Gift-Wrapped & Toe-Tagged: A Melee of Misc. Holiday Anthology

by Dr. Freud Funkenstein, ed.

  "You've got to make this all public. That should discourage them until the whole operation can be closed down."

  "Isn't there . . . didn't you say there was some defense against the Hellhound?"

  "Yeah, but I don't have it. They've got that stuff stored out at the Walbrook Enterprises labs."

  Rich had picked up a kelp brioche and was about to take a bite. "Hey, it occurs to me," he said, lowering the roll, "maybe this dumbbell thing that's happened here ties in."

  "You haven't told me."

  "Dr. Rosenfeld has disappeared, been gone nearly a day," said Rich. "When we checked out his offices we found someone had snatched—"

  "My medical records?" asked Thad, his hand tightening on the pixphone receiver.

  "Exactly. Do you—?"

  "Holy Christ! They're going to send one of those Hellhounds after me."

  "I thought you said you drank some repellent?"

  "That oral stuff only protects for an hour or two."

  "Well, they could simply be—" Thad hung up, spun and ran for the door.

  "Bad news?" asked the old woman as he plunged out into the rain and mud.

  The doors of the pillbar snapped open and a fat man in a wrinkled tourist suit came tottering out. He stumbled, one knee splashing down into a water-filled pothole. His suit pockets rattled, a beer-bottle-brown container of capsules hopped out to go bouncing and then rolling along the rainy street.

  Thad had reached the end of the poverty belt and was in the strip of specialty saloons which rimmed the elevated core of New Rio. He hit again the summoning button on the aircab box screwed to the noryl front of the bar. It was now eleven minutes since he'd talked to Crosby Rich.

  "Come here, come here," the fat man told the rolling pill bottle. Thad turned, hurried over to the man. "Let me help you." He retrieved the container, placed it in the fat palm. "Can I help you to your vehicle?"

  "That would be a gracious gesture, sir," said the fat tourist as he straightened up. "I can tell by your appearance you are not a footpad or a—"

  "Where is it?"

  "Where is it?" While he thought, the fat man absently uncapped the pill cylinder and shook two orange and black capsules into his hand. "This is a prewar antibiotic. Can't get it in the States. Makes me feel good all over . . ."

  "Is it a landcar or an aircruiser?"

  "One of those, yes," replied the dazed pill-freak. "Here's the tag for it, right here." He reached into his coat pocket, causing tiny bottles and boxes to cascade out and fall to the wet street.

  Thirteen minutes gone now. Thad scanned the night around him. He saw only heavy raindrops. No sign of a minute Hellhound missile. He thrust his own hand into the man's pocket He located the round plastic parking tag. "Wait right here, I'll bring it."

  On his hands and knees the fat man was gathering up his scattered pills. "I'll take a handful of these blue ones while I'm awaiting your return, sir. Very good for chills and fevers, in case I come down with—"

  The man was renting a black and silver aircruiser. It was decked on the top level of a five-level automatic parking tower around the corner from the bar. The tag admitted Thad to the upper floor.

  He climbed in, started the cruiser and flew away into the dark. Fifteen minutes had gone by.

  The cyborg watchman scratched at the platinum side of his head with three silver fingers and two of flesh. "This is sort of embarrassing, Senor Walbrook," he said. He was standing in the doorway, of the main Walbrook Enterprises lab building, looking out at Thad.

  The night rain was falling heavily, rattling down through the branches and leaves of the decorative gardens. "It's important I get in," Thad said. Twenty-two minutes.

  "I realize that, and I know you are now one of the head men in all of Walbrook Enterprises," said the cyborg. He rubbed at the curly-haired side of his head with his copper hand. "The thing is, senor, I've no authorization to admit you. I'm certain it's simply negligence on someone's part, but I—"

  Thad swung out and hit the man twice on the jaw. He'd selected a spot which was flesh and bone.

  The watchman sighed. His real eye and his noryl plastic eye clicked shut simultaneously as he collapsed to the floor.

  Thad took the man's keys and admittance tags away from him before he'd settled into his final slumped position.

  The room containing the anti-Hellhound materials was at the far end of the building as Thad recalled.

  He was nearly there when a door slid open. Dr. E. Jack Nally stepped out into the corridor and yawned.

  "Oops," he said when he saw Thad. "Now, Mr. Walbrook, let me assure you I had absolutely nothing to do—"

  Thad pushed him aside. The anti-Hellhound room' was three doors farther on. Twenty-nine minutes.

  "Good heavens!" exclaimed Dr. Nally behind him. "There it comes."

  Thad broke into a run, looking back over his shoulder. A tiny flash of copper seemed to be floating down the dim corridor, patiently, toward him.

  He hit the door, dived into the room. The heavy door should stop it. What had Nally said about how the damn things worked indoors? Would it wait outside for him, or get in here somehow?

  He sprinted to the wall cabinet where the spray-on anti-Hellhound repellent was kept, jerked the door open. The cabinet was empty.

  Thad took a quick deep breath, then began to search the room.

  "Here we go," he said aloud.

  The container was resting on a small table in the corner. He caught it up, sprayed repellent over himself, liberally. Next he located, in another cabinet, the locket-type device Nally had shown them in the afternoon. Thad hung it around his neck, flicked it on.

  A faint pinging sounded above him. Thad looked up to see something emerge from the air-conditioning outlet. It was the Hellhound.

  It came diving straight down at him.

  He dodged.

  The tiny missile swerved, kept dropping toward him.

  Two feet short of his face it halted, fluttering. It dropped suddenly to the floor.

  Thad, absently stroking the talisman around his neck, stepped round the Hellhound. He went out into the hall.

  Dr. Nally was still there. "How does this affect my future with Walbrook Enterprises?" he asked.

  XVII

  The door of Hangar Six stood half open and pale yellow light was spilling out onto the field from inside the wide turtleback building. Big raindrops glowed yellow as they fell through the slice of light.

  Jean-Anne hesitated on the threshold, peering into the hangar. There were two tan aircruisers inside, but no sign of any field personnel, human or robot. She ran her tongue over her lips once, then crossed into the building.

  "Guess I'll have to rely on my own mechanical gifts to get one of these things ready to go," the dark-haired girl said aloud.

  "That . . . uh . . . won't be necessary. I'll handle the . . . uh ... technical details, Jean-Anne."

  "Uncle Alex." The girl turned.

  The lanky man was behind her, immediately to the left of the entry way. He held an olive-colored blaster pistol in his right hand. "If you'll get into that second ship, the . . . uh . . . one against the far wall."

  "What are you doing in New Rio?" She didn't move.

  "Looking after my own interests," Alex replied, smiling his inadequate smile. "As far as your father and . . . uh . . . old J.P. know I'm delivering some unimportant messages to various . . . uh ... Latin American subsidiaries."

  "Well, fine," said Jean-Anne. "And why are you lurking around this hangar with a gun?"

  "Get into the ship now," ordered Alex. "I want you in there."

  "How'd you know I was coming?"

  "Oh, I . . . uh . . . I'm very good at finding out things," Alex told her. "It's one of the advantages of being visually uninteresting. Quick, inside."

  Jean-Anne walked over to the designated aircruiser, climbed up into .the passenger compartment. "What exactly do you have in mind?"

  "Another . . . uh . . . accident."

  Sh
e lowered herself into a chair. "You mean you're the one who tried to kill us with that damn gamekeeper robot?"

  "I'm . . . uh . . . very good with things mechanical," he answered. "Though your dear father never bothered to notice that. Yes, I fixed the robot so it would kill you. And I tinkered with the snowcar."

  "Neither one worked quite right, though," said the girl. "Which is typical of you, Uncle Alex."

  He positioned himself in the cabin so he could watch the front entrance of the hangar. "Tonight's little . . . uh . . . cruiser mishap will succeed," said the lanky man. "Just as Lon's accident will."

  "Lon? What have you done to Lon?"

  "I . . . uh . . . have done nothing directly," said Alex. "It's the Hellhound I was able to fool with." He gave a thin laugh. "I must admit . . . uh . . . I indulged in a little irony there."

  "You sent a Hellhound after him?"

  "That's where the . . . uh ... humor comes in. You see, Lon was intending to use the Hellhound on Robert I," he said. "We're a wonderful family really, aren't we?"

  The girl clasped her hands tightly together. "Why are—?" She didn't complete the sentence.

  "Yes?"

  "I was going to ask you why you're doing this, but 1 guess I know."

  "Yes, I simply want to . . . uh . . . control the whole thing," answered her uncle. "All these years that's . . . uh . . . been my notion. I've been patient, but the return of Robert I has forced me to act a bit . . . uh . . . sooner than I intended."

  "I thought you were glad to have your father back?"

  "My father's dead," said Alex. "Once, a long time ago, I would have been . . . uh . . . happy about a return. But he left me there too long, too long alone with all the rest of them."

  "But he is alive," said the girl.

  "No, Robert Walbrook I is dead. He's been dead, really dead and not just pseudodead, for eight years. When the plague hit Detroit I. . . uh . . . saw in it an opportunity to put myself one step closer to complete control of Walbrook Enterprises. I sent immunized ... uh . . . agents into that chaos while the plague and riots. raged. They made absolutely certain no bodies remained in the storage vault."

  "You could have your own father killed?"

  "He could leave me alone with them," said Alex. "Yes, I can do whatever I have to do. I know what . . . uh . . . all of you think of me. But now . . . uh . . . very soon it won't matter anymore. I was going to wait a while longer. But there was a danger that this imposter would be unmasked by Gunder or someone else. Then ... uh . . . the real fate of my late father would . . . uh . . . come to light."

  Jean-Anne let out her breath in a sigh. "You've got this aircruiser rigged?"

  "Yes, it will take you up and then . . . uh . . . explode. Leaving only a feeble old man and your father between—"

  "What do you mean, it will take me? Where's—?"

  "Safely dead by now, I trust," replied Alex. "I sent a second Hellhound after him, using his real medical records to feed it."

  "You killed him, too?"

  He swung out and hit the girl a sharp blow below the ear with the barrel of his gun.

  "Now to open the hangar all the way so that dear Jean-Anne can begin her flight," Alex said. He stepped backward out of the tan ship.

  Something caught hold of his feet and hauled him abruptly down. Then the pistol was chopped out of his hand.

  "Poor Alex," said Thad, catching the lanky man's arm and twisting it behind his back. "You screwed up again."

  "It didn't kill you?"

  "Not quite, no."

  "How'd you get in here?" Alex asked.

  "Back way."

  "You suspected I . . . uh ... was here?"

  "Nope," said Thad. "But the way things have been going lately, I decided to be cautious." Jean-Anne woke up and asked, "Are you alive?"

  "Yes, I eluded the Hellhound."

  "Am I going to explode?"

  "No," said Thad. "This is the other cruiser."

  She shifted in the passenger seat, rubbing at her neck. "Where's Uncle Alex?"

  "Flat on his back down in the hangar."

  She looked out at the darkness they were flying through. "Where are we going?"

  "Back up to the United States."

  "Aren't you going to turn Uncle Alex in or something?"

  "I think the important thing is to get out of Brazil."

  "Is Lon dead?"

  "I don't know. From what I heard while I was sneaking up under that cruiser, I guess he must be." She hugged herself. "Uncle Alex was right, we're a marvelous family."

  "Some of the individual members are O.K."

  The girl asked, "What are you going to do now?"

  "Talk to the Opposition Party guy who hired me, give him the rest of the information I have."

  "That'll make for busy days for Walbrook Enterprises and the Parkinson Administration," said Jean-Anne. "Then what?"

  "Then what for me, you mean?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm not sure."

  "What were you doing before you became my great-uncle?"

  "Living on Manhattan."

  "Oh," she said, turning to watch him. "You're not planning to go back there, are you?"

  Thad shook his head. "No, I'm not," he said. "Maybe I'll see what other jobs OP has to offer."

  She smiled. "Good. What's your real name?'"

  "Thad McIntosh."

  "Not a bad name," Jean-Anne said. "Can you get your own face back now?"

  "So they told me."

  "I'd like to see that."

  "O.K.," he promised.

  Cameron Pierce

  PANCAKES ARE SPOOKY

  THESE PANCAKES ARE spooky. Dad must have made them. Whenever he makes pancakes, they somehow turn out spooky, as if he is cooking them in a graveyard instead of a frying pan.

  It’s Christmas morning and the three of us are sitting at the kitchen table. This is our frst Christmas since Mom left us. We are doing our best to ignore her absence.

  “Can you pass the syrup?” Karen asks me.

  “Do you want the real maple syrup or the shitty fake stuff,” I say.

  “Shut up and pass me the syrup.”

  “Which one.”

  “The fake stuff,” she says.

  “Pass the syrup to your sister,” Dad says.

  I pass the bottle of Aunt Jemima to her. I have always liked Aunt Jemima syrup bottles because they are shaped like a woman.

  The pancakes on my plate are howling now, like ghosts. I drown the pancakes in organic pure maple syrup and hope it will drown the pancakes’ howling. The pancakes cough and sputter, but they continue to howl. They do not have mouths. They are howling through their pores.

  Dad looks at me and says, “Eat your pancakes. It’s Christmas.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I say.

  I do not want to tell Dad that the real reason I’m not eating is because the pancakes are spooky. He just won’t understand, and after the turmoil of the past year, with Mom leaving and taking Ryan with her, I am afraid to tell him that he makes spooky pancakes. Someday I will tell him, but not on Christmas. Not this year.

  “Eat your pancakes or I’ll slit your throat,” Dad says.

  Or I’ll slit your throat.

  That is always Dad’s alternative, his only joke.

  I pick up my knife and fork and cut the pancakes into little pieces. The pancakes scream like dying cats as I cut them. I drop my knife. Dad’s pancakes have never felt so much pain.

  “What’s wrong?” Dad says.

  “It’s the organic syrup,” Karen says. “He doesn’t like it. He just wants to be cool and eat organic things.”

  “We’ll see how organic he is when I slit his throat,” Dad says.

  “That’s not the problem,” I say. “It’s the music. There’s no Christmas music on. You always play Christmas music, Dad.”

  “I slit Christmas music’s throat,” he says.

  Sadly, it’s his only joke.

  “Just kidding,” he says.


  He excuses himself from the table and goes into the living room and turns on the stereo and the theme song of Frosty the Snowman plays really loud over the surround sound speakers.

  Dad returns to the kitchen table. He sits down and asks me to pass him the organic pure maple syrup.

  I pass him the syrup and say, “Merry Christmas.”

  “It’s all we can hope for,” he says.

  I dig my fork into the soggy mess on my plate. The pancakes are still howling, but it’s hard to hear them over the Christmas music. And as I eat the spooky pancakes, I think about the alternative, like what if Mom and Ryan were still here. Would Dad’s pancakes be any less spooky if they were still around? Would we be any more of a family? And the only answer is a feeling of Halloween in my belly as the ghosts of pancakes foat around, waiting to be digested. And I think I hear them say, “Trick or treat.”

  K. Allen Wood

  STREAMER OF SILVER, RIBBON OF RED

  THE FIRST- AND last—thing Jimmy saw when he opened the door was a blurry ribbon of red speeding toward his face, and as he slipped down into darkness, he heard the hee-honk of a horn...

  Santa Claus, a rather slim and twitchy man compared to legends and lore, stepped over the boy’s rotund body, which was sprawled facedown on the mudroom floor. His nose and mouth rested in the opening of a funky-looking sneaker, as if receiving oxygen at the world’s strangest hospital. His wheezy snoring echoed throughout the small room.

  “Well, that’s gotta stink,” Santa said with a chuckle. Though, admittedly, he wasn’t too proud of kicking a boy in the face. Then again, let that be a lesson to him for opening the door in the middle of the night without even first looking out the window.

  Beyond the small room lay the kitchen, dully illuminated by a light above the oven. It was your average low-class American kitchen: sagging particle-board cabinets above a plain Formica countertop, upon which sat a George Foreman Grill next to a sink full of dirty dishes. No class, no style. The floor was missing a handful of its cheap linoleum tiles. In the center of it all stood a small round table, under which sat two chairs. Santa quickly ascertained that this was a male dwelling, likely that of father and son, one of whom was now stirring at his feet.