12 Deaths of Christmas

by Paul Sating

  “Wait. Are we going to put that out?” Chikae indicated the fire raging inside the trashcan.

  DeMarco smirked. “No man. Why? It’ll burn down.”

  Chikae paused, unsure this was a wise decision.

  DeMarco laughed at him. “Man, you’re always so serious. Chill. It’ll be fine.”

  Against his better judgment, Chikae got into the car and soon found himself partying in an empty parking lot outside the abandoned club. “Man, that’s depressing,” he commented, taking in the deteriorating building that once was the coolest place in his small world.

  “It fell apart real quick after you left,” DeMarco said, firing up another hit. “No one comes out here anymore.”

  Chikae remembered his parents talking about the collapse of the industrial center. A domino effect killed the economy when one of the bigger employers closed their doors and moved to Mexico. One after another, businesses followed that lead or went under, spreading unemployment like a disease. It was one of the reasons he didn’t like coming home anymore. DC held a much more positive life. Out here it felt like someone hit the PAUSE button on the world at the worst part of the movie. Hopeless. Here? What could anyone hope for?

  “You ready to do this?” DeMarco asked, breaking Chikae’s tail-spinning thoughts.

  “Do what?”

  DeMarco hopped out of the car, releasing the last of the marijuana hit he held. A large, soft cloud filled the air. A sweet smell. DeMarco leaned down, one arm resting on the top of the door, “To burn it down, man.”

  He laughed, hacking up another small cloud of marijuana smoke, and slammed the door.

  This was one of the worst ideas DeMarco ever had, but that didn’t stop Chikae from getting out of the car to join him. If nothing else, he needed to protect DeMarco from himself.

  “What are you doing?”

  DeMarco rummaged around in the trunk. The parking lot was dark; the property manager probably wasn’t interested in paying to light this abyss. Two of the light poles lay across the blacktop.

  “Give me your light,” DeMarco said from somewhere behind that trunk lid. “Wait, never mind. I found it.”

  “Found what?” Chikae asked, flicking on his flashlight app, shining it as he came around the back of the car.

  “This,” DeMarco held up a gas can.

  It was one thing to burn shit in trash cans in the middle of some field, but it was something entirely different to burn a building, abandoned or not. This was real shit. This was a felony.

  “Come on man,” Chikae chided. “You’re not serious.”

  DeMarco answered by slamming the trunk closed. “Last one in is a pussy.”

  With that, DeMarco sprinted for the building.

  Chikae stood by the back of the car watching his friend disappear into the black hole where the front door used to be years ago. Now that he was alone in the parking lot, staring at a building that was rotting into extinction, he realized how creepy it was out here. The exterior bore the scars of time. Here and there, without rhyme or reason, slivers of the siding were torn off, making the building looked marked. It served as a signal to the world how quickly something could lose its beauty once it was no longer cared for. The few windows that faced the parking lot had the glass busted out. Jagged slivers grimaced at their fate. One end of the roof sagged.

  Chikae couldn’t believe he used to look forward to coming here. But this was worse; he was an adult, too old to be here, doing this. This was asinine. This was criminal. He could either leave DeMarco or he could talk him out of this. But everyone in their circles had left DeMarco. That was half the reason he was as fucked up as he was. Approaching thirty and still acting like a 13-year-old. Chikae wasn’t going to join that queue.

  “Shit,” he slammed the car door, only checking for the keys afterward. Thankfully, he still had them.

  The sound of his footsteps skipped across the parking lot as he approached the club, reminding him how isolated they were from anyone who could help if things went bad.

  That black opening of the club swallowed DeMarco. Chikae paused, looking around at the parking lot one last time before carefully stepping through the rotted door frame and into the place where dreams had become reality for a teenage boy.

  The club was nothing like a place of dreams now.

  The dance floor was warped after years of exposure to the weather, thanks to a partially collapsed roof. The half-wall the bouncers used to sit behind was still there, but everything else had been stripped away, sold off or stolen. There were no barstools and even the glass mirror they used to use to covertly check out women was gone. The shelves that once held the promises delivered through bottles of alcohol now lay bare and broken, leaning at angles against one another. Chikae laughed when he saw the disco ball still hanging from the ceiling over the dance floor. How much had he learned about himself and what women liked underneath that damn thing?

  Death had come to the club. It was a sad sight. “DeMarco, come on. Let’s get out of here.” He couldn’t see his friend but could hear him moving around in the darkness. “What the hell are you doing?”

  The sound stopped.

  Chikae swallowed, thinking for the first time that they might not be the only ones in here. He couldn’t see anything beyond the five feet his phone light illuminated. “Come on, man. This shit’s not funny. Let’s get out of here.”

  Things moved, shuffled in the darkness.

  He thought he heard a sound to his right. It was light, skittering. Before he could spin, another sound teased him from the left.

  And then the world was ablaze.

  In one corner of the club, booths where the older kids used to flirt and talk about college, the spot high schoolers weren’t allowed to be, moaned as they were consumed by fire. Flames leaped up the walls, accelerated by DeMarco’s can of gas.

  Then DeMarco was running by him. “Come on, man!”

  DeMarco raced across the dance floor and straight out of the club. It took a second before Chikae understood everything that was happening. All around the back of the club, the flames spread.

  “Come on, Chikae!” DeMarco yelled from the safety of the gaping doorway.

  Chikae didn’t need to be told again. A trail of fire surged up out of nothingness across the floor. The gas can had leaked. And it led straight to his only escape route.

  Breaking into a sprint, Chikae jumped over the line of growing fire and into the night air. Once safe, he bent over, gasping. DeMarco laughed.

  Chikae shoved his shoulder. “That shit’s not funny, man.”

  “Yes, it is. Especially if you could see your face.”

  Chikae examined DeMarco and shook his head. He was never going to grow up. “Where’s the gas can?”

  “Gas can? I left that shit in there.”

  “Why?”

  “It cost three dollars,” DeMarco shrugged. “No big deal. Give me the keys.”

  But it was a big deal. It was, if nothing else, evidence. As Chikae handed over the keys, he wondered how DeMarco couldn’t understand that. When the authorities did an investigation into the fire they might find clues out of charred wood and melted plastics. And he had a life, a career; he was going in the right direction and didn’t want to be part of this. He’d tried to stop DeMarco. That was why he wanted to know where the goddamn gas can was.

  There was no time to contemplate the consequences. While they were safe in the parking lot, the interior of the club was glowing to life as the fire spread. In minutes, the building would be completely ablaze. That would draw attention.

  “We need to leave,” Chikae said.

  But DeMarco leaned against the hood of the car, crossing his arms, his eyes fixed on the growing flames. “No man, I want to watch this.”

  Someone, anyone, might stumble by on a late-night drive. Cops must still patrol this area periodically. They might come across them at any minute. He didn’t need that mess. He wasn’t some stupid teenager without a care in the world.

  A
nd the flames were growing. Wood popped. Even this far away, Chikae felt its warm breath. With the deterioration of the structure, Chikae thought it would be too damp to catch. He was wrong. Flames danced larger and larger. Something crashed inside the building. The club was going to burn to the ground.

  “Fuck this, DeMarco,” Chikae said. “Give me the keys. I’m leaving. You can join me or —“

  A scream soared above the dull rumble of the blooming fire. It came from inside the club.

  Chikae froze. “What was that?”

  DeMarco, too, had stopped and turned back toward the building at the unexpected sound. “I am sure … I’m sure it was nothing.”

  Inside the club, flames popped up over the bottom of the windowsills, across the span of the building. Heat blew toward them, a warmth that chilled his soul.

  “Just hearing things,” DeMarco said and began walking back toward the car, moving toward the driver side. “It’s intense, right?” He laughed, but it was unconvincing.

  Chikae had heard something. It wasn’t an after effect of the fire. It wasn’t background noise from one of the abandoned industrial buildings. If he heard something, then DeMarco did too. DeMarco had reacted to the scream. Chikae saw him.

  “We can’t leave, man.”

  “Why not?”

  Chikae jabbed a finger back toward the building. The flames crackled. “Someone screamed in there.”

  “I didn’t hear anything.” DeMarco yanked open the car door and collapsed into the driver seat, starting the car. He leaned his head toward the passenger side window, “Are you coming?”

  Was he serious? They needed to help whoever that was inside the club before it was too late. They couldn’t just—

  DeMarco rolled forward, turning toward the parking lot exit. Chikae took one more look at the club before returning his gaze to the car. The passenger side window was still down. DeMarco leaned across the middle console again. His eyes begged Chikae to give up. “We’ve got to go, man,” DeMarco shouted, a slight quiver in his voice.

  Chikae understood. A million thoughts raced through his mind in that instant, no one thought clearer than any other. Behind him, glass exploded. The entire building surged into old age as the fire spread, consuming more and more. Maybe it wasn’t a scream after all. Chemicals made weird noises when they burned. Fire destroyed in the most chaotic of ways. It could’ve been anything, Chikae convinced himself. And in that moment of panicked clarity, he ran to the car. Something collapsed inside the building behind his retreat.

  It’s just the building. Just a stupid, old building no one cares about.

  Chikae’s hand was on the door, ready to pull it open when he heard the scream again. It definitely came from inside the building and it was definitely a voice. Not chemicals. Not a weird death call from some inanimate building material. This howl filled the world, reverberated inside his head. A human howl.

  A howl of excruciating pain.

  “Get the fuck in, man, or I’m leaving you here!” There was no mistaking DeMarco’s intentions. Whatever was happening inside that building, DeMarco would leave it to carve out its own fate.

  Through the open doorway that was now ablaze with the roaring fire, something moved. It wasn’t the musty drapes catching fire and breaking loose of the rods, drifting into his field of vision. It wasn’t a partial wall collapsing, sending support beams scattering across the open maw.

  Something walked toward the door.

  “Get in, man!” DeMarco’s voice was muffled in Chikae’s ears.

  A form. A human form, stumbled through the fire, out of the fire, toward the front door. Neither male nor female, the form was immense.

  And it was on fire.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Chikae, I’m going to leave you!” Muffled no longer, DeMarco’s voice cleaved the night.

  “We can’t,” Chikae screamed. “There’s someone in there. They’re hurt.”

  The figure stumbled, its fiery arms swaying to catch its balance. It approached the door, close now. Flames licked at the person’s clothes. A man, a large man. Between the fire raging in the background and the dark night, it was difficult to make out much detail about him beyond tattered strips of clothing burning and floating up and away from the burning man.

  The man who was burning alive.

  “We’ve got to help!” Chikae pleaded through the open car window.

  DeMarco put the car in gear. “Last chance. I’m not fucking around.” His icy voice was an appropriate contradiction to the burning world.

  Face-first, the burning man fell out of the doorway.

  “Oh, fuck!”

  Flames licked at his clothes, spread across his back, down his legs, and across his thick arms. They danced on his head. Chikae, frozen, watched this slow, excruciating death. The man didn’t move. Gruesome. The unmoving form on the ground faded from the living world even as flames danced to life into the night sky above him.

  Tires crunched across the loose rock and trash that polluted the desolate parking lot. DeMarco pulled away.

  “Wait!” Chikae screamed in a moment of madness, grabbing for the car door. DeMarco obeyed and Chikae jumped in.

  Without another word, DeMarco pulled away. They rode in silence. There was nothing to talk about. There was nothing to say about the man they’d left back in the parking lot.

  Because the burning man was already dead.

  ***

  Chikae’s cell phone buzzed. He picked it up, looking at the unknown number, then hung up.

  “Who is that?” Sonia, his wife, asked.

  Chikae shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It’s Christmas. Family time. Whoever it was, it can wait.”

  She smiled as she bounced Kendrick on her knee.

  Chikae slunk off the chair and joined his family on the floor, kissing both of them on the forehead. Christmas in Southern California was strange with no chill in the air to remind him that it was a special time of year. But the job that brought them here was one he couldn’t pass up. They moved across the country, thousands of miles from their families and their past, for it.

  They didn’t know many people yet, so this Christmas it would be just the three of them for the holidays. And that was completely fine with Chikae. He wanted to focus on these two; the job was demanding, taking a lot out of him. One day he’d be up to speed, but right now he was still proving himself to his peers and boss. That required sacrifice.

  The phone buzzed again. Chikae sighed, reaching behind him and snagging it off the end table. It was another unknown number. “Jesus,” he pressed the END button.

  “Maybe you should take that,” Sonia said, her eyebrows raised as a look of concern passed over her face.

  Chikae shook his head. A telemarketer or a wrong number; either way, it wasn’t anyone he wanted to speak with. “It’s Christmas, babe.” He said as if that explained everything. He switched the phone over to silent mode, preferring to enjoy their traditional inside picnic on the living room floor as they watched the classic Christmas movie.

  The perfect night.

  When they laid Kendrick down, a feat in itself because he was excited about a visit from Santa, night unwound on the balcony. They shared a bottle of wine and the distant view of the ocean, the riches of this new life. Sonia was quiet. Chikae leaned on the railing, twirling her hair around his finger as he thought. This was their fifth Christmas together. Five years!

  She wore a permanent smile, the kind of expression content people wore. He got that. The last year had been chaotic, but each challenge was necessary. Being a world away from family and friends was hard. But the huge promotion and related pay raise allowed them to buy a home they could only dream of just a few years ago. And they were living the Southern California lifestyle, something Sonia dreamed about since she was young. He did too. And then there was Kendrick, a healthy, happy toddler.

  Life was good.

  The sun was setting beyond the reach of the world. A beautiful sight, the way the ora
nge light danced across the open surface of the Pacific.

  They sat in reflective silence, enjoying each other’s company, even after the orange glow faded to black in the distance.

  Sonia bit her lip and tapped the railing. “I need to get Kendrick’s presents out and get to bed. We’ve got an early morning.”

  “I’ll help.”

  After they finished, Sonia went to bed, accompanied only by her wine-induced headache. Chikae stayed awake, sitting in front of the fire and wrapping the last of Kendrick’s presents Sonia didn’t know about. He bought them today, against her wishes. She thought Kendrick had enough, but Chikae figured a couple more small presents wouldn’t hurt. Kendrick had everything he needed, but it felt good to give him more of the life Chikae had missed out on as a child.

  It wasn’t until much later, then, that Chikae noticed he had 14 missed phone calls. “What the hell?” he cycled through the call log, checking each of them. All of them were from an unknown number.

  Before he set the phone down, the screen blinked to life, showing an incoming call. It didn’t matter that it was Christmas, someone was getting an ass-chewing. “What?” he set the tone for this annoying call from the beginning.

  “Is this Chikae Hicks?” a fragile female voice asked.

  Chikae’s guard lowered with that single question. The woman sounded elderly, sad. “How can I help you?”

  There was sniffling in the background of her end of the call. “You were friends with DeMarco, right?”

  DeMarco? Chikae thought. When was the last time he heard that name? Not since …

  “DeMarco Morales?”

  More sniffling. “I’m his aunt, Gwen. I don’t think I’ve seen you since you boys were … I don’t know, fifteen. Maybe?” Her voice trailed off.

  The fire had changed everything. The night Chikae tried to forget, tried to repress, was the line in the sand for their relationship. DeMarco killed a homeless man in the fire, according to local news outlets. DeMarco wasn’t charged because authorities never conducted much of an investigation from what Chikae could tell. The, now, sole owner of the property didn’t pursue charges because the fire allowed him to remove an eyesore from the world for free. Everyone soon forgot about the dead homeless man.