by TW Brown
December 10, 17--
Dear Santa,
I was of late jumping from ice floe to floe trying to catch that bastard Victor Frankenstein, when I was reminded how close I am to the North Pole and thought to take pen in hand
I realize that I have written to you many times, asking for intangible items such as love and friends, but now I know that these are never to be mine. If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!
Yes, I have been naughty, but can you blame me for being angry at the barbarous treatment I have received? My unrepentant Creator has done nothing for me since running away shrieking after bringing me to life, bereft of even a decent set of clothing. Can you please see your way clear this year to bring me a waistcoat and trousers, along with a clean white linen shirt with extra long sleeves to cover my naked green arms? A wool tweed vest would be a nice touch too.
I implore you, please do not forsake me again this year, or I shall have to take unspeakable revenge on your loved ones.
Yours sincerely,
The Adam of Frankenstein's Labours
P.S. If clothing is in short supply, may I at least have a name besides "Creature," "Fiend," "Demon," "Wretch," or "Devil"?
43
Dear Santa,
This year for Christmas, you must make sure that I can be seen this year. But only by one man. My brother. My brother and I have always had a tight-knit relationship.
Up until he killed me.
I’d found out that he was sleeping with my wife’s daughter. I was on my way to meet up with my wife at the small coffee shop we like to go to on the weekends when he did it. He nearly ran me off of the road before I pulled into a grocery store parking lot. They were closed on Sundays so the parking lot was nearly empty. We got into a spat. He ended up snapping my neck.
My neck actually still hurts, too, Santa, so if you could please just make that pain go away, too. Or, you know what, maybe at least leave my neck twisted and purple that way it is more gruesome when I show myself to my brother. I want to haunt him. He’s still sleeping with the girl. My wife still doesn’t know. It’s terrible.
Help me to scare the wits out of him. If not for my wife but for her still innocent daughter.
Love,
Henry.
44
Yes, Rindy, There is a Santa Clause
By TW Brown
Rindy Farmer peeked out from the shadowy doorway. This house had been a good find, sitting all by itself on a hill looking out over a vastness that everyone was pretty sure must be somewhere in Wyoming. A steady rain continued to fall, adding to the gloom felt by everybody the past few days. Nobody could be absolutely certain, but the general consensus placed it to be sometime in December. This would be the third Christmas since them. Most folks called them zombies, not Rindy. That was the nickname she had given her little brother Zimbalist—named after some long dead television star that her dad liked when he was little.
When her parents brought him home the first day and told her the name they had picked, she wrinkled her nose in distaste. From that day, he’d been ‘Baby Zombie’ to her. He was dead now.
Both times.
Same as her parents.
At age twelve, Rindy Farmer had been trapped in a bathroom while her mom, dad, and little brother clawed at the door. Then, the soldier came. His name was Morgan, and he had shot each of them in the head.
He saved Rindy.
Over the next two years, she traveled with Corporal Morgan. He taught her to shoot. He also taught her not to shoot. Noise always brought more of them. That was why he also taught her how to use a knife, a spear—for jabbing, not throwing—and a bow and arrow. He showed her how to search a room and then secure it after ensuring an escape route existed.
He taught her other stuff, too. He taught her how to tell if a can of food was bad, how to make fire with a flint and the blade of her machete. And he taught her how to hide.
“Never trust anybody,” Corporal Morgan said time and again. “Especially men.”
“You’re a man.” Rindy had pointed out the obvious the first time.
“Yep,” Corporal Morgan agreed. “And my daughter was about half your age.”
“They got her?”
The corporal nodded. “But not everybody had daughters. Some men will see you differently.”
Rindy knew what Corporal Morgan wasn’t saying…was too embarrassed to say. The past few years, she had seen gruesome examples of exactly why he had given that warning.
Two hundred and thirteen days ago, Corporal Morgan died. Then, he sat back up. Rindy put him down. Then, unlike with her brother and parents, Rindy was able to take the time to bury him. Afterwards, she had been alone for almost a month. Just like when she travelled with Corporal Morgan, sometimes there were others; sometimes not. One morning, twenty-six days after she buried Corporal Morgan, Rindy discovered a motel all by itself on an empty stretch of what was left of a highway. That wasn’t a very big deal. The big deal was finding Marjorie, Brad, and Amber.
Marjorie was only a few years older than Rindy. She was Brad and Angie’s big sister. She was also very pregnant. She and her brother and sister didn’t have a Corporal Morgan. They had found out the hard way that they couldn’t just trust anybody. Especially men.
Brad, age nine, and Amber, age seven, didn’t talk anymore. Marjorie told Rindy that they had seen things. Rindy didn’t ask. She didn’t want to know. The four of them lived in one motel room together for a week. Rindy didn’t like staying in one place too long.
One morning, she woke up, ready to say farewell to Marjorie, Amber, and Brad. Only, Marjorie wasn’t there. She checked in the bathroom…empty. She went outside, peering through the dusty plastic blinds first just like she’d been taught.
In the room just to the left, the door was open. Rindy peeked inside, finding Marjorie on the bed. Something was sticking out between her legs. It looked like tiny feet. Marjorie was dead…she didn’t have a Corporal Morgan. Rindy covered Marjorie with a blanket and left the room closing the door behind her.
Just leaving the two little ones wasn’t a choice. After all, where would she be if Corporal Morgan had just left her behind? So, she went into the room and woke up Brad and Amber. After breakfast—the last can of beef stew—Rindy explained what happened and held them as they cried. It was okay to cry, Corporal Morgan said. Holding everything in wasn’t good for you. When things happened that upset her, he always told her, “One good cry…get it all out and move on. It ain’t like the old day when you had time to let one tiny problem own you for weeks.”
Rindy let them cry. It was obvious that they needed it, because they cried for a long time. Then something strange happened, Brad stood up and asked, “Can we leave? I don’t want to stay where my sister died.”
Little Amber got up next to her brother and wiped her red, runny nose with her sleeve and sniffled. “Me, too.”
Rindy helped them gather their few belongings and they began walking up the long, empty road. Two days later they met Ryan and Penny; they were both twenty-five. Ryan was a cook and Penny was a dancer. Rindy tried not to giggle when Amber asked if Penny could teach her to dance.
The two had met at a FEMA evacuation center. One night the soldiers in charge simply up and left. Ryan said it got bad fast. A couple of men were ‘hurting’ Penny when he found them. He had a .22 pistol and shot one of the men. The other man walked away. That night Ryan and Penny left the FEMA center. They’d been on the road ever since.
The five of them travelled together. Twice they thought they’d found a place to hold up through the winter. Once, a large gang rolled into the area. Nobody wanted to wait to find out if they were friendly, and they slipped out under the cover of night.
The second place, a non-descript house in a partially burned down development seemed perfect. Even though many of the houses had burnt down, the whole community was behind a waist-high wall. A stone’s throw away, a river swept past. Ryan said it was the Platte River. The
blessing became a curse when a terrible storm thundred through. For three days they watched as the river flowed over its banks, creeping just as slowly and steadily across the flat plain as any zombie. Every hour it came closer to the houses. Eventually, water began flowing down the razor-straight grid of streets.
They travelled for two more weeks when they found the biggest, most amazing house Rindy had ever seen. It sat on a hill looking over a valley that stretched off to the east and west. The valley was bordered by enormous rocky cliffs to the north and the south.
Unlike many houses these days, this one still had most of its windows intact. It stood three stories high and had a huge fireplace inside that seemed bigger than Rindy’s bedroom in her old house with mom, dad, and ‘baby zombie’. The only disappointment proved to be the pantry. Easily the size of a small apartment, it was full of bags and bins. These people had obviously not believed in food out of a can. Not a single box of macaroni and cheese. There were a variety of herbs and spices…all rotten and useless.
Looking around, they found a large plot that Ryan said was a garden. Of course it was dead and full of weeds, but Ryan said it held promise. It looked like they had found not just their winter home, but maybe a place that they could stay. At least that’s what Ryan and Penny kept saying. Rindy wasn’t so sure. She didn’t like staying any place too long.
The days grew shorter, colder, and gloomy. Rindy continued to teach Brad and Amber the things Corporal Morgan taught her. Sometimes Ryan and Penny watched, whispering back and forth. For some reason, watching her, Brad, and Amber train seemed to make them sad.
One morning, Rindy was out early before the sun came up. She’d made herself a breakfast; roasting a chunk of pumpkin and eating it with her fish that Penny caught and smoked a few days before. She liked going out early by herself. The first day, she’d come back with three rabbits. That had been quite a feast. She hadn’t been out twenty minutes when she saw it: an enormous deer.
An hour later, she, Ryan, and Penny were hauling the field-stripped carcass back to the house. While Rindy and Penny went to work cutting it up, Ryan and Brad went foraging for some editable winter greens. Ryan was really good at identifying plants.
Late that afternoon, Ryan and Brad returned. Ryan was very excited. The two had gone off searching for some greens and hopefully a few herbs he could use to spruce up the night’s meal. They found a road, mostly washed out. Curiosity getting the better of them, they’d followed it. It was Brad who found the sign: Elkhart 2 mi. A town was a mere two miles away!
“You know what that means?” Ryan asked.
“That we’ll need to be more careful and keep our eyes open for roamers and stragglers,” Rindy said.
“Gloomy much?” Penny snorted.
“It means that we might be able to salvage some useful stuff,” Ryan ignored Rindy.
“It will be like a shopping spree,” Penny said, sounding like she’d just won the grand prize on a game show.
That night, everybody sat around the fire, eating venison, a bitter salad that Amber took one taste of and refused to take another, cups of steaming hot water from the creek nearby, and the big surprise that Ryan had kept hidden and sent Brad for once dinner was done…apples! One of the houses on the outskirt of the newly discovered town had a pair of apple trees in the yard. They were kinda shriveled, but everybody snacked away with ear-to-ear grins.
“You went into town?” Penny asked.
“Naw,” Ryan shook his head, “just this one house on the outskirts.”
That night, the rest of the talk centered on the possibilities of what they might find. The next day, Ryan and Penny left early with empty backpacks. They were gone all that day and night. The next day, they came back with full packs and huge smiles.
“We got the makings of a regular feast,” Ryan crowed. “Just in time for Thanksgiving.”