Krampusnacht: Twelve Nights of Krampus (7 page)

Older, taller fey stalked past Steven, almost startling him into motion. Many resembled Mr. K: tall, thin, hawk-nosed, and with a similar ear twist. These, however, wore weapons and armor that left their wings unencumbered.

The human-sized fey waded into the fray, pulling drunken combatants out two and three at a time. Forcibly armored and handed thin swords—knives really—that gleamed silver in the moonlit darkness, the drunken fairies found themselves tossed into the mushroom rings. The battles began. Swords flashed, blood flowed, and the contests continued until a clear winner stood and cut off the wings of the loser. Winners pinned their trophy wings to the nearer trees with thorns; tall fey dragged the losers from the rings and drove them into the darkness of the forest.

One collapsed near Steven’s hiding place, bleeding from dozens of slashes. The creature sobbed and moaned, reaching back to finger the stumps of its wings and grunting. It looked back at the continuing combat and gave a long hiss through needle-sharp teeth before crawling off.

Steven shuddered.

* * *

All Hallow’s Eve

Steven peered out from the carefully manicured bushes at the excited mob of children, then did a double-take as Mr. K’s words sunk in. “Are you for real? You want me to shoot goblins? On Halloween?” His voice rose with each phrase.

Krampus nodded. “Don’t be so dramatic over a few tranquilizers.”

Steven surveyed the crowded street. Throngs of little monsters ran between houses, the cries of “Trick or Treat!” rising into the twilight. “I’m not shooting kids.” If he’d wanted to shoot kids, he could have just joined a gang back in the old neighborhood…

“Goblins have cat-eyes.”

After watching the increasingly hyperactive children for over an hour, Steven noticed a few sluggish children with a fistful of candy wrappers. He pointed at two of them standing together. “Are they…” He trailed off, searching from side to side. No coffee smell. No Mr. K. When did the man leave?

Steven snorted. Mr. K would probably return with a grande latte from the local coffee shop. He had never seen anyone drink so much coffee.

A sluggish child stumbled nearby, crashing through the bushes and almost landing in Steven’s arms. Up close, Steven could see the slight fold inside the child’s ear, similar to Mr. K’s. The child opened a glassy eye, the cat-like pupil contracting. A goblin!

He searched one-handed through his ammunition pouch, slowly pulled out a tranquilizer dart and flipped the cap off before slipping the point into the goblin’s back. The goblin gasped and collapsed to the ground, unconscious. Unsure what to do, Steven stayed in the bushes, cradling the goblin until he remembered the plastic zip ties Mr. K had given him.

The sun vanished beneath the horizon, leaving blood red clouds to slowly fade. A car drove up directly in front of the bushes and popped the trunk.

The window rolled down, revealing Mr. Krampus. “Put him inside.”

“Is it safe to lift him?” Steven remembered the teeth.

“Did he pass out from candy? Did you tranquilize him? He’s safe.”

Steven stuffed the goblin into the trunk, rearranging the other four chest-high bodies—two of them with normal human ears—before he could close it. Glancing around to make certain no one had seen him, he slipped into the passenger seat and slid down as far as he could.

* * *

November 2nd

The wind whistled through the slat walls of the cabin. Steven tied the last knot as the goblin shivered its way back to consciousness. Over the last day and a half, the two normal children had developed a twisted fold in their ears, a fold that had not been there before. All three true goblins slouched, held mostly upright by the ropes that tied their chests, arms, and ankles to the chairs. Their costumes still lay in puddles of bright fabric on the floor.

While waiting for Mr. Krampus to return from Caribou Coffee, Steven examined his charges. Scars marred the true goblins’ skins, slashes long healed and some more recently acquired. Two mounds of knotted scar tissue darkened the skin between their shoulder blades. The two changing children had similar scars, scars left during their punishment the day before.

Steven shuddered, remembering the venom in Mr. K’s voice.

“Naughty, naughty,” followed by the crack of a whip. The strikes left bloody gashes, and Mr. K’s deep chuckle nearly drowned out the children’s screams and whimpers.

He shuddered again. The goblins glared at him and snarled.

What did Mr. K want with these twisted children, anyway? Why punish them?

The door banged. The goblins and transforming children struggled in their chairs, snapping with long fairy teeth at the ropes that bound them.

Mr. K threw a bag of lollipops to Steven. “Feed them candy. Have you learned nothing?”

Steven tore the bag open and unwrapped a lollipop. Five goblin heads turned simultaneously, noses wrinkling and eyes tracking the piece of candy. Steven held the lollipop at arm’s length towards the first goblin, edging closer an inch at a time.

In a flash, the goblin extended its neck like a Jack-in-the-box and snapped the candy from his fingers, leaving a bare half-inch of rolled paper stick behind. Crunching followed.

Steven eyed his fingers, silently counting them while he took a deep breath to calm his racing heart. He glanced at Mr. K expecting to see amusement, but the man simply watched, one eyebrow slightly raised.

“You could have warned me.”

“Be careful of their teeth.”

Frowning, he looked back at the goblin. The creature ceased crunching. The stick fell from the corner of its mouth, followed by a line of glittering drool.

Something didn’t feel right, he thought. He grew more uncomfortable as he fed lollipops to the other four with the same results.

Mr. Krampus retied the goblins’ arms and legs. “They’re almost ready. Bring the van around, Steven. We’re going to the airport.”

* * *

November 4th

The Cessna landed on the snow-glazed field. A dozen chest-high elves dressed in red and green drove a sleigh out—a real sleigh, with skis on the bottom and a horse in front—and loaded the bound goblins in the back. They drove off toward a large warehouse that seemed to double as a hangar. Mr. Krampus taxied the Cessna inside, then took a handful of candy sticks from a bag stowed beneath the front seat.

Steven smelled peppermint. “Not again.”

“I’ll distribute them this time.” Mr. K walked across the warehouse. He held the peppermint sticks up with a gloved hand. The elves came running, clustering around until each held a stick. They drifted away, faces vacant, sucking on their candy.

In the next room, while all five goblins struggled in their ropes, Mr. K tossed a bag of peppermint sticks to Steven, then stalked across the room and wrapped his arms around an obese man in paint-stained gray sweats.

“We meet again, brother.”

“Peter! I’m so glad to see you again.” The brother’s voice shook with suppressed laughter.

“Always a pleasure, Nick.”

“I have another naughty list for you. Don’t forget it when you leave.”

Steven was surprised how much the two resembled each other, down to the hawk nose and ear twist, though Nick’s white hair and beard stuck out at all angles. So different from Mr. K’s sculpted pompadour and carefully trimmed goatee.

Steven opened the bag and pushed peppermint sticks into the goblins’ snapping jaws. Their faces glowed. It became Steven’s job to feed the goblins peppermint sticks after preparing coffee for Mr. K and his brother each morning. He just hoped Mr. K wouldn’t ask him to help punish the children who had not yet completed the transformation.

The next day, two of the goblins begged for peppermint before Steven had even unwrapped the candy. Elves swarmed in and took them away.

The following day another goblin begged, also to be taken away.

A planeload of goblins arrived in the afternoon, twenty chest-high creatures that the elves quickly strapped into chairs next to his remaining charges. Steven groaned and unwrapped more peppermint sticks.

He felt dirtier and dirtier. Each day about half the remaining group—and the two planeloads that arrived in succession over the next week—begged for the sticks. The elves ran in and removed the begging goblins. Steven dreamt about the old neighborhood. He could have stayed there, working security for the pimps who rewarded their girls with heroin. But no, he fought and clawed his way out of the slums, attending and failing out of college, scraping for a job that would let him stay away from the grime. He couldn’t believe he’d walked into the same job, this time addicting children. Fey children, and children who became fey, but still children. How could Mr. K do it?

When they returned to the city two weeks later, he found himself disgusted with the penthouse apartment he shared with Mr. Krampus. He tossed and turned half the night, and finally stumbled into the bathroom half-asleep during the man’s shower. Steven stopped dead at the profile seen through the patterned glass door: the short stubs of cut wings.

He shuffled through the kitchen making Mr. K’s morning coffee.

“What’s this morning’s flavor?”

“Hazelnut.”

Mr. Krampus slowly drank it, savoring his coffee as he had every day for most of a year.

Steven left a little earlier than usual to do his afternoon errands. He stopped by the bank and closed his account. He visited other banks around town, banks that had branches across the nation, and opened smaller accounts. That done, he stopped to pick up coffee, cream, and a few other odds and ends on his way back.

The next morning, he stirred the coffee carefully.

Mr. K called out from the next room, “What flavor are you making today?”

“A version of Irish coffee.”

“I like whiskey. It’s sweet.”

“I’m adding something a little different.” Steven opened the airplane sized bottle of Rumplemintz Peppermint Schnapps and poured it in. He stowed the other three small bottles in the back of a cabinet behind some dusty cans of soup. He wondered how many it would take…

* * *

Colleen H. Robbins has been writing since she was nine years old. If she doesn’t write often enough she gets distracted and hits her head on the side of the pool while swimming backstroke. She’s currently writing a YA fantasy novel series that involves problems teenagers face today.

Fifth Night of Krampus: “Ring, Little Bell, Ring”

by Caren Gussoff

Inspiration
: Caren says, “Our December holidays happen during the darkest, coldest part of the year, and, to me, have always suggested a sinister presence lurking beneath the façade of “Jolly Old Saint Nick.” I fell in love with the idea of Krampusnacht because it acknowledges that underlying menace that we here in the modern West try to ignore. “Ring, Little Bell” grew from a demented extrapolation about the spouse of Krampus; Santa has a partner, so it seemed natural that his shadowy partner should have one too… and, of course, in order to marry, one must date.”

The man I love is singing a Christmas carol.

Kling, Glöckchen…

He has a lovely singing voice. An edged tenor. It suits his face, his body: vertical, long, elegant, and a little cold.

klingelingeling!

When I first met this man I love, I searched his face and body for traces of anyone I had ever known before. I never found any. He was new. A complete stranger; I found that very attractive.

Kling, Glöckchen, kling!

I know the song now, though he has slowed the tempo, and is singing in German. “Ring, Little Bell, Ring.”

Laßt mich ein, ihr Kinder!

Children, let me enter.

Ist so kalt der Winter!

The winter is so cold.

Öffnet mir die Türen!

Open me your doorway.

Laßt mich nicht erfrieren!

Not to freeze this day.

Kling…

Before tonight, I didn’t know he could sing. Or that he knew much German. Or the other thing.

Glöckchen…

I pull my legs up so I can bury my face in my knees. I close my eyes and try not to breathe.

klingelingeling!

So I can hear him better.

Kling, Glöckchen…

So that I can stay really quiet.

kling!

So that I can fully fit behind the pantry shelf.

Kling, Glöckchen, kling!

So that he won’t find me.

Klingelingeling!

* * *

Drew Case tripped and fell out of a tenth story window. A simple, terrible accident.

Drew and I had worked together closely. A cohort of two, we studied deviance in a sociology department known for labor policy and political economy analysis.

I liked Drew. He would have liked for me to love him. I didn’t. I should have. All the ingredients were there: he was handsome, had a quick mind. He paid attention, and I could trust him. I should have loved him, not Reiner. But that’s not what happened.

Drew was set to go to Euell. The grant was secured, housing located, and key observational parameters were set. The rubric and methodology were peer-reviewed.

“It was going to change everything.” Drew’s words, not mine.

The day he told me about Euell, he looked like he’d been up all night with a fever—skin flushed, tight; and he held his eyes exaggeratedly wide, as if to force them open. He grabbed my arm and hustled me into the grad lounge. “You need to see this,” he said, his laptop open, screen showing a map. He pointed to a seemingly random spot. “Euell.”

It didn’t mean anything to me. It wouldn’t have meant anything to anyone.

Drew zoomed in. “Euell. Population 500. Two churches, six bars, and an Eagles’ Club. One major employer, Christmas Village, a holiday theme park.”

Drew looked at me with those shiny eyes. I nodded encouragingly because I didn’t have any idea what he was telling me.

“Star,” he said. “There’s no crime in Euell.” Before I could say anything, Drew faced me, held up his hand. “There should be. It’s isolated, on the low side of median income. There’s nothing there. Nothing to do. No opportunity beyond this one crazy resort. There should be… something. Assaults. Drugs. Theft. Domestic abuse. Gambling. Illegal dumping. Something.” He paused. “But there’s not. There’s nothing.”