Forever After (a dark and funny fantasy novel) (29 page)

             
The boy was already reaching out; he withdrew his arms as if his hand had brushed hot coals. He quickened his steps and disappeared off the bus without turning back, Sampson watched him skulk away -- his hood up, his hands in his pockets, his back hunched -- and felt sorry for him.

             
“And
you
wanna give these delinquents’ toys.” Chip said.

****

              Michael hated the aspect of giving gifts at Christmas. He had enjoyed it as a child and, as an adult in the living world, he hadn’t objected, but in the afterlife he hated it. He hated the greed and the selfishness on display in the mouths and minds of every child in the Western world. He hated the inept inattentiveness on behalf of the parents, who put their financial futures, and thus the future of their children, into jeopardy by blowing their household budgets on stacks of worthless pomp and plastic, half of which would be forgotten about until the following Christmas when it would be discarded in anticipation of even more worthless stacks of shit that could sit unattended and unloved for another year.

             
He remembered enjoying the feeling of waking up on Christmas morning and diving into a pile of presents. As an adult, with the benefit of hindsight, he could appreciate the warmth and pleasantry of being with family during those moments, with the parents in pure devoted mind-sets, the world frozen in motion for a week or more, and the dreams and ideas of the child allowed to flourish, but he knew that as that child the only thing he cared about was unwrapping and playing with those presents. There is no sentimentality with the young.

             
“Cheer the fuck up,” Naff told him as he drove them both across town.

             
Michael groaned in reply and turned his head to glare disinterestedly out of the window. They had already been to two of the houses on their list. In Michael’s eyes that was just another two kids who would wake up tomorrow morning to one extra piece of mass produced tat -- a sugar-coated start to a day that would probably end up with them crying and screaming at their parents, the result of an exhaustive mix of emotions and an overload of sugar.

             
“I don’t recall you ever being this annoyed about Christmas,” Naff noted. “You usually just hole up getting drunk for a few days.”

             
“I don’t recall ever being asked to be fucking Santa Claus before,” Michael replied.

             
“Touché.”

             
The next stop on the list was an end-terraced house in one of the estates on the edge of town. The street was dead as they pulled up. Further down the road a domestic dispute raged behind closed doors -- the calls and clatters of drunken violence broke into the night like a distant whistle. A few lights in a few windows flickered on and off -- televisions and computers playing to those overexcited and unable to sleep or those already asleep and unable to move.

             
Michael recognised the street. Just two weeks earlier he had picked up a job from one of the houses. A young man, no more than twenty. He was living alone and had evidently tired of his monotonous and pointless existence. He tried to kill himself with a bottle of whiskey and what he thought were painkillers that he had stolen from his grandmother. The tablets turned out to be iron supplements for his grandmother’s anaemia. Instead of a blissful slide into the abyss, he had suffered a painful and seemingly endless battle with his own internal organs which had eventually given out on him a few hours after the whiskey had worn off.

             
Recollection of the misery he had encountered on his last visit only furthered his bad mood. Grabbing the sack from the trunk he sauntered towards the house with a lazy and reluctant swagger.

             
“Cheer up,” Naff said as he tottered behind Michael who was slumping down the side of the house like a creeping stalker. “It’s Christmas.”

             
Michael ignored his cheery friend. At the back of the house he heaved the bag off his shoulder and walked through the door, in the darkness and silence beyond he slowly and carefully began to unlock a myriad of deadbolts, hoping to open the door and let Naff and the presents inside. A noise behind him awoke his attention and he froze.

             
During his first year on the job he had taken to walking through whatever door he pleased, enjoying the freedom that the ability allowed. That habit stopped after an unfortunate experience in a locked, and assumed empty, toilet stall where a half-naked man had been vigorously masturbating to the lingerie section of a clothes catalogue. The experience was traumatic for him, but it seemed to spur the man on.

             
He needed the ability; people had an unfortunate way of dying behind locked doors, but no longer desired to use it for anything unnecessary.

             
A small voice, almost a whimper, filtered through the thick silence.

             
“Christmas soon,” the voice was saying in a softened, reassuring whisper. “Don’t worry.”

             
The voice of an unseen child whispering into the darkness is innately creepy and would have sent chills through Michael’s body when he was alive, but now, in the world he had been forced to adopt, the ghostly voice suggested the possibility of unfinished work.

             
He followed the sound of the voice to the living room. A spill of moonlight cut through the closed curtains at the front of the room and shed a glow onto a small patch at the back, behind a dining room table and tucked away into the corner. A small boy sat on the floor, hunched over a large dog; its ears pricked to the air, its chest gently rising and falling.

             
The boy was stroking the dog with great care and affection, soothing the fading beast with every gentle repetition -- whispering meaningless absurdities into its ear as he did so.

             
He had been around death enough to recognise the presence of impending doom that hangs in the air like a weighted inevitability. The dog was dying and probably wouldn't see morning. He felt a twinge of sympathy in his heart. There were no tears on the boy’s small face, no quivering in his voice.

             
He quietly walked back to the kitchen. The key wasn’t in the back door. Nor was it on the nearby ledge or the counter. He searched around for it quietly -- not wanting to alert the boy or the dog in the other room -- and then headed outside.

             
“Problem?” Naff asked.

             
Michael threw a finger to his lips, “Be quiet,” he said hastily, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. “There’s a kid awake in there.”

             
“Too excited to sleep?” Naff asked in a sufficiently lowered tone.

             
“His dog’s dying, looks like he’s comforting it.”

             
Naff grinned. “Sounds like a surprisingly unselfish thing to--”

             
“Shut it,” Michael warned, pointing a threatening finger.

             
He took the intended present from the top of the bag and scanned the house and the door. There was a cat-flap at the foot of the door; the rubberised door gently lolled in the breeze, but the present, a boxed toy of some sort, was too big to fit through.

             
“I’m going to have to open it.”

             
“You can’t--”

             
Michael cut the protestations short. “If I don’t then he doesn’t get it,” he said sternly. “Unless you have any other suggestions.”

             
He waited in the silence. A breeze kicked up behind them and billowed out Michael’s coat. The noise of the distant argument, now settling down into sporadic screams, passed on the wind.

             
Naff didn’t say anything.

             
Michael opened the present as carefully as he could, taking great care not to make a noise. Even if the kid didn’t hear then there was a good chance the dog would.

             
“
I can’t believe I’m standing out here in the freezing fucking cold opening a fucking Action Man for some spoilt little shit,”
he remarked under his breath.

             
Naff sighed.

             
“I mean seriously,” he continued as he picked apart the paper. “What does it fucking matter? One more present, one more piece of shit for the pile,” he groaned. “Why did we listen to the fat fuck in the suit?”

             
“Maybe he has a point,” Naff said. He stuffed his hands inside his pockets to brace against the cold. “I don’t care what you think, this is kinda admirable: giving these kids some extra joy, some extra love.”

             
Michael groaned another disagreeing reply and ripped the final shred of paper from the toy. He began another tirade, another complaint against the season, but stopped short when he saw what was in the box. His words ruptured in his throat.

             
“What is it?” Naff wondered, sensing the shock on his friend’s face.

             
“It’s a dog’s toy,” Michael said softly. He held up the box. Inside was a small chew-toy in the shape of a slipper. “I don’t--” he paused, looked instinctively back at the house.

             
“I don’t get it. What am I missing?” Naff asked.

             
Michael didn’t answer him. He gently opened the box and removed the toy before slipping it through the cat-flap and retrieving it on the other side. He took it to the living room, a shade of darkness covered his face as he crossed the midnight threshold and listened to the boy, still whispering in the corner of the room.

             
“Santa’s gonna bring us something special,” he was saying happily. “We can play one last time.”

             
Michael slipped the toy inside a stocking that dangled temptingly from the fireplace. It was marked with the child's name but had been filled with a wealth of toys for both man and beast.

             
He checked on them before he left. The dog seemed to see him standing there, its black eyes, glistening against the reflective light of the moon, seemed to be staring right at him. Its ears were pinned to the air for any sound he might make, but it was reluctant to move. It didn’t even lift its head. The boy didn’t notice Michael at all; he was using the dog as a pillow, his head resting on its rising and dipping chest as his hand continued to gently stroke it.

             
“What was all that about?” Naff asked when Michael joined him outside.

             
“Nothing,” Michael said, attempting to restrain his emotion.

             
“You look different,” Naff noticed, hopping around him like an excited and quizzical child. “Something happened in there didn’t it?” he exclaimed, “Ah, what was it? What was it? Tell me. Did someone finally pull that stick out of your arse?” he asked, practically skipping with joy.

             
“Fuck off Naff.”

****

              “This is bloody heavy,” Chip complained. He slugged a wrapped box through the living room to a fireplace, where a selection of presents had been laid out between three bulging stockings.

             
Santa watched the tooth fairy struggle with the box, nearly trapping his fingers between its edge and the soft carpet as he plonked it down with little care or attention, before cracking himself upwards with a jolt and holding his back with a pained expression.

             
“I think that one’s a train set,” the fat man noted. He glanced around at the room and smiled. It was alight with tiny, multi-coloured lights and bristling tinsel, all neatly and carefully placed -- covering the frames of paintings and pictures and dangling from light fixtures. An advent calendar was open by the stairs, all but a few of its chocolate filled doors stood open.

             
“You like this, eh?” Chip said, watching the fat man’s expression.

             
Santa nodded, feeling massively cheered up after the depressing incident with the youth on the bus. “Very much so.”

             
A hushed sound caught both of their attentions and they turned towards the stairs just in time to see a little head pop out and then disappear. The sound of hasty footsteps on creaky steps followed and Santa ushered for Chip to hurry up. Before he heeded the advice he heard the gleeful chants of a little boy who had made it to the top of the stairs and was calling to his parents.

             
“Mummy! Daddy! Mummy! Daddy,” came the joyous screams. “Santa is downstairs! Santa is downstairs!

             
“Ah, sweet,” Chip said, despite himself.