Krampusnacht: Twelve Nights of Krampus (14 page)

The attention. The validation.

And then she asked herself if she could say goodbye to all that, if she could settle once and for all which was more important to her: the celebrity or the work itself. And if it was indeed the work, then she had a job to finish up here on the top of the world. A child was out there somewhere, in need of protection, even if she was the most despicable little brat who ever drew breath. And Spectra’s client was out there too, a good man, the best man ever, desperately needing protection from himself.

She couldn’t feel the storm at all anymore. The light, airy, flowing flowery clothes that Kandi had mocked now became an external representation of the grace and beauty and lightness and goodness of her being.

And then the winds, as if she had commanded them—and maybe she had—took a sharp turn, interrupting for moment the storm’s blinding cyclonic white-out effect and forcing it sideways in straight lines. For the first time she could make out what was happening on the roof. She saw Krampus first. The storm was so thick that he had passed her without either of them knowing it. He was closing in on Kandi, who stood 15 feet from the edge of the roof, facing the other tower. Kandi began to run for the edge of the building. She had her arms up in a dancer’s posture and was clearly about to risk everything on a single dancer’s leap over the abyss to the adjacent roof.

One chance in a million the girl would make it, Spectra thought. But one chance was better than none at all.

Krampus was laughing, charging after Kandi.

Krampus, with his length and power, would almost certainly make the jump.

And so Spectra charged after him.

Kandi leaped, one leg stretched forward and the other back in a ballerina’s grand jeté. Laughing wildly, Krampus leaped after her. And Spectra, borne aloft by that flowering grace and beauty and lightness of soul, leaped too. In mid-air between the towers she reached for Krampus. She caught him, wrapping her arms around his lower legs. She squeezed. Her grip, with those skinny arms of hers, was unbelievably strong. Krampus was unable to kick, unable to use his legs to muscle his massive bulk across the gulf.

A sudden, perfectly timed updraft lifted Kandi over the gap between buildings and set her down on the other tower. This same wind was not equal to the task of carrying Krampus, especially not with Spectra holding onto him. The second tower was just an inch beyond his reach as he began his downward plummet. While Krampus howled, he and Spectra disappeared into the snow between the two towers, into the whipping wind which seemed to score the surface of reality itself.

And in a dark corner of the den, Santa’s abandoned suit stirred. The great mound of red wool and white fur began to deflate like a tent whose supports had suddenly been pulled. The white beard, jutting out over the suit, and all the white fur trimmings twisted and crackled and curled away as if they were burning—but there was no flame. The red wool of Santa’s suit broke apart into little bits and these little bits paled and turned rough and dry like pencil shavings, curling in on themselves. Eventually the curls grew so tight they vanished altogether, leaving just a fine coat of dust on the floor.

Krampus had fallen to his death between the towers. And the other man he was, his good self, would not rise again.

* * *

Kandi found the stairwell door on the roof of Tower A and hurried inside. She went downstairs and looked around for someone to yell at. There was no sign of any elves on the floors she searched. Or her mother.

The police would be coming after the storm died down. That gave her a bit of time to snoop around for anything of value. She searched offices and work rooms and private quarters, emptied drawers and trunks and wardrobes, and then finally she came across Santa’s papers in a lockbox that the trusting old man had never bothered to lock. It was full of bank statements, bonds, flyers listing terms and conditions for countless accounts and investments. The old guy had some big money backing his operation. International investors. Hedge funds. Futures. Best of all was an agreement with something called The Bank of Eternal Youth. A monthly debit from Santa’s savings account in exchange for never aging a day.

A goddamn goldmine.

This, then, is the story of how Kandi Kane and her seven tiny reindeer came to bring gifts to all the children of the world every Christmas Eve, and how she leveraged this gig so that the rest of the year she starred in heart-warming Hollywood movies about a spunky, cute plump girl, singing and dancing, forever young, forever stinking rich and famous.

Kandi’s lawyers kept Mrs. Claus at bay, kept her, year after year, on the pull-out bed in her sister Myrtle’s Myrtle Beach bungalow.

And Cyndy Symmons was jumped in an alley by four very small men who wore curly-toed boots and jingling bells on their hats. Her broken ankles recovered enough that she could walk with the aid of a cane, but she never danced again. She’s 40 now, working as a script-reader at Paramount. And, it has to be said, she’s not aging well.

To all of which Kandi Kane says, “Ho! Ho! Ho!”

* * *

Patrick Evans is a fiction writer and journalist who has recently published short stories in the anthologies Age of Certainty and Fresh Blood. In 2013, after four decades in Toronto, Canada, he moved to the United Kingdom because he genuinely prefers rain to sun.

Eighth Night of Krampus: “Between The Eyes”

by Guy Burtenshaw

Inspiration
: “Between The Eyes” takes place in towns that the author knows well. The story was inspired by and reflects the high levels of stress caused by modern life, and how there is always a price to pay for every decision you make. Sometimes you get through, but other times you just crash and burn.

“If you were going to die and you were given a choice of being shot between the eyes or being covered in petrol and burnt, what would you choose?”

Mervin looked up from his pint of Blackhorse ale and turned his head to stare at the man who had been wittering away for what felt like a lifetime.

Mervin had gone to the pub with the intention of downing so much alcohol he would not just forget the week he had just endured, but the entire year.

Mervin regarded the man through his blurry eyes and, without thinking too hard, said, “Bullet between the eyes.”

“Popular choice,” the man told him. “But what if the bullet between the eyes was scheduled for first light and the fire was for first light exactly one year from now?”

Mervin had trouble focusing on the man’s face. An unkempt black beard seemed to fill his face. Horns protruded from the side of his head, curling up into a haze, and fading into nothing. He looked away and screwed his eyes tightly shut, and then opened them and focused on the beer mat on the bar to clear his head.

“What are you on about?” Mervin asked wishing the man would go away and leave him in peace.

“One whole year. Think of all the greatness you could achieve in one year knowing that was all you had.”

“Bullet is quicker,” Mervin said.

“But sooner, and fire isn’t so bad. The smoke gets you before the flames, and there’s a whole year before it happens.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll take the fire if you’ll just leave me alone.”

Mervin realized he had raised his voice a little higher than intended, and people were staring at him.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he turned to see Ben Mudd, the barman, staring at him. “I think you’ve had enough.”

“I’ve only just started,” Mervin told him suddenly feeling strangely sober.

“And now you’ve just finished.”

“I say when I’m finished. Another pint and whatever my friend here is having.”

Mervin turned, his drunken smile drooping when he saw the empty bar stool next to him.

“What’s his name?” Ben asked. “Don’t tell me, it’s the invisible Santa, and what will his little helpers be having?”

Mervin looked around the bar, his eyes struggling to focus, and then he found himself lying on the hard wooden floor staring up at Ben as he leaned over the bar.

“Now I’ve had enough,” Mervin mumbled as a dull pain started to build between his eyes.

* * *

Mervin opened his eyes and stared into the darkness. For a brief moment he felt afraid, and then he recognized the spherical white light shade hanging from the ceiling.

He could not remember getting home. He had a hazy recollection of sitting at a bar. Someone had been talking to him and then he had fallen over.

His head was pounding, the pain worst between his eyes. He sat up and massaged his forehead with his thumb, the pain easing when he pressed hard with his thumb and returning when he stopped. The time on the clock on his bedside table was half past seven.

Water
. He felt thirsty. He felt for the cord next to the bed and turned the bedside lamp on. The light from the bulb felt far too bright, but it banished the darkest shadows, and the aching in his eyes seemed like a small price to pay.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and looked down at the clothes he vaguely recalled putting on the previous morning. His shirt was severely creased, but that did not bother him. It was not as if he would be entertaining anyone over the Christmas holiday.

He smiled and wondered how, when you were no longer working, you could tell when the Christmas holiday started and when it finished.

He suddenly had a craving for a smoke. He looked at his bedside table. There were none there. He patted his pockets, but all he felt was his wallet.

He stood and walked to the kitchen where he turned the tap on and leant down to drink direct from the spout. He drank until his thirst was satiated and turned the tap off standing to face the window.

It was still dark outside, but he knew the sun would soon be making an appearance. He took a deep breath of air hoping it would quell his craving for nicotine, but his habit refused to be beaten so easily. There was a petrol station about a mile away, and if there was one place that would sell cigarettes at half past seven in the morning on Christmas Day, that was the place to be.

* * *

He opened the front door and shivered as a cold breeze hit him. He took a deep breath of the outside air and pulled the door closed behind him as he stepped into the outside world. He checked his watch. It was a quarter to eight.

The sky to the east was a pale gray, but all the houses were still in darkness. He knew it would not be long before lights started to turn on across town with over-excited people sitting around their decorated trees tearing paper from presents.

There had been a time when Mervin had been one of those people, but not anymore. His girlfriend had left him when he had been promoted and his hours grew longer, his parents had both been killed in a car accident in France shortly after, and, apart from a reclusive uncle in New Zealand, he had no relatives.

As he walked along the road he found himself wondering whether life could get any more depressing. He knew that it could and probably would. He had thought the same the week before, and had decided he had reached the bottom when he had been handed a letter informing him that he was surplus to requirement. The pay had been exceptional, but the contract had been temporary, and a clause had allowed termination with only a week’s notice. His manager Robert Selwyn had seemed to take great pleasure in highlighting the clause to him before escorting him out of the building.

The walk to the petrol station was a lonely one. There were usually people making their way to the station at Walthamstow Central, but Christmas Day had everyone confined to their homes.

At the petrol station a non-descript person clad in black leathers, face concealed by the dark visor of a black helmet, was just moving away from a pump. The engine of the motorbike revved loudly as it sped away as though to tell the world the dawn was approaching.

A wave of warm air greeted him as he entered the petrol station shop. He picked a pre-packed turkey and stuffing sandwich from the refrigerator and went to the counter.

“Christmas dinner?” the man behind the checkout asked.

“Jack!” Mervin responded surprised.

Jack Thomas had been working in the post room at the city bank where he had been working himself only a week earlier.

“How’s the world of banking?” Jack asked.

“What are you doing working here?” Mervin tried to remember the last time he had seen Jack pushing the post trolley around his department, and he could not, only that it had been awhile.

“I was made redundant last September,” Jack told him. “When the going gets tough the tough kick the man at the bottom. Selwyn put in a bad word for me and I was out.”

“How long have you been working here?”

“Exactly a week. Three months of looking and this is all I could find. Things could be worse.”

“If there’s any vacancies going put in a good word for me.”

“Et tu Mervin. How’s the head?”

“The head?”

“I was in the Thomas Mudd Inn last night. Celebrating my first week of paid employment. You looked a bit worse for wear.”

“Did you see someone talking to me?”

“After you left he sat next to me.”

Mervin felt relieved that he had not imagined the odd conversation. Ben had acted as though he had not seen anyone.

“Did he ask you anything odd?” Mervin asked.

“Would you rather be shot in the head at first light or burnt next Christmas? That was when I left.”

“What was your answer?”

“Bullet between the eyes. Justin Bonner, you don’t know him, but he said the man was in there last Christmas Eve. He chose the burning. I’d never seen him before, but he sounds like the local loon.”

The roaring sound of an engine turned them both to the window. The nondescript motorcyclist had returned and had stopped by one of the pumps.

“Just the sandwich?” Jack asked.

“And twenty black pack Superkings.”

Mervin paid with a credit card and walked back out to the forecourt.

The motorcyclist walked past him heading for the petrol station. Mervin thought he was going to take his helmet off as he reached the door, but he did not.