Candy Canes and Buckets of Blood

by Heide Goody

  Dave clutched her elbow. “Elf at one o’clock,” he whispered.

  Esther steered towards it, wanting to see if the light would have any effect. The elf was lit up by the blurry image of an elf cross. It blinked against the light, then raised its weapon and charged, curly-toed shoes running crisply over the deep snow’s surface.

  “It’s not working,” said Dave. He struggled to get his elf-poking stick out.

  “It’s too blurry,” said Esther. “It just needs to find its focal length.”

  As the elf and tractor closed, a perfectly-formed elf cross focused in the middle of the elf’s chest. It howled in pain and clutched itself, staggering.

  “What’s that smell?” Esther said.

  “I think it’s burning elf flesh.”

  “Cool,” she said, adding remorsefully, “Jesus, Dave, what’s wrong with me? I enjoyed hurting that elf. I enjoyed it!”

  “You should, because we’re one step closer to rescuing the kids. You’re focused on the end game and that’s what it’s all about.”

  They trundled on, over the prostrate body of the elf with a smouldering chest.

  They both leaned forward to see through the gaps in the pallet. Esther wondered why the tree coverage was so thin here, speculating if Duncan Catheter had sent in a chainsaw team to pre-empt the planning process. She found herself getting angry at him, as she always did at selfish developers. It was probably pointless, as he was already dead, but he represented the evil scourge of deforestation across the globe. She nurtured the anger in order to focus her new-found murderous instincts as she had a feeling that she’d be needing them.

  “Can you see that dark area over by the hillside?” whispered Dave.

  Esther could see what he meant. At the edge of the plateau, the ground rose steeply again. Mostly it was covered with snow, but there was some sort of shadow close to the ground. Esther steered towards it. As they drew nearer it was clear this sinkhole was more like a tunnel descending into the hillside.

  “We going in?” asked Dave. “Only I’m not sure the tractor will fit.”

  “Look on the ground,” said Esther, carefully ignoring his concerns. “It looks like train tracks. This is definitely where we need to be looking.” She turned the tractor in a wide arc to get a run up to the tunnel.

  “The tractor’s too big,” said Dave.

  “Men are awful judges of size,” said Esther and accelerated hard.

  “You’re not thinking—?”

  “Just hang on, my love!”

  “I honestly don’t think there’s much to hang—”

  “Brace yourself!” Esther yelled as they approached at top tractor speed.

  Dave ducked down behind the seat and wrapped his arm around both the seat and Esther as the tractor smashed into the gap. The tunnel was far wider and taller than it looked: the opening made smaller with wood panels and piled up debris. The cover shattered as the tractor ploughed through. Something caught on the tractor roof and it was wrenched off. The tractor bucked severely, but they were inside. As Esther peeked up, she could see the train tracks up ahead. They plunged on.

  ***

  68

  At spear and knife point, Newton and Guin were forced out of the truck. One of the elves barked something that sounded very much like an accusation.

  “This isn’t what it looks like,” said Newton, knowing full well it was exactly what it looked like. He couldn’t tell if the elves believed or even understood him. Their sharp little faces were screwed up in unreadable anger and Newton was somewhat distracted by Blinky, who continued to nip at him, especially around his trouser pockets.

  “What do you want, girl?” he asked, batting her away while trying to stroke her mangy muzzle. He felt in his pockets and found the sausages he’d hidden there.

  “Dreda ster kindi!” snapped one elf.

  “Don’t kill him!” said Guin. “Emeið og him!” She held up her elf-cross to ward them off, immediately dropping it. She clutched her hand, shocked. “It burned me!”

  Newton’s heart pounded in his chest. She was being turned into an elf! Elf-crosses were now effective against her. And he, clearly not elf material, was surplus to requirements.

  Even as he acknowledged the truth, he pulled a sausage from his pocket it and fed it to Blinky to keep her happy. The hungry undead reindeer wolfed it down.

  An elf came forward, pushing Guin aside in order to get to Newton.

  “Wait!” she shouted. “Bædu!” She took out a tiny object. It was one of her little homemade toys. “This is Wiry Harrison!”

  “Viry Harrison?” said the elf.

  Guin placed the little wire man on the floor, straightening the sword made from twists of wire in his hand. “Wiry Harrison is a fierce warrior.”

  The elves stared at the two-inch figure.

  “He is brave and dependable and would kill every one of you to protect me.”

  “Ooh,” said one of the elves.

  “He’s never been defeated in combat.”

  An elf carefully got on its hands and knees to inspect the still and silent warrior. Newton watched with bated breath.

  “Get out your elf cross,” Guin whispered to him.

  “Then what?” Newton whispered back.

  “No idea.”

  The elves chatted among themselves, clearly torn between wariness of the miniscule foe, and understandable derision at what was clearly a little figurine made of wire. Blinky had finished her sausage. She nudged Newton for another, making snotty, phlegm-like marks on his sleeve. He hoped it was phlegm and not zombie brain juices.

  “Okay, girl,” he said, fumbling for sausage and elf-cross simultaneously. At the same time he realised Blinky’s hoofs were not on the ground. They were pawing the air, inches above the ground.

  “You’re flying!” he said. He remembered the effect his blood had on the bity reindeer – and these sausages were made primarily of unfortunate locals…

  Newton’s next course of action seemed obvious. He shoved a sausage in the reindeer’s mouth and grabbed Guin, swinging her onto the reindeer’s back. She yelped in surprise.

  The elves hissed, probably guessing he was kidnapping their latest recruit. Newton warded them off with his elf-cross; long enough for him to feed Blinky a third sausage and leap astride the creature’s back. Blinky’s body was a mass of knobbly bones wrapped in a thin hide and painful to sit on.

  “Yah! Fly, Blinky!” he urged.

  ***

  69

  Dave was worried the tunnel, though surprisingly wide by British standards, might get narrower up ahead and the tractor would get jammed. Esther kept up a steady speed, planning to smash through any minor constrictions as she bumped along the train track.

  “I can see light,” said Esther. “Up ahead. Arm yourself.”

  Dave didn’t need telling twice. He had a pile of bricks at the ready, and the pole ready to go. “What’s your plan when we get there?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Crush as many elves with brute force as I can and fry a few with the lights for good measure. You stop them getting into the cab and we’ll see if we can spot the kids.”

  Dave didn’t like to point out that the cab was a thing of the past. They were sitting in a vehicle that was very much an open-top model.

  They emerged into a huge cavern. Esther had to swerve off the train track, as there was a train already parked on it.

  “Holy hell, what’s going on?” said Dave.

  “I would say,” said Esther, steering towards a crowd of elves and making sure both elf cross lights and elf-stabbing fender were lined up, “that the kids are attempting to escape on a flying reindeer while these elves try to stop them.”

  “Not just me, then.”

  A number of elves were already noisily smouldering from the lights, along with screams from those who had been impaled on the stabbing fender. Too late Dave realised there was a fatal design flaw with his stabby fender: once it had a full complement of impaled elves,
it became harmless.

  An elf stood ahead of them, fearlessly taking aim with a catapult. He scored a direct hit on one headlight, then re-loaded and took out the other.

  “Bugger!” said Dave. “All we can do now is run them over. Crush them with the tyres!”

  Esther did her best, doing tight figures of eight (or as tight as she could accomplish with a vehicle designed to have an entire field for manoeuvring), but the elves were too numerous. Dave threw bricks at any in range, but even a direct strike was more of a deterrent than a fatal blow. The elves had been initially worried, then simply distracted; now they looked as if they were enjoying the sport.

  ***

  70

  At three sausages’ worth of power, Blinky was soon hovering with her hoofs at elf head height. As she bucked and galloped against the air, all three moved off at something like strolling speed. The elves stabbed at Newton’s dangling legs so he hoisted them up out of the way.

  “Is this your escape plan?” yelled Guin behind him. “We can run faster than this!”

  Newton felt her disappointment burn deep inside him. He dug his raised heels in. “Come on, Blinky!” he urged. “You can do it.”

  He had pictured them soaring up, circling towards the large chimney opening in the cavern’s apex, and out into cool, crisp night-time freedom. Instead they were just ambling along, six feet off the ground, with as much excitement and urgency as a toddler’s coin-operated animal ride.

  “They stamped on Wiry Harrison!” exclaimed Guin.

  Newton leaned forward. Awkwardly he fed the fourth and final sausage into Blinky’s gnashing teeth.

  “Fare thee well, fallen warrior,” said Guin softly.

  “What?” Newton called back.

  “Nothing,” sniffed Guin.

  Even with four sausages, Blinky didn’t seem to have much lift.

  “Maybe they take a while to kick in,” Newton wondered out loud, but he didn’t think that was it. Sleipnir had been given instant lift from just a nibble of his fingertips. Volume-wise that was nothing compared to four briny hotdogs. Maybe that was the problem: blood and sausages were not the same.

  Fearing for his fingers and hoping he wasn’t wrong, Newton leaned forward and presented his already injured index finger to Blinky.

  The sudden bite made him yelp. He yanked his hand back, but Blinky had already gotten a good taste. There were smears of blood across her muzzle.

  “Blinky … the red-nosed reindeer,” Newton whimpered as he bunched his hand up in pain.

  It was enough. With a wriggle and a shiver, Blinky leapt. Guin held onto Newton; Newton grabbed the reindeer’s one good antler with his one good hand.

  They were ten feet off the ground and rising. Below them elves shouted and shrieked. A spear flew past them, wobbling and warbling like a startled bird.

  “It’s working!” yelled Guin.

  “Never doubted it!” Newton yelled back. “What in—?”

  Looking down across the cavern, he saw a whole bunch of elves gathered around what appeared to be some sort of open-top jeep. Newton realised it was, in fact, a tractor with its top half sheared off. In the remnants of the cab were two figures, fighting off elves with bricks and a window pole.

  “Mum! Dave!”

  ***

  71

  Dave glanced up to see how Guin and Newton were getting on, hoping they’d long gone. To his horror they were flying down, presumably to help. He could clearly see the terse and uncompromising looks on Guin’s and Newton’s faces.

  “No!” he yelled at them. “Away! Away!” He waved furiously. “Let the dog drown! Let the dog drown!”

  “What’s the matter?” asked Esther, who couldn’t afford to take her eyes off what she was doing.

  “The kids,” said Dave.

  She glanced up for a split second. “What’s the plan?”

  Guin was leaning over and making upswept hooking gestures with her arm, like she wanted them to prepare to be airlifted out.

  “I think we’re beyond plans,” said Dave hollowly.

  “We can leave the tractor making a nuisance of itself,” said Esther. She pushed the steering wheel onto a hard lock and put Dave’s pole through it to hold it in place. “Brick!”

  After a moment he caught on and jammed one of the bricks onto the accelerator.

  “That reindeer’s coming in fast,” she said. “You think we can grab it?”

  “Is that reindeer even real?” muttered Dave. The creature looked like a bad animatronic, or as though someone had dipped a real reindeer in paint stripper and then tried to mend the damage using the remains of a rotten sofa.

  “You need to recalibrate your beliefs, dear,” said Esther. She hurled the last of the bricks and then the two of them reached out for the reindeer as it flew overhead. They grabbed a leg each. Dave was yanked off his feet and hugged the thin leg close.

  “Hold on!” shouted someone.

  Dave held tight. In his spinning vision, he caught a glimpse of Guin’s leg against the creature’s flank. He’d found her. They were back together for however long.

  The reindeer wobbled with the extra weight and dipped towards the ground.

  “This leg’s got woodworm!” said Esther.

  For a moment Dave didn’t grasp what she meant, but a crunching sound from above was a dead giveaway. Esther fell. She slid into a wall and to the ground. The reindeer tipped. Dave tumbled to the ground, landed on his feet by pure luck, hit the ground, and rolled against the side of the train tracks.

  He looked up, hoping to see Guin and Newton flying far away. Instead he saw a distressed, three-legged reindeer completely out of kilter, flying in rapidly-decreasing circles towards the far side of the cavern and out of sight among the storage areas and workstations. Elves ran in pursuit.

  Dave looked round for Esther. She stood some distance off, by the wall she’d hit. In her hand was the remains of the zombie reindeer’s woodworm-riddled leg. She stood tall wielding it like a club, snarling at the elves to back off. She lunged forward and whacked one of them into the middle distance.

  She turned to the tightening circle. “Come on then! Who’s next?” She smacked another one just for kicks. “Dave! Get the kids!”

  Dave scuttled off, keeping low, heading in the direction he’d seen the reindeer and children take.

  ***

  72

  Esther was backed up against the wall with only a reindeer leg to defend herself. She held it like a rounders bat, since that was the one sport Esther had excelled at as a child. She channelled years of practice into swing after swing as elves tried ducking below her guard with their nasty little blades. She didn’t know their language, but she made her meaning very clear.

  “Come on you elfy bastards!”

  She thought she heard Newton’s voice in the distance, saying something like “Actually they look pretty unelfy to me”, but it was just her imagination.

  However, her arms were going to tire soon. Weekly Zumba sessions at the local community centre and Pilates in the park had helped her maintain a decent level of fitness, but there was only so much elf-whacking one could do. Eventually, one of them would slip past her guard, or find a way to sneak up on her.

  The thought made her look around and check the spaces beyond her peripheral vision. A string of fairy lights looped across the cavern wall just above her head, disappearing into a hole off to her left. An elf was crawling hand over hand along the lights to get to her.

  Grunting like a tennis pro, she swung the wooden leg and mashed the sneaky sod against the wall. The creature gave a satisfyingly pathetic, “Urk!” and dropped to the ground.

  But as she brought her weapon down, the inevitable happened. The rotten leg broke away completely, leaving her holding a ragged stump. She held it in a threatening pose and moved away from what was left of the group. There were only a few, but she was very aware her small piece of wood was no match for their knives. Even so, she couldn’t let that affect her positive menta
l attitude. Esther was a doer, and she knew the value of keeping busy.

  She scanned the cavern, looking for escape routes, any answer to her predicament. There were boxes everywhere, to contents of which might have been useful, there was no time to check them out. Then she remembered the hole in the cavern wall off to her left.

  It was like a duct. She’d probably fit inside. And a stack of boxes provided a handy staircase up to it. She peered in and decided to commit to the full Bruce Willis. She was going into the ducts.

  She hurled her useless reindeer remnant at the nearest elf, pointed and yelled, “Look! It’s Father Christmas!”, and ran for the boxes. They creaked under her feet but did not break. The elves, momentarily distracted by the possible appearance of old St Nick, were hot in pursuit.

  Esther leapt into the duct, hands and knees coming down on a dusty and greasy surface. She turned, kicking the nearest pursuer in the face, tumbling the sharp-faced fiend off the box pyramid.

  She kicked out several more times until she was able to reach down and grab the topmost box. She feared it might be too heavy to lift, but from great desperation came great energy. She pulled it up and into the duct behind her. It didn’t exactly wedge into the space, but it filled it sufficiently to slow any elves that might get past the missing top box-step.

  She twisted the obstruction, jamming it more thoroughly, before starting to crawl away. Her hands and knees squidged on the greasy metal floor.

  “Bruce Willis never got this dirty,” she said to herself. Die Hard was another Christmas movie that had lied to her.

  ***

  73

  As elves ran by, Dave kept still. He had managed to escape them by rolling underneath the train and lying between the rails. He knew he couldn’t stay there: he needed to locate Guin and Newton. Also, he didn’t want to be bacon-sliced and mushed if the train moved off. Playing on train tracks was a big no-no. As a paramedic he’d seen the evidence with his own eyes.