“Errrrrrrrrrr!”
“Well, it doesn’t matter because I’m giving them to
you. Such sweet, sweet gifts from me______ ” She brought
one of the shoes closer to Santa. “To you.”
Santa had recalled Kay’s shoes being gorgeous and glittery like Dorothy’s shoes in The Wizard of Oz. But now, with a clear view of the insides of the shoes, they were anything but gorgeous and glittery. Instead, they looked dark and moist, stained with days and days of foot sweat. Then he wondered if perhaps Dorothy’s shoes looked the same after all those hours of filming the movie.
Why am I thinking about The Wizard of Oz? Dorothy wasn’t a sadistic angel. She never locked anyone in a bitch- box. Or maybe she did. I don’t know.
Kay moved the shoes to his face in slow motion, prolonging the torture and letting the stench waft to his nostrils. Despite being clogged with drool, Santa’s nose didn’t block the smell.
“Yum, I bet you can really smell that shit, right?” Kay said. “You should be honored, too. Oh, not only because they are my shoes in your face, even though that should be enough. No sir, you should also be honored that you have an authentic pair of vintage Babs Cloantas in your face. You just cannot find shoes like these anymore.”
Santa said, “Errrrrrrrr.” He thought about his wife and how she never once talked about what kind of shoes she wore. Diana wasn’t into that sort of thing, never put value on something as insignificant as shoes.
The reek of Kay’s foot sweat bore through Santa’s nose, up to his brain, and down to his throat. The odor made its home in his mouth so that now the taste of her drool mingled with the warm stink from her shoes.
“Hope you’re enjoying this shit, honey bunch. There’s a lot more where this came from. I have nearly five-thousand pairs of shoes and you’ll get to smell each and every one. Not just heels, though. I have clogs and sneakers and slippers and mules and flip-flops...”
Kay’s voice became heavy syrup on Santa’s ears. It became sticky syrup that seeped into his ear canals and covered his brain, erasing all memory of his wife and his position as Santa Claus, deliverer of gifts. Combined with her foot stink, her voice made him a masochistic automaton.
“You’re mine now, honey bunch,” Kay said, dropping the shoes and leaving them next to Santa’s head. “All mine.”
XX.
When Gimel teleported inside, the first thing he noticed was the ugly giant snail shell in the middle of the living room. Who does that? It was such a foolish
decision in interior decorating.
He had his gun in one hand and his glove on the other, ready for anything. The house was silent but Gimel could hear the quiet thoughts of Aleph and Shaw. They were thinking the same thing he was: the objects in the house were strange as hell.
As he tip-toed out of the living room and into the hallway, his ears popped. Something in his skull clicked and he no longer heard the thoughts of his fellow elves.
Aleph, can you hear me? Shaw?
No response.
A slimy chill on the back of his neck tickled him. Gimel turned quickly but a wet slap sent him flying to the ground. He looked up and saw the same snail shell but now it was standing on what looked like two chicken legs. It wasn’t a snail, though. It looked more like the result of a snail mating with an elephant. Several trunk-like appendages waved at him, gaping holes hungry for fresh elf meat. Gimel held his gun up and fired.
The bullet hit the snail-thing right in the middle of its body but had no effect. Gimel sent another one at its head but again: nothing. The snail-thing stepped closer, its trunks sending out sound waves that popped Gimel’s ears even more.
Gimel stood up. “You ugly piece of shit,” he said, getting his glove arm ready to do some damage. The weapon was usually reserved for punishing unfaithful spouses of his clients. The sheer size of the bone-penis glove struck fear into the hearts of both males and females. When that thing went in, even the most jaded of infidels felt the pangs of conscience.
The snail-thing waved its trunks, spraying Gimel with purple spittle. Some of the fluid hit the elf in the face, burning him. He put his fist up and charged.
The bone-penis smashed into the snail shell, creating a splatter of green and white shards.
Gimel’s fist went right through the beast. Trunks flailed against the elf, wrapping around his neck.
“No you don’t, fucker,” Gimel said. He pulled his fist out and started punching at the trunks. They were no match for it.
Two more minutes of fisting and the elf was victorious in turning the snail-thing into a mushy pile of shell and flesh. Gimel’s deafness gradually disappeared as the beast before him died.
XXI.
While Gimel was walking through the living room, Shaw was in another room trying to comprehend why someone would decorate their walls with pictures of rotting fruit, demolished buildings, umbrellas, and airplanes. In the corner, there was a bed made of red metallic goop that resembled dried up taffy.
What kind of weird bitch lives here?
He had a chain in each hand, swinging them slowly so the hooks would be ready to carve into flesh at a moment’s notice.
There were slobbering sounds coming from the next room so Shaw walked slowly, one hook swinging behind his head. As he walked through the doorway, something fell from above and covered his head like a Halloween mask. He couldn’t see and could barely breathe.
“Shit!” he said, dropping one of the chains and grabbing at whatever was wrapped around his head. His fingers dug into soft, gritty flesh. It wasn’t working. Shaw started biting at it, grinding the flesh between his teeth until he felt air on his tongue.
He dropped the other chain and used two hands to rip the thing off him. Before another could drop on him, he grabbed both chains and looked at what he’d thrown off. It was a giant sugarplum.
On the floor, the fruit was torn apart but still trembling with life. It resembled road kill and Shaw almost felt bad for it. Then he looked up. The entire ceiling was covered in giant, bulbous sugarplums.
Some were hairy. Some had tiny legs. Some were on fire. Each of them seemed to be staring at Shaw even though they possessed no eyes.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Shaw said. He swung one of his chain hooks over his head and let it go in the direction of the sugarplums. They scattered like roaches as the hooks cut into several of them.
The sugarplums that were hit fell to the ground, wounds gaping multicolored blood and fruit viscera. The scurrying survivors flew into the air and surrounded Shaw as he swung his second chain hook over his head. A sugarplum with an appendage that resembled an axe flew directly at him, but Shaw managed to duck just in time. He swung his weapon and managed to hit a dozen more, sending chunks everywhere.
One of those chunks landed right in Shaw’s mouth and slid down his throat.
“Goddamnit!” he said, nearly choking. It only took a few seconds for it to take effect.
As he stared at the room full of sugarplums, the colors grew brighter until everything was overly saturated. The walls turned to liquid, the sugarplums turned to fiery monster faces, and furniture made of chicken legs appeared in the middle of the room. A table shook, the grains in the wood cracking to form a mouth. It said, “Come have a seat, have a seat, have a seat.”
Shaw closed his eyes. Using only his instinct, he swung both chain hooks while spinning in a circle, hoping to kill each and every sugarplum or talking piece of furniture in the room.
He felt his hooks hit things but couldn’t tell what they hit. Finally, he dropped to the floor in exhaustion. “Just fucking kill me,” he said. He felt a sugarplum crawl onto his face and fart, sending poison gas down his throat.
The Elf Piercer was dead.
XXII.
While his partners were fighting their own battles, Aleph walked through the front part of the house. He tried to keep telepathic communication open but could only hear muffled voices.
The room he was in looked like
it was decorated by a madman or in this case, a madwoman. Wigs of every color and style were hung on the walls and dozens of model airplanes dangled from the ceiling. The furniture consisted of large metal barrels covered in lacy throw pillows.
Aleph held his sword poised for action.
This assignment had really turned sour. When he was first asked to join the Elves of Fuck, he was eager for the adventure. Correcting infidelities through surveillance and violence seemed like a fun way to earn money. Aleph had always taken his job seriously, but he was starting to lose the passion and heart he’d had in his early years with the company. To make matters worse, because of recent budget cuts, he felt it was harder to justify the hard work
with the meager salary.
This will be the last job and then I find something else. I take care of this crazy bitch, rescue Santa Claus, and then I’m out.
As Aleph walked into the next room, he saw Santa Claus standing against the wall, smiling.
“Santa?” the elf said. “Are you okay? Your wife hired me. I’m here to rescue you.”
“Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!” Santa said. He took a few steps forward and that’s when Aleph smelled the peppermint.
The woman must have been standing there the entire time but Aleph hadn’t seen her. For the first time in years, Aleph felt himself aroused by the sight of a human woman. She was beautiful. Simply beautiful.
He was eye-level with her massive breasts. They called to him. Bury yourself in us...Lick the sweat from underneath these mountains.
Aleph shook himself loose from the woman’s mental grasp and ran forward with his sword. The woman dodged out of the way like a sexy cheetah.
“Oh, look. It’s a naked little elf,” she said, sending a fist to the back of Aleph’s head. Again he slashed with his blade and managed to cut Kay across the arm. Her blood fell to the floor with a splat.
The blood bubbled and grew into several chunks of hairy, black flesh. They rolled in front of Santa Claus, who was still grinning like an idiot.
Kay said, “Oh, look at what you’ve done, you dumb little thing.” She punched at the elf again but Aleph blocked the attack with his arm.
The woman was strong. Aleph’s head hurt like hell but he still slashed several times at Kay, missing each time. She was fast, too.
Finally, he said, “What the fuck did you do to him?” Kay laughed. “Whatever do you mean? What makes you think I did anything to him? He and I are lovers, you know. Have been for years. Who are you to get in the way of true love?” She walked over to the chunks of flesh and spat on them.
Aleph was about to rush her again when he saw the chunks start to grow until they were the size of infants. The pieces of hairy flesh formed into miniature apes with red faces.
Kay proudly stood next to them. “Here you go, little elf. Meet the red faces of god!”
The apes ran to Aleph, grunting and pounding their little fists in the air. He slashed down with his sword, catching one of the creatures in the head. Its split skull opened up and spat out sugarplums. Another slash of the sword and two apes were decapitated. Their tiny heads rolled to Kay’s feet. She screamed.
“How dare you!”
Seeing her rage only made Aleph more determined to hack his way through the angry apes. One of them got to Aleph and grabbed his penis. It pulled and pulled while the elf pounded the ape’s head with the handle of his sword. “For fuck’s sake, get the hell off my dick!”
The red-faced ape grinned and pulled harder. Finally, there was the tearing of flesh and Aleph’s penis was ripped off and in the ape’s mouth.
Kay laughed. She jumped forward and grabbed Aleph’s neck. Face to face with the woman, the elf could smell her sweet peppermint breath.
“Oh, you’d fit perfectly in my bitch-box. You want to be my bitch, dear?” she said. “Drink my piss, eat my—” Kay screamed.
Aleph hadn’t seen Gimel walk into the room. He hadn’t seen the elf take his giant bone-penis glove and shove it up Kay’s skirt. But that’s what happened.
Kay’s hands dropped from Aleph’s neck and she fell to her knees with Gimel’s hand still inside her. “Get the fuck out of me!” she screamed.
Gimel was in a trance. He pushed his fist in, pulled it out a tiny bit, and shoved it in again, deeper and harder than before. Kay let out a howl like a dying baboon.
Once he got his bearings, Aleph brought his sword up and brought it down on the woman’s neck.
Kay’s head rolled over to Santa’s feet. Her neck gushed sugarplums that smelled like peppermint and menstrual blood. “Fucking hell,” Gimel said.
“Yeah.” Aleph dropped his sword and fell over, exhausted. He looked over at Santa. The jolly, fat man was still staring into space, grinning like an idiot.
XXIII.
“He’s a goddamn zombie!” Diana shouted. “Look at him! He just sits there all day, drooling and mumbling about that woman!”
Smitty listened to Diana as she vented. It had been a week since Christmas and Santa showed no sign of getting better. “I know, Diana. I’m sorry.”
“All day I have to hear about her beautiful tits, her delicious spit, her heavenly piss. I swear if I have to hear about it one more time, I’m going to kill myself.”
“Take it easy, Diana. Aleph’s going to be here any minute. He said he’d see if there was a way to help Santa so let’s just wait and see. No use getting more upset until we
know if there’s anything we can do.”
Diana sighed. “Yeah, I know.”
There was a flash of light and Aleph stood in front of them, naked and with a bandage over his crotch. “Hello Mrs. Claus...Mr. Smitty.”
“What’d you find out?” Diana said.
“Well,” Aleph said. “Kay, the woman who kidnapped your husband, we couldn’t find anything more on her even after we did the initial search of the house. But here’s the weird part. A few days later we went back to the town, only to find that the town had.. .disappeared.”
Diana’s jaw fell open. “What are you talking about?” “The town .I knew there was something strange about it, but I didn’t think it was that significant. I thought it was limited only to Kay. But now it’s as if the town was never there.” Smitty said, “Maybe you guys weren’t checking the right place. Maybe you got lost or something.”
“No,” Aleph said. “The city of Tusk never existed, at least not in that form. We did find some other information...about a small village named Tusk from the fourth century. It may or may not be related to our situation.” “What? What about it?” Diana said.
“Nevermind that. It’s not going to help your situation.” Aleph didn’t want to go into detail and risk having a vengeful wife on his hands. “I do have good news, though.” Diana’s face got considerably less upset. “What? Is my husband going to get better?”
“Well, yeah. But it’s a good news, bad news sort of thing.” Smitty spoke up. “What’s the good news?”
“The good news is Mr. Claus will go back to his old self.” Diana looked hesitant. “And the bad news?”
Aleph sighed. “It’s going to take about five years.”
XXIV.
Diana handed Smitty a bottle of beer. “So, did you think about it?”
“Yeah. All night.”
“So?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t made a decision,” he said. “What do you think?”
“It’s not the type of decision I can make for you.”
“I know.” Smitty drank the beer in one gulp. “But a squidfoot delivering Christmas presents? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“But it’s only for five years.”
“Ha! Only for five years,” Smitty said. He threw the beer bottle into the trash and started to pace back and forth.
“You like kids, don’t you? You always say you like seeing them happy?”
“Yeah__ ”
“Well then?”
Smitty sighed, his tentacles drooping to the floor. “But what if
I’m no good at it? What if I ruin Christmas for everyone?”
Diana stood up and put her arms around him. She gestured to a large box in the middle of the room. “Then I’ll put you in my bitch-box.”
Smitty laughed and kissed her back. He put his face into her hair and inhaled her scent. His nose wiggled.
Diana had always smelled so nice, but there was something different this time. Was it a new shampoo? A new perfume? What was that smell?
Was that … peppermint?
Jeff Burk is a guy I drink with regularly. He’s a diehard punk with a dreaded mohawk who’s always excited to talk about gore movies, Star Trek, Grant Morrison comics, and crack rock steady bands. He is the author of the bestselling bizarro book, Shatnerquake, about William Shatner battling other William Shatners Die Hard style. He’s also written the choose your own adventure parody Super Giant Monster Time and the forthcoming books HomoBomb and Pot Head. When I mentioned I wanted to do this Christmas anthology, he claimed the Frosty story. He said, “I don’t know what I’m going to write yet, but I want to put Frosty through hell. ” I told him to go for it. Frosty had it coming to him.
So sit back with a nice glass of brandy eggnog and enjoy this tale of the snowman who was brought to life with a little Christmas magic . . .
FROSTY & THE FULL MONTY
Frosty the Snowman stepped onto the stage for the third time that night. With one icy hand he grabbed the stripper pole and swung his hips to Bing Crosby’s voice crooning over the club’s PA system.
A gang of bikers crowded the club. Every seat was filled with tattooed, leather jacketed, pierced members of The Crack Pipe Kings Motorcycle Club. They had been here all night, just like last night and the night before.
Frosty didn’t know why they were always there. He figured they liked the girls of the club and he was a snowman. But he seemed to be their favorite and they did tip very well.
Christmas on Crack Page 4