by Adam Millard
Jimbi said “!”, which was one more punctuation mark than was safe.
“Right!” Sissy said. “To the door, me hearties!” She shuffled slowly forwards, one knee, and then the other, and then…well, you get the idea. Seven minutes later, they were at the door, though Jimbo didn’t know that, for he had passed out and was being held up between the other two like some sort of elfish spit-roast.
“Can you reach the hole, Rudolph?” Sissy said across her shoulder.
“Pthpthpth,” Rudolph said. Not without tearing your husband’s anus off.
“Well, try anyway,” Sissy said. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a funny feeling we’re running out of time.” The funny feeling she was, in fact, talking about, was a rumbly in her tumbly, an odd tickling sensation on the back of her neck, and a strange burning sensation in her ears. She wasn’t to know, but these were all side-effects of the mild sedative the lunatic had injected them with before operating, and not a sign that their abductor was on his way back, which would have been a lot more impressive.
Rudolph took a deep breath and exhaled, which actually inflated Jimbo so that he looked like one of those novelty Garfield balloons. Pushing onto its tendon-less haunches, it reached up for the keyhole with its free antler.
“That’s it,” Sissy said. “You’re almost there.” She was, of course, guessing. She couldn’t see past her bloated husband.
Rudolph managed to push the smallest part of its crown into the keyhole. There was an audible click, which didn’t mean anything, really, but for a moment it gave the reindeer hope.
“Now give it a wiggle,” Sissy said. “Pretend you’re having a seizure.”
The reindeer didn’t know what a see-za was, and so just shook its head back and forth repeatedly. Thirty seconds later, the wooden door was a mess, but the lock was still…locked.
“Thrft a mrth anthrg,” Jimbo said, yawning.
“Did you miss anything?” Sissy parroted. “Yeah, you missed Rudolph making a right pig’s ear of the door. And please don’t yawn inside me again. It’s awfully off-putting.”
Rudolph went at the lock once again. There was no point in being careful any more. If the lunatic came back now, he would see the damaged door and would know that they had ignored Rule One. No, it was time for urgency. Time for more force.
Time to attack the lock with every ounce of its antler.
“What’s he doing back there?” Sissy yelled, though she couldn’t quite hear herself over the raucous din emanating from the rear. It sounded like Pinocchio was being battered to death by a team of angry Transformers.
“Hth thmtg therder,” Jimbo said.
“He’s smashing the door?” Sissy said. “Well, tell him to keep it down a bit. There’s no need to get all rowdy and trash the place. We’re not Mexicans.”
Ignoring the whining woman at the front of the grotesque creation, Rudolph managed to force his free antler through the wood. Jimbo moaned as the other antler, the one inside of him, twisted more than a little to the left. He’d never felt so much pain back there, and he’d been an altar-boy elf as a child.
Once Rudolph had a hole to work with, the wood came away pretty easy. Splinters flew across the room. Chipped paint rained down on the two elves. Terracotta was an awful colour for a door, anyway.
Before long, Rudolph had made a hole big enough for its head to fit through, and fit its head through it did, or at least, as much as the attached elf’s bottom allowed it to.
“What do you see?” Sissy asked, hardly able to contain her excitement. They were almost out, almost free of this terrible, surgical-cold place, with its raving lunatics and its perpetual supply of butterfly stitches and gauze.
Rudolph looked around. The truth of the matter was, it couldn’t see much at all. Everything was dark, and dirty. It was like pushing one’s face up against a black shroud. In fact, it was exactly like that.
And then the darkness moved, and Rudolph looked up to find the hooded lunatic staring down at it.
Rudolph slowly retracted its head. “Hth thr mrkthd mnyk,” it said.
“The dark lunatic has returned?” Sissy said, frowning. “Is that some kind of code, like they use in those films with the spies and the…oh, the dark lunatic has returned…oh, I see. Okay, well, at least we tried. I’m going to pass out now for a while. Night-night.”
In the adjacent room, behind the shrouded figure, fifty confused elves – who had been promised decent remuneration for a few hour’s work – started to have second thoughts about the whole thing.
15
Snow gently drifted down in the village. Elf children ran about the streets, throwing snowballs and building men from snow, which were aptly known as snow-men. The first shift up at the workshop was about to finish, which meant that those elves working nights were getting ready for twelve hours of hard graft. And Finklefoot, who should have been standing in line with the rest of his gang, clock-card in hand, and yet wouldn’t for a good few days thanks to piss-poor management and a group of odd disappearances, was severely pissed off.
A snowball slammed into the side of his face, which didn’t help matters. He turned, growled at the culpable kids, who in turn ran away, laughing and screaming in equal measure.
“You’d better run, you little fu…” He caught himself there, for it wasn’t good form to curse at children. He didn’t want to be that elf; the one the kids avoided for being a grump. You start off with a growl, and before you know it, the elf-kids are leaving bags of reindeer shit on your doorstep, or scrawling ‘Bah, humbug!’ on your door in barely legible snow-spray graffiti.
It wasn’t the kids’ fault, either. What were they expected to do with themselves when their parents were working silly hours at the workshop? The Christmas crèche was at capacity, and there wasn’t a school, to speak of, for education was as pointless as a bible at a strip club. You either aspired to work at the workshop, knocking out cheap toys at a rate that most sweatshops would deem cruel, or you applied to work at the liquorice factory, where an eternity of ill treatment at the hands of Hattie Hermann awaited. It was surprising, therefore, that there weren’t more deaths by suicide in the teenage elf population.
Trudging through the snow, Finklefoot didn’t know what he was looking for, or where his feet were taking him. Just that he was moving, and that moving could only be a good thing. The snow was deeper in places than others, which meant he had to be very careful where he stepped. Three times he’d had to drag himself out of a drift with his teeth, while the nearby elf-kids laughed and taunted, no less.
Being Santa’s personal PI was not as much fun as it sounded.
Just then, something hissed and crackled on his belt, and then a deep, and yet almost robotic, voice said, “Feeblefruit, are you there?”
Finkefoot plucked the Spiderman walkie-talkie from his belt and pushed the button. “It’s Finklefoot,” he said, shaking his head. “And yes, of course I’m here. If I wasn’t here, then where would I be?”
“Ah, very good,” said The Fat Bastard. “I just thought I’d check in. You know? Make sure you haven’t been kidnapped, too. I don’t have to tell you how much that would affect our investigation.”
“I should imagine it would draw the whole thing to an abrupt end,” Finklefoot said. He stopped walking for a moment to admire a very well-crafted snow-llama. It was nice to see some of the elf-kids were thinking outside the box.
“It just occurred to me,” said Santa, “that these disappearances are an inside job.”
“Well, we live in a world set apart from the humans,” Finklefoot said, planting his face in his palm. “Of course it’s an inside job.”
“Brilliant!” Santa said. “This is what I’m paying you for.” Even though he wasn’t. Not really. “So with that in mind, I thought you might want to check in on a couple of the old companions. Sounds like something one of them might do, what with them being my dark minions, and whatnot.”
Santa’s Companions. No two words sent a shiv
er down Finklefoot’s spine quite like those, apart from maybe anal beads, or tax return. The Companions were as mean as they came. Worse than that; they were so mean, and big, and dark, they made Satan look like a fifteen year-old cheerleader:
Krampus. Perhaps the most famous of The Fat Bastard’s henchmen. With horns that would make a billy-goat defecate with fear, and a tongue that would make, well, Gene Simmons defecate with fear, Krampus was never going to win awards for his looks (unless there was a ‘See how many post-its you can stake on your horns’ competition). Krampus was a mischievous beast, but a kidnapper?
Next up there was Belsnickel, or Dirty-Ass Santa as he was known by the elves. Belsnickel’s dark, grimy beard had never once seen a drop of Pantene, and neither had the fur coat he insisted on wearing year-in, year-out, even though the fashion had changed an awful lot since 1101AD. Would he be crazy enough to put himself on The Fat Bastard’s naughty list?
Then there was Zwarte Piet, or Black Pete as he was once known. Nowadays, he goes by the name of Not-as-white-as-everyone-else Pete, which was far more PC than the alternative. Pete still wore a curly black wig – he’d made it his own, and if anyone had a problem with that, they could simply go and fornicate themselves – but had tried to tone down on the blacking-up so as not to upset some of the black elves. Was Pete behind all this?
Or maybe it was Knecht Ruprecht, Santa’s fourth and final companion. Roughly translated as Farmhand Rupert (much to his chagrin) Ruprecht was another filthy, bearded sonofabitch. He had a gammy leg, and limped everywhere, which made it highly unlikely he had anything to do with the missing elves and reindeer.
“No,” said Finklefoot. As a response, it was a long time coming, but that was the only way to fit the above introductions in.
“No?” Santa said. “What do you mean ‘no’?”
“I mean,” Finklefoot said, “that I would rather chew my own nutsack off than confront one of your buddies. I’d rather chew your nutsack off, and I’m a vegetarian…”
“Ho-ho-ho! There’s nothing to be frightened of,” The Fat Bastard said, with no conviction whatsoever. “They’re on our side. Well, at least three of them are. The other one, well, you’ll find out soon enough. If one of them is responsible, mark my words, they’ll rue the day…”
If one of them is responsible, Finklefoot thought, then it’ll be me rueing the day, for as long as they let me live, anyway.
“And you don’t think this is just a little bit dangerous?” Finklefoot said.
“Oh, this is batshit insane,” replied Santa, “but an elf’s got to do what an elf’s got to do. Be sure to contact me if you find out more.” And with that, the walkie-talkie hissed incessantly. Santa was gone. Momentarily. Then he popped back to say ‘Over and out’ in the voice of The Green Goblin before disappearing again.
Finklefoot stood there with the walkie-talkie in his hand for a good fifteen minutes. It was only when a snowball clobbered him in the back of the head that he came to his senses.
Talk to the Companions?
“I’m going to die today,” he said, before kicking the snow-llama over with one brutal swipe of his foot.
*
“What do you mean he’s on a mission for The Fat Bastard?” Trixie said. “We’re supposed to be watching the last series of Breaking Bad tonight on Netflix.”
Rat shrugged. Shart opened his mouth to speak, before realising he had nothing worthwhile to say, and Gizzo was too busy hammering pieces of wood together to notice she was even there.
“We’re not happy about it, either,” Rat said, tossing a six-fingered doll-arm in the reject bin. “He’s only gone and agreed for us all to work straight through to Christmas Eve.”
“He’s what!?”
“It’s true,” Shart said. “I wouldn’t mind, but I’ve left the gas on.”
Trixie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She’d known Finklefoot was a Yes man when she’d married him, but this…well, this was the straw that broke the llama’s back. Of course, she wasn’t to know that it was her husband’s foot that broke the llama’s back…
“I’m not standing for this,” Trixie said, rolling her sleeves up. “If he shows up here before I get my hands on him, be sure to tell him that if he doesn’t come home tonight, he’d better not come home at all.”
“Do we have to say it in that voice?” asked Rat.
“If it helps,” replied Trixie.
“I think it might.”
Trixie turned and marched toward the clocking-out machine, where she clocked out three times – hard – before pushing her card into the slot with so much force it ended up looking like an origami swan.
In the distance there was an almighty explosion.
“Oops,” Shart said. “Don’t suppose anyone has a spare room?”
16
The hooded lunatic snorted candy-apple snuff off the back of his hand and growled. Darkness was falling, or would have been if they were anywhere but The Land of Christmas, which meant that it was almost time to return to the streets to gather the next worthy participants. Not that any of them were worthy. All that truly mattered was that they had the necessary holes, and that they didn’t put up too much of a struggle.
“Is everyone feeling okay?” the maniac said, suppressing a snort.
“Hmph!”
“Frth!”
“Brgh!”
“Thrgh!”
The vowel-free replies went on and on as fifty-two elves and a reindeer scrambled around on the surgery floor, slipping and sliding in blood and pus. At least ten of the elves had fainted, but when you had a convoy of so many, it didn’t matter if a few engines faltered. There was barely any room down there on the floor, which was why the lunatic had taken to the table, where he could loom over them more efficiently.
“Look, you’ve made your point,” Sissy said, pushing back against the tide of elves behind her. “Why don’t you take a photo and start unpicking us? Huh?”
The beast cackled. “You really are a piece of work, aren’t you?” he said. “Such courage, and yet you’re only 1.87 percent of my creation. From where I’m standing, you’re the only one with an ounce of hope left. You think I’ve come all this way, put in all this hard work, just to release you?”
“That sounds wonderful,” Sissy said. “Do me first, will you? My back’s killing.”
The maniac climbed down from the table, finding just enough space on the floor to place his large feet. One brave elf tried to nip at his leg, but only succeeded in nibbling the asshole of the guy in front, who let out a surprised, “Grhhhh,” as a result.
“We are not quite finished, yet,” the figure explained. “Sure, you look good. Certainly very centipede-y, but the whole point is to create a human Santapede—”
“(In)Human Santapede,” Sissy corrected, for she wasn’t backing down on that.
“Whatever. The point is, until The Fat Bastard is leading you around The Land of Christmas, I will not stop. I will not relent. I will not WILL YOU STOP TRYING TO BITE ME!?”
“Sorry,” Sissy said, spitting out a mouthful of dark shroud. “I couldn’t resist.” She stopped crawling, forcing everyone else to a halt, and called across her shoulder, “You idiots do know that we don’t have to keep moving, don’t you?”
“Hrmph!”
“Thrgh!”
“Hthrgh!”
“Good. Then can you all stop nudging me forward. Since I appear to be the spokesperson of this monstrosity, I’d appreciated a little cooperation.” She turned back to the menacing figure standing over her. “And what happens when you get Santa? What happens then?”
Beneath the hood, the maniac grinned. “Then Christmas, and everything it means to you fools, will be lost forever.”
17
Finklefoot stood in front of the huge, gothic mansion, his tiny hand hovering a few inches from the door. The doorknocker was a bronze thingummy in the shape of a giant sack of toys. At least, Finklefoot hoped that’s what it was. Not that it mattered; t
he elf was far too small to reach it. Whatever possessed a person to install a doorknocker so high up, especially when ninety-nine percent of the land’s inhabitants were elves?
But that was the thing. The owner of this mansion didn’t want callers; didn’t like them. Didn’t like anyone, really. It was a miracle that there was a doorknocker in the first place, and also that there wasn’t an electric fence running around the grounds, and a couple of rabid hounds sitting out front. It was also a miracle that Finklefoot had mustered the courage to approach the mansion. He was either really very brave, or incredibly stupid. Perhaps a little of both…
“Fangleflop!” a voice hissed. Finklefoot’s heart leapt up into his throat before moving beyond that. He could almost taste the arteries. He snatched the walkie-talkie from his belt and depressed the button. Not depressed the button, as in told it a sad story and called it a hurtful name, but pushed it in.
“Shhhhhh!” the elf gasped. “And don’t keep startling me like that. I’m not carrying a change of dungarees. And please get my name right. If I’m going to be your second-in-command, you should be able to remember who I am.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Santa said, impatiently. “Where are you? Right now, at this minute, presently?”
Finklefoot swallowed his heart back down and said, “I’m about to knock on Belsnickel’s door.” He gave the door a cursory glance. “Remember? You said I should speak to the Companions? Why?”
“Oooooh,” Santa said. “I bet you’re awfully frightened right now, but don’t let him intimidate you. At the end of the day he’s my second-in-command, and—”
“Hang on a minute. He’s your second-in-command, too? So you have three second-in-commands?”
There was a long crackle as Santa exhaled. “Technically, I have six second-in-commands, if you’re including the Companions, my wife, and yourself, and then, of course, there is Hattie Hermann, which makes seven, and then—”
“Look, do we have time for all this nonsense?” Finklefoot said. “I’m about to have a heart-attack here, and I’d really rather get this over with so I can get back to the village, preferably in one piece.”