by Adam Millard
Picking himself up from the cold, hard ground, he made eye contact with The Fat Bastard. “What are you looking at, Tubby?”
“Why?” Santa said, groggily. “Just why?” He looked like a defeated man; exactly how one might imagine the head of a meaty, shitty snake to look. He had the same expression that politicians get when they’re found to be fiddling their taxes.
“Why?” Krampus said, dusting himself down. “Why, why, why? Well, there are lots of reasons, really. Do you remember the time you belittled me in front of the other Companions for putting too much coal in children’s socks? Made me feel about as big as one of your elves, you did. And what about the time you decided to dock me a year’s privileges?”
“You can’t go…around…kicking elves…in the face…” Santa said. “It’s…rude…”
“Yes, well, we wouldn’t want to be rude to your precious elves, now, would we?” He snorted. “But the icing on the cake, the straw that broke the camel’s back, the final stroke, the match in the powder barrel—”
Santa farted. “Is this going…to take long…?”
“—the nail in the coffin, the colpo di grazia, was when I lent you my MaxBlower3000 and never got it back.”
Sometimes, you hear something so ridiculous that simple speech becomes impossible. In that moment, Santa couldn’t find any words, at least none that made sense. Then, of course, there was the chore of putting them in some sort of coherent order. In the end, he decided not to bother.
“That’s right,” Krampus said. “You remember? About twenty-five years ago, you came to me and asked if you could borrow my snowblower. I said, ‘Yes, of course, my dear friend. It’s in the shed, behind the coal-sacks, next to the lawnmower that never gets used’. Off you went, merry as always, belly shaking like a condom full of blancmange; off to deprive me of the only snowblower I possessed. If I’d known I would never see it again, I would have at least took the time to wish it all the best for the future…”
“This…” Santa said, incredulous. “All of this…is because of a snowblower?”
“Not just any snowblower,” Krampus corrected him. “A MaxBlower3000. My MaxBlower3000. Do you have any idea how many sleepless nights I’ve had over that snowblower? Do you know how many times I’ve cried myself to sleep, yearning for the feel of it in my hand once again?”
“You’ve got to be shitting me?” Santa checked the corners of the room, looking for hidden cameras, for this had to be some ill-conceived prank.
Krampus straightened up. Santa was grateful; the Companion’s breath was disagreeable to the point of being offensive. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, you rotund rascal,” he sneered. “You’re the man that has it all, and what you don’t have, your elves are only too happy to build it for you. You’re like a fat Richard Branson.”
Now that, Santa thought, is not fair. He only had one aircraft, and it ran on magic, not the souls of virgins. “The snowblower is…” He tried to remember what he’d done with it. Twenty-five years was a long time, even in The Land of Christmas, where days dissolved into one another like antacids in water. “Well, it’s somewhere up at the workshop. I can have eight-hundred elves looking for it within the hour. All you have to do is let us go.”
Krampus shook his head and clicked his tongue. Never a good sign. “This isn’t about the snowblower anymore,” he said, though it sort of was. Just thinking about it – its duel motor, and the sweet, sweet noise it made when it started up – brought a tear to the corner of his eye. “This is about making a point. It’s about standing up and being counted. Unfortunately, you can’t stand up, which means I win.”
“Yes, yes, you win,” Santa said, just as his bowels unloaded once again. Behind him, Jessica Claus squealed and sobbed. Her diet had gone right up the Swanee. “You’ve made your point. I don’t think any of us will ever forget what’s happened here today. And…” His stomach growled, and he grunted. “…I’ll make a public apology. I’ll pull out all the stops…I’ll—”
“You’ll suffer,” Krampus said. “And you’ll do it on your knees, where you belong. For far too long you’ve been ruler of this land. Not anymore. Things are going to change around here, and by change I mean come to an end. You will spend what little time you have left walking around the village, leading my Santapede wherever it takes you, and I shall watch and laugh and enjoy every sick second of it.” As if to show how he intended to laugh, he laughed. It wasn’t quite what Santa had expected.
“But if Christmas doesn’t happen,” Santa said, “we will all cease to exist. You will cease to exist.”
Krampus nonchalantly shrugged. “Small price to pay to prove a point,” he said. “Unlike you, I don’t enjoy Christmas the same way I used to. Maybe I’ve grown out of it. Maybe I’m just tired. Maybe – and this is just a theory – I couldn’t give a shit whether kids have been bad or good. It’s not like we have anything to do with them for the other three-hundred and sixty-four days a year. Even the good ones have the capacity to grow up into serial killers.”
“Are you still banging on…about Dahmer?” Santa gritted his teeth as his body racked with pain. “That was fifty years ago.”
“You gave him a plastic barbecue kit and a box of disembodied dolls!” Krampus said. “Don’t you feel a little bit responsible?”
Lifting a weary hand, Santa groaned. “Look…we do our jobs…that’s all…we can do.” Why should he feel bad? In 1947 he’d gifted Lee Harvey Oswald a toy rifle. How was he to know that the guy would grow up into a Grade A whacko? In 1980, he’d hand-delivered a typewriter to Stephanie Meyer. Was it his fault that she’d gone on to pen shitty sparkly vampire novels? If you thought like that, Santa opined, you’d never give presents to anyone…
“Well, this time next week you can thank me,” Krampus said. “You won’t have to do your job anymore. None of us will. No more Christmas. No more petulant children. No more anything. Doesn’t that sound absolutely delightful?”
For a moment, The Fat Bastard had to admit that it did. No more early mornings. No more Bond film repeats. No more Cliff Richard. It sounded positively wonderful. The only downside would be the fading out of all existence. “Without Christmas, the humans will tear each other apart!” Santa found a little strength from…somewhere. He pushed himself upwards.
“Athethrethuth!” Mrs Claus screeched, grabbing her husband by his love-handles and dragging him back to ground.
“Sorry, love,” Santa said. “Got a little bit carried away.” To Krampus he said, “You won’t just be killing us. You’ll be massacring the humans, too. They won’t be able to survive without the hope that Christmas brings.”
“Hadn’t thought about it like that,” Krampus said, his bottom lip protruding slightly. “That’s a cheeky bonus. Never could stand those gits, with their sense of annual entitlement. Well, we don’t owe them anything. And if they go under just because they wake up on Christmas morning to find the tree bereft of presents, well so be it.”
Santa couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This, he thought, is what madness sounds like. Actually, madness sounded like dolphins mating, but this was close enough…
“Now, if you would keep your thoughts to yourself for a while,” Krampus said, unhooking what looked like a dog leash from a hook on the wall. “We’re going to get ready for a little walk. Put on a brave face…no, not that one...that’s a despondent face…try this.” He smiled and arched his eyebrows. Santa began to cry, much to Krampus’s chagrin. “Oh, well. I suppose that’ll have to do.”
He stepped toward The Fat Bastard, the leash clinking and clanking in his almost demonic grasp.
This can’t be real, Santa thought. This is too ridiculous to be happening…
As an ancient and magical saint, tasked with delivering billions of presents across seven continents in less than eight hours – including the umpteen service station stops – the irony was not lost on him.
24
Heavy snow once again blanketed the village, kept at a reas
onable depth thanks only to the sudden footfall of hundreds of intrigued elves. Lights strung from lampposts and houses blinked red, and yellow, and green, and white, and…lots of other colours that you’re probably already familiar with. Jingle Bell Rock drifted down from the workshop for the fifty-eighth time, and yet no-one seemed to mind.
Something big was afoot.
Something exciting.
Lining both sides of the street, the elves chuntered on amongst themselves. They were just grateful to get out of the liquorice factory, if only for an hour. The fact that none of them knew why Hattie Hermann had led them down to the village, as if on some sort of field trip (but without the tagalong parents), didn’t seem to matter.
“I heard it was the great Ronnie Corbett,” one elf said, somewhat optimistically.
“What? The little fella?” said another. From an elf, that was rich.
“I heard we were all going to get a bonus,” a pudgy elf with a beard that could choke a donkey added. “That The Fat Bastard’s finally come to his senses, that he’s realised, all of a sudden, that he’s essentially running a sweatshop.”
“Nah,” said a female elf, who was knitting and therefore not really taking part in the conversation; not wholly, anyhow. “The only bonus we’re gonna get is extra shifts. I’ve been on since shit…” She’d dropped a stitch, and everyone knows that dropped stitches are the cancer of the patchwork quilt world. “Three o’clock this morning,” she finally said. “If that ain’t bad enough, ten of the elves from my section pissed off this afternoon. Didn’t even tell Hattie where they were going, or how long they would be. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes when they come back.”
“Why? Did they have small feet?” A clever, and yet nondescript, elf said.
“Well, whatever’s going on,” the knitter said. “They need to hurry up about it, or I’ll be able to use my nipples to finish this scarf.”
Just then, a horn sounded, causing several elves to jump, and at least one to topple back into the snow, clutching at his chest and saying, “Gahrrrrrrrrrr!”
“Aye aye,” the knitter said, tucking her needlework away for a later date. “Looks like the show’s about to start.”
As cheers went up all around the village, a strange atmosphere settled over the land. It was as if one person had left the gas on and everyone else was too stubborn to do anything about it.
The horn sounded again, and this time…
*
“What was that?” Shart asked, pushing his way through a snowdrift. Only the top of his hat was visible, but it was a very nice hat. It was his going out hat, which seemed apt since he was, in fact, out.
“It sounded like a horn,” Belsnickel said. He, and the other Companions, were faring much better in the snow, proving once and for all that height is often a great commodity when used in the correct manner. “Does anybody know what goes heeeeeerrrrrrnk!?”
“There are rumours,” Rat said, stroking at his chin as if what he was saying would have some major effect on the history of the world. It wouldn’t, “that the human female mammary makes such a sound when squeezed in exactly the right place. Of course, I have been wrong before…”
“Oh good,” Finklefoot said, punching snow aside with duel fists. “You can add that one to the pile, then.”
The horn hernked! again. That must be some mammary, Rat thought.
“It’s coming from over there,” Knecht Ruprecht said, pointing across to their right.
“No, you’re wrong,” Not-as-white-as-everyone-else Pete said. “It came from over there.” He extended a finger in the complete opposite direction. “And I believe it is the same noise a sperm whale makes when its blowhole is plugged up with a rolled-up copy of the Yellow Pages.”
“Yes!” Belsnickel agreed. “That’s what I thought it was, too.”
Finklefoot stopped walking and turned to face the lagging Companions. It was strange to think that a few hours ago he wouldn’t have dared talk to them the way he was about to. It was amazing the difference an Anti-Companion Water-Pistol™ could make.
“Will you stop talking nonsense and just pick us up,” he said. “Gizzo, Rat, you go on Knecht Ruprecht. Shart, climb onto Black Pete’s—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Not-as-white-as-everyone-else Pete said. His mouth had fallen wide open. A robin – cute little thing with a red breast, just like on the cards you get from those family members you don’t really get on with – landed on his listless bottom jaw before fluttering away again.
“Shit!” Finklefoot said. “Sorry. My bad. It’s just a lot quicker to say Black Pe—”
“He said it again!” Belsnickel gasped. “Holy fuck! What is this? 1922?”
Finklefoot felt about a foot tall, which was not far off the truth. “Look, I wasn’t being racist. I mean, yes, we were still stitching golliwogs until the late nineties, but does that put me on the same chart as Mel Gibson?”
“It kinda does,” Not-as-white-as-everyone-else Pete said. “Do some of your sentences start with ‘I’m not racist, but…’?”
“It’s very rare,” Rat said, which didn’t help matters.
“Can we just concentrate on the matter in hand?” Finklefoot said. “We’re all about to be expunged from existence, and you lot are yattering on about bollocks. I’m an elf. Do you hear me complaining? No, because that’s the hand I was dealt.” He moved around to Belsnickel’s back and launched himself upwards, grappling for the Companion’s waist. Belsnickel, sensing the elf had bitten off more than he could chew, dropped to one knee and helped the poor sod to mount.
The other elves clambered onto their respective rides. Knecht Ruprecht had one on each shoulder, clinging to his beard for dear life.
The horn sounded again. Herrrrrrrnk!
“Onwards!” Finklefoot said, pointing toward the source of the noise with the Anti-Companion Water-Pistol™ and kicking Belsnickel’s side, hard and just above the ribs. The Companion growled. “Sorry,” Finklefoot said.
“That’s okay,” Belsnickel grunted, mainly because the pistol that had almost blown him to smithereens back at the mansion was brushing against his temple. The elf could have called Belsnickel’s mother all the names under the sun, and he would have had to agree.
“Let’s go save Christmas,” Shart said. “For what it’s worth.”
The Companions marched forwards, their riders terrified and excited and slightly underdressed for what was shaping up to be a battle of epic proportions. Dungarees and pointy hats were no substitutes for chainmail and helmets when it came to war. They would have been safer heading down to the village in their birthday suits. At least then they would have the shock factor on their side.
Heeeerrrrrrrrr…
*
…rrrrrrrrnk!
“I wish they’d knock that off,” said an elderly elf as he adjusted his hearing-aid. “There’s no need for it. When I were a lad, this place was quiet. You could ‘ave ‘eard a gnat fart from miles away…” His little diatribe went on and on, but nobody was listening. They were too busy jostling for a better position, for the street was now filled with boisterous elves. They’d come from all over the village, and news of the mystery show must have reached the workshop. The Fat Bastard’s elves came a-rolling down the hill, asking anyone and everyone what was going on and what that bleeding racket was. The air was filled with anticipation, and intrigue, and more than a little confusion, as The Land of Christmas came to a grinding halt, and nobody knew why.
“I haven’t been this excited since Uncle Verne visited,” a young elf called Udo Troyer said.
“I haven’t been this excited since they announced dress-down-Fridays,” said another, whose name was not important, nor necessary.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” a chirpy, and yet guttural, robotic voice said. “I would like to thank each and every one of you for coming! Though, not many of you had a choice in the matter. Am I right? I’m right.”
“He’s right,” said one elf, who would rather have been at ho
me with a mug of Horlicks and a slice of Battenberg than standing out in the street, rubbing her bits and bobs together just to stay warm. But Hattie Hermann had made it very clear that any elves not in attendance would be dealt with in the strictest of fashions. ‘And I don’t just mean a week in solitude,’ the confectionary-loving slave-driver had said. Most of the elves knew exactly what she’d meant.
Strawberry lace lashes. Lots of them.
“What you are about to see will disgust you. It will amaze you, but mostly it will just disgust you. It will inspire you, but there’s a good chance you’ll be too disgusted to see it as anything other than an abomination. You will be dumfounded, and disgusted, and hopefully you will be disgusted, and horrified, but mainly just disgusted, and a little bit saddened and angered, and also, of course, disgusted.”
There were mumblings from the crowd as they continued to speculate upon the nature of the evening’s entertainment. One elf reckoned Meat Loaf was about to burst from one of the houses – like a bat out of hell – and start working through his repertoire of quasi-romantic rock ballads, but that was just wishful thinking, for that elf sure did idolise Meat Loaf…
“You’re all, no doubt, wondering what has become of your guv’nor. Hm? And I’m almost certain that a lot of you are concerned about the wellbeing of his wife, the delectable and slightly sullied Jessica Claus? Well, let me be the one to tell you that they are both doing fine. As are the missing elves from the liquorice factory, and Rudolph? How could anyone forget about Rudolph, with his nose so bright, and all that tomfoolery? Yes, they are all alive, and…well, you will see for yourselves in just a moment.”