The woman on TV put her hand to her ear, listening.
She continued, I’ve just been informed that once the crabs reach full growth, they seem to be sprout laser guns from one of their claws. Yes, laser guns. They are rampaging across cities everywhere, and apparently now shooting people with lasers.
Rainey showed up.
“Mom! What’s going on?” Staci hugged her.
“We’ve got to get that crab out of here,” Rudy said.
There were shouts of, “Crab?!” and “What crab?”
Rainey grabbed her husband by the shoulders. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
“No way!” Rudy ran to the door, barring it with outstretched arms.
Skipp asked, “Dad, what the hell?”
An explosion boomed outside the house, bits of things pattered against the walls and windows. There were screams. The car alarms stopped.
“We are not letting some stupid crabs ruin Christmas!” He shook it off and settled down. Calmly, he said, “It’s nearly time for dinner. Now, your mother worked very hard on cooking a ham and turkey, and they’ll be done soon, right, Babe?” He looked to Rainey.
“What? Uh. Yeah. I guess. I mean, I put ‘em in at seven. So. Couple hours.”
“So we’re gonna get that crab out of here and we’re going to eat our Christmas dinner in,” he checked his watch, “about two hours. Right?”
Rainey shrugged and went to her husband, taking his hands in hers. “Sure, okay.”
“Okay.” He went to the fireplace and grabbed a poker. “Skipp, get the swords from the den and come with me and your grandpas to fight the crab in the bathroom. Everyone else, maybe warm up some more cocoa. Or help Rainey with the cooking. I want to smell some pumpkin spice or apple pie!” Rudy charged up the stairs with Skipp and the old men in tow.
“I should call home,” Belinda said.
“So did this thing have a laser?” Hector asked outside the bathroom door. He hefted one of the swords and coughed.
“No. But that was a while ago.”
They could hear the crab in the bathroom, rustling over porcelain and splashing in the tub. It skittered and screeched. Rudy assumed it grew each time it did that. It could grow a laser at any moment.
He raised his poker and counted in a loud whisper, “One, two, three!”
Gerald opened the door and the other three rushed toward the crab, bludgeoning and screaming as they ran.
Hector’s head disappeared in a flash of red light which erupted from the right claw of the tremendous crab that was backed up in the corner near the toilet. The old man’s headless body was snatched up by the crab.
Skipp hacked off the laser claw in one screaming swipe of his sword. He brought the blade up as the crab’s mouth- parts snapped at his head, and jammed it straight into its nasty maw. Rudy bashed its eyes into scraggled, twitching worms and cracked most of its legs with three seconds of pure fury.
A flailing claw caught Gerald across the head as he rushed in, and the old man was tossed back into the bedroom in an unconscious heap.
Skipp tried to free the sword from his dead grandpa’s fist as the crab smashed Hector into the walls and floor of the bathroom again and again, shrieking blindly around the blade shoved into its face.
Rudy hacked at the top of the crab’s shell with the poker, cracking it. He pounded open a divot in the fleshy armor.
The crab shrieked and grew while it fought to survive—it went crazy, stinking of seawater and something putrid, hissing and screaming with its remaining barbed legs kicking madly.
Once Skipp had the sword, it was only a matter of two quick chops through the top of the crab’s dented armor before it collapsed, a twitching mass of stringy guts and flopping, crusty limbs.
Rudy and his son fell back into the bedroom, slicking guts, blood, and slime off of themselves as they struggled to stand.
Staci and Belinda stood in the doorway.
“Holy shit!” Staci yelled, “That thing killed Grandpa Hector!”
Hector’s body, with its cauterized neck, was still flopping around in the mess of twitching giant crab.
Belinda barfed into her hands. The girls backed away from the door, crying.
Rudy went to Gerald. The old man came around after a few slaps. He was soon on his feet.
Everyone stumbled downstairs.
Rainey poked her head around the corner. She had a tray of rolls in her hands. “How did it go?”
Rudy shook his gory head. “Rainey. We lost your dad.”
“Oh, no,” she said. She nearly dropped the rolls.
Julette cried from around the corner, “Hector? Hector?”
Skipp took the baking sheet from his mom and put the rolls in the oven. Staci hugged her crying grandma.
Belinda ran to the bathroom, dripping vomit.
“Not Dad,” Rainey said. She held onto Rudy.
“He saved us,” Rudy said. “How long until the meat’s ready?”
Rainey choked back tears, “Any time, really. We’re waiting for rolls and mom’s mashing the potatoes. Right, mom?”
“Not anymore I’m not! You take me to Hector!” the old woman screamed at Rudy.
“I’ll take you, Grandma,” Staci said. She went with Julette upstairs.
Belinda came out of the bathroom with clean hands and face and said, “Fuck this, I’m outta here.” She went to the door, snatching her coat from the rack and pulling it on.
Skipp yelled, “No, Belinda, there’s crabs out there!”
She opened the door and ran outside. Skipp, Rudy, and Rainey followed. Gerald sat down and fell asleep in front of the TV. Lydia was making apple pie and just couldn’t stop.
“Wait!” Skipp called. He didn’t want Belinda getting
killed. He was secretly in love with her.
Belinda stalked down the driveway. “I’m going home!” she yelled.
“We were just about to watch home movies from past Christmases!” Rudy told her.
“You’re crazy!” she said.
The Asshole’s door opened just then and Brian came staggering outside.
He looked over at the group in the driveway and said, “Don’t add water.” He slumped to the ground face-first, his sunglasses skittering across the icy drive. Everyone could see that his back had been torn open nearly to his front. Blood shot from his heart in gouts, staining the snow.
Two crabs leapt from the Asshole’s open door, shrieking and scampering toward the people standing in the drive.
A laser beam streaked through the air and hit Belinda in the chest. Blackened, singed down puffed into the air. Belinda flew backward and tumbled through the snow. She sighed, “Fuck you,” and died.
“No!” Skipp shouted, running toward the smoking girl.
His dad snatched him by the collar and hauled him toward the house as one crab grabbed Brian in both claws and pulled him apart over its mouth, sucking his guts loudly, and the other raced for Belinda.
Rudy and Rainey hauled their son through the door and slammed it behind them.
Staci came down the stairs. “Where’s Belinda?”
“She went home,” Rudy told her. “It’s time for ice skating. Where’s your grandma?”
“Ice skating? She’s up in your room, crying about grandpa. What exactly happened to his head?”
“Laser,” Skipp panted. “Just poofed it away.”
“Everyone get your gear, we’re going skating in the park. Staci, get your grandma.”
“But what about dinner, honey?” Rainey frowned. “It’ll be perfect timing. We’ve got over an hour. Let’s put the pies in the oven, get some foil on those rolls, and skate!” He herded his nearest family members toward the coat rack in the foyer.
Lydia put pies in the oven and wrapped up the rolls. “I’m not skating on a pond!” she yelled. Under her breath, she said, “That’s how people die.”
Skipp said, “Dad. Skating? There’s giant crabs running around out there. With lasers.”
&nbs
p; “That’s true, son. So get the shotguns.”
Skipp ran upstairs.
While the family put on coats and retrieved the ice skates Rudy had so carefully packaged for each of them, Skipp and his sister returned with Julette.
The wailing grandma said, “I’m not going skating! Hector is dead! DEAD!” She sat on the stairs and cried.
Skipp handed his dad a shotgun. He unslung a bag from his back. “There’s hundreds of shells, Dad.”
“I was gonna shoot a lot of ducks, Skipp.” He loaded the shotgun, nodding at his son to do the same with his. “Julette, you’re going. Grab your skates. They’re in that box there that says, Hector and Julette s Skates.”
The old lady cried harder.
“Daaaad,” Staci said.
“Put as many shells in your pockets as you can, Skipp,” Rudy said, stuffing his own pockets full. “Let’s go, everyone. Julette! Get your coat. Staci, help your grandma, will ya?” He hung his skates from his neck as he had everyone else’s and pushed his family out the door.
They huddled in the driveway, Rudy waved his shotgun toward the street. There were no people visible outside. Something exploded far away. Glass tinkered a few doors down. Snow was gently falling.
Skipp pointed his gun at the Assholes’ house. He whispered, “Dad, where’s the bodies?”
Julette staggered outside, barely supported by her granddaughter. She was dressed in a black coat and wore a white hat. She carried her skates.
Staci let her go when they reached the crowd. She pointed at the yard. “What’s all this blood from?”
“Crabs,” said Skipp.
Lydia said, “I’m not skating. Can’t I just go back and check on the pies?”
“You’re skating, Mom,” Rudy said. “Come on, everyone.” He led the shuffling crowd arm-in-arm across the street and down the path to the park.
Scuffling sounds inside the Merced’s house startled them as they passed. Wood cracked, and things thudded on the floor. The group hurried down the path, still in a tight group.
Skipp craned to see inside the window as they passed, but only saw shadows.
“Dad?” he asked.
“Keep moving,” Rudy said.
He led them into the park, past the frozen fountain, and to the edge of the pond.
“Where’s mom?” he asked, when he looked over the group.
Everyone looked around and shook their heads. They sat and started putting on their skates. Except Julette. She said, “What, there’s no bench?”
Gerald said, “You know your mother. She probably went back to check on the pies when we weren’t looking.”
“When weren’t we looking?” Rudy asked.
His father shrugged.
“Okay,” Rudy said. He sat in the snow with his shotgun over his knees and put on his skates. The snow gently fell. He felt pretty good, despite his mother sneaking off. Her fear of frozen ponds really bothered him sometimes.
“Dad, what’s that?” Staci asked, pointing at the playground.
“Crab!” yelled Skipp. He jumped up onto his skates, though he hadn’t tied the left one.
The crab skittered around the jungle gym/slide thing. Its claws clacked.
“Let’s get it, Skipp,” Rudy said, creeping forward through the snow.
“We should just get out of here,” Rainey said.
Julette, Gerald, and Staci agreed.
“Shhhhhh!” Rudy said. He motioned for Skipp to follow him.
When they were twenty feet from the giant crab’s hiding place, they could see its legs through the tunnels and gaps in the gym. It shuffled back and forth, clacking its enormous claws.
Rudy motioned for Skipp to go around one side of the equipment, and he crept around the other.
An eye-stalk shot out from around the slide. Rudy hefted his gun and fired—shattering plastic, wood, and crab-eye into bloody spray. The crab screeched and jumped backward into the air. Rudy could hear his family yelling from the pond’s edge. He ran toward the crab.
Skipp fired as the monstrosity flew toward him screeching and snapping its claws. A laser beam arced through the air, slicing the swingset to the ground, melting snow in a wide line, and burning into a house behind the park. The crab’s guts exploded as buckshot punched through its belly and blew out its armored back.
A snapping mass of stringy guts and claws landed on the boy, knocking him to the ground. He fired the shotgun again as he fell, blasting more of the crab, including its mouthparts and remaining eye into pulp. The crab pinned Skipp to the snow, twitching and flopping.
Rudy arrived, kicking at the thing with his ice skates. He finally lifted a tangle of legs and guts off Skipp, and dragged him clear of the mess.
They gathered themselves by the merry-go-round.
Rudy wiped some of the gore from his son’s coat and face. “There,” he said, “There. Better? All good?”
“I lost a skate,” Skipp said. “It’s in the crab.”
“Oh. Well, you can skate on just one, right?”
“Well, yeah. But my foot’s wet, and gettin’ cold.”
“You’ll be fine.”
Rudy helped Skipp up. They went back to the pond and joined the others. Skipp hopped.
“Let’s go back,” Julette said when they got there.
“Not until we’ve skated,” Rudy answered cheerily. “Let’s go! Skipp, you should probably put a boot on your other foot.”
“Are you two okay?” Rainey asked.
“We should go home,” Staci said. But she hopped onto the ice.
“We’re fine,” Rudy said, wiping at Skipp’s coat. “Right, Skipp?”
“Yeah,” Skipp said, slipping his frozen foot into a boot.
Gerald helped Julette onto the ice.
Soon everyone was skating.
Julette surprised everyone but Rainey by being an excellent skater. She did some leaps and stuff—reminding Rudy of the time he took the family to SeaWorld.
Skipp skated a wide circle around the group, keeping an eye out for crabs. He saw some kids go to the playground and run away screaming.
Rudy watched his dad slip and fall about twenty times. Rainey tried to help him up for the first few minutes, but finally crawled away, pretending to look for an earring as he rolled around calling for help.
He saw Julette doing some crazy backward skating maneuvers while Staci followed after her. They whizzed past him and he spun to watch them.
Rudy and Skipp noticed the crabs at the same time.
Three of them.
They skittered and slid across the pond, heading straight for the family.
Pieces of children dropped from their claws as they approached, skidding across the ice, leaving bloody trails.
“Crabs!” Skipp yelled. He raced from the far side of the pond, hoisting his gun.
“Crabs!” Rudy yelled, pointing behind Julette and Staci.
Staci stopped, staring at the approaching crustaceans. “Shit, Grandma, crabs!” She pointed.
A laser beam shot from the crab on their left. It grazed across the surface of the pond. The beam zig-zagged back and forth, cutting the ice and opening a gap between the crabs and the backward-skating Julette.
Julette said, “What?”
She turned just in time to notice she was plunging into the water, and that three crabs skittered to a stop at the edge of the ice on the other side of a freshly lasered gap in the frozen part of the pond. Julette dropped into the water with a huge splash and a birdlike screech.
Staci stopped as she watched two of the crabs pick her grandma from the pond and pull her apart as she blubbered for breath. Blood erupted from tears in her big body, spraying the crabs and splashing into the pond.
The third crab leapt the gap. It landed poorly, and slid onto its side, careening across the ice.
Skipp hop-skated full speed toward it, unloading both barrels of the shotgun as the crab staggered to its pointy feet and scuttled at his sister.
The crab’s legs w
ere blown out from under it and it was plastered in the side with heavy shot. It slid past Staci and splashed into the pond.
Staci turned and skated to her brother, who was reloading.
The other two crabs ate their grandma, stuffing her into their chittering maws.
Rudy called, “Come the fuck on, kids!” He was at the edge of the pond, off the ice, waving at them.
Rainy and Gerald were running toward the fountain.
Crabs poured over the fence near the pond.
“Holy fuckin’ shit!” Staci yelled, pulling at Skipp. “Let’s fucking go!”
They sped across the pond as the crabs hit the ice. They met up with the family at the fountain, and all ran down the path toward home.
Between the houses, near the tall hedges that bordered part of the path, they found Lydia’s skates. And her hat. They were soaked in blood. No one stopped to investigate.
They clattered down the path in their skates.
A car drove across their lawn in front of them as they crossed the street. It went straight across their driveway, bounding up and over the Assholes’ yard, and smashed into a tree two doors down. No one seemed to be in it.
Rudy ushered everyone inside the house and slammed the door behind them.
They crumpled into a heap in the living room, panting and pulling off their skates.
It smelled like apple pie and ham in the house.
“I don’t know about anyone else, but I sure am hungry,” Rudy said.
“Lydia?” Gerald called.
“Rudy, my mom,” Rainey gasped, reaching up for him.
He helped her up from the couch and hugged her. “I know. I know. I’m sorry it was your mom that had to die, and mine who came back to make sure the pies didn’t burn.”
Staci went into the kitchen. “Gramma?” she asked.
Everyone followed.
Lydia was not in the kitchen. The pies were in the oven.
Rainey said, “Oh, I should take those out.”
“Lydia?” Gerald called loudly.
“Mom?” Rudy shouted. “Check the toilet, Dad,” he said.
Christmas on Crack Page 11