Everybody started arriving for work. Judy got there first. She was in charge of the sundry items like soap, paper towels, greeting cards and magazines. Bobbie, the cosmetics lady was next followed by Rose who worked the seasonal isles and the second register. Mr. Thickett, the Pharmacist, was next and then John the photo clerk. Giovanna, the drug counter girl, came in at five of eight. I left the door opened and people immediately started coming in. I went back to the safe and got out the money from last night. At the end of the night the money from the register drop boxes are put in the safe and the manager who opens the store counts it out and records the amounts broken out into cash, checks, credit cards, coupons, etc. I took it all into the office and started counting out the money from last night. This I would do perfectly. The big money would come today.
The day dragged on and it got to be around five o’clock so I asked Bob to go and get money from the drops, take it to the office, and then go on a break. I hadn’t had him do this since before noon so I knew the drops were full. I went back to the drug counter to talk to Giovanna and Mr. Thickett while he did. This would put me there while Bob was in contact with the money. Giovanna needed to grab a smoke so I ran the counter while she was gone. A lady, Mrs. Davis, came up with a prescription and handed it to me.
“So you ready for Santa?” she said as she scratched her neck. “I hope you’ve been good.”
I smiled at her and said “Not too good,” and winked. She was a regular and smiled back. “Be about twenty minutes, you wanna wait for it?”
“Yeah I have to get a couple things,” She said and walked off.
Giovanna came back and I headed to the photo counter. I thought I’d go up and ask John if Bob had emptied his drop. I knew he had, and I knew John would say he had. More separation. After a few minutes helping out John I headed back to the office. I got there, unlocked the door, and Bob had dutifully placed the drop money on the desk in their zip-up carriers. They were bulging huge with money. I peaked inside each one and could tell there was more than five thousand dollars here, maybe even near ten thousand. I opened the back door and took the money out with a few boxes for the trash. But I thought about it and I couldn’t hide the money in the trash, someone may find it. What would I do with it? I hadn’t really thought this part out. If I hide it anywhere out there, someone could find it and take it. I needed this money to save my relationship. I needed it to get Kelly back. I needed it so bad to solve all my problems. Then it came to me. I’ll bury it. There was a small clearing of trees about a hundred yards up the back alley. I ran inside and got the shovel we used to clear snow for the trash trucks and ran up to the clearing with the money, cloaked in early winter darkness. I got there and started digging. Luckily it hadn’t been too cold out lately so the ground wasn’t frozen. I placed the money in the hole and covered it. I would call Dave and tell him I didn’t know what Bob had done with the money as soon as I got back to the office. Dave would then call the police and they would all come to the store, question Bob, and when I spoke up and said I never saw the money they would arrest him. But wait, the police would canvas the vicinity after that for the money. If they didn’t find it they would be watching the area closely making it impossible for me to retrieve the loot. This was getting really difficult.
“Why you burying the drop box money, Jim?” I heard from behind me. It was Bob’s voice.
Without hesitation I swung around, bringing the shovel to his skull, all my anger at Kelly for leaving me, at the men I knew she loved more than me, all the anger I had in the world.
Bob fell like lead to the ground. He was still moving.
“I’m gonna tell the police what you did, I’ll…” Bob threatened. Until I shoved the sharp edge of the shovel down hard on his neck, nearly severing his head.
He stopped moving.
I quickly picked up the money and then it came to me. I took the money out of each zip-up carrier and stuffed it in my shirt. I laid the empty carriers and shovel next to Bob’s body. I’d leave him there and report him and the money missing. It would look as if HE took the money and was robbed. It was PERFECT!
I ran back to the store, went in, and locked the door behind me. I had to wash Bob’s blood off of me, but first I went into the office to stow the money until I could get cleaned up and figure out what to do with it. While I was putting the money in the filing cabinet the security screen that sits on top of it caught my eye. The screens showed a view of what was going on up at the front counter. I saw something but I couldn’t really tell what it was. The whole surveillance system from cameras to viewing screens was horrible. I could tell that people were running around and there were others following after them, maybe chasing them, but not much else. Something was wrong. Is there anything else that could fuck this up for Kelly and me? I picked up the phone to call the front counters and it was dead. I still had to clean up so I went to the big janitor sink in the back room and washed up. I didn’t have as much blood on me as I thought. I finished and headed to the front of the store.
I passed the drug counter and Mr. Thickett said “Something is going on up there. I tried to call the police but the phones are dead. I’m using my cell phone now.” I no longer had a cell phone. I made Kelly get rid of hers ‘cause I thought she was using it to talk to other guys and I had to agree to get rid of mine too.
Then I heard it.
“Jiiimmy Paaugh has been a baaaad boyyy!!!” echoed loudly through the store, even louder than the screams I just realized I had somehow been blocking out. Then Judy came running toward me, bleeding heavily from the side of her neck. She was holding her hand tightly to it to try and stop the blood.
“Jim run, they’re everywhere. Six of them I think. Killing everyone and biting them.” She grabbed my drug store vest and slowly fell to the floor dead. I then noticed there was a large bite out of her neck.
I inched my way down the seasonal isle and saw Rose lying on the floor, lifeless, with a man on top of her. Blood covered his hands and face, and I noticed his head, neck, and shoulders had been spray painted a bright Christmas Green. His clothes were filthy, torn and covered in blood. It was obvious to me now that Rose was dead and this man was eating her. He stopped to look up at me, but before I could react I heard the voice again, not shouting this time but addressing me like I was a child.
“Jiiimmy Paaugh, you have been baaaad.” I looked up and saw it. Him. A man, at least I thought, in a Santa suit covered in blood and what looked like chewed flesh. He was clearly not alive, and neither were his cohorts. They all had terrible wounds that no longer bled. They simply leaked a dark, thick, fluid. I could no longer hold my stomach and I vomited all over the floor.
“You killed a man for money, Jimmy,” he continued, “And for a woman. A woman who doesn’t even want you. A woman who fucks other men behind your back. You know what that makes you, besides a murderer and a thief Jimmy? A fool. And no matter what anyone says, hell is full of fools Jimmy.”
The screams had gotten fewer and more of the green faced ghouls were gathering behind the hellish St. Nick. At that moment, Mr. Thickett came running down the isle with the drug counter’s bottle of grain alcohol. Every drug store has a bottle. It’s used to prepare certain types of prescriptions. He had broken the top off of the bottle and was able to throw its contents on the ghastly Santa. He quickly lit a match and tossed it, but just before the match hit Santa, one of his elves, who also had been doused by Thickett’s toss, grabbed the match out of the air and then burst into flames. At first he burned only where the alcohol soaked him, but then his whole body went up. He didn’t move a muscle, he just stood there, smiling, and on fire. One of the other monsters was on Thickett immediately, sinking her teeth into his neck and chewing ravenously to the bone as he died.
“Jimmy, when you’re one of us you welcome the end,” Santa smiled and said. “It’s just that it rarely comes. But when it does it’s painful. Gloriously painful and so, so sweet. Like Jesus himself. You know he loves us, Jimmy. He loves
all of us. But he loves you more, and I hate him for that Jimmy. I hate him forever. Now, as far as your people here, no one can get out, I locked the door with this Jimmy,” he stated innocently, smiling a bloody, fleshy grin. I looked and he was holding up one finger. The tip was fleshless and only bone remained. Bone sharpened to a seemingly razor sharp point.
“Fit the lock perfect. Or maybe I have a key. That’s my secret Jimmy. Santa has to have his secrets, doesn’t he? I sharpen these as often as I can. Gotta have my claws Jimmy. I’m just not Santa without my Claws. Ah hah hah hah hah!!!” he laughed, the sound of his voice clogged with the flesh in his throat. The flesh of my coworkers no doubt, or at least the customers they served. Then he opened both hands wide displaying ten fingers, all bare at the tip with the exposed bones sharpened to a fine point.
“Like ‘em don’t you, you baaaad, baaaad boyyyy?” He growled.
It was at that moment that I began to cry and my bowels relaxed. I soiled myself so completely it ran down my leg reaching the floor. It was Santa Claws. Just like Celia had described. And I had been bad, just like he had said. I noticed that two of the hideous elves had begun to chew on my legs. Another lapped up the former contents of my bowels.
* * *
T hat’s the last thing I remember. I must have passed out. Or died. Actually that’s got to be it, I’m definitely dead. I seem to be in the back of a van with five other people… or ghouls? Zombies? The elves as it were? There are a few cans of green spray paint rolling around on the floor of the van and some partially eaten body parts thrown around. Every so often we chew on them, and each other, forcing Santa to shout back at us “Save that appetite. We have a few more to pick up before the night’s over. Next up is Carl Dobson. He’s been a baaaad boyyyy. A verry baaaad boyyyy…”
Story Art Cover
By Topetine
www.twitter.com/topetine
Dedication
To Todd Brown
Author Bio
Sean Hoade is the author of two novels, the noir thriller Ain't that America and the literary fantasy Darwin's Dreams. Sean's short stories, poems, and cartoons have been published internationally, and he is currently at work on a graphic novel. He loves to hear from readers at [email protected].
Brains Like Figgy Pudding
By Sean Hoade
12 Drummers Drumming
Mike’s heartbeat pounded in his ears and his vision danced wildly around the scene. The fire trucks slushed through the mountains of snow to get at the house, which by now had burned down to black wood. Pervy wasn’t breathing, his dropped inhaler shunting a puffer-shaped hole into the snowbank next to the buried cars in what used to be the driveway. “Perv?” Mike whispered to his best friend, all but invisible where he fell, then shouted, “Perv!” He knelt down, stuck his hand down under his best friend’s shoulder—then jerked it back so fast he almost toppled over.
His best friend wasn’t breathing… but he did sit up. And when his dead eyes locked on Mike, his whole body galvanized itself into movement, first standing, then staggering, shoving its legs through the snow.
His gnarled hands reached out toward Mike, and that wretched, airless moan assaulted his ears.
Mike slipped and slid and kicked his feet into action, pushing himself away from Pervy Kilgore and upright so he could run.
By now, the firemen had gotten to the house and were ineffectually spraying cold water on the remains of Mike’s house, Mike’s parents’ house, Mike’s frickin’ Grandma’s house. When one of them noticed Mike getting to his feet and running as best he could through the icy mix half-thawed by the fire, he yelled, “Hey! Hold up there, boys! It ain’t safe!”
Boys? In the half-second it took his mind to understand the fireman’s words—he sounded so much like Mike’s father he had to physically shake the mistake out of his head—Pervy caught up to him and knocked him down into the snow, his mouth gaping as he tried to bite Mike’s arm, shoulder, face, whatever was near.
From what he knew about the walking dead, it was one bite and game over, Mario. And Pervy was obviously a zombie. But…
But he had never actually seen Pervy get bitten.
The mouth came closer and closer, and while stiff-arming his former buddy, Mike checked all over Perv for bites, scratches, anything on the skin not covered by his thick coat and woolen hat.
Nothing. Pervy was a zombie and he hadn’t been bitten. That meant—
WHUNK! The fireman’s axe went into Pervy’s neck at a sharp angle and the boy’s whole head shot up and off to the side like a misfired mortar.
No blood, no guts. Living dead for sure.
“BUT NOTHING BIT HIM!” Mike screamed at the firefighter’s weary face. “HE WASN’T A ZOMBIE—NOTHING—”
“Son, anything that dies is coming back. We ain’t even putting out the fires tonight until we’re sure everybody’s burnt up—only way to kill ’em except removing the head.”
“But it’s a virus, right? It’s always a virus!”
The fireman pulled Mike up and wrapped a scratchy gray blanket around his thin shoulders. “This ain’t a movie, son. This here’s an act of God.”
Despite the blanket, Mike’s entire body went even colder. “G-God?”
The fireman shook his head sadly. “Only explanation I can think of. He works in mysterious ways, and tonight he decided ain’t nobody staying dead on Christmas Eve.”
11 Pipers Piping
At that moment, even over the wind, even over Pervy freaking out, they finally could hear the whining high pitch of sirens.
“They’re all dead, Perv, really dead. Calm down,” Mike said solemnly, his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Nothing could survive th—”
“Oh shit oh fuck oh HELL NO,” Pervy almost chanted, his horror-struck eyes fixed on a spot inside the shell of the house. Mike followed the direction of his gaze and saw what Perv saw—
One of the columns of fire pushed outward. Inside it was the black shape of what was once a person. Who was it: Mom? Dad? Uncle Rebar? Oh God—was it Grandma, still kicking despite everything? It was impossible to tell through the wind-whipped flames.
The fire-zombie-thing somehow spotted them and now raced forward with incredible speed for something that was (a) dead; (b) engulfed in flames and burned almost to a cinder; and (c) both of the fucking above, which even for a zombie should have meant dead.
But it rushed at them, slipping on the melting ice and snow and tripping on the Christmas lights that had been attached to the porch when there was still a porch.
“We don’t have a gun—you dropped the axe—fuck—man, what are we gonna—” Perv said in a panic, then suddenly shot both of his hands up to his neck and gasped for air like a fish thrown from its bowl.
Stress-triggered asthma attack, Mike’s brain regurgitated and he yelled above the wind, “Your puffer, dude! Where the fuck—” Pervy yanked the inhaler from his parka pocket and shoved the nozzle into his mouth, and Mike let out a huge sigh of relief—
—which stuck in his throat as the fire-zombie knocked it out of Perv’s hand and sent it flying in an arc into the snow.
Perv screamed without making a sound and Mike screamed making a fuckload of sound. But the zombie—now a naked, charred skeleton—collapsed into the melting snow, finally succumbing to the flames that still engulfed it.
Not ten seconds after the zombie fell, Perv fell where he was standing, no oxygen making it into his asthmatic system.
“Oh fuck, where the fuck is your fucking—” Mike scrambled over the flaming bones and then over Pervy’s prone body to find the hole in the snow where the puffer fell. The ever-changing light from the house fire made it very difficult. And there was the zombie fire. And—
Mike yelped as he saw and felt simultaneously that his pant leg was on fire. He screeched and fell down and shoved his whole foot and leg into the soft side of the snow pile, putting out the flames immediately but leaving him paralyzed with pain.
The puffer. He had to get
the puffer.
Mike dragged himself a foot or two before he realized that the cold snow had numbed his burn enough for him to get up. He did, and immediately saw that there was no need to get the inhaler now.
Perv was blue and stiffening from the cold. His best friend was dead.
10 Lords a-Leaping
Pervy and Mike retreated as quickly as they could in the snow, stretching out their legs and hopping through the banks to what seemed like a safe distance, then turned to watch the house collapsing behind the huge tongues of flame, the whole scene looking like a double exposure of horror, the zombie-infested house and the fire that consumed it looking like they existed on different planes. The ice and snow nearest the house had already turned to slippery pools of ice and water, the intense heat still singeing the 13-year-olds’ downy facial hair even from fifty feet away.
Even looking directly into the flames that lapped up and out of the first-story windows, neither boy could see anybody moving. Not Pervy’s Uncle Rebar, not Mike’s parents or sister, not even Pogo the dog.
And, thank God, not Grandma.
“Everyone’s dead,” Pervy said after a few more minutes of watching the flames. He could hear sirens, but the heavy snow must have been blocking the dirt roads out to Mike’s. The police had never made it, so how could the fire department?
“We don’t know that for sure,” Mike said. “Not for sure.”
“Jeez, man, what are we supposed to do, go into the fire and stake ’em in the heart?”
“That’s vampires.”
Pervy wheezed a little, and took a puff from his inhaler, which when the shit went down was the very first thing he grabbed, before the axe, before anything else. You can’t run if you can’t breathe, Mike thought as he watched Perv draw on his puffer… and then remembered that those things didn’t breathe, and they ran like all fuck. Well, Perv couldn’t run if he couldn’t breathe, anyway.
The Undead That Saved Christmas Page 15