Flashy & Flirty Christmas Anthology

by Ellie Mack

  I checked my own tire in the dark. Seemed fine to me. There were no cell phones. I didn’t have a flashlight. The shoulder of the highway was dark. I argued that I couldn’t see anything wrong.

  He checked the pressure with a gauge and insisted on checking my trunk for a spare. He gave me a little push. I pushed back. Heels and all.

  I said, "Hey,” and told him I was in a hurry, and I would just pray. I told him that God would take care of me. He always had, and He would do it again. He offered to pray with me.

  We did. I went to get into my car.

  He insisted on airing my tire up, but he had made me miss the ramp to the gas station. Annoyed and needing to get this over with, I caved. I got into his car.

  He put in a Wayne Watson cassette and played Watercolour Ponies.

  When he headed down to an apartment entrance, a bad feeling swept over me. I knew I was in deep trouble. I clenched my knees together. Why did I wear a bubble mini-dress today?

  I figured out quickly that he parked too close to the nearby car for even my tiny frame to open the long heavy door. I panicked. I got mad. I tried and tried.

  My inner voice cried out to God! I turned to the man.

  He had a gun pointed at me. I threw my head between my knees like some kind of ostrich, putting my hands over the back of my head. My imagination produced images of brain splatter all over the car window.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  My heart pounded in my ears.

  I reasoned with God, "I thought you had good plans for me. I thought I was going to do great things for you. I thought I would go into ministry. But if this is it, I know I am safe with you." I know I heard the God of the universe shake me out of my tailspin.

  A still small voice said, "Cindy, guys do not pull girls off of the side of the road just to kill them."

  I answered in my head, "NOOOOOOOOOO! Not this way! It is not ending like that."

  At that point, I stepped through the iconic eye-of-the-needle.

  I asked God, what to do.

  He said, "Ask him why is he doing this."

  So through my tears, I asked.

  That was all it took.

  He began to talk to me. He told me he was going to commit suicide. He even set the gun down.

  He poured out his heart about how terrible his life had been. Story after terrible story of how he had lost family members in tragic accidents. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I was counseling him.

  I would listen and tell him about my God who cared. I talked to him about how God was love, and how I wouldn’t want to go to hell because love must not exist there. In my head, I was standing on scriptures I had heard at a recent meeting. I was thinking about how a little old lady had subdued a burglar with nothing more than saying scripture out loud.

  To him, I was just willing to let him talk to someone. I kept praying under my breath. Throughout the conversation, he kept scooching further over onto my side of the car. I told him that there were angels in the backseat. I told him we were not alone.

  I offered to pray with him. He let me.

  Then he came too close. I put my hand on his chest and commanded him to get back on his side of the car. To my surprise and relief, it worked. He took his gun and threw it out of the window and into the nearby weeds, and then he offered to let me go.

  I had to promise that he could come to see me at my work. He even gave me his full name and made me promise not to call the authorities. I knew I had to. I also knew that I had to get free. I agreed.

  He took me to the gas station and sped away. I asked the gas station attendant if I could use his phone to call the police.

  "Why, lady? Did your boyfriend just dump you off? Did you have a fight?"

  "No. I was kidnapped, and I used the power of Jesus' name to get away."

  "You know what, I believe you.” He walked me to the phone.

  For the next couple of hours, I sat with the crime unit. I still couldn’t tell you the make and model of the car. Mine was covered in fingerprint ink. I honestly could not relay a good description of his face. In the darkness, I just saw a weary, worn, desperate young man.

  I had won his trust. He had given me his full name. It was strangely close to that of an author I had followed as a child. I gave that to the police. I arrived home around 2:30 am. I reveled in my relationship with Jesus. When I got under the covers, I sought out scripture to relate my experience to and found this:

  Psalm 18 New King James says:

  1) I will love thee, O LORD, my strength.

  2)The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower,

  3)I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.

  4)The sorrows of death encompassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.

  5)The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me .

  6)In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.

  About Cindy Webb

  CINDY WEBB has a desire to inspire and entertain while exhorting others through life experiences. As a wife, mother, and lay-minister, and this comes naturally.

  Her life has been full of endeavors such as selling everything to go to Rhema Bible Training Center, pursuing an acting career, teaching cutting edge Bible studies, partaking in dynamic evangelistic endeavors and even pioneering a church. Her greatest accomplishments are not in the things that she does, but in being obedient to do what her Heavenly Father has called her to do.

  Angie was looking forward to her session today with Mary, but she was also a little nervous. Angie never asked the counselor to hypnotize her before, and she was only doing this because she and George were finally beginning to connect again. She wanted to do something special, but she was so shy that she couldn't think of any other way to come up with the courage to give him the gift she wanted to give him.

  So today at her therapy session, she was going to be hypnotized and have the hypnotic suggestion planted that would only activate on Christmas Eve and only when she heard a certain song…a certain Christmas Carol. George's favorite, Feliz Navidad, which she never heard anywhere else except in her home. When she heard it, she would begin a slow sensual striptease for him.

  That was where the misadventure began. The session went fine, and she had almost forgotten about the hypnotic suggestion until they were wrapping presents on Christmas Eve for their son and ran out of tape. George asked her to run to the store quickly and grab another roll so that they could finish wrapping presents before their son got up in the morning.

  Angie walked into the store, the type of big-box store, which was the only place still open on Christmas Eve after 8 p.m. She started to wander back toward where the tape would be, close to the school and craft supplies, and then it happened. Feliz Navidad came on over the intercom, and she completely forgot why she was there.

  Angie started to dance, slowly, sensually, taking off her top. And she was in the process of unzipping her skirt when security caught up with her. They took her to the back, which snapped her out of her trance since she could no longer hear the music in the security office. Looking around bewildered, she tried to cover herself when she realized she wasn't wearing a shirt.

  The security guard handed her her top and asked if she would please put it back on. He then asked if there was someone they could call to pick her up since she didn't seem well.

  They called her husband George, who arrived within ten minutes. She had to explain to him what had happened. At first, he was shocked, but when she told what she had been trying to do for him, he just laughed and kissed her before asking if she had gotten the tape. When she said she didn't think so, they walked back hand in hand to buy some before driving home together.

  They finished wrapping Michael's presents and put on Fel
iz Navidad so that she could give him his present. What Angie didn't realize, was that officially Christmas Eve had ended at midnight. It was 12:32 a.m. when they were finally able to turn on Feliz Navidad, but it didn't matter anymore, she had all the courage she needed.

  Angie gave him a slow sensual striptease, which led to the best Christmas gift either of them had ever had, and a closeness that would last for all of the coming year.

  About Shellie Brown

  Shellie Brown is the proud mom to two very spoiled feline furbabies Lily and Bast, A jewelry artist who loves to play with wire and gemstones to create one of a kind wearable art, and a writer who dabbles in various types of fiction and erotica. She enjoys baking, is an avid gamer, and is active in the pagan community. Shellie loves spending time with those close to her and being active in her community.

  Cities near the arctic circle are usually quiet places even as the holidays approach, full of folks who’ve elected to leave the hustle and bustle of ‘down south’ cities, or who work for Old Nick in one of the satellite shops that make toys for the ‘big day’, which is now only a week away. Most people, elves, and wildlife go about their business peacefully. When they don’t, I get called; I’m a cop.

  My name’s Khristmas, Joe Khristmas.

  I was working the Serious Crimes Division out of Moosejaw when we got the call; grandma deceased, possible crime.

  My partner was Kenny Krampus.

  We piled into the police sled and headed off to the northern-most suburb of the town to a little trailer park near the river.

  “Dead alright. Trampled,” Kenny hissed. His uniform cap slid off his head where he had jammed it between his horns as he leaned over to examine the corpse. He picked it up and repositioned it between them as he spoke. “Looks like reindeer tracks.”

  It was true. The hoof prints were marked in the mud in front of the trailer of Old Mother Gyzander, and over her body, then up the side of the trailer. Straight up.

  “Yup,” I said. “Flying reindeer looks like.”

  I interviewed the witness, a deliveryman named Jones from Jiavaro.com, that big online company.

  “I swear, it just jumped up and down on her, snorting and squawking,” Jones said. He was a thin guy in a brown uniform, with a little nervous tick in his left eye that made it seem like he was winking all the time.

  “You say you saw the whole attack?” I asked. Kenny was sniffing around the body, literally, his Krampus senses on high as he searched for clues.

  “Well, no, not really,” Jones said. “I was in my truck getting a package ready…we organize our routes, you know to make it easier to get all our deliveries in our area done on time, efficiently, you know?”

  “Uh, huh,” I said, taking notes as he spoke. “The facts, sir. Did you or did you not see the attack?”

  “Uh, yes, well,” he continued, “I had pulled over there to sort my route and was in the middle of it when I heard…I heard this swishing noise and a scream and then this thumping, and when I came out, that horrible antlered thing with the red nose was just finishing stomping on her. Then it ran up the side of the trailer with its bloody hooves…” His voice trailed off.

  I waited while the deliveryman dealt with his emotions. Civilians were like that, they didn’t see what we saw. Kenny caught my eye, and I watched as he ambled over to the delivery truck, doing his best to seem casual about it, though there was not much chance of a furred and horned creature like Kenny ever looking causal.

  At the truck, he paused and sniffed, peering into the open back, then waved me over.

  “Excuse me, sir,” I said to the sobbing man and stepped over to my partner.

  “Okay, Kenny,” I asked, “Do we put a call into the workshop to have Rudolph brought in?”

  Kenny waggled his shaggy head at me and pointed into the back of the truck. Among the chaos of boxes I saw what he was looking at, one of those grabber things used to get things down from high shelves. We exchanged a look, and I knew it was time to play good cop/Krampus cop with Mister Jones.

  “You say you saw the killer, Mr. Jones?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “A reindeer?” Kenny growled.

  “Yes.”

  “With antlers?” I asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” Jones said.

  “And you saw it trample granny?” Kenny drew himself up to his full height and let his fangs show in a half smile, half grimace.

  “No,” Jones said. “I said I heard it, and then I saw the damn thing skip up the side of the trailer and fly away.”

  “An antlered reindeer?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he practically yelled. “With a red nose, I told you.”

  “Where you from, Mister Jones?” I inquired, changing tack. “Down south?”

  “From New York,” the deliveryman answered. “I came up this last summer. What does that have to do with anything? That damn flying menace killed that woman.”

  “That clinches it,” I said to Kenny. “Cuff’em.”

  “What?” Jones looked from my hairy partner to me with shock in his eyes that quickly went to anger. When Kenny moved to pull out his cuffs, the deliveryman dodged and avoided the grab. Kenny spun to get him, but I’m the sprinter in the team, so I went through Kenny’s legs and hit Jones at knee height with my shoulder.

  He went down like the price of beaver pelts. Kenny was on him in a minute, and we got him wrapped for shipping.

  “You’re under arrest for the murder of Grandma Gyzander,” I said. “Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

  “How…” Jones stammered, “How did you…”

  “How did we figure you killed her?” Kenny said with a Krampus snort. “You really are a city boy.”

  “Simple,” I said as we walked Jones to the squad sled. “Kenny saw the grabber in your truck that you stuck a fake hoof on and used to club the woman to death and make the fake tracks.”

  “You’re just guessing,” Jones insisted. “You ain’t got nothin’…I saw that red-nosed freak.”

  “What was it,” I continued, “stress of competing with the big guy for gift delivery? Or the lack of sunlight up here…it drives lots of you southerners nuts.”

  “Yeah, why else make a southerner mistake?” Kenny said with disgust.

  “What do you mean?” Jones said.

  “Simple,” I said as I helped Jones into the car. “Male reindeer lose their antlers in early December, everyone snow bred knows that.”

  The End.

  About Teel James Glenn

  Author Bio:

  I was born in Brooklyn and have killed hundreds of people—and been killed hundreds of times—on screen. I’ve traveled the world for forty years as a stuntman, fight choreographer, swordmaster, jouster, book illustrator, storyteller, bodyguard, and actor.

  I’ve had stories in over a hundred magazines from Weird Tales, Spinetingler, SciFan, Mad, Black Belt, Fantasy Tales, Sherlock Holmes Mystery to Crimson Streets, and others as well as tales in close to a hundred anthologies in many genres. I am also the winner of the 2012 Pulp Ark Award for Best Author and my short story “The Clockwork Nutcracker” won best steampunk story for 2013 and has been expanded into a novel.

  My website is: TheUrbanSwashbuckler.com

  Other Books By Teel James Glenn

  The Exceptionals: Measure of a Man: Whiskey Creek Press (08)

  Across the Wasteland; Whiskey Creek Press (08)

  On the Good Ship Caligula Whiskey Creek Press (09)

  Deadline ZombiesBooksforaBuck Publishing(2010)

  Shadows of New YorkBooksforaBuck Publishing(2011)

  Queen Morgana and the RenfairiesWhiskey Creek Press (2012)

  Songs of a Warrior PriestWhiskey Creek Press (2012)

  Headline GhoulsBooksforaBuck Publishing(2012)

  Murder Most FairePost Mortem Press (2012)

  Bloodstone ConfidentialPro Se Publishing (2013)

  Manchurian ShadowsBooksforaBuck (2013)

  Bayou Sinistre
Pro Se Publishing (2014)

  Journey of OneDouble Dragon Publishing (2014)

  When Renfairies AttackWhiskey Creek Press(2014)

  Bareknuckle BarbarianFightcard

  Three Deadly ShadowsBooksforABack

  The Clockwork NutcrackerPro Se Productions

  Sci –Magickal AdventuresBooksforaBuck

  Fear the ReaperMetahuman Press (2018)

  Cowboy in CarpathiaPro Se Productions (2018)

  A Year of ShadowsPro Se Productions (2018)

  As the light outside fades into the night, I sit close to the fire, poking at the smoldering ashes, attempting to stoke it back to life. The smell of the pine trees that lined the driveway outside enters my nose, reminding me of the season once again. Christmas. A time of joy and family. My heart beat softly in my chest as I hear my grandparents telling the same old stories of times long past to my younger sibling. I smile at myself as I listen in secretly as they tell of when they were younger, peaking under the Christmas tree. Of painted toys and simpler times.

  I want to laugh as I recall all their ridiculous stories. My grandpa is the worst at exaggerating the details. But the one thing I always remembered from past Christmases, was at the end of all the stories, he would pull candy from the jar on the kitchen counter, handing one to each one of us, reminding us that what he just told us was just a piece of something much bigger, much sweeter. Then with a wink, he would send us away to open our presents. Oh, how right he was…is. That everything is a part of something much bigger.

  Pulling away from the fireplace and the story my grandpa is just about to finish, I look up and notice a small scripture that has been there ever since I could remember. It was in a simple frame on plain paper, unbeknownst to most people who past it. For some reason, it always caught my eye.