“In case you haven’t noticed, nobody makes that stuff anymore.”
“Actually,” Ryan smiled, “I found a bunch of hard candy in the grocery store. I’m pretty sure that some of it might still be edible.”
“After over three years?”
“It’s not like hard candy spoils. As long as no holes were made in the package, it should still be okay. And after this long…even if it’s stale, who’d notice?”
“And the Barbie?” Rindy prodded.
“A bit more difficult,” Ryan conceded. “But there has to be one in that town, if not in the store. We may have to wash it up a bit, but that is no biggie.”
“I still don’t like it,” Rindy scowled.
“Keep up that attitude and Santa won’t bring you anything,” Ryan laughed again and left.
Rindy laid on her back staring up at the ceiling. There’s no such thing as Santa Claus, Rindy thought. Still, she couldn’t help but let her mind wonder a bit. Had it really been over a decade since she sat on Santa’s lap? She’d been six—only a year younger than Amber is now—and it would be the last year that she believed. All thanks to Richard Gulley…the stupid boy that sat in front of her in Miss Miller’s class.
A dress, she thought. How wonderful would it be to wear girl’s clothes again? And strawberries. Take that, Santa. Rindy drifted off thinking of pretty dresses and bowls of red, ripe strawberries. As she slept, she smiled.
The next morning, Ryan was gone. He must have gotten up awfully early. Rindy was awake an hour before sunrise and already fitted out to do some hunting. Penny was a whiz at curing and drying meat. It would be wise to stock up now. Better too much than not enough. Corporal Morgan taught her that.
When she came back from hunting, nobody was outside. That wasn’t such a big deal considering that it had been raining all day. Rindy was soaked, and couldn’t wait to warm up in front of the fire.
As soon as she opened the door, she went on her guard. It was silent. Drawing her machete, she crept down the entry hall. She could see the flickering glow of the fireplace and hear the occasional pop of burning wood.
Reaching the end of the hall, she paused and took a deep breath. She couldn’t smell anything. At least not anything dead. Cautiously, from a crouch well below eye-level just like Corporal Morgan taught, she peeked around the corner.
“Surprise!” Penny, Amber, and Brad yelled.
In the corner, a huge pine tree reached almost up to the twenty foot high vaulted ceiling. Sparkling decorations of all kinds glittered in the light of the fire. Underneath it was a dozen packages wrapped in…
“We found some fancy dresses in a box. Fortunately, the woman must have been huge, so there was plenty of material,” Penny laughed.
“Penny said that a Christmas tree would help Santa Claus find us, “Amber squealed with delight.
Rindy glanced at Penny and Brad who stood behind the excited little girl with dopey grins on their faces. She slid the machete back in its sheath and walked the rest of the way into the room. “It’s really nice, Amber,” she said trying her best to sound enthusiastic.
As soon as she was able to pry herself away from the happy little girl, she went to the kitchen to clean the two rabbits she’d bagged. She was just finishing wrapping up the waste and cleaning up the area when she heard Penny scream.
Drawing her blade, Rindy rushed toward the commotion. She heard Amber’s crying above everything else, and it wrapped around her stomach like an icy fist. Reaching the door, she skidded to a stop. “Step away from him,” Rindy said surprised at the calm in her voice.
Everyone was gathered around Ryan. He looked up at her, the knowledge already in his eyes. His face was waxy and covered in sweat. Rindy only glanced briefly at the left arm wrapped in bloody rags.
Penny was verging on hysterics, which in turn amplified the stress to both Amber and Brad. Rindy took a deep breath, the smell of death tickling her nostrils, fouling her mouth with its rank familiarity. She walked down the stairs, and as she reached Brad, she guided him over next to his sister. Then, with a gentle nudge, she sent Penny to stand beside the children. With very little effort, she’d managed to get the three in a group and place herself between them and Ryan.
“You shouldn’t have gone alone,” Rindy whispered. Then, louder, “Everybody go back inside.”
“What are you going to do?” Penny sniffled.
“Inside,” Rindy repeated, keeping her eyes on Ryan.
“Go!” Ryan added, looking past Rindy.
The two waited, Rindy never taking her eyes off Ryan until the door closed with a loud, ominous click. Once they were alone, he unslung the pack from his shoulders and held it out to Rindy.
“Found a couple of Barbies, and a surprising amount of candy that wasn’t ruined,” Ryan said, then coughed. “Also, found a little .22 pistol that you could probably teach Brad to shoot, earrings for Penny…she said she’d never owned diamonds before, so I figured—”
“You shouldn’t have gone alone,” Rindy snapped, cutting him off. “Is this supposed to make Christmas better? You going off and getting yourself killed to bring us things?”
Ryan hung his head, instantly taking the steam out of her anger. “I just wanted everybody to have something special,” Ryan rasped.
“And so your present to me is…what?” Rindy waived her machete in the air and pointed it at his injured arm. “I get to watch you die, then put you down?”
“Jesus, kid,” Ryan looked up.
“I’m not a kid,” Rindy snapped back.
“Well maybe you should try it every once in a while,” Ryan smiled. “That’s why I did this.” He shook the pack that Rindy still hadn’t taken from him. “It makes me sad to see somebody so young…who never had the chance to be a teenager…act like a freakin’ soldier. And the way Amber looks up to you…well…I just wanted her to have a moment of childhood before you turn her into a Rindy action-figure.
“I just wanted to give her a Christmas morning, one last visit from Santa Claus, before she’s drafted into your army.” Ryan slumped, and the pack fell from his hand. He seemed to melt as he slowly sunk to the ground. He lay still for a moment. Rindy grabbed the pack and removed it from between her and Ryan. Her eyes stayed fixed on the prone figure in the mud at her feet. The first sign came from the left hand: it twitched once…twice…then curled into a claw, digging furrows in the saturated earth. The head began to rise; a dry, rattling moan escaped its lips. The face that looked up at Rindy was a lifeless, slack caricature of Ryan.
With one swing, she brought the machete down smashing through the crown of the skull with hand-numbing finality. The body collapsed to the ground as she wrenched the blade free. “There is no such thing as Santa Claus,” Rindy whispered.
That afternoon they stood over the grave that Rindy dug by herself. She’d also dragged the body, dumped it into the hole, and covered it alone. When she was done, she went inside and gathered everybody. Penny had found a bible, and read Psalms 23. Then, each of them said something nice about Ryan and returned inside.
That night, she and Penny wrapped the items they had found in the pack. Together, they agreed to wait a week to celebrate Christmas. It just didn’t seem right to skip it after Ryan had gone through so much to make it happen.
The night they declared as Christmas Eve, Penny recited as much as she could recall of T’was the Night Before Christmas. She and Rindy tucked Amber in, then went downstairs and set out the rest of the presents. Penny went to bed, leaving Rindy alone in front of the tree. She sat for a while listening to the rain. With a yawn, she got up ready for a little sleep till Amber woke the house.
Rindy Farmer peeked out from the shadowy doorway. This house had been a good find sitting all by itself on a hill looking out over a vastness that everyone was pretty sure had to be somewhere in Wyoming. A steady rain continued to fall adding to the gloom felt by everybody the past few days.
Maybe tomorrow would help pull them out of it. Before closing the door, her eyes tri
ed to find the outline of the marker where she buried Ryan. “Merry Christmas,” she whispered into the darkness.
As expected, Amber woke everybody bright and early. Rindy rolled over, the chill in the room cold enough to turn her exasperated exhale to a visible fog.
“Rindy!” Amber burst into the room, a ball of child-generated electricity. “Santa came! Come look!” Then the child dashed out. The sound of another door being flung open was followed by “Penny! Santa came! He came!”
Brad stumbled into Rindy’s room. “We’d better go downstairs before she explodes,” he yawned.
Rindy sat up and threw the covers aside. Instantly her body was pebbled with goose bumps. She looked out her window, but it was so fogged over that she couldn’t see. All that she could tell was that the sun hadn’t risen yet. The faintest hint of light was barely discernable.
As quickly as possible, she pulled on a few layers of clothes. Finally satisfied, she went out into the hallway. Amber stood at the head of the stairs dancing excitedly from one foot to the other. She was barefoot, and wearing the long flannel shirt she normally slept in.
“C’mon, Rindy!” she pleaded, darting to her and grabbing her hand.
Penny and Brad came in their wake as they headed down the stairs. Rindy was already trying to figure out how to get this done as quickly as possible in order to get in some hunting. Christmas or not, they needed to continue stocking up on food.
Reaching the landing halfway down the stairs, Rindy froze. She could see outside through the giant picture window. The ground was covered in a blanket of pure white. A wave of warmth hit her, drawing her attention to the fireplace where, mysteriously, a raging fire roared. But that was only the first surprise.
Spilled out across the floor were brightly wrapped packages complete with bows and dangling tags. Three red stockings hung from the mantle above the fireplace, giant candy canes poking from each one. Rubbing her eyes, Rindy continued down the stairs in slow, halting steps. She glanced back at Penny who was wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Brad scooted past, joining Amber in the final dash towards the sea of presents.
As Rindy reached the final steps, Amber hurried back to her, a Barbie clutched in one hand. The other hand shot out holding an envelope. “This has your name on it!” she giggled, then ran back to join her brother who was wading into the pile.
Rindy looked down at the tiny, waxy envelope in her hand. Her name was written elaborately across the top. A picture emblazoned on the front showed a cluster of bright red strawberries. She shook the envelope, hearing the whispering rattles of the tiny seeds inside.
“This one’s for you, too!” Brad came up to her with a package wrapped in blue foil, with a silver bow. The tag that dangled from it was in the same script with her name.
Sitting on the stairs, she opened the package to discover a beautiful black dress. Her eyes began to water a bit. She blinked to clear them and noticed something written on the back of the tag. She picked it up and read: Yes, Rindy, there is a Santa Claus.
Story Art Cover
By Robert Elrod
http://www.RobertElrodLLC.com
Dedication
To everyone who still enjoys the magic of the season
Author Bio
Robert Freese has had short stories published in various print and electronic publications including The Random Eye, Dark-Fiction Ezine, Morbid Musings, Blood Moon Rising, Alternate Realities, Dream Passage, Scream Queens Illustrated, Bloodletters, Crimson and Werewolf Magazine as well as the anthologies Forrest J. Ackerman Presents: The Anthology of the Living Dead, Blood From the Underground Volume II, Dark Jesters and 100 Stories for Haiti.
Christmas 2009 saw the release of his sci-fi/horror novella The Santa Thing from Stone Garden Publishing. October 2010 will see the release of his zombie novel Bijou of the Dead (which concerns the living dead attacking a grindhouse theater during a slasher movie double feature) and Paranormal Journeys, which he co-wrote with paranormal investigator Paul Cagle (both from Stone Garden Publishing).
In addition to his fiction work, Robert writes for a number of film magazines including The Phantom of the Movies' Videoscope Magazine, for which he contributes reviews and interviews, and Scary Monsters Magazine, the home of his cult column The Cosmic Drive-in. (He was nominated for a Rondo Award for his work in Videoscope in 2010.)
He currently lives in Alabama with his wife Frances. Check out www.robertfreese.com for more on his work.
Living Dead Babes in Toyland
By Robert Freese
Dr. Anton Phibes smashed the red warning button, instantly putting the entire compound on automatic lockdown. People ran from office to office, from laboratories and testing rooms, cramming the corridors, their arms filled with papers and computer disks, as the giant steel security doors rolled down over all the exits from the building.
44-45 Dioxin would have revolutionized how wars were fought in the future. Dead soldiers would be transformed into the ultimate killing machines, resurrected from the ashes of death with armor-like skin, heightened senses and a driving force to destroy and kill.
Feeling the first choking effects of the biogas, Phibes grabbed his throat while gasping for air. Invisible and odorless, the gas was everywhere. Blood began seeping freely from his ears and eyes. The blood was black, which meant the gas was already changing the cells in his body.
Pressure built steadily in his skull. It felt as if his head was ready to blow apart. His last coherent thought before the intensely building pain in his body gave way to a warm numbness was the hope that he had been able to contain the gas before it got free of the laboratory.
* * *
The bus cut through the night like a bullet tearing through a paper target. It was traveling fast, but there was no one else out on the city roads at this late hour.
Inside, members of the Roanoke Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Babes were celebrating their skull thumping victory over the Bay City Shooting Stars. Some played cards while others talked to spouses on cell phones, promising to be home soon for the holidays. The roller derby gals were loud and boisterous, adrenaline from the match still coursing through their bruised and sore but shapely bodies.
Many were yelling from the back of the bus to the front in an attempt to personally get the bus driver’s attention.
“Yo, Marty,” Gorgeous Gams Glenda, really Mary Sue Cochran from Minneapolis, hollered to the driver over the ruckus of the girls. “Are you gonna stop somewhere soon so we can grab a bite to eat? I’m starvin’ back here!”
“There ain’t nowhere to stop,” Marty hollered back once he pin-pointed Gorgeous Gams in the giant rearview mirror. “This town rolled up its sidewalks hours ago.”
“Stop anywhere,” Luscious Lips Lucinda, really Nancy Barrett-Johnson from Corinth, chimed in. “Tacos, pancakes, greasy burgers, anything.”
The driver found her in the mirror. “I said as soon as I find a place I’ll stop so leave me the hell alone. All right?”
Luscious Lips replied silently with a quick finger gesture.
Jesus, he thought, staring at them all in the rearview mirror. Twenty-three years driving bus for the public school system and grade school kids were better behaved than these mean bitches. He hated when they left a match because the girls were always so wound up, restless and hungry. That trifecta always guaranteed they would be major pains in his ass.
Looking back at the road he yelped when he made out the shape of a man stumbling across the road. The way he was walking suggested the guy was either drunk or injured. The poor sap never even looked up and saw the oncoming bus that was swooping down upon him, about to turn him into a smear of grandma’s homemade strawberry jam.
“Hold on!”
Instinct made Marty attempt to swerve the bus out of the path of the stumbling man, even though he knew it was a wasted effort. The guy was a bloody bag of smashed parts before he even knew what hit him.
Tires screeching, breaks shrieking, Marty fought with the steering wheel to keep t
he bus on the road.
Swerving too sharply; the bus glided across the rain coated street, finding a thin patch of ice and lost traction. Jumping the curb, the bus took out a mail box, bounced off a lamppost and then smashed through the dark and empty storefront of Frannie’s Cake Emporium. Holiday cakes adorned with smiling snowmen, Christmas trees and various renditions of Santa Claus wishing season’s greetings scattered as the bus exploded into the bakery.
Marty’s head disintegrated as his body was flung through the windshield, bursting like some sort of exotic pink fruit, his bald pate tearing open and splashing blood and brains.
Between the rocketing out of control and then the sudden stop, the members of the Roanoke Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Babes tumbled and flew from one end of the bus to the other. The audible snapping of bones was drowned out only by the shocked screams as the girls’ bodies were thrown about.
When it was over, the world was quiet. Blood dripped from the ceiling of the bus and flowed freely from lacerations and raw stumps, pooling on the floor in great puddles. Some of the girls groaned and cried while others were deathly silent.
None were even faintly aware of the odorless gas that wafted through the smashed windows, gently touching each one of them. When the girls still holding onto a filament of life felt the first effects of the gas it was already too late.
* * *
“What the hell do you think that was?” Lenny Danvers smoked a cigarette with the others on the loading dock of the Toyland Castle of Smiles toy store.
“Had to have been some kind of accident,” Ziggy said, waving his hand in the air, making a trail of cigarette smoke.
“It could have been a transformer blowing,” Dale said. He was eating potato chips and drinking a soft drink purchased from the break room vending machines.
The Undead That Saved Christmas Page 8