The Undead That Saved Christmas Vol. 2 (3 page)

2

“Have you checked your list?” my wife asked, raw concern in her eyes.

“I checked it. Checked it twice, in fact,” I replied, trying to counter her concern with bravado I wasn’t really feeling. As a pilot with too many missions behind me to count, I knew that unwarranted bravado in these situations got people killed, and truth be known, after four years grounded, I think I was more frightened than she was.

“Well,” she said, pulling my hat snuggly over my ears and patting the white trim of my uniform, as she leaned forward and gave me a kiss. “Just you make sure you come home to me in one piece.”

“Home in one
piece
, huh? All these years you’ve sent me on my way with those words, I guess they’ve never been more aptly applied until now.” I said, looking her in the eyes, and exchanging the sort of unspoken meaning that can only exist in two people who have been married for eons.

“Bring yourself home
whole,”
she replied, before turning and disappearing into the falling snow.

“Red Dog!”

After all that had happened. After the world had nearly fallen, my heart swelled at my love for my wife.

“Red Dog! Red Dog, your flight team is ready!”

I roused from my reverie and realized I was being addressed by my Flight Team Leader, and he was looking at me like he wasn’t sure I was ready for this mission.

“Ready. I’m ready,” I said, to convince him as much as I was trying to convince myself.

Stepping forward, he flashed a mischievous grin and presented me with something he’d been holding behind his back, and when I saw it was wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper, I couldn’t help but laugh in spite of myself. “Now I know it’s almost, like,
sacrilegious
to give you something like this on a night like tonight, but me and the guy’s figured it was better you had it and not need it, than need it and not have it.”

As I was tearing open the paper, I already knew what it was, and I understood why he’d felt the need to offer an apology for the gifting of it. It was a pump-action shotgun, with an expanded magazine and ballistic grips. It was like a talisman of death, and it’s purpose was the antithesis of the spirit of Christmas, but dark times call for dark measures..

Before I could respond one way or the other, my Team Leader handed me a box of shells to go with the weapon, and said, “God forbid, but you find your back to the wall, that thing will put out as much firepower as a Yeti with a bad case of the runs.”

3

As I took off, rising above the great arctic shelf, the fields of ice below reflected the light of the moon with an ethereal glow that seemed to promise the hopes and dreams of a world that was already dead.

Then we crossed meridians and found the North American continent lying dark below us like a silhouette between oceans. There appeared to be little down there except pin-pricks of light, and larger pools of brighter light in areas of denser population, and it was hard to imagine millions of people still lived down there. Of course, the activities of the living dead produced far more darkness then light.

From a logistical point of view, this represented one of the biggest problems now confronting me and my team; even with untold years of experience, and more than a little bit of magic on my side, successfully navigating a mostly dark globe and making all the stops I had ahead of me would be no simple task. Doing it while remaining uneaten by ravenous zombies would seem to raise the stakes to the level of a suicide mission.

This was but one of the thoughts troubling me as I considered how best to begin the enormous task ahead of me that night…

That’s when I first noticed it, inside the boundaries of the continental United States, somewhere within the area previously defined as Ohio back when such distinctions still mattered. It was light, but brighter than could’ve been considered normal, and it seemed to form a pattern, like a man made constellation in the darkness below. Since I had little in the way of an actual plan for the night, I decided to drop to a lower altitude and investigate.

As I descended, the pattern of light on the ground below started to resolve itself and come into better focus, and there was no question it was man made. Then I was soon assailed by acrid smoke and a gruesome stench, and my eyes started to burn. If you’ve ever been unfortunate enough to smell burning human flesh, you know there’s no more repugnant stink on earth; it was that stink I was smelling, and it was clear what was making the pattern of light on the ground below.

Funeral pyres were burning bright, fed by the corpses of the dead, and as I continued to descend lower and lower, the pattern they had been organized into was immediately recognizable.

It was a Christmas Tree.

At that moment I understood how important this night was, the first real Christmas in four long years, how important it was for human kind and especially the children who had forgotten what hope was, and what it meant for me and my team to be able to give it to them. I didn’t have much consideration for the walking dead, beyond hoping to avoid them.

4

Four years might’ve passed, but it all came back to me quick enough. I was reminded of feeling overwhelmed as I always did at the beginning of every Christmas night, like Sisyphus at the bottom of the hill, but after I had the first few stops under my belt, I was back in the groove and making good time.

Of course, there was the new obstacle of ravenous zombies who wanted to eat me, something I’d had little experience with.

Perhaps I should back up a bit. See, one of the things that makes where I live at the top of the world such a magical place, is its utter barren and frozen desolation. It’s a place few people not acclimated to its charms ever want to visit, and the frigid temperatures can literally freeze a man to death within minutes. Because of this, we’d never experienced a visit from even a single representative of the walking dead.

So, I went into that evening with more than the usual trepidation, but all the intelligence assembled assured me I’d be safe as long as I remained observant, kept my eyes open and kept moving. Besides, if I did find myself in a tight squeeze, my flight crew had installed my craft with a few modifications specially designed for the elimination of any unwelcome dead who might wish to interfere with my mission. In the interest of full disclosure, I was kind of wishing I’d have the chance to use them. Well, as a wise man once warned, be careful what you wish for.

5

Time for me is an abstract thing, especially on game night, so it’s hard for me to say exactly how far I was into the evening, but things were going smoothly and I’d already completed a sizable chunk of my list.

But this, normally a cause for celebration, brought with it a creeping sadness, as it was hard to ignore said list’s now severely truncated form, and many things children asked for spoke of the horror that was the new human existence, and not the carefree innocence of children. A child ought not desire a machete or hand grenades for Christmas.

Anyway, I was making good progress, and had only seen a handful of random wandering dead, and that at a comfortable distance. Checking my list, I saw my next stop was a house I was familiar enough with; two children, brother and sister, always on the nice list, who had only once flirted with the naughty list for a minor transgression before they were even old enough to know better. They could even be counted on for fresh baked cookies and milk.

Then I realized that like a heart-breaking number of cases that night, I’d be returning to the house of a family that had lost a member, for my list included the wish of only one child, the boy.

It was a family I remembered from better days, the parents Bob and Susan, the prototypical salt-of-the-earth couple, with two children Timothy and Eden.

Now, as I’ve said, within the context of the new reality that had become the depressing norm. My list had become replete with children bereft of siblings, and in some cases devoid of entire families who’d previously occupied a large part of my list.

No, this was different, and even in an age when little boys were asking for things like flame-throwers and bazookas, this boy’s wish gave me pause. He’d asked me for a doll.

Before you jump on my case, I beg you remember judgment is not part of my job description. (Apart from the whole naughty and nice thing, I guess.) I treat a child’s wish as sacrosanct, and if it’s in my power to grant it, I have and always will deliver it with pleasure. It’s up to you bunch to decide what’s appropriate or inappropriate or gender-specific or… just thinking about it makes my head spin, and leads me to wonder why I even bother…

No, in this case the little boy’s wish gave me pause. His second wish gave me even further pause. You see, he’d sent a second letter. In that one, he’d withdrawn the request for a doll, and instead begged me not to come to his house. He’d hoped I would simply pass his house by and concentrate on making all the other children happy. He even offered to mail the cookies and milk he’d otherwise leave out for me.

Now, if there’s one thing that will guarantee I come to your house, it is a letter from a child begging me not to come to your house. Every child wants me at their house on Christmas.

6

With these thoughts in mind, I arrived over a lonely farmstead somewhere within what was previously known as Illinois. The closest neighboring home was almost a mile away. It was very dark, and there was no indication the house was even inhabited.

Landing on the roof, I took care not to make any more noise than absolutely necessary. A guy makes one too many
clatters
on a rooftop one night, and he never hears the end of it. In this case, I also thought stealth was especially called for.

The trickiest part of the night had always been finding egress into the house of the moment, especially in the post-industrial era when modern furnaces were more commonly used to heat people’s homes. In this case it wasn’t a problem, as it was a nice old house, with accommodating chimney.

As I descended through that chimney, the walls were still warm to the touch, and I could hear the ghostly whispers of the previously happy family that had gathered around the fireplace below.

Then I lowered myself onto the hearth, and tossing my bag over my shoulder, I stepped into the quiet and dark living room.

I hadn’t even taken another step, when something hard hit me in the back of the head, and I saw a flash that reminded me of the Northern Lights…

7

When I came to, I found myself chained in the basement. It was dark and the smell was dank. I immediately sensed my sack was nowhere near me.

Now, as much as it pains me to admit it, this kind of scenario was nothing new. You might be surprised the number of misguided souls who’d, over time, thought my capture might lead to their own personal gain, whether for financial, ideological, or religious reasons. They’d all failed. As this time they would again.

Before I could consider my predicament further, I heard the sound of something moving on the other side of the room, accompanied by a dull metallic
clanking
sound. This was followed by a low, guttural moan, that spoke of a ravenous hunger.

Then I was hit by the smell, a cloying stink, like a combination of rotted meat and vomit, and I knew instantly what was making that sound on the other side of the room. It was one of
them.

As I’ve said, until that moment I’d had no direct experience with the walking dead, but I had no doubt what I was facing. It’s like I could sense the inherent
wrongness,
even if I couldn’t see it there in the dark, and for perhaps the first time in my long life, I felt a genuine fear start to consume me.

Then I heard
it
move again, accompanied by that metallic clank, and I realized it was chained to the opposite wall just as I was to mine. This provided me the comforting realization I wasn’t seconds away from being eaten, but provoked a deepening concern regarding my captor’s intentions. Was I meant to be kept in the basement with that thing as some sort of pet?

When I’d previously found myself in similar predicaments, it usually resulted from some poor soul’s misguided belief I might be the source of unlimited riches, as if I were a genie or leprechaun with a pot of gold. It doesn’t work like that. We’re talking totally separate branches of magic, with entirely different sets of rules. Anyway, I was fast coming to the conclusion this was about something else entirely, something far more malevolent, and I was pretty sure somebody was about to go straight to the top of my naughty list.

Then light appeared from above as the door at the top of the stairs opened, and footsteps made their way into the basement.

Suddenly I was blinded by a flashlight’s bright light, and I was confronted by two people I couldn’t see. They stood there, directing the light directly into my eyes, as if to avoid confronting me face to face.

Before either of them could speak, I stared straight into the light and asked, “Bob. Susan. What in the Spirit of Christmas do you think you’re doing?”

A moment passed, and the flashlight wavered slightly, “Uh… you know who we are?”

“Of course I know who you are, Bob,” I replied, putting more disappointment than anger in my voice. “You too, Susan. I could hardly do my job if I didn’t
know who you are
. Now how about getting that light out of my eyes and telling me what’s going on… And Bob, if that’s the same Mag-Lite I brought you nine years ago, it’s pretty lame to use it on me like that.”

The light remained directed at my eyes for another few seconds, but I could sense resignation taking hold, and finally the flashlight was lowered and I could see the two of them standing there, averting their eyes in shame.

“Now, before I put you on the
permanent
naughty list,
turn me loose and explain what’s going on here.”

I figured that was pretty much it, they’d accept defeat and turn me loose as I’d suggested, but instead Bob turned the focus of the flashlight’s beam on the other side of the basement.