Authors: The Magic of Christmas
Rebecca Besser (2 page)
He returned to the sleigh
after delivering a train set and a teddy bear, after yet
more
milk and cookies,
when something in the back caught his attention. A couple of the
packages shifted and he thought he saw claws. Frowning, he didn’t
think there were any puppies being given out this year, due to the
outbreak they weren’t taking any chances by delivering anything
live that could possibly carry the disease.
sleigh, Santa moved a couple of boxes aside, not finding anything.
He was about to turn away when a female elf-zombie shot out and
grabbed a hold of his arm. She hissed threateningly and climbed up
onto Santa’s shoulders in the blink of an eye.
Santa swung up at the little beast, trying
to knock her off. After a full minute of swinging and spinning,
Santa got a handful of braid and yanked as hard as he could. He was
horrified when he looked down to see that all he held was hair and
scalp. It dripped with slimy, dark red blood and veins. Frozen for
a moment in shock, Santa was brought back to reality as the zombie
bit into his neck.
Screaming with pain and cursing the little
demon, Santa threw himself backwards onto the roof of the house. He
was big enough, and heavy enough, that the action dislodged the
zombie. She went rolling and tumbled off the roof, her head hit a
fence post, impaling and killing her.
For the first time, Santa noticed that the
reindeer were agitated. He had been so preoccupied with what was
going on at the North Pole, and his personal hang-ups, that he had
ignored the warning signs they had been trying to give him all
night.
Clutching his neck, Santa got up on his
knees and then stood. Walking over to the reindeer, he patted them
gently to calm them down.
“It’s all right now,” Santa said in a
soothing voice. “The little biter is all gone. We’ll finish up and
head home, everything is going to be okay.”
Despite his words, he wasn’t sure. Even
now, just a few minutes after being bitten, he was already starting
to feel weak from the loss of blood, and from a fever. As he
climbed back into the sleigh, he grabbed the reins and they were
off again, for how long, he didn’t know.
~
Hammond and his army of three follower
elves fought their way outside. They stood in the double doorway of
the workshop and surveyed the carnage in front of them. All
together they had killed a total of thirty-five zombies. They were
tired from working long, hard shifts and they wanted to lie down
and sleep, but that wasn’t an option. Fear and anger were fueling
their bodies with overwhelming amounts of adrenaline, which seemed
to grow stronger with each passing moment.
They looked at each other, smiling and
grinning with a mad delight in getting revenge on these Christmas
assassins. With a whoop and a holler, they charged into the fray,
swinging their weapons in mantic joy!
It took the feeding zombies awhile to
realize what was happening. Hammond and his band took out twenty
more zombies before their presence was noticed.
The zombies gathered in a shuffling,
moaning, disgusting crowd and shambled toward their attackers, now
intent on enjoying some fresh, hot meat.
“Hold rank,” Hammond barked.
The warrior elves stood in a straight line
across the street, bloody weapons dripping on the snow-covered
ground. Their breaths came out in thick, puffy clouds. Eyes
blazing, stances set for the onslaught, they waited for Hammond’s
signal.
“Forward,” Hammond yelled. “No mercy!”
Charging forward into the horde, Hammond
and his band fought valiantly. Clubs met heads that gave way with
moist thumps. Blood sprayed and splashed on the warriors and on
their surroundings, but it didn’t slow them at all. The hungry
mouths of the zombies were everywhere, gnashing, chomping, and
biting. Two of the band fell to their foes, the others fought
on.
Before long, all the zombies were down.
Hammond looked around for his friends, to no avail. He was the only
survivor, or so he thought.
As he stood bent over, breathing heavily, a
door to a small cottage across the street creaked open. Hammond
spun, raising the reindeer cane high above his head, ready to be
charged by yet another enemy. When he saw that it was just a young
elf and his mother standing in the doorway, he laughed and lowered
his weapon.
More and more families stared pouring out
of their homes, where they had been hiding. Female elves with their
children.
Hammond fell to his knees.
Their race would go on, the little ones would grow, and Christmas
would continue. Laughing hysterically, letting out all of the
tension and despair that had been plaguing him, he realized that
Christmas was
truly
magical.
Santa wasn’t feeling too good. Every time
he stopped to deliver gifts he vomited. This didn’t worry him at
first. All the milk he had drank, and a fever, would cause
vomiting, so at first he just ignored it. But as he began to get
dizzier and starting throwing up blood, he knew he was done for. He
had to get home, and soon.
Weaving, he made his way back to the
sleigh. There was one bag of presents left. He tried to focus his
eyes on the tag and figure out where it needed to go. His brain
wasn’t working right and he couldn’t remember.
Finally, he forced his
eyes to read the tag, it said, ‘
HUGSFFA
’. They were the gifts for
the foster children.
forehead to the cool metal railing of the sleigh. He couldn’t skip
them. These children needed the joy and love of Christmas Magic
more than anyone else. He couldn’t let them down.
Santa forced himself to his feet. The world
spun around him and soon he was heaving and vomiting blood again.
He knew he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t deliver the packages. He
also knew he wouldn’t go home until he knew they were in the hands
of someone that could deliver them.
Suddenly, a single ray of light shot
through his brain. He knew whom he could trust to take the Magic of
Christmas to the foster children. Dragging himself into the sleigh,
he gave orders to the reindeer and off they went.
It didn’t take them long to get to the
house. In fact, it took Santa longer to crawl out of the sleigh and
drag the bag to the door of the house, than it did for them to get
there.
Weaving drunkenly, Santa knocked on the
door and rang the door bell. As fast as he possibly could, he made
his way back to the sleigh and was just taking off for home as Lyle
Perez-Tinics opened the door.
Lyle frowned and looked down at the
dark-green velvet bag that sat at his door step. Leaning down he
read the tag. With wide eyes he glanced up into the sky just in
time to see Santa and the reindeer’s silhouette against the
backdrop of the moon.
“What is it, honey?” Lyle’s wife said with
a yawn as she wrapped her arms around his waist from behind.
Lyle patted his wife’s hands where they
were linked over his stomach. “Santa.”
He felt her jerk. “What? Are you sleep
walking?”
“No,” Lyle said, pulling away to show her
the bag of packages for Hugs. “I don’t know why, but he left this
here.”
Lyle’s wife frowned and then grinned. “I
guess he does know who’s naughty and nice. He must know that you
had it in your heart to help those children this year.”
Lyle looked away with a crocked grin and
shrugged. “I’ll have to make some calls and get people out of bed,
so we can make sure these presents make it under some trees before
morning.”
Lyle’s wife laughed. “Let’s do that!”
They made calls for the next hour, getting
the address’ to all the children, and even got some volunteers to
help.
The first rays of the morning sun were just
peeking over the horizon as Lyle and his wife walked arm in arm to
their front door. All the packages had been delivered and they were
extremely tired.
Pausing, they smiled and let the first
warming rays bathe their upturned faces.
“This is gonna be a great Christmas,” Lyle
said and kissed his wife’s forehead.
Together they went inside and enjoyed their
Christmas together, knowing that they had helped bring smiles to
the faces of many children, who were at that very moment, opening
their presents.
~
Santa passed out on the way back to the
North Pole. Luckily the reindeer knew their way home. They were
still nervous and flew faster than normal. They needed the security
and safety they knew they would feel when they got into their
stalls.
The smell of blood reached them, even in
the air. The reindeer jerked so hard, and rocked the sleigh so
violently, it woke Santa. He moaned and took the reins, guiding the
reindeer down the best he could.
He passed out again, just as they halted in
the bright red snow.
~
Hammond had seen the sleigh land and had
come out to meet it. As he approached, he noticed how pale Santa
was. Rushing to him, Hammond shuddered as he saw the festering
wound on Santa’s neck and the blood that dotted his coat.
For a moment Hammond just stood there, not
knowing what to do. He wasn’t sure if he should waste his time by
having Santa dragged inside, or if he should just slam something
into Santa’s head now, before he turned.
The choice was taken away as a young female
elf saw Santa. She screeched with joy and tugged at her mother’s
skirt, yelling that Santa was back.
Soon the remaining elves were surrounding
the sleigh. The adult’s eyes took in the situation and looked at
Hammond with panic in their eyes.
“Take the reindeer to the barn and see to
them,” Hammond instructed a small group of elves. “The rest of us
will get Santa inside. Janet, why don’t you take all the little
ones to your house while we get him inside.”
Janet nodded and took charge of all the
small children.
The remaining elves helped him get Santa
inside. They removed Santa’s belt, boots, hat, and coat and put him
in bed.
Hammond stayed with Santa. He could hear
the nervous chatter of the other elves in the hall. There was no
hope for Santa. He was going to become a zombie, too.
Hammond bowed his head to pray, and jumped
when the door to Santa’s room flew open and an elf no more than
five-years-old came dashing in giggling. Her blonde hair was coming
free from her long braids, looking like woven gold in the candle
light.
“Santa!” she squealed and hopped up onto
the bed.
Hammond jumped up and tried to grab the
child, but she was too fast.
Santa’s eyes shot open, they were cloudy.
He hissed and sat up, grabbing the girl as she wrapped her arms
around his neck. He teeth were merely an inch away from her tender
flesh, when she spoke.
“Merry Christmas, Santa!”
Zombie Santa froze, and a blinding flash of
light flashed between him and the little girl.
Hammond raised his hand to shield his eyes
from the glare. Blinking rapidly, he waited for it to fade. It only
took moments.
When Hammond could see again, he looked at
the girl and Santa. Santa was normal! He looked cheerful and
healthy! The girl was sitting on his lap rattling off all the
presents she had gotten, like nothing at all had happened.
Speechless, Hammond turned and left the
room. The Magic of Christmas had come through for them after all.
Everything would be fine, and there would be more presents next
year.
THE POWER OF A
GIFT
peering expectantly at the front yard through the frost covered
front window. Her father, Lyle, stood in the doorway watching her
with two steaming cups of hot chocolate in his hands, admiring her
innocent beauty and grinning at her excitement – Christmas was
their favorite time of year, and this Christmas was going to be an
extra special one.
“We still have time, Kally,” he said,
walking forward and sitting the mugs on the coffee table, beside a
plate of festive Christmas cookies. “Santa said he would send the
sleigh for us at ten o’clock – it’s barely nine. Sit down and have
a snack with me while we wait for Mommy to get ready.”
With a sigh, the young girl turned and
frowned. “Why can’t Santa come early?”
Lyle laughed. “I told you, sweetheart, he’s
very busy.”
She strolled slowly over to the couch and
plopped down beside her dad; the shimmering dark green material of
her dress puffed up at the sudden movement and she smoothed it down
delicately. “The kids at school didn’t believe me when I told them
I was going to the North Pole,” she said, still frowning. “They
said I was a baby and that Santa isn’t real.”
Taking a sip of his hot
chocolate and chewing a mouthful of cookie, Lyle thought about his
response before speaking. “Well, remember what I told you happened
last year? That Santa had me help deliver Christmas presents to the
HUGS children? Doesn’t that prove that Santa
is
real?”
and taking a bite. “But why doesn’t everyone believe, if he’s
real?”
Lyle inwardly groaned, knowing it was
incredibly hard to wrestle with a child’s logic and help them
understand the world; he waited until he’d finished his cookie to
reply.
“Some people don’t want to believe. They
think not believing in magical things makes them more grown up. I
think it makes them boring!” He leaned over and tickled his
daughter. “You don’t want to be boring, do you?”
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