Jingle Hell
by Jason McKinney
“I hate this
time of year,” said Maxwell. He leaned over his drafting board, feverish with
hatred for the new year. Santa always kicked things into high gear in January to
prepare for the Christmas season that lay eleven months away.
“You wouldn’t
hate it so much if you put your mind into your work and not into grumpiness,
Maxie.” Jenna Tannenbaum had been his assistant for the last 23 years and was his
exact opposite. She loved all things Christmas as much as she loved her job.
“There’s more to
the world than this.” Maxwell’s nerves were already frayed from her cheery
optimism and it was only two days into the year.
“Maxie, you say
that every year. One of these days you’ll change your mind.” While he thought
Jenna had a beautiful smile, it did nothing to alleviate his mood.
“Fat chance of
that happening,” Maxwell muttered, going back to his design for the sleigh’s
new stealth system that any human military would gladly kill for.
His department
was Research and Development. They were cutting edge in ways that left the defense
and toy industries wallowing in the Bronze Age. The new stealth capability was
one-quarter Christmas magic with the rest being hardware and software.
Jenna looked
over his shoulder as she placed a cup of peppermint hot chocolate on his pencil
table. “When are you going to use a computer to do your designs?”
“Tell you what.
When pigs pull the sled, I’ll use a PC.”
“Kirk is using a
computer for all his designs. His enamel paint facilitator is expected to go
online in March.” Jenna spoke in a dreamy way that edged Maxwell further into
gloomy anger.
“It’s a
glorified spray paint machine. Geez! What’s the big deal?”
“It’s going to
save time when finishing the toys. Come on, Maxie. It uses laser technology,
for crying out loud.”
“Well, when you
put it that way, you’re right. That’s way more important than making sure some
soldier on midnight watch doesn’t launch a tactical something or other up the
old man’s ho-ho-ho. Well done that.”
“You’re a jerk.”
Jenna turned and stormed out of the workshop.
Maxwell leaned forward,
pulled down his right eye’s bottom lid and stuck his tongue out as Jenna
slammed the door. He noticed the other fifteen elves staring at him. “Whaddya
looking at?”
The others
returned to their work and so did Maxwell.
Maxwell Jingle
was a fourth generation elf. His father had worked for the fat man as one of
the product designers/tinkerers that made sure things went smoothly in the
workshop. His grandfather had been a North Pole cobbler, and his great grandfather
worked as a deer wrangler. His mother was a seamstress, his grandmother was an
assistant on gift distribution and great grandmother was a fact checker in the
List Department. To say that being an elf was in his blood was an
understatement.
Unlike in the
movies though, jobs weren’t passed down from parent to child at Santa’s shop. No,
an elf was placed where their aptitude lie. Maxwell or Maxie as the fat man
called him was one of the rare few that had inherited his position from his
father. Like dear old dad, he was good at thinking up mechanical things, but he
hated it.
By the end of that day he hated it even more.
The old man had called him in and lectured him on the Christmas spirit. Maxwell
despised being lectured and loathed Santa even more for it. How he longed to go
south and live a normal life. Cities like London,
New York, and Moscow fascinated him. Even a Podunk town
like Marybeth, Louisiana seemed a far cry better than the
North Pole.
“Christmas
spirit? Who’s he kidding? At least he gets off the reservation once a year.”
Maxwell took a drag off his cigarette and bundled himself tighter against the
cold wind that blew across the hard packed snow. He exhaled, wishing it had
been something other than the Mistletoes he’d bought off the North Pole black
market. He didn’t know why he was surprised the cigarettes tasted like candy
canes, considering the name branded on them, even though he knew they had
tobacco in them.
Smoking, like
alcohol was prohibited, but Maxwell wasn’t one to care. “Self righteous rube,”
he cursed, stamping the dropped cigarette into the snow.
Maxwell turned
to a hydraulic lift that served as one of the entrances to the work areas
below. As he pressed a button hidden in a faux snow bank he heard a dull
explosion from overhead. “What in the name of the little drummer brat was
that?” He turned, searching the sky, not seeing anything until he looked
northeast.
A bright flash
of light and a whoosh overhead sent Maxwell tumbling. Something crashed into
the snow about a kilometer away, showering him with snow and ice. Maxwell stood
up, brushing his face and front in bewilderment. “What is that,” he muttered,
taking a few steps toward the column of steam.
He tromped his
way forward, finally coming to where the object had crashed. The steam was
dissipating, showing something that looked like a chunky contorted Raisinet.
“Figures,” he thought aloud. “Even the cool stuff that falls from the sky looks
like candy.”
Scurrying down
the impact crater was tricky at best. The heat from the space debris’ reentry had
melted the snow then turned it to ice. As he climbed down, Maxwell was thankful
for his hobnail boots.
The object was about
nine feet in diameter. As Maxwell circled around it, he wondered what the odd
writing on one of the scorched panels meant. He quickly took out his pencil and
pad and sketched the sixteen symbols.
“What are you?”
He prodded one of the glyphs with his pencil. The heat from the object warped
the eraser. Then a six inch octagon hatch sprang open revealing a red and green
display. It appeared to be counting down. “Aw, crap. That can’t be good.”
Maxwell tried to
scramble up the icy crater, mentally chastising himself for being so stupid as
to provoke an alien craft. “Move you tinkerer piece of reindeer dung,” he cursed
aloud as his feet refused to gain purchase on the slick sheets.
The beeping from
the object reached a shrill crescendo before a deep, distorted alien voice laughed
maniacally. It sounded like a malignant Santa and it did little to ease
Maxwell’s mind.
He looked over
his shoulder as he thrust a foot and a small fist through the ice to gain
traction. A greenish red gas burst from the satellite, shrouding him. His mind
and stomach flip flopped as the smell of rotten nutmeg filled his nose and then
his lungs.
Maxwell fell
back into the crater. His vision blurred and his dinner screamed to exit the
way it had entered. Slowly he lost consciousness. His mind filled with fevered
dreams about Jenna doing things no elf could ever possibly do. It made him
wonder if she was a freaky little elf in real life as well. It would have been
a good dream if in the fantasy Jenna hadn’t also been hitting him in the head
with a tack hammer.
When he awoke he
felt even worse. His feet were wobbly and his head throbbed with an unnatural
headache. He leaned against the satellite and for a moment couldn’t remember
what had happened. He jumped away from the vile machine once his memory returned.
“I’ve had enough
of you.” He kicked the dead object in anger. While normally grumpy, he was, at
that moment, unusually enraged. He kicked the object again, harder this time,
causing the octagon hatch to fall off. He leaned toward the darkened display, confident
that the mystery satellite was dead for good. “Serves you right,” he whimpered,
though he wasn’t sure if he was talking to the hunk of metal or himself.
Maxwell took the
time to visit Gregory Gilder, the Cultural Interpretation and Translation
expert for Santa’s operation. Not only was Gregory the language guru, he was
the North Pole’s head black marketeer of minty cigarettes and gingerbread
whiskey. If anyone could figure out what the symbols meant, it was Gregory.
“Hey there,
Greggie boy,” called Maxwell, walking into the translator’s office.
“Where you been,
Max? What can I do you for?” asked Gregory, turning from his desk to face
Maxwell. “Sweet Christmas pie,” he exclaimed. “Mother fudge lover! What
happened to you?”
Maxwell gave
Gregory a strange look. “Nothing, I just got back from a smoke break. Hey, can
you decipher these symbols?” He held the notepad out to him. Gregory delicately
took it from him with the expression of a person wishing he had rubber gloves
that went up to his shoulders.
Gregory
carefully studied the symbols then cast Maxwell a doubtful glance. “Where’d you
get these?”
“Umm. Saw ‘em on
a human TV show about crop circles or some such. Just wanted to know if you’d
ever seen anything like them before?”
“I’m not really
sure, but it looks familiar. Have you seen a doctor recently?’
“What? No, I
haven’t seen a doctor. What’s with you?”
Gregory held his
hands up, palms out before him, and the sight of his appendages made Maxwell
hungry for chicken fingers. “Nothing, brother,” Gregory answered with a hint of
fear in his voice. “Just thinking maybe you should. I don’t know, forget I
asked. Still, where’ve you… Um, Max? Are you drooling?”
“Hm? What? No,
I’m not!” But Maxwell was. He tried to covertly wipe his mouth, but he knew
Gregory had seen it already. Maxwell was embarrassed more than anything else.
He was also beginning to feel a little hungry and sick again. “Hey, I gotta go.
Work on that when you get time.”
Maxwell left the
office and made his way to his work station. He passed a few elves that he
didn’t know, but they obviously knew him. Most flattened themselves against the
wall as he walked by while others stopped, looked at him then fled whispering.
“Waste of elfin
magic if you ask me.” He didn’t care if they heard his discontented
observation. Their attitudes earned his disdain.
By the time he got
back to the R&D Department he was feeling much better. AS he walked to his
desk his co-workers stared at him in astounded horror. Normally he would’ve
snapped, “What are you looking at”, but he was feeling better than he ever had.
“Good morning,
everyone,” he said, sitting down at his drawing board.
Jenna and Kirk cautiously
approached him. They both looked frightened as they slowly inched toward him.
Maxwell watched
them out of the corner of his eye. They were almost shoulder to shoulder as
they got closer, but were soon taking turns trying to push one in front of the
other.
“Hey, Maxie,”
said Kirk, trying to sound brave. “Where…” Kirk coughed nervously, then
continued. “Um, where’ve you been, buddy?”
“Out for a smoke
if it’s any of your business.”
“For four days?”
Jenna shifted from foot to foot. Her nervousness was showing and that agitated
Maxwell greatly. “You’ve been missing for four days, Maxwell. Everyone was
searching for you.”
“Four days? No
way. I was outside for an hour at most.” He rolled a pencil under his right palm.
His irritation was growing and the need to kill something engulfed his heart
and mind.
“Buddy, you
really need to be kicking that-”
“Aw, what the
hay,” said Maxwell, leaning forward. “It’s clichéd but who cares.” He slammed
the pencil through Kirk’s left eye. Jenna screamed as Kirk’s body writhed then
collapsed to the ground. The pencil, still stuck in Kirk’s eye, broke in
Maxwell’s hand.
The screaming flowed
through the office like a wave as the rest of the elves began to panic and for
the first time Maxwell noticed how shrill Jenna’s voice could be. He went to
swing at her but the movement felt clumsy and sent Maxwell to the floor. “Son
of a fruitcake eater,” he hissed as he collapsed next to Kirk.
He looked at the
cooling body of his nemesis. “You’ve had better days, ain’t ya, lad?” Maxwell mused,
using Kirk’s annoying Irish lilt, patting his forehead. His hand brushed
against the broken pencil.
Maxwell couldn’t
help himself. He tugged on the pencil, at first wanting only to remove it from
the destroyed socket. But something compelled him to remove the eye as well.
The thought
repulsed him at first then made him hungry that is until the eye popped out.
The sound and sight of it made him cringe. He dropped it to the ground all the
while still hungering for it.
“What in the
name of sugar plums is wrong with me?” He forced himself to stand though it
took greater effort than it should have.
“Hit him in the
head!” yelled someone from behind him. Maxwell turned in time to see a snow
shovel closing with alarming speed toward his cranium.
The blow made
him double over, but didn’t knock him down. He was getting angry and the
angrier he got, the hungrier he became. He straightened up; stunned by the fact
that he didn’t feel any pain from the attack.
Three elves stood
watching him. The one with the snow shovel stood in front of an elf armed with
a plastic candy cane and another wielding a stirring paddle from the chocolate
factory two doors down. The lead elf looked scared but not as much as the other
two. They’d wet themselves and Maxwell loved the terrified looks on their
faces.
Maxwell spoke,
though not in a way the three would’ve liked. “Maxwell is the hungriest there
is!” The sad truth was that Maxwell was hungry. He was famished as a matter of
fact. He lunged at the snow shovel wielding elf. The other two, seeing
Maxwell’s charge, lost their stomach for the fight. They took discretion as the
better part of valor and ran away. Maxwell didn’t care about those two though.
He figured he’d catch up with them sooner rather than later.
With a new found
resolve, Maxwell forced his attacker to the floor, consuming his throat. He’d
eaten his way to the spine before he realized what he was doing. He stopped and
looked at the dead elf’s face. Maxwell tenderly brushed the blood off the name
plate on the elf’s vest. “Bernie,” he murmured. “You look like a Bernie.”
Maxwell didn’t blink as he dove back into the neck, eating his way down to Bernie’s
sternum. Maxwell was indeed the hungriest there was.
As Maxwell rose
from his meal a strange thought occurred to him. We don’t taste like milk or dark chocolate, peppermint or even like
mint chocolate chip ice cream. By Odin’s Undead Beard we taste like meat! And
we taste so darn delicious. I wonder why that is?
He left the design
room, meandering down the hall, whistling It’s
Beginning to look a lot like Christmas. His version though went something
along the lines of “It’s beginning to look a lot like an apocalypse. Soon the
blood will flow. And the prettiest sight to see is the entrails that will be on
your own front door.” Maxwell was in very rare form.
He passed a
mirror that hung at an intersection and he stopped to admire himself. He didn’t
see much to admire, however. His skin was pallid; his eyes were beginning to
look sunken and his chin and chest were coated in elf bits. He smiled wide but
grimaced at the chunks that clung to the spaces between his teeth. “Oral
hygiene is essential to a healthy smile. Eh, I’ll deal with that later. Time to
see a fat man about a naughty and nice list.”
Maxwell followed
the corridor that led to the Grand Hall, but was soon blocked by sealed silver,
gold, scarlet and emerald doors. He was not pleased in the slightest.
He leaned
against one of the doors, listening to the frightened voices that resided
behind them. He could hear Santa’s shaky but deep voice telling those gathered
with in that things were under control. They were scared and that made Maxwell giddy.
For him Christmas had come earlier than usual.
Maxwell was
about to pound on the door but was stopped by an odd sound behind him. He turned
and called “Hello” to what should’ve been and empty hallway. He didn’t know
why, but he was afraid. He called out again and was unpleasantly greeted by the
sight of Bernie, the elf he’d eaten in the design room.
“Fudge kicker,”
he spat. “Whatever happened to me must be infectious.”
“You watch your
language, young man,” answered a raspy female voice from further down the
curved passage. A few seconds later Mrs. Claus came into view. Her face was
mangled, but Maxwell thought it improved her appearance. “I’ll not tolerate-”
“Awww, blow it
out your chimney, ya old bat,” sneered Maxwell.
“Should have
known you were the cause of this, Maxwell Jingle. You’ve always been a bad
elf.” Mrs. Claus’ words were not helping to ease Maxwell’s renewing anger.
“Looks like
someone had a little bit of the old lady,” responded Maxwell with a snarl. “And
I do mean old. You’re past your shelf life, sweetie.”
“Now you see
here-”
What was left of
Bernie clicked its teeth together loudly. Maxwell took that as agreement though
he didn’t know with whom Bernie was agreeing.
“Shut up,”
grunted Maxwell. “And you, too, Mrs. Chunky Bar. From the looks of you, you’ve
been at the ole meat trough, too. Who’d you nibble on? It wasn’t the old man. I
just heard him in there.” Maxwell hiked his thumb toward the barricaded doors.
“It was that
sweet Jenna girl.” Mrs. Claus smacked then licked her lips at the memory. It
was clear that she loved the awful pun.
“You…ate…Jenna?
You…ate Jenna? You ate Jenna?” Maxwell snatched the snow shovel from Bernie and
proceeded to beat Mrs. Claus to her real everlasting death. “You ate my Jenna! You
evil, evil woman!”
The hypocrisy
was not lost on Maxwell. Here he was, an apparent zombie, beating another
apparent zombie to death over eating a non-zombie. He looked at Bernie. “Did
you bite her?” He pointed to Mrs. Clause. The zombified elf looked at Maxwell
dumbly. “Did you bite Mrs. Claus, yes or no?”
Finally, he
nodded yes. Maxwell proceeded to beat Bernie’s head in as well. He found the
act just as satisfying as when he’d first feasted at Chez Bernie.
He was finishing
up with destroying the bodies even further when screams erupted from the main
hall. “Now what,” he said in a surly voice. Maxwell could hear things being
moved from in front of the door in a hurry. Then the doors themselves were
flung open.
Elves poured
into the hallway but most came to a halt at the sight of Maxwell. They didn’t
have a clue where to flee after seeing him. The nearest junction in the corridor
was behind Maxwell and the only other path open was back into the Grand Hall.
“Well, whaddya
running from?” Maxwell stared at them waiting for a response. No one spoke they
were too scared to move for fear of provoking the undead elf. He moved toward
the frightened crowd causing them to retreat back into the Hall. Elves trampled
each other in the mad rush to escape from Maxwell and his grumpy hunger.
The Grand Hall,
once vibrant and beautiful had turned into a house of undead delights. Around
the room flew what Maxwell knew to be Donner, Prancer, and Comet except they
were…like him. The three reindeer were flying low to the ground and corralling
elves as they themselves had once been. The most bizarre sight to behold was
Jenna riding atop Prancer, acting like a rabid cowgirl. “If grandpappy could
see this,” chuckled Maxwell.
Meanwhile,
Blitzen, Cupid, and Vixen were on the ground level in the middle of the room,
feeding on a group of elves that had been trapped in the rush to get back into
the Hall. Dasher and Dancer were on the second floor, butting the giant
mahogany doors to Santa’s office with their antlers.
Maxwell was
shocked, but not in a bad way. “Wow,” he said in his best Christopher Walken
voice. Just then Rudolph floated down to face him. Rudy’s nose was no longer
the only thing red on his face and gone were his soft lips and silky facial
fur. What took their place were chipped teeth and meat stained mats. “They
feeding you, okay, Rudy?”
The zombified
reindeer bellowed his approval as he loped toward an elf trying to pry off a ventilation
grate in an attempt to escape.
“This is the
best Christmas ever!” sang out an elf that was part of a group munching on one
of Santa’s shop foremen.
Maxwell laughed
and waved to the elf as he strolled up the spiral ramp leading to Santa’s
office. He felt some melancholy as he moved toward the two reindeer still
pounding on the door. In his unbeating heart he knew it to be the end of the
North Pole as the world knew it but the feeling didn’t last long. Whatever had
been in that crashed satellite had changed him and the words “Destruction
Gospel” rang through his mind.
“Step aside,” he
said, pushing his way past Dancer and Dasher. He cleared his throat as quietly
as he could and then pounded on the door. “Oh dear God, let me in! Please!
Whoever’s inside let me in! They’re going to eat me!” he increased his banging
in hopes that someone would answer him.
The two undead
reindeer snickered which made Maxwell have to force a laugh back. He’d never
realized that reindeer had a sense of humor before. He shushed them and went
back to his mock pleading.
Finally, a voice
from within answered him. It was Gregory. “How do I know you’re not one of
them?”
“Now’s not the
time to ask stupid questions!” To Maxwell’s amazement, Gregory opened the door.
Maxwell stifled a giggle as he rushed inside. Now’s not the time to make stupid decisions, either.
“What are we
going to do,” asked Santa, cowering behind his teak desk. He clutched a fire
place poker in his grubby little hands hoping it would protect him the undead
Christmas horde. His eyes went wide as he looked at Maxwell’s face and the
greedy grin on it. “You’re one of them.”
“Yep, and you’re
the high lord and master of stupid fairy tale beings. Did you tell him to let
me in?”
Santa didn’t
answer.
“Idiot.” Maxwell
didn’t ponder the poetic justice in calling Santa an idiot when he had left his
back unguarded against Gregory. Gregory brought the full weight of an aluminum
baseball bat down on Maxwell’s back.
Maxwell rolled
away more out of sheer luck than any fighting prowess. The bat landed on the
hardwood floor where his head had been, leaving Gregory to deal with the
forceful feedback of the blow.
“That could’ve
killed me,” howled Maxwell indignantly. He tackled Gregory before he could
recover. Santa watched in horror as Maxwell plucked the bat from Gregory’s
hands, threw it aside and then pinned Gregory to the floor.
“Don’t eat me!
Don’t eat me! I have the translation of the glyphs you gave me.” It was a
stalling tactic and Maxwell knew it. Regardless, he couldn’t help but be
curious about what the etchings meant.
“Tell me.”
“You’ll eat me
if I do.”
“I won’t eat you
if you tell me.” Maxwell couldn’t believe that he was being childish enough to
argue with his food.
“Promise?”
Gregory looked up at Maxwell with a worried expression.
“Yeah, yeah, I
promise.”
“Happy Ke’daki,
you long nosed Tarei’hasan pauk-de.”
The words
puzzled Maxwell. He was about to relax his grip on Gregory, but decided against
it. “Stay where you are, fatty,” he growled at Santa. Santa had been edging
away from the desk in an attempt to hit Maxwell from behind, but Maxwell
smelled the approaching scent of live meat. “What’s that supposed to mean? How
do you even pronounce that mess?”
“Wherever you
got the glyphs from was alien. It’s an insulting Christmas card.”
“What?”
“Ke’daki loosely
translates out to Christmas or Spiritual War God Festival and Tari’hasan means
foul, weak opponent or enemy. And I can’t even say what pauk-de means. I think
it’s the ‘F’ word.”
“That’s it?
Merry Christmas, you long nosed, weak enemy blankety-blank? Is this a joke?”
“I swear to Jack
Frost it isn’t.” Gregory’s trembling subsided but only for a moment. It resumed
once he saw the smiling snarl stretch across Maxwell’s lips. “Where ever this
text came from was extra terrestrial in origin! Swear!”
Maxwell lunged
for Gregory’s nose. “You promised you wouldn’t eat me,” he whimpered.
Maxwell paused.
“You’re right. I didn’t promise not to bite you, though.” He sank his teeth
into Gregory’s neck, enjoying the warm gush that followed the bite. He stopped
himself from enjoying more than that. He was, after all, an elf of his word.
He moved away
from Gregory as the elf thrashed and his screams mingled with the sounds of the
dying outside. Maxwell turned to Santa, who hadn’t moved an inch from where
Maxwell had told him to stop. “Don’t worry, nothing’s going to happen to you,
big guy, but you are going to help spread the Destruction Gospel.”
“Destruction
Gospel?” Santa could keep from stammering. He could already tell he was better
off being eaten than being left alive.
Gregory stopped
thrashing and joined Maxwell where he stood. “Happy New Year, Santa. We’re
going to be doing more than rocking around the Christmas tree this year.”
Eleven months
later the undead reindeer were being hitched to the sleigh to make the yearly
flight. Santa sat nervously inside, dreading what was about to happen. He
looked at Vixen, who had once been the gentlest of the team. Decomposition
hadn’t been kind to her or her fellows. Flesh was missing from areas of her
body but was prominent in her teeth. Maxwell had spent the year snatching
children from the Naughty List as a way to keep what he called the Necrotic
Pole Crew fed and content.
“Everything
loaded up?” Maxwell asked Gregory.
“Yeah, buddy, it
is. We’re spreading the news to all the good little boys and girls in the world
tonight. By this time tomorrow, everyone will know the true meaning of silent
night.”
“You’re not
funny, dude. Bad pun.”
“Eh, kill me or
replace me, Maxie.”
Maxwell still
hated the nickname but he tolerated it from Gregory. There was a demented
streak in him that Maxwell had come to love. “See you in 24 hours if somebody’s
air force doesn’t shoot us down first that is.”
The ground crew
cleared the sled for take off and soon they were well outside the North Pole.
Maxwell smiled at Santa. “After tonight I’m willing to bet that soda company
will wish they’d never picked you as their holiday mascot.”
Santa groaned.
The sleigh was packed with the normal toys but also a bottle of infected soft
drink bearing a familiar red and white logo for every good boy and girl in the
world.
As the sleigh
cut across the night sky headed toward North America,
Maxwell whistled Santa Claus is Coming
to Town. If he listened closely he could hear the reindeer grunting in tune with him.
*******************************************************
Jason Mckinney is the depraved mind behind Dog World (Werewolves = the end of everything) and Memoirs of the Dead (zombies are ex-people too. With feelings. And un-dead sex). He writes heart-stopping horror, crazy humour, and is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. I've been lucky enough to call him a friend for some time now.
Follow him on twitter at @jason_mckinney, check out Dog World's facebook page; and get yourself over to his blog for some mind-blowing short fiction and get to know him; and keep an eye peeled for his books on the new Kindle lending library.
