t particularly jolly. His beard always brought these comments, but if he had been caught, there would be blue and red flashes down the street instead of a lonely flashlight.
“This ain’t for you,” he breathed, and felt the adrenaline growing. He had taken on more than one man before, but that was years ago, without a flashlight.
“I think it’s our presents, Donny,” the first voice mocked. The flashlight was so close now, and he could hear its owner breathing.
“Yeah, but we ain’t been too good this year.” More idiotic snickers. The man behind him came closer, raising the hairs on his neck. “You give it now, and we’ll take the coal next year.”
Enough with the Santa jokes. He growled, muscles tense, and tried to imagine their bodies in the darkness. It had been so long; he didn’t see as well as he used to. He understood what a wrong step in a powwow like this could mean. “I ain’t givin’ nothing, asshole. Now git.”
The man behind him shoved his back, and as he turned to raise a fist, the lights on the church clicked on to spill their glory on the lawn. Blinded, he squinted toward the front door, searching. Were there more of them?
He saw red flannel, a black hat, yellow teeth, and caught something glimmering silver toward him. Then he was on his knees, clutching his stomach and trying to breathe. The tin box had fallen, clattering briefly before one of them scooped it up, yelling for the other to get out of there. He would have gone after them, but he didn’t want to. He felt slow.
A muffled scream echoed off the church’s stone walls, and shoes skidded down the steps toward him. Soft, cold hands caressed his face, and he looked at her, choking on his pain that didn’t seem real enough. She was younger than he thought, though still as heavy in a soft way. She looked more like his daughter, and for a moment he couldn’t see the difference at all.
Tears fell down her cheeks again. She was mad at him; he had lost the box. He shouldn’t have done that. “It…it was for you,” he mumbled, producing a thin smile from her.
“Don’t say anything,” she told him. She was so worried; why was she worried? “I’ve called them, they’re on their way.”
Who? Chrisanne? His granddaughter? He clutched at his gut, never taking his hand away because it was warm there, wet. It reminded him he needed to take a bath.
It was hours, could have been minutes, before he heard the blaring siren and saw the flashing lights around the corner. A strange relief washed over him, overpowering the hatred he’d always had for the men in blue. Maybe they could go find the box. She needed it.
Swallowing hard, giddy in the dimming dizziness, he looked down and pulled his hand away from his shirt. It stuck briefly, peeling away like a Band-Aid. He stared at the glaze of his own blood, noticed spots of it in his white beard. It was so dark. He thought it was the color the truck would have been if Santa was the Devil.
About Kathrin Hutson
Kathrin Hutson has been writing fiction for fifteen years, editing for five, and plunging in and out of reality since she first became aware of the concept. Kathrin specializes in Dark Fantasy and Sci-fi, and the first novel in her Fantasy series, Daughter of the Drackan, was published earlier this year and is available on Amazon and in the Kindle store.
Kathrin runs her own independent editing company, KLH CreateWorks, for Indie Authors of all genres. She also serves as Story Coordinator and Chief Editor for Collaborative Writing Challenge, and Editing Director for Rambunctious Rambling Publications, Inc. Needless to say, she doesn’t have time to do anything she doesn’t enjoy.
www.kathrinhutsonfiction.com
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www.klhcreateworks.com
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Twitter: @KLHCreateWorks
The Holiday Butcher
By Charlotte Rose Lange
The Cranstons’ two-story townhouse on New Cherry Street looked a 50’s housewife’s wet dream, as did their neighbors’. So too seemed the inside, despite Mrs. Cranston’s dislike of the color cream and disgust of linoleum wall tile.
“Darling, you can’t,” she said. “The children will be so disappointed.”
After Haylee was born, Mr. Cranston promised to renovate the kitchen. After Henry, the downstairs bathroom. He promised nothing after Harry, but after Hillary and Hannah and a tangled umbilical cord, he did convert the den into a bedroom for the boys.
“I’ve missed holidays before,” he said. “They understand.”
The converted den displeased Mrs. Cranston. The Lay-Z-Boy and coffee table hid in the corner “on their way” to Goodwill. Mr. Cranston had promptly emptied the bar and filled it with the boys’ books, but the bright colors of spaceship sheets and plastic robots garishly popped against the bland, yellow-green bare walls.
“It’s Christmas Eve,” she said, clasping her hands so she might not put them on her hips and make her husband laugh.
Gunshots, screeching tires, and a woman’s scream came out of the boys’ room. Mr. Cranston put on his coat. Relocating the den’s flat screen was another broken promise, or rather, belated promise, as Mr. Cranston liked to say.
He patted himself down. Keys, wallet, phone. Watch, badge, gun. Nothing forgotten. His wife slipped her hands into his.
“Promise you’l
l be home in time for presents.”
“I’ll do what I can,” he said. Mr. Cranston never meant to break promises to his wife, but he had noticed the negative trend, and so had stopped promising.
“Harry was too young last Christmas, but he’ll remember this time.”
Mr. Cranston stretched and cracked his jaw, relieving the usual tension of his wife playing the “don’t neglect our children” card. His own father had spent more time at the plant than at home, but as an adult, Mr. Cranston now respected his father for that. He expected his own children would come to the same conclusion.
“The city comes first.”
On their wedding day, a month before a faintly mustached real estate agent showed them the two-story on New Cherry, Mr. Cranston vowed that his wife would be first in his heart, even when he wasn’t there in person. Mrs. Cranston vowed to believe him. Both had faltered in this over the years, but vows were only words in the end.
“You aren’t a superhero. You’re an FBI agent who hasn’t spent a holiday with his family since Easter.”
The table settings, perfectly aligned silverware, an autumn leaf table runner, twelve carving knives, surrounding the Holiday Butcher’s latest victim, Bobby Donahue, age twelve, flashed in his peripheral vision. “I’m not about to let somebody else’s family get slaughtered by that maniac.” Mr. Cranston picked up his briefcase, stuffed his hat, scarf, and gloves under his arm, and opened the front door.
“Midnight,” she reminded, before closing the door against the cold.
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