Alternate Gerrolds (17 page)

“You did!”
rasped the wraith.
“Ho ho ho—!”
It rattled its long popcorn chains and leered malevolently. Its eyes burned like ornaments.

The ghost made a mysterious gesture and—

Suddenly, the two of them were standing out in a frozen cold wilderness, the blue sun was a bitter pill on the horizon. A furious wind whipped at the elf’s nightgown. Nearby, a red and white striped pole stood next to a tiny cottage.
“Look!”
pointed the ghost, stabbing with a bony finger at the tiny house. A yellow window glowed with beckoning warmth. Framed by red and white curtains, Santa’s body, stuffed to an ample girth with styrofoam peanuts, rocked steadily back and forth in
a motorized chair. It puffed merrily at its pipe. Periodically it lifted its hand and waved out the window, while a synchronized recording repeated Santa’s infectious laughter against a background of Jingle Bells.

“Thanks,” blushed the elf, forgetting for the moment its precarious predicament.

The ghost made another mysterious gesture and—

Suddenly, the two of them were standing in a cold gray field—no horizon, only gray mist and cruel grass. Nearby, stood three men clad in hunters’ garb and carrying rifles. Suddenly, one pointed upward. The other two raised their rifles, took careful aim and fired off three quick shots each. The reports of their weapons sounded small and flat against the silent tundra—but far in the distance, a dark object plummeted heavily to the ground, smacking into it with a terrible wet impact.

“You sold my reindeer to a hunting farm!
” the apparition accused.

The elf squirmed in the bony grip. “Hey! That wasn’t my idea. The lawyers ordered it. They said we should downsize the operation. We needed to invest in new transportation. And we got a terrific detail from the Airbus Consortium. The goddamn elk were too old and too slow anyway—and you never paid any attention to how much those hayburners ate, did you? The upkeep was horrendous! If we didn’t act when we did, the whole thing would have gone into Chapter 11. Down the tubes without a flush. At least this way, we have a chance to compete against the Japanese—”

“Always with the excuses, Bruce! Remember, an excuse only satisfies the person who makes it.
”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah—the old-fashioned ways are always the best. The time-honored tradition of the Christmas spirit—and all that jazz. But have you seen how Christmas is celebrated lately?” This time the elf made a mysterious gesture. “Look at this, you fat old fart—”

This time, the haunt and the elf found themselves in a gaily-lit concourse, a suburban mall filled with joyous music, dazzling decorations, towering displays, spotless storefronts and crowds of anxious looking people milling from one ramp to the next with desperate expressions on their faces. Many of them were parents, escorting small children.

The children wore costumes of all kinds. The girls were mostly dressed as glittery princesses, ballerinas, winged fairies with plastic wands, mermaids, cowgirls and witches—a lot of little witches. The
costumes of the boys reeked of violence—they were killers of all kinds: gunslingers, terminators, ninjas, turtles, batmen, supermen, vampires and pirates. Many of the costumes seemed to be generic, probably purchased from the Disney outlet in the mall. At each store, tired-looking employees in gay apparel smiled wanly and passed out generic candies.

“T
his
is Christmas now!” declared Bruce Kringle, pointing at a shop window showing Santa waving from a pumpkin patch, another shop window showing Santa riding on the back of a witch’s broom, a third display showing the gay old saint passing out candy to costumed children at the front door of his North Pole workshop, and a fourth one showing Santa sitting in the command seat of the starship Enterprise while a dozen little Vulcans in green uniforms smiled and waved.

“But this is not Christmas—
” the spook whispered.
“It’s only Halloween
.”

“Yeah, that’s another thing. We had to merge the holidays. Greater profit potential. Longer selling season. We had to drop the Christ angle, of course. Too tricky. But now, we get into high gear the first weekend before Halloween and we go straight through until the middle of January.”

“What have you done?”
the ghost demanded cavernously.

“Hey—this was all your idea,” the elf replied strongly. “We pick up another five percent just with the post-season white sales. We’ve got a Japanese conglomerate funding the expansion, and we’re looking at an eventual extension of the selling season all the way into Valentine’s Day. Of course, the long-term goal is to make Christmas a year-round festival. You always said, you wanted people to have the spirit of Christmas all year round. Well, this is the necessary first step—merchandising.”

Brucie Kringle was about to explain about cost-leveraging and swingmarkets, when suddenly, from nearby, came a blood-curdling shriek of terror.

“What’s that?
” asked the ghost.

“Uh—it’s just a little extra innovation. Something to shake them up a bit. An idea we got from the amusement parks.”

“Tell me!
” demanded the wraith.

“Um—better yet, I’ll show you.” Shaking free from the bony grasp of the specter, the elf jumped down to the tiled floor, grabbed the haunt by its cobwebby robe and dragged it toward a ramshackle-looking structure; it seemed to have been dropped in a heap in front of the entrance
to the Broadway. A short line of people waited to enter. Periodically, a hunchback would stagger out of the entrance, grinning and drooling, to wave another small group of people inside. As they watched, another terrifying scream came floating over the top of the walls.

“What’s happening in there?
” said the spook.

“It’s called a haunted house. We’re scaring the bejesus out of them. It helps to put them in a buying mood—”

The ghost and the elf joined the line—nobody paid them any undue attention. Shortly, the hunchback guided them into the interior of the fabricated structure, where they were treated to a series of tableaus portraying the worst excesses of vampires, chain-saw murderers and backalley abortionists. The rooms were decorated with coffins, skeletons and big glass jars with strange-looking creatures floating in amber alcohol. They saw corpses, dismembered body-parts and all manner of hairy little bugs and slimy snakes and worms. Deformed mutants leapt out of the walls at them. All around them, the costumed children laughed and shrieked in delight. Flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder punctuated the screams of the banshees and the moans of the zombies.

“See!” said the elf, when they found themselves out in the crush of the mall again. “It’s all in fun. Nobody gets hurt. Okay, yeah—so it’s not dancing sugarplums. But you were out of touch with all that sugary crap. Don’t you know that sugar is bad for kids. This is more realistic—more educational. It’s more in tune with the times. I mean, just look at yourself! Do you think you really represent the spirit of Christmas?”

The ghost was sorely offended. It stiffened to its full height.
“I am the spirit of Christmas
!”

“Right, sure,” said the elf. “And just how jolly do you think you’re going to make people feel, looking like that? At least we’ve got them laughing at their fears—”

“Laugh at this
!” said the spook, grabbing the elf by the arm and dragging him into a kitchen appliance store. He seized a cordless electric knife from the wall display—“No More Hassles Carving Your Christmas Turkey!”—and began hacking off the elf’s arms and legs. With each cut, the ghost reminded the screaming elf of who it had been when it was still alive.
“I used to bust my ass all year long just for the privilege of working like a frenzied demon racing the dawn on what was supposed to be the holiest night of the year. I had a spastic colon, two crushed vertebrae, a double hernia, hemorrhoids, varicose veins, swollen ankles, colitis, phlebitis,
an ulcerated bowel, psychosomatic impotency and chest pains strong enough to fell a horse. But I did it for the children—and you’ve turned it into a mockery
!”

By this time, the elf had been sliced into seven or eight different-sized pieces, all of them wriggling excitedly on the floor, reforming and growing even as the undead spirit watched. Each piece of the elf was becoming a whole new elf. Almost immediately, they were leaping to their feet, chittering and squeaking in their little high voices. “Now, there are eight of us! Eight little Brucies! H’ray! We can have a daisy-chain!”

The ghost began grabbing them one by one, cackling hideously as it shoved them all into an industrial size food processor. The elves screamed in agony as the ghost punched up the
puree
setting. The many shrieks of “I’m melting—” died away quickly, smothered by the sounds of tiny bones crunching into soup.

Before the fragments could reform into a Brucie-blob, the ghost slid the whole pitcher into a brand-new Radar-Range Microwave oven (with carousel and browning circuits) and programmed it for popcorn. Almost instantly, myriads of little gremlin-like creatures began spurting out of the pitcher, yelping and sparking as the microwaves sleeted angrily through their bodies. They cursed and swore, but their voices were way too thin to be audible. Instead, they sounded like the angry buzz of summer cicadas. Soon, they began smoking and popping, vaporizing painfully into nothingness—

Brucie Kringle, the elf, woke up in a cold sweat. “Oh, my goodness—what a nightmare,” he piped. Beside him, the naked Santa-droid rested heavily in the feathery mattress. Bruce leaned over and mopped the cold sweat from his face with Santa’s beard. “Whoa,” he said to himself. “That was scary. I just gotta watch what I eat before going to bed. I think there was more gravy than grave in that one.” And then his words stuck in his mouth. Fear grabbed his throat with icy claws.

Standing at the foot of the bed was a tall dark wraith; its ample girth and jolly posture revealed its nature even before it spoke.
“He he he
!” it cackled.
“Thank you, Bruce, thank you! You have taught me a very valuable lesson. The time is right for a whole new spirit of Christmas—you will get the Christmas that you deserve. And this time, my little sugar-plum, no one will never be able to kill the Christmas spirit! Ho ho ho
!”

DO YOU KNOW WHY they call it slime?

Because the name Smish was already taken.

Lennie Smish was a lawyer. A Hollywood lawyer.

Let me explain that.

Hollywood is heaven for lawyers. There’s always somebody with a deal, a contract, a claim or a grudge. The movie isn’t over until the last lawsuit is settled; a legal case in Hollywood isn’t merely a legal matter, it’s a whole career. You have to do it for your children, because you won’t live long enough to win.

In Hollywood, Lennie was a legend. He handled one case where
settlement was delayed until not only all of the original combatants had died, but most of their heirs as well. By that time, legal fees had eaten up ninety percent of the award. When lawyers spoke of their idols, Lennie’s name was always on the list.

No one knew how old Lennie was. It was said of him that even a stake through his heart wouldn’t slow him down. It was said that he was already dead, but the devil had refused to take him; so Lennie was left to wander the earth and trouble the sleep of the living. This was what Lennie’s
colleagues
said about him.

To say that Lennie was a vampire was more than an understatement, it was like saying the
Titanic
had a rough crossing. Lennie was a superstar of greed.

Lennie Smish had an amazing demeanor. He looked unwashed and disreputable. He was flabby, misshapen, swollen, mottled, discolored, uneven, lumpy, pickled and pocked. He had the large hairy pores of a walrus, the wattles of a turkey and the gravelly skin of an armadillo. He had the charm of a three-day-old Texas roadkill. His clothes were shabby and dirty; his shirts were rumpled and spotted. His tie—he only had one—was a wrinkled collection of soup stains. His hair was stringy and colorless, not quite gray, not quite anything else. Some of it lay flat, not quite covering his bald spot; the rest of it stuck out at odd angles. When he spoke, his voice rasped and scraped as if the words were being pulled one at a time out of a dry scabby throat. Lennie Smish was the only man in the world who could say, “Have a nice day,” and make it sound like a threat.