by Adam Millard
“And the song,” Belsnickel said. He was catching up to the fleeing lunatic; if only he’d put more thought into what he might do when he reached him. “Don’t forget about the song you promised us.”
“We’ll get a song,” Finklefoot said. Whether it’ll be any good, he thought, is another matter entirely.
Krampus, no more than twenty feet in front now, turned and blew into his horn. At some point in the last ten seconds, he’d managed to reload. Heeeerrrrrrnk!!! The dart flew from the horn, splitting the air in half. One unlucky snowflake was severed, but that was perhaps a fluke, and Krampus didn’t have time to celebrate anyway.
“Look out!” Finklefoot said, but before the final word fell from his lips, Belsnickel jerked back, clutching at his chest as if in the throes of a particularly violent coronary. The dart was in him – boy, was it in him – and in less than a second, the Companion went from fifteen miles an hour to minus three.
Finklefoot jumped clear of the floundering Companion and disappeared beneath the snow, which was, unsurprisingly, colder than a witch’s tit.
“Oh, deary me,” Belsnickel said, staggering back and forth like a drunken ogre. “Oh, deary, deary me.”
“Are you okay?” Finklefoot said, popping up from the snow like some ridiculous version of whack-a-mole.
Belsnickel grunted. “I’ve been better.” He pulled the dart from his chest and examined it with sleepy eyes and blurred vision. The dart dripped with blood – his blood – and something gelatinous, like sap from an infected tree. “I’m okay,” he said. “Just need to walk it off.” He took a step forward, which was a good place to start if one intended to walk something off. Unfortunately, that was where his journey ended and he wilted listlessly into the snow.
Scratching his head, Finklefoot sighed. So much for strength in numbers, and so much for ‘size matters’. The only thing the big guys had managed to prove thus far was that it was much harder to dodge poisonous darts if you were built like a brick shithouse.
“Such a shame,” a voice said, snapping Finklefoot from his reverie. “We used to be close friends. Not too close, mind. He had awful breath.” Krampus crunched through the snow toward the half-submerged elf. He had a look about him; a look that said ‘you can clobber me with a bleeding saucepan all you like, but an elephant never forgets’. “Well, I guess this is it,” he said, pulling a dart from his shroud and dropping it into the horn. “The end. The big finale. The last stand.”
“The endgame?” Finklefoot said, training the Anti-Companion Water-Pistol™ on Krampus’s head, where it was most likely to inflict the utmost damage. “Overture?”
“No, an overture would be at the beginning,” Krampus said. “As would a preamble, a prelude, and a foreword.”
“That’s very interesting,” Finklefoot said, standing up straight and dusting the snow from his dungarees. “How’s about you give yourself up? Put the horn down and put your hands in the air?”
Krampus laughed. “That’s not going to work for me,” he said. “And nobody likes a sensible ending. I guess we’re just going to have to duel, like they did in the old days.”
Of course, back in the old days they hadn’t used dart-blowing horns or magical water-pistols, but apart from that the analogy was spot-on.
“A duel it is,” Finklefoot said. His heart was racing. He’d never been in a duel before. He’d read about them in history books, and from what he remembered, things wouldn’t work out too well for one of them. Then there was always that small chance that both would be wounded or killed, like in the infamous duel between Andrew Jackson (US President) and Charles Dickinson (attorney and famous duellist). It might, therefore, go the other way, and neither of them would be harmed, like in the not-so-famous duel between Stevie Wonder (musician) and Stephen Hawking (automaton).
The trick, Finklefoot thought, is not getting shot. Nothing more, nothing less…
“So how do we go about this duelling malarkey?” Finklefoot said, if nothing else buying himself another few seconds of life. “Do we stand back-to-back, count to three, walk ten paces, turn and shoot?”
Krampus shrugged. “Not sure I can be bothered with all that,” he said. “Maybe we could do it like they did in those spaghetti westerns. We growl at each other for a few minutes. I smoke a cigar. You perspire irrepressibly. We hover over our weapons for dramatic effect, and then one of us dies.”
“Okay, let’s do that, but maybe you should give the cigar a miss. Those things will kill you.”
“How thoughtful,” Krampus said, stuffing the loaded horn into the pocket of his shroud. “The only thing missing is an Ennio Morricone score. You know? To build the tension?”
“You want me to hum something?” Finklefoot said as he holstered the Anti-Companion Water-Pistol™. “I could always go whaahw-ahhwahhh…wha..wha..wahhhh.”
“No, that’s terribly distracting,” Krampus said. “Perhaps silence is best.”
And so they stood. Two duellists, too tired to obey the rules of a genuine duel. Krampus, the creator of The Human Santapede (with or without brackets) and Finklefoot, The Fat Bastard’s second-in-command (one of them, anyway). Standing in the snow as more snow fell all around. Neither backing down, but at least one of them praying for a bolt of fortuitous lightning to strike the other where he stood.
This is how it ends, Finklefoot thought. Not with a whimper, which would have been far preferable, but with an almighty bang. Finklefoot’s trousers squeaked, as was their wont, as he shifted nervously from tiny foot to tiny foot.
If only, he thought, Trixie had clobbered the lunatic harder with the saucepan. But it was too late now for such fruitless wonderings. This was how it was meant to end.
Any minute now…
It was, in fact, seven minutes later when Krampus lunged for his weapon. Finklefoot was half asleep, and so it was, he thought, the miracle of miracles when a liquorice Catherine wheel slapped Krampus across the face.
“What the fu…” was all that Krampus could manage before a giant strawberry lace lashed him hard across the neck. The horn, now in his hand, dropped to the snow as more and more sweetie treats pelted into him, leaving marks and welts and bruises wherever they landed.
Finklefoot fumbled for the water-pistol, but fumblings weren’t enough. Not that it mattered. Krampus had fallen to his knees, and was being bombarded with every sweet imaginable by things that had yet to reveal themselves.
“No, please stop!” Krampus whined, just as a sugar-coated lemon-jelly wedge whipped across his cheek.
There was no reprieve, though, as candy after candy walloped into him. As if he knew his days were numbered, he assumed the position (anyone who has taken a kicking knows exactly what position) and began to scream. It was an odd sound to come from such a hulking beast, but you know what they say. The bigger they are, the shriller they squeal, or something to that effect…
“2nd Unit! Fire!” a voice commanded from the snow to Finklefoot’s right. He turned to see Hattie Hermann sitting astride one of the reindeer (Vixen? Blitzen? Fucked if they didn’t all look the same). Beside her, an army of elves were plucking sweets from buckets and launching them toward the fallen Companion. It would have been hilarious had it not been so damned ridiculous.
“Cannon one! On my mark!” Hattie bellowed. She was far too manly to screech. “FIRE!”
A loud explosion rocked the night. Snow fell from rooftops and trees. Poop dropped from reindeer’s arseholes. Finklefoot did the first thing that came to mind, which was duck.
It was lucky that he had ducked, for something whistled past his head, so close that he felt the wind from it. He also caught a faint whiff of spearmint.
The colossal candy cane slammed into Krampus’s shoulder spinning him around. It was then that he saw the army of sneaky elves approaching from the rear, or as it was now known, the front…
“GET HIM!” one elf roared.
“BITE HIS FUCKIN’ NOSE OFF!” yelled another.
“WILL WE NEED TETANUS
SHOTS AFTER!?” a rather sensible elf enquired.
Finklefoot clambered to his feet and watched as Krampus disappeared beneath a tide of flailing elf appendages and pointy hats. Snow and blood flew up into the air as the savage assault went on, and on, and…
“Did we get him?” said a booming, and yet lethargic, voice. Finklefoot thought he had seen it all, but the appearance of The Human Santapede, sitting astride five confused-looking reindeer, proved him wrong.
“We did!” Hattie Hermann said, a little too smugly for Finklefoot’s liking. “He’s under that pile of elves, there.”
Finklefoot finally managed to get the Anti-Companion Water-Pistol™ out of his waistband. For what good it had done, it might as well have been, like its Fat Bastard owner, firing blanks.
“Ah, Finglefleet!” Santa said, smiling down at Finklefoot. The reindeer he was bleeding all over didn’t look half as happy. “Excellent work! I understand this wouldn’t have been possible without your assistance.”
“Hthrthertherth!” Mrs Claus said.
“Will you pipe down!” Santa said. “Nobody cares what you have to say. And yes, I know what you’ve been up to with my workforce, and I therefore have no choice but to demote you to third-in-command. Should be ashamed of yourself. Oh, and this one’s on the house…” And with that, The Fat Bastard went very red very quickly as he pushed something terrible from his body.
Jessica Claus gagged. Jessica Claus passed out.
“Sorry about that,” Santa said to Finklefoot. “Now, let’s discuss your reward. I remember you said something about a song? Oh, and if you know of a good surgeon, that would be most useful in the coming hours. So, this song? Does it have to be by Elton John? He’s a tough man to get hold of, and I’ve got this friend who owes me a favour or two. He’s had quite a lot of success with Christmas songs. I think you’re going to…”
The (In)Human Santapede (Finklefoot - A Christmas Saviour)
Lyrics and Music by Noddy Holder
Introduction
Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttssssss Chrisssssssssssssssstmaaaaaaaaaasssssss!!!!
Verse One
When his snowblower disappeared from Santa’s Hall,
Krampus did set out to disgust and appal,
Does he stitch them arse to face,
‘Cos his surgeon skills are ace?
Does he sever all their tendons just in case?
Chorus
So here it is, Merry Christmas,
Everybody’s arse to face,
Shitting down each other’s throats,
A yuletide disgrace.
Verse Two
But now Krampus never counted on Finklefoot,
Or his Companion friends who also like a rut,
Did they save the sutured reindeer?
Did they save Christmas that year?
Or did Krampus shoot them down with his horny spears?
Chorus
So here it is, Merry Christmas,
Everybody’s arse to face,
Shitting down each other’s throats,
A yuletide disgrace.
Verse Three
The Companions fell but lived to tell the tale,
And Mrs Claus still fucks small folk that are male,
And now Krampus is in prison,
And a hero now has risen,
And the Santapede was chopped up with precision.
Chorus
So here it is, Merry Christmas,
Everybody’s arse to face,
Shitting down each other’s throats,
A yuletide disgrace.
Verse Four
So Christmas was saved and evil was defeated,
And the elves have since been treated,
Brushed their teeth to get the taste out,
Rudolph’s got a brand new snout,
Not as glowy, but it’s better than going without.
Repeat Chorus until everyone starts to cry…
Fade out…
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