Kay nodded and darted around the corner to put her boots on.
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Hammond said, reaching his hand out to Kyle, who shook it. “Santa told me what you did for us last year and we’re all very grateful; Christmas was rough and every little bit helped.”
Kyle nodded. “It was no problem at all. My wife, Cindy,” he paused and turned to her, pulling her forward, “and I enjoyed delivering the toys to the foster children.”
She nodded in agreement, extending her hand in greeting as well; Hammond shook it warmly.
“Thank you for your help as well, Cindy,” the elf said. He pulled back and motioned to the bags sitting by the door. “Is this everything?”
Kyle nodded. “Yes.” Hammond bent down to get them and Kyle grabbed his coat off a hook by the door. “Let me help you with those.”
“I’ll check on Kay’s progress and we’ll be out in a minute,” Cindy said, closing the door behind them and walking around the corner to find an empty bench. “Kay! Where are you?”
Cindy spun in a circle looking for her daughter. Not seeing her anywhere, she went back out into the hall and that’s when she spotted her coming down the stairs, hugging her worn-out teddy bear.
“What are you doing, honey?”
“I’m bringing Mr. Snuggles with me,” Kayla said with a slight huff and a pout. “He’ll be lonely here all by himself.”
Cindy sighed, knowing they were going to have another episode about Mr. Snuggles. “Sweetie,” she said, kneeling down in front of Kay and the bear, who were now on the bottom step, “Mr. Snuggles is old and he’s falling apart . . . See?” Cindy reached forward and pulled the bear’s arm back; the stuffing showed through the seams. “If you take him with you, he might fall apart. He has to stay home.”
Kay’s bottom lip started to quiver and her eyes filled with tears. “But I need my bear to sleep.”
“Maybe Santa will have a special new one for you,” Cindy said. “Let’s leave Mr. Snuggles here to guard the house – tell him you’ll bring him a Mrs. Snuggles when you come home.”
With tears spilling from her eyes, Kay nodded and reluctantly handed over her beloved bear to her mom.
“What’s going on in here?” Kyle asked, coming through the door and looking around expectantly. “We’re all loaded up and ready to go.” He spotted Kay, who was still standing on the bottom step crying. “What’s wrong, baby?” he asked, rushing forward and catching the sight of Cindy setting Mr. Snuggles on the hall table; instantly he knew.
“Mommy . . .” Kay started, but paused and sniffled. “Mommy said Mr. Snuggles can’t come with us.”
Kyle nodded and picked his daughter up, rubbing her back gently as she laid her head on his shoulder, wrapping her little arms around his neck. “We already talked about this, and you know it’s best for him if he stays home.”
Kay nodded and whimpered.
“How about we go for a sleigh ride to the North Pole and see Santa?” Kyle said, forcing cheerfulness into his voice to try and excite Kay about the trip again. “Do you want to sit up front with Hammond? I bet he’ll let you hold the reins and everything!”
Kay sniffled again, but giggled and nodded her head “yes.”
Kyle eyes met Cindy’s as they turned toward the door; they both smiled.
It didn’t take Kayla long to cheer up once they were in the air and flying briskly toward the North Pole, and sure enough, Hammond let her “drive” the magic sleigh. Mr. Snuggles was soon forgotten.
They arrived to a cheering crowd of young looking elves; only a few older ones were mixed in. Kyle frowned, knowing this was because of the zombie outbreak the previous year, which had actually wiped out most of the North Pole’s population. Most of the older “mature” elves had been killed, leaving behind the younger elves to carry on the work needed to make toys for Christmas.
His eyes scanned the crowd for the one person he was most anxious to meet, but he didn’t see Santa anywhere in the crowd.
“Where’s Santa?” he heard Kay ask Hammond.
Hammond laughed. “He’s busy getting ready for Christmas, it’s in a couple days you know and there’s a lot to do yet. See all those elves down there?” he asked, pointing below them. “That’s only half of the elves at the North Pole. The rest are busy making toys for good boys and girls. Have you been a good girl this year?”
Kay nodded excitedly with a grin on her face. “You know what I want for Christmas?”
“No,” Hammond said. “What do you want for Christmas?”
As she spoke her reply, they descended and the roar of the crowd drowned out her answer, which Kyle strained to hear regardless; he wanted to get his wife and daughter the presents they really wanted, but didn’t have the slightest clue what either of them would like to get for Christmas. Sighing, he gave up when all he could hear were the cheering voices of the crowd.
They were received like visiting dignitaries, with gifts, hugs, handshakes, and kisses on the cheeks. You would have sworn war had broken out and they were the ones responsible for ending the carnage!
Almost an hour after arriving, they were settled comfortably in their room with a snack. They’d been told they would be taken on a sleigh ride around the North Pole before supper, where they would meet Santa himself. As soon as they were ready, they headed back downstairs, still dressed in their warm clothes.
A young, female elf greeted them warmly as they came out of Santa’s house. “Welcome to the North Pole! I’m Solstice, and I’ll be taking you on your tour.”
Kay jumped into the sleigh and yelled, “Hi!” to the elf on her way by.
“You’ll have to forgive her,” Cindy said with a smile. “She’s a bit excited.”
Solstice laughed. “It’s fine, really. We love the joy and excitement of children, it’s what makes the Magic of Christmas work, you know.”
“Oh, yes,” Kyle said, wrapping his arm around his wife and walking toward the sleigh, “I remember the Magic of Christmas, don’t you, Kay?”
“Yup!” she yelled, and bounced in her seat; she’d again decided to ride in the front, this time with Solstice.
They all laughed.
Solstice climbed aboard after Kyle and Cindy. She picked up the reins and gave them a quick, but gently, snap over the young reindeer’s back that was pulling the sleigh. They took off with a slight jerk and then were sliding over the packed-down snow with ease.
Their guide was polite, cheerful, and very informative about the small village and how things were run. They asked many questions and got answers to every single one.
Soon, the tour came to an end. The North Pole wasn’t a large place and it hadn’t taken them long to see it.
“I have an idea,” Solstice said with an impish smile, leaning over toward Kay. “Why don’t we go find the perfect Christmas tree for your room!”
“Could we?” Kay asked with a broad grin. She turned around, got up on her knees on the seat, and looked at her parents. “We’re gonna get a Christmas tree for our room!”
Kyle and Cindy laughed.
“We know,” Kyle said. “That’s going to be awesome, isn’t it?”
Kay nodded energetically and turned back around, flopping back into her seat. “Where are we going to get the tree, Solstice?” she asked, looking around. “I don’t see any stores . . .”
The elf laughed. “We’re going to go into the woods, pick one, and have one of the other elves cut it down and take it to your room. It will be there after you get back from having supper with Santa!” She brought the sleigh to a halt with the drawing back of the reins. “This looks like a good spot. What do you think?”
“Yes!” Kay yelled, and hopped off the sleigh.
“Wait for us,” Cindy said. “We want to help too.” She slid from the sleigh and grabbed Kay’s hand and together they ran off through the woods laughing.
“I think they’re having a good time,” Kyle said to Solstice as he too climbed out of the sled; she follow
ed.
“I think so too,” the elf said.
Just then the frightened screams of Kyle’s wife and daughter rent the air. Fear stabbed from his ears to his heart. Without another word, he dashed off into the forest, following the tracks his family had made in the snow. He hadn’t quite made it all the way to their location when his wife’s screaming came to an abrupt halt and Kay’s intensified; he ran faster, slipping in his haste and almost falling face first into the snow. His hand shot out and grabbed a pine branch to help keep him on his feet; the rough nettles and bark cut into his palm, drawing blood, but he stayed on his feet.
Rounding a clearing, he paused in shock at what he saw. Kay crying out sharply as a zombie-elf bit into her neck nudged him back into action. In a glance, he noticed his wife lay prone in the snow, face down and bleeding. But it was Kay he was focused on, and the monster that was hurting her. Without thought to his own safety, he charged forward and kicked and punched the zombie-elf until it let go of his little girl.
Frozen chunks of rotted flesh flew from the creature as Kyle continued to pummel it. Snap after, slushy, bloody, snap echoed through the clearing as he beat through the undead being’s icy flesh to break bones, which were brittle from the cold. The zombie-elf was so decayed that Kyle couldn’t tell if it was male or female, and he didn’t care.
The creature stopped moving after Kyle’s fists caved in its skull with his angry blows, but still he beat on it. The sound of this family’s screams still echoed in his head, and the sight of their blood and limp bodies fueled his rage with hurt. Tears streamed down his face and he swore as his arms continued to pump and slam into the corpse beneath him.
Solstice’s screams for him to stop went unheard until Kyle’s body stopped his actions with weariness and fatigue. He rolled off the pulverized zombie elf to lie in the snow and stare up into the bright blue sky, where fluffy white clouds drifted across his tear blurred line of vision.
An elf’s face shimmered before his eyes and the world began to fade as darkness welcomed him with open arms of oblivion . . .
***
Kyle regained consciousness slowly and found himself inside a brightly lit room. He blinked rapidly, trying to figure out where he was and why. It didn’t take long for the events in the forest to come back in a rush. With a moan, he closed his eyes again and tried to breathe around the ache in his chest. His wife and daughter were dead.
Voices beyond the door, out in the corridor, slowly filtered through his misery.
“What do you mean they woke up?” a male voice hissed. “That’s not possible! They were dead!”
“I know, I know,” a timid female voice replied, “but they did. The woman and the girl are both awake. They’re violent, and we’ve had to lock them in the morgue, but they’re both very much awake . . . and alive.”
“I have to see this for myself,” the male voice said gruffly before both of the unseen entities moved farther away.
Alive? Kyle thought. How can that be? He forced himself to sit up and felt the weakness in his arms from the beating he’d given the zombie-elf. Wait, yes! That’s it! he continued to himself in his head. It was a zombie-elf! Does that mean . . .?
He groaned, buried his head in his hands, and covered his face. “No, this can’t be happening. It would be better if they were dead.” Dragging his hands through his hair, he looked up at the ceiling, unaware of the tears flowing freely down his cheeks.
Suddenly the door to the small room flew open. Kyle jumped and looked at the door, noticing a young female elf in a white and red uniform that looked like a nurse. Glancing away from her smiling face, he looked at the room he was in for the first time, noticing he was in a hospital.
“How are you feeling?” the nurse asked, coming forward. “Solstice is quite worried about you and wanted to stay, but she had to take a search party out to the forest and make sure there were no more monsters lurking about.”
Kyle didn’t answer he just looked at her and blinked, thinking, Did she really just ask me how I am? How the hell does she think I am?! My family was just killed!
She frowned at him, and then her face lit with realization. “I’m so sorry . . .” she said. “I didn’t think. You must be feeling horrible about your family and everything. I should tell you though, that I don’t think they’re dead; I heard someone say they woke up! Isn’t that marvelous?”
Again, he didn’t answer, just raised an eyebrow and looked at her with a crooked, sardonic grin.
The door opened again, to admit a male elf with a clipboard in one hand and a stern expression on his face. He was wearing a white and green lab coat and the words DOCTOR GLINT were emboldened on his candy cane name tag.
“Ah,” he said, “I see you’re awake. How are your arms?”
Kyle looked down and shrugged. “Sore.”
“It’s to be expected,” Dr. Glint said, glancing down at his clipboard and then around the room. “I really don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just come right out with it. Your wife and daughter were dead, but have reanimated on their own. We are attributing it to the virus that ran ramped through the elf population last year around this time. We believe the elf that attacked them was a carrier and spread the disease to them when it bit them.”
“Zombies,” Kyle said, with a harsh laugh.
“Excuse me?” Dr. Glint said, squinting up at him. “What do you mean by ‘zombies’?”
“My wife and daughter are now zombies,” Kyle snapped, looking straight at the doctor defiantly. “Isn’t that what you’re telling me? I mean, they’re the walking dead and crave flesh, and anyone they bite will become one of them. They’re zombies!” He ended, standing and yelling.
“Now, Kyle,” Dr. Glint said, raising his hands to try to calm and placate his patient, “you need to calm down. Getting all excited won’t help the situation.”
Kyle barked out a harsh laugh. “You got that right, doc!”
The three of them stood in silence for long, tense moments, before Kyle spoke again.
“I want to see them.”
Dr. Glint stared at him for a moment and then nodded. He turned to the nurse.
“Take Kyle to see his wife and daughter.”
“What?” she squeaked. “I can’t . . .”
The doctor huffed. “You don’t have to go in or anything, just take the man down and let him look through the window, so he can see his family for himself.”
The nurse opened her mouth to speak, but quickly shut it and nodded. She glanced at Kyle, sighed, and turned, heading out the door. He followed without even a glance back at the doctor, who stood in the middle of the hospital exam room, staring down at his chart with a frown.
He struggled to keep up with the little nurse as they hurriedly twisted and turned around many passageways, finally coming to a flight of stairs leading down into the dimly lit basement.
“Almost there,” she said over her shoulder, fidgeting with her uniform nervously.
Kyle and the nurse came to a stop outside a room at the end of the final corridor. The door was locked and barricaded with a heavy desk. The plaque on the door read: MORGUE.
Stepping cautiously forward, Kyle forced himself to look through the small circular glass window; it had been swirled to make it look like a piece of candy, but he could still see through it clearly. Beyond the transparent boundary, he beheld his family. They were huddled together over a small body. He accidently bumped the desk and it, in turn, bumped the door; the noise got Cindy and Kay’s attention. Their heads spun in the direction of the door and he saw what they’d been doing. They were eating the body of a dead elf that had been with them in the morgue when they’d turned.
He gagged, seeing bits of muscle and other bloody tissue dangling from their chewing mouths. It was a horrific scene to behold. He stepped back quickly and they went back to eating.
“I think you should go back to your room at Santa’s house and try to rest,” the nurse said, coming forward and laying her hand on his arm g
ently. “He wants to talk to you, but was called away for another emergency.”
Kyle, shell-shocked and unable to process everything that was going on, let the nurse guide him to the entrance of the hospital. From there another elf met them and guided him through the busy lanes of the North Pole, back to Santa’s house, and even inside to his room.
Once the door closed behind him with a dull thunk, Kyle fell to his knees and leaned back against the door. He stayed that way for a long time, staring off into nothing, trying to process what had happened to his life in what seemed like mere seconds.
***
Someone knocking on the door, right above his head, sometime later brought Kyle back to reality.
Slowly turning and using the door to support himself, he stood on stiff legs to open the door. He wasn’t really in the mood for company, but he didn’t know if someone might be bringing news about his wife and daughter.
He was shocked to see Santa standing outside the door, frowning with concern.
“Hello, Kyle,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t greet you earlier, and I’m even more sorry that I couldn’t be with you after your family was attacked. It disturbs me greatly. May I come in?”
Kyle nodded and stepped back, opening the door wider to allow the big man admittance. He closed the door after him and rubbed the back of his neck, looking at the floor and around the room, not really knowing what to say.
Santa took a seat on a chair sitting in the corner of the room and motioned to the second. Kyle walked briskly over and sat down, still not looking at his guest.
“I know things are hard for you, Kyle,” Santa said. “But I’ve come to help you try and figure things out. There is hope . . . You did read the story with Kayla that I sent you, didn’t you?”
Frowning, Kyle nodded.
“So you know that I too was one of these undead . . . creatures and there can be something done about it?”
With the light of hope in his eyes for the first time since the attack, Kyle looked up and grinned. “You really think there’s something we can do for them?”
“But, of course,” Santa said. and laughed in his “ho, ho, ho” manner. “You are, after all, at the North Pole where the Magic of Christmas is the strongest. We just have to figure out what the right recipe of that magic is for your family.”
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