I look up at Santa.
“Do you know how this suit works?” I ask Santa.
“What that be?” he asks.
“A cabbage suit,” I say.
“Never heard of it,” he says.
Besides Burt Reynolds Elf, there are four other elves in the sleigh. Three of them are males and one female. Of the males: one has a pig nose, one has a big white unibrow, and one has his sleeve rolled up so he can show off a tough skull tattoo on his arm. As for the female, she has very long white hair and Asian eyes.
Santa’s lap is strangely comfortable. His sausage thighs are squishy and form-fitting around my butt. However, there is an odd havarti smell rising out of him that makes my nostrils shudder.
A storm cloud comes towards us as we pass over New York City. The twins are looking over the edge at the bright lights of the city. Their cotton candy hair blows in the wind.
“Arrr, this might get a bit bumpity,” Santa says as we approach the storm.
The cloud opens up and dumps piles of snow onto the streets below.
“Hmmm . . ” Santa says, squinting his eye-olives at the storm.
The cloud poofs up into a big round pillow of white and then a face forms inside. Black eyes, a black mouth, and a fluffy nose with a Hitler mustache dangling off the end.
“It’s a trap!” Santa screams, as the cloud face opens up its mouth and blows a gust of wind at our fleet of ships.
The sleigh dives down under the gust, but several transports get hit. A lightning sea turtle tips over and dozens of elves tumble through the wintry night. The fleet scatters. Lightning stingrays and seahorses slice through the air around us as we dive down between the buildings.
The giant head of Frosty comes after us. It lowers down into the city and squeezes through the New York high-rises, spitting hundreds of snowballs at us like a Tommy Gun. A lightning shark crashes into a building on our right and explodes. A lightning squid plummets toward the street from above, tentacles flailing as it falls.
“Ye bastard! ” Santa cries at the giant fluffy blob.
The lightning sea creatures crash and explode all around us. The snowy New York streets are littered with their flaming husks, as well as the mutilated bodies of a hundred elves dressed in Dungeons and Dragons outfits.
We have only one advantage: the cloud moves very slowly.
“Full speed!” Santa yells to Bald Elf who drives the big electric serpent-shaped transport.
Bald Elf nods as seahorse ships spin sideways through the air around him. He pushes forward on his joystick controls, which I guess are what steer his ship. As the snaking vehicle speeds up, a tumbling lightning crab beheads the serpent and Bald Elf is vaporized in the explosion. The passengers on the lightning snake shriek as it coils down to earth.
Santa whacks the reins and his deer speed up, pulling us far away from the Hitlery storm cloud.
I look back. Only half a dozen ships are left behind us. Tea’s squid ship is still afloat, but I don’t see Boon.
In the distance, Frosty’s giant head-shaped cloud curls its mouth downwards. Then a long smoke hand extends out of the top of his head and forms the devil sign, as he evaporates over the city.
“It’s a good thing those elves are immortal,” I tell Santa.
“Nay, me boy,” Santa says. “Elves be as mortal as you. They live long, but they die as good as any being. Only I and Frosty be the eternals in this war.”
Our broken fleet makes it to Antarctica without another incident. Unibrow Elf tells Santa that Boon’s ship, as well as several other ships, are still in the air. Most of them were scattered in different directions and got off course. Boon says he will rally them back together and meet us at the South Pole.
Over Antarctica, we pass a collection of crystal train tracks that hover in midair.
“What are those?” I ask Santa.
“Those are for the disease train,” Santa says.
The disease train carries dead bodies from America into Antarctica. Frosty uses his power over winter winds to pull the bodies of those buried in sky graves down into the Antarctic. The bodies are then put on disease trains and brought to the South Pole.
Once the corpses are frozen in the Antarctic climate, they can be possessed by coffee birds. Then they can join the ranks of the F.N.S.A. (Frosty’s Nazi Satany Army).
The train is up ahead, chugging on its tracks. It’s so high off the ground it looks like it’s flying.
“There it be,” Santa says.
He squishes one of his Vienna sausage fingers into a button on the dashboard. Loud bursts echo against the side of the sleigh and then two lollypop rockets shoot out from underneath us. They fly across the crystal tracks and then explode upon impact.
The disease train catches on fire and drops from the sky, disappearing into the white powder below.
“There it go,” Santa says.
I’m freezing by the time we arrive at the South Pole. The cabbage suit doesn’t provide any extra warmth and Santa’s heater is breaking down.
The frozen city of the South Pole is much bigger than the elven city of the North Pole, but it is even more drab and dark. Instead of elves, this city is populated by hundreds of F.N.S.A. zombies and wicked snowmen. We get in a little closer before all the zombies start to howl. They scream with their rotten frozen lungs as if some kind of signal.
“Tentacle bombs,” Santa tells me. “Push it. Quickly, lad.”
But I don’t understand what he’s talking about.
Santa groans and pushes the button himself. Bombs drop out of the bottom of the sleigh. As the bombs hit the ground they burst open and large black tentacles explode out of the containers. The tentacles swell and stretch, wrapping around the zombies and crushing their throats. Their howls subside.
“We don’t want them warning the others,” Santa says.
“I thought they all had one consciousness,” I say. “If one of them saw us wouldn’t all of them see us?”
“Nay, me laddo,” he says. “Once they split they become separate entities. They don’t share their minds until the coffee is brought back together into one pool. If we tread carefully we might still be able to catch them by surprise.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE GRINDING STATION
“There it be,” Santa says. “Frosty’s domain. The grinding station.”
Ahead I see a large black structure. It is a mess of grinding machinery. Gears and spikes and blades and cylinders chew at the air like metal jaws. Steam pours out of horns on its head.
“My kids are in there?” I ask.
“Aye,” he says. “But we’ll get them. Ye shall see, me boy.”
A massive icicle shoots out of the black metal structure like a harpoon and impales a starfish ship on our left. The icicle is attached to a chain that quickly retracts, ripping the ship back into the grinding station. The elves shriek as they are eaten alive by the machine’s crushing jaws.
“Attack!” Santa screams.
He launches five wreath-shaped missiles that spin through the air like Frisbees and explode in the mouth of the grinding station. No visible damage.
Several icicle harpoons are launched at us. Santa jerks at the reindeer and they dodge out of the way. The harpoons catch two more elf ships and reel them in. The elves jump from their seats and fall to their deaths to avoid being eaten by the grinding station.
Santa fires toy train-shaped missiles at it. No effect. More icicles are launched. Dozens this time.
“Retreat!” Santa cries.
A harpooned clam-shaped ship smashes into us, ripping through the side of the sleigh and slamming into the reindeer, as it gets reeled in by the grinding station.
The sleigh is going down.
We spiral out of control as the clam ship is crunched into the machine. Santa and the elves wail into my ears, even Decapitron cries out, as we descend.
The sleigh slams hard into the snow at the foot of the grinding station. The elves are grunting and groaning
in the backseat. I look up to see the last couple of elven ships fleeing from the harpoons and escaping the frozen city.
Santa straightens himself and widens his ear holes at the air. I hear it, too. There is a leaking sound. Like someone is going to the bathroom. Then I see it. One of the reindeer. Its belly has been torn open and it is leaking fluid. By the smell of it, I’d say the fluid is gasoline.
The olive-eyes on Santa’s face grow so wide the pimentos almost pop out.
“Run!” he cries.
We jump out and run in opposite directions away from the sleigh. Once I’m at a safe distance, I turn around. The reindeer just stands there casually for a few minutes, huffing and stomping its hooves, as it leaks gasoline from its guts.
Then the reindeer explodes.
It causes a chain reaction and each of the reindeer explode one at a time.
Santa stands above me with tears pouring down his cheeks. As the reindeers detonate into balls of flame, he names them off one by one, crying, “Now, Dasher. Now, Dancer. Now, Prancer and Vixen. On, Comet. On, Cupid. On Donner and Blitzen,” until the explosions reach the sleigh.
When the sleigh explodes, lightning spiders into the snowscape all around us. It crawls up the grinding station and electrocutes the steel structure until its gears lock up and its jaws droop open with chained harpoons drooling out down its chin.
We might have lost the sleigh and the reindeer but at least we’ve paralyzed the grinding station.
We regroup around the flaming sleigh. Burnt deer flesh fills the air.
“How are we going to get home?” I ask Santa.
“Me poor darlings,” he says, his eyes lost in the fire.
“We must push on,” Unibrow Elf says.
“Let’s focus on recovering the bag first,” Asian Elf says. “Then we’ll worry about getting home.”
The other elves nod at her in agreement.
“Frosty’s going to pay for all this,” says Burt Reynolds Elf, as the living dead fill the streets.
The zombies come at us from all sides, emptying out of the icy buildings nearby.
“There’s too many of them,” squeals Pig Nose Elf. “We should run.”
“No way,” Burt Reynolds Elf says. “We’re going to fight!”
Burt Reynolds Elf pulls two sawed-off shotguns from holsters on his thighs. Unlike the other elves, he doesn’t much care for the Dungeons and Dragons thing. He wears boots and a navy blue shirt tucked into his jeans.
The zombies dive towards him as he steps out into the open, but Burt Reynolds Elf dodges out of the way and blows their heads off at point blank range. He kills them two at a time. Their skulls become splatters of red mulch sprayed across the fresh snow. When the shotguns need to be pumped, he slams the butts of the guns against zombie foreheads while holding the pump, cocking it in the process. Then he shoots two more.
I hate to admit it, but:
Burt Reynolds Elf = fucking awesome.
Decapitron joins him. She takes a candy cane from her back and pulls on the crook of the cane. A blade slides out like a cane sword. A candy cane sword?
She charges into the zombie crowd head-first and skewers one of them with her antlers. Then she decapitates another with her candy cane sword. The twins are strapped to her back, giggling as she slices off heads and severs limbs.
The other elves don’t seem to be as tough as Burt Reynolds Elf. They stay behind, like me. They have swords and axes in their hands, but they don’t have any idea what they’re supposed to do with them. Well, except for the one with the skull tattoo. He is fidgeting with some kind of gadget in a backpack. Maybe it’s a bomb or something.
“What do we do?” I ask them.
They look at me like I’m supposed to have the answers.
“Fight for Christmas?” Pig Nose Elf asks.
I shrug at him.
“You do something,” Unibrow Elf says. “You’ve got the cabbage suit.”
“Do you know how to use it?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
He looks at the other elves, but they all just shrug at him.
Skull Tattoo Elf gets his gadget working and buckles his backpack on. It makes a loud whirring noise like that of a lawnmower. His gadget is some kind of vacuum cleaner. A hose leads from its mouth into his backpack.
“Rock!” he tells me.
I wonder if Skull Tattoo Elf listens to adventure rock . . .
He points his vacuum on the horde of zombies and they back away from him. His weapon sucks the black coffee out of the corpses’ eyes. He goes after several of them at a time. Once all of the black coffee is pulled out of a zombie its body goes limp and falls to the ground.
“This guy knows what he’s doing,” I tell the other elves.
They nod and we stay close behind him for safety.
The bodies pile up in the snow as Skull Tattoo Elf sucks the life out of the undead creatures. I can’t see Decapitron or Burt Reynolds Elf, but I can hear gunshots and the whooshing of swords on the other side of the burning sleigh. Zombies swipe at Santa as he continues to cry for his fallen reindeer, but he doesn’t seem to care.
Coffee birds that have exited the bodies of Decapitron’s victims fly over the sleigh towards us. Skull Tattoo Elf tries to vacuum them up in midair, but many of them get through. They dive into the hollow bodies lying in the snow and we find ourselves surrounded by more zombies.
Asian Elf shrieks as a rotten claw rips into her stomach. Teeth tear into her neck and rip open her arteries, spraying black blood into the wind. Elves have black blood?
Skull Tattoo Elf points his mouth at her attacker and sucks the coffee bird out of its eyes, but he’s too late. She’s already dead.
“Into the grinding station,” Skull Tattoo Elf says.
We fall back, dodging the zombies to get into the black metal building. The corpses tower over me. I’m hobbit-sized now and won’t have the strength to break free if any of them clutch onto me. Unibrow Elf and I clear the horde, but Pig Nose Elf becomes entangled in a forest of rotten arms.
“Help!” he cries. “Not me!”
Skull Tattoo Elf turns back, but there are too many of them. Pig Nose Elf disappears into the sea of massive corpses. His screams become choking coughs as black blood fills his lungs.
“Santa, come on!” I yell.
Santa is just standing there as corpses attack him. They rip open his sausage casings. Meat goo empties out into the snow.
“It’s no use, me lad,” he cries. “The sleigh is destroyed. The children won’t get their presents this year.”
“Come on!” I say.
Skull Tattoo Elf pulls me away as he sucks coffee birds out of eye sockets.
We circle the metal structure until we find the entrance. It’s electronically locked, but Unibrow Elf cracks the thirty-eight digit code so fast that it looks like he has twenty hands at work on the lock.
When the door opens, he winks at me and gives me a finger-gun with a click of his thumb.
That was pretty sly of him.
Once inside, we shut the door behind us to keep the zombies out. The others are still out there but they didn’t follow us. I don’t know what Decapitron’s problem is. We’re here to save our kids, not kill a bunch of zombies to impress an elf with a Burt Reynolds mustache. I feel like we’ve really been growing apart ever since she died.
There is a spiral staircase leading up to the brain of the facility.
“Come on,” Skull Tattoo Elf says, leading the way up the steps.
Upstairs, we arrive in a large dark room. There is crying coming from the shadows.
“What’s that?” Unibrow Elf asks.
We following the crying to a big box in the center of the room. There are barred windows on the sides of the box. The crying comes from within. I recognize that sound.
“Angelica?” I ask, peeking through the window.
I see her in there, curled around her big sister.
She looks up at me and jumps to her feet.
“Hi, Sly Fry!” she cries.
“My angel! ” I say. “Don’t worry, the Sly Guy’s here to rescue you!”
Nora doesn’t say anything. She’s weak. It looks like her wound has drooled a lot of blood. A puddle fills the floor of the box.
I look at Unibrow Elf. “How do we open it?” I ask him.
Unibrow Elf examines the cage, looking it up and down. “The top,” he says.
We can’t reach the top of the cage. The window is near the bottom, but the top stretches twelve feet into the air.
“I’ll get it,” Skull Tattoo Elf says.
He grips the vacuum tube with his mouth and climbs the side of the box. Once he gets up there, he examines the top. Doesn’t see anything. He crawls across the lid and then looks at me and shrugs.
“Angelica, how did you get in?” I ask. “The top?”
She shakes her head.
“Where then?” I ask.
She points at the window in the back.
Unibrow Elf and I circle their prison to the back window.
“Ahh,” Unibrow Elf says, nodding at the barred window here.
He pulls a latch and the window unlocks. But as it unlocks the room fills with a clanking sound.
“What’s that?” Unibrow Elf says.
We listen carefully. It is coming from the cage. It sounds almost like . . . music.
I look up. A crank on the side of the box is turning, almost like a . . .
“Get off of there!” I yell at Skull Tattoo Elf.
He looks down at me. “Huh?”
The music stops and the lid of the box bursts open, sending Skull Tattoo Elf into the air. He crashes into the ceiling and his neck snaps. Then his limp body falls to the ground with a plop.
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