Christmas Noir No. 9

From behind came a scream of pure rage. Sugarplum Mary looked over her shoulder and saw Mrs. Claus pause in the kitchen doorway, her lace trimmed white apron was splattered with dark brown stains and her eyes were wide and not at all sane behind her round, wire-rim glasses. Raising a heavy cleaver in her right hand, Mrs. Claus screamed again and charged across the chocolate checkerboard floor.


Mary felt hot breath on the back of her neck, and then she was grabbed by the collar of her dress and yanked up and back, out of the Gingerbread House and into the snow-swirled night. Blitzen's great horns passed on either side of her and she landed astride his broad, shaggy shoulders, automatically grasping at his coat of shaggy coat of fur. Blitzen reared and his font legs kicked the door shut on the charging horror in the kitchen. Quick as frostbite, the great reindeer hopped backwards and leapt into the air just as Mrs. Claus came through the cottage door, splinters of layered gingerbread flying to all sides, her great cleaver swinging as Blitzen and Mary shot over her.


Blitzen was fast, but not quite fast enough. Mrs. Claus' cleaver carved a line of red pain across inside of his right hind-leg. "Santa's fucking balls that hurts!" he screamed.


Their flight over the house wavered, but Blitzen recovered with a snarl, lowering his head as they pushed into the snowstorm. Mary looked down at Christmas Village and gasped. Below them the cafeteria building next to the toy factory was engulfed in flames and while the surrounding elves and reindeer were doing their best to fight the blaze, their efforts were obviously too little, too late. The place was an inferno and the flames lit the arctic night like a hellish flare.


Sugarplum Mary turned away, and leaned forward to speak to her rescuer. "Blitzen, thank you, but I thought, I mean Sparky said that..."


"That I was behind all of the strange stuff happening lately?" Blitzen snorted in disgust. "Elves. I don't know how you people manage to breed, sometimes. Sparky went off half-cocked, as always."


"Well what is going on, then?"


"Tell you what... how's about we get somewhere safe where we can get back on the ground, then maybe slap a fuckin' band-aid or ten on Mother Christmas' little parting gift, and then I'll fill you in. Until then, why don't we play a game I like to call 'Shut the Fuck Up Mary'?"


They dove into the night, the only sounds the whistling of the air and Mary's quiet sobs.

Christmas Noir No. 8

Donner slid-staggered on the ice-covered flagstones, all four of his legs going wide before he caught his balance and his hooves dug through the almost invisible ice sheet. He snorted, cursed under his breath, and looked up at the home of the Krampus. It rose from the glacial ice like some clay-mation holiday special anachronism, the rough-cut stone of its thick walls a dark and brooding presence looming out of the blowing snow and Arctic night. No Disney fantasy or late medieval royal whim of a castle, the Fortress of the Krampus was the real thing, a squat and deadly 14^th century fortification that promised only murder and pain to anyone unlucky enough to enter its walls.

Donner reached out, caught the bell-chain between his jaws, and pulled. From within came the first few bars of “Jingle Bells,” rendered in the screams of children.

“Fucking Krampus,” Donner muttered, and settled in to wait. 

Christmas Noir No.7

Sugarplum Mary the Christmas Elf carefully tensed and relaxed the muscles in her legs, trying to keep her blood circulating and ward off the pins and needles that were threatening to settle in from so many hours spent cramped in the small cabinet. Suddenly, from outside the Gingerbread House she heard the muffled sounds of shouting, quick and panicked, but she couldn’t make out what was going on through the thick butter-cream coating on the House’s exterior. Her every nerve came alive, however, when she heard Mrs. Claus push up out of her candy-cane-back chair and move towards the front of the house, where the sugar glazed windows looked out onto Tannenbaum Lane. Now was her chance, probably the only one she would get. She waited until she heard the old witch’s heavy tread leave the dining room, and made a supreme effort.

Sugarplum Mary threw open the cabinet door and lurched out onto the checkerboard dark and white chocolate tiles of the kitchen, already turning for the back door, when her legs, numb despite all of her efforts, betrayed her sending her sprawling with a crash as she instinctively grabbed at one of the lollipop stools around the kitchen island to steady herself and brought it down with her instead.

“Mary?” said a delighted voice from the front room, “is that you dear?”

Mrs. Claus’ feet thudded on the floor, moving quickly. Crying now, Sugarplum Mary scrabbled across the kitchen floor on all fours, her nails leaving deep furrows n the hard chocolate flooring, as she heard the insane woman enter the dining room, just one small room away. Mary reached the door, desperately clutching the rock-candy doorknob. “Pleasebeunlockedpleasebeunlocked,” she chanted under her breath like the holiest rosary.

The doorknob turned, Mary fell out into the cold night, her mouth already open to call for help when she saw the great, hard hooves before her.

“Hello, Mary,” Blitzen said. “I’ve been looking for you.” 

Christmas Noir No. 6

Polly Mistletoe rolled her pretty green eyes. “Oh it’s not that bad, silly! Okay, there’ve been a few accidents, bu…”

“Accidents?!?” Comet shouted, his nostrils flaring. “Accidents? A full third of the Christmas Elves burned alive, Rudolf torn into bloody gobbets and scattered over a square mile, Sparky gone, Sugarplum Mary nowhere to be found, and that psychotic bitch Mrs. Claus out roaming around doing God knows what, and you think it’s all accidental? Reindeer shit!”

“You’re blowing everything out of proportion, Comet!”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” He leaned in close; his wide antlers thudding against the wall on either side of Polly, pinning her in place as his wild eyes bored into hers, his hot breath on her fine-boned face. “This isn’t some twinkly-ass vampire movie, Polly! This is real, and it’s ugly, and you have got to face up to it. Someone is trying to kill every single one of us, and if we don’t figure out what the hell is going on, they’re going to do it!”

“It’ll be okay, though. Santa…”

“Santa?” Comet snorted. “The only thing that sack of fat is interested in is finding the bottom of every bottle in Miami. No. Santa abandoned us a long time ago, Polly. We’re on our own. God help us, but we really are.”

Christmas Noir No. 5

Third shift was in the cafeteria when the fires started. Later it would be discovered that the alarm and automatic fire suppression systems had been carefully sabotaged. By the time the Kitchen Elves realized there was a problem, it was far too late. The staff and worker elves had all beb well trained for just such an emergency, however, so at first everyone remained orderly and relatively calm. Until the doors to the outside wouldn’t open. Not the main entrances or the rear, and the side doors were blocked by the fires which were burning hot and fast, fueled by acetone accelerants that had the Elves all but surrounded in mere minutes. The panic started then, like something out of an old disaster story, the elves pushing against each other, the ones in front slowly being crushed against the unmoving doors, and everyone screaming, screaming as the fires moved in. That was what woke the rest of Christmas Village – the screaming. The screaming of the Elves.

Christmas Noir No. 4

The snow fell more quickly now, coating his shoulders and the uppermost curves of his antlers. It was nights like this Donner wished he still smoked. Sparky and Sugarplum Mary had been missing for days, Santa was nowhere to be found, and Rudolph. Christ, what they’d done to Rudolph! To hell with it. Spotting a huddle of elves huddled in the sodium-arc glow of the Workshop’s loading docks, Donner shook off the snow and ambled over. The group of four little creatures fell silent as they noticed him.

“H-hey, Donner,” Skip the Christmas Elf said, “w-what’s up?”

 “Got a smoke?” the reindeer asked. The elf blinked, shivered, and dug out a butt, lit it for the waiting reindeer. Donner took a deep drag and sighed, thick grey smoke flowing out of his wide nostrils. “God that’s good. Thanks, Skip.” He turned to leave but the Elf’s voice stopped him.

“What are you gonna do now, Donner?”

Another drag, another, deeper sigh. “The only thing I can,” Donner said. “I’m going to see the Krampus.”

The Elves eyes widened in shock, and the wind picked back up, howling down the empty streets of Christmas Village. “The Krampus?” Little Ginny Gumdrop Elf asked. “Jesus wept.”

“Yeah,” Donner said over his shoulder as he moved into the night, “so will the rest of us before this is over. Whoever’s left, that is.”

The Elves looked after him until he disappeared into the blowing snow, and then scurried back inside.

Christmas Noir No. 3

Sugarplum Mary the Christmas Elf clutched her knees to her chest and tried not to breathe. The cabinet she was hiding in had no lock, and small as she was, and unarmed, she wouldn't stand a chance against the horror stalking the Gingerbread House. "Mary!" came the deceptively soft, comforting mother-voice, "Marieeee! Come out, come out where ever you are..." One of the candy-cane chairs squeaked across the hard-chocolate floor as it was pulled out from the lollipop table, then groaned as it took the heavy weight of its new occupant. "That's okay, sweetheart, I can wait. I can wait all winter, if need be."

Christmas Noir No. 2

Outside the wind came off the Arctic Sea like sleeting razors, and the Aurora lashed the night with neon fire, but inside the stable, everything was absolutely still. Comet shook his head, blowing air from his nostrils with explosive disgust to try and clear his nose and throat. No use. The smell of the blood was cloying; old pennies and rusted iron in an ozone haze. Rudolph had died hard.

Christmas Noir No. 1

From somewhere behind him there came the unmistakable sound of a pump-action shotgun chambering a shell. Sparky the Elf suddenly felt a cold certainty that he would never see the North Pole, Santa's Workshop, or that bastard Blitzen ever again...