Christmas on Crack (18 page)

“I’ll
take you, Grandma,” Staci said. She went with Julette upstairs.

Belinda
came out of the bathroom with clean hands and face and said, “Fuck this, I’m
outta here.” She went to the door, snatching her coat from the rack and pulling
it on.

Skipp
yelled, “No, Belinda, there’s crabs out there!”

She
opened the door and ran outside. Skipp, Rudy, and Rainey followed. Gerald sat
down and fell asleep in front of the TV.
Lydia
was making apple pie and just
couldn’t stop.

“Wait!”
Skipp called. He didn’t want Belinda getting

killed.
He was secretly in love with her.

Belinda
stalked down the driveway. “I’m going home!” she yelled.

“We
were just about to watch home movies from past Christmases!” Rudy told her.

“You’re
crazy!” she said.

The
Asshole’s door opened just then and Brian came staggering outside.

He
looked over at the group in the driveway and said, “Don’t add water.” He
slumped to the ground face-first, his sunglasses skittering across the icy
drive. Everyone could see that his back had been torn open nearly to his front.
Blood shot from his heart in gouts, staining the snow.

Two
crabs leapt from the Asshole’s open door, shrieking and scampering toward the
people standing in the drive.

A
laser beam streaked through the air and hit Belinda in the chest. Blackened,
singed down puffed into the air. Belinda flew backward and tumbled through the
snow. She sighed, “Fuck you,” and died.

“No!”
Skipp shouted, running toward the smoking girl.

His
dad snatched him by the collar and hauled him toward the house as one crab
grabbed Brian in both claws and pulled him apart over its mouth, sucking his
guts loudly, and the other raced for Belinda.

Rudy
and Rainey hauled their son through the door and slammed it behind them.

Staci
came down the stairs. “Where’s Belinda?”

“She
went home,” Rudy told her. “It’s time for ice skating. Where’s your grandma?”

“Ice
skating? She’s up in your room, crying about grandpa. What exactly happened to
his head?”

“Laser,”
Skipp panted. “Just poofed it away.”

“Everyone
get your gear, we’re going skating in the park. Staci, get your grandma.”

“But
what about dinner, honey?” Rainey frowned. “It’ll be perfect timing. We’ve got
over an hour. Let’s put the pies in the oven, get some foil on those rolls, and
skate!” He herded his nearest family members toward the coat rack in the foyer.

Lydia
put pies in the oven and wrapped up
the rolls. “I’m not skating on a pond!” she yelled. Under her breath, she said,
“That’s how people die.”

Skipp
said, “Dad. Skating? There’s giant crabs running around out there. With
lasers.”

“That’s
true, son. So get the shotguns.”

Skipp
ran upstairs.

While
the family put on coats and retrieved the ice skates Rudy had so carefully
packaged for each of them, Skipp and his sister returned with Julette.

The
wailing grandma said, “I’m not going skating! Hector is dead! DEAD!” She sat on
the stairs and cried.

Skipp
handed his dad a shotgun. He unslung a bag from his back. “There’s hundreds of
shells, Dad.”

“I
was gonna shoot a lot of ducks, Skipp.” He loaded the shotgun, nodding at his
son to do the same with his. “Julette, you’re going. Grab your skates. They’re
in that box there that says,
Hector and Julette s Skates
.”

The
old lady cried harder.

“Daaaad,”
Staci said.

“Put
as many shells in your pockets as you can, Skipp,” Rudy said, stuffing his own
pockets full. “Let’s go, everyone. Julette! Get your coat. Staci, help your
grandma, will ya?” He hung his skates from his neck as he had everyone else’s
and pushed his family out the door.

They
huddled in the driveway, Rudy waved his shotgun toward the street. There were
no people visible outside. Something exploded far away. Glass tinkered a few
doors down. Snow was gently falling.

Skipp
pointed his gun at the Assholes’ house. He whispered, “Dad, where’s the
bodies?”

Julette
staggered outside, barely supported by her granddaughter. She was dressed in a
black coat and wore a white hat. She carried her skates.

Staci
let her go when they reached the crowd. She pointed at the yard. “What’s all
this blood from?”

“Crabs,”
said Skipp.

Lydia
said, “I’m not skating. Can’t I just
go back and check on the pies?”

“You’re
skating, Mom,” Rudy said. “Come on, everyone.” He led the shuffling crowd
arm-in-arm across the street and down the path to the park.

Scuffling
sounds inside the
Merced
’s
house startled them as they passed. Wood cracked, and things thudded on the
floor. The group hurried down the path, still in a tight group.

Skipp
craned to see inside the window as they passed, but only saw shadows.

“Dad?”
he asked.

“Keep
moving,” Rudy said.

He
led them into the park, past the frozen fountain, and to the edge of the pond.

“Where’s
mom?” he asked, when he looked over the group.

Everyone
looked around and shook their heads. They sat and started putting on their
skates. Except Julette. She said, “What, there’s no bench?”

Gerald
said, “You know your mother. She probably went back to check on the pies when
we weren’t looking.”

“When
weren’t we looking?” Rudy asked.

His
father shrugged.

“Okay,”
Rudy said. He sat in the snow with his shotgun over his knees and put on his
skates. The snow gently fell. He felt pretty good, despite his mother sneaking
off. Her fear of frozen ponds really bothered him sometimes.

“Dad,
what’s that?” Staci asked, pointing at the playground.

“Crab!”
yelled Skipp. He jumped up onto his skates, though he hadn’t tied the left one.

The
crab skittered around the jungle gym/slide thing. Its claws clacked.

“Let’s
get it, Skipp,” Rudy said, creeping forward through the snow.

“We
should just get out of here,” Rainey said.

Julette,
Gerald, and Staci agreed.

“Shhhhhh!”
Rudy said. He motioned for Skipp to follow him.

When
they were twenty feet from the giant crab’s hiding place, they could see its
legs through the tunnels and gaps in the gym. It shuffled back and forth,
clacking its enormous claws.

Rudy
motioned for Skipp to go around one side of the equipment, and he crept around
the other.

An
eye-stalk shot out from around the slide. Rudy hefted his gun and
fired—shattering plastic, wood, and crab-eye into bloody spray. The crab
screeched and jumped backward into the air. Rudy could hear his family yelling
from the pond’s edge. He ran toward the crab.

Skipp
fired as the monstrosity flew toward him screeching and snapping its claws. A
laser beam arced through the air, slicing the swingset to the ground, melting
snow in a wide line, and burning into a house behind the park. The crab’s guts
exploded as buckshot punched through its belly and blew out its armored back.

A
snapping mass of stringy guts and claws landed on the boy, knocking him to the
ground. He fired the shotgun again as he fell, blasting more of the crab,
including its mouthparts and remaining eye into pulp. The crab pinned Skipp to
the snow, twitching and flopping.

Rudy
arrived, kicking at the thing with his ice skates. He finally lifted a tangle
of legs and guts off Skipp, and dragged him clear of the mess.

They
gathered themselves by the merry-go-round.

Rudy
wiped some of the gore from his son’s coat and face. “There,” he said, “There.
Better? All good?”

“I
lost a skate,” Skipp said. “It’s in the crab.”

“Oh.
Well, you can skate on just one, right?”

“Well,
yeah. But my foot’s wet, and gettin’ cold.”

“You’ll
be fine.”

Rudy
helped Skipp up. They went back to the pond and joined the others. Skipp
hopped.

“Let’s
go back,” Julette said when they got there.

“Not
until we’ve skated,” Rudy answered cheerily. “Let’s go! Skipp, you should probably
put a boot on your other foot.”

“Are
you two okay?” Rainey asked.

“We
should go home,” Staci said. But she hopped onto the ice.

“We’re
fine,” Rudy said, wiping at Skipp’s coat. “Right, Skipp?”

“Yeah,”
Skipp said, slipping his frozen foot into a boot.

Gerald
helped Julette onto the ice.

Soon
everyone was skating.

Julette
surprised everyone but Rainey by being an excellent skater. She did some leaps
and stuff—reminding Rudy of the time he took the family to SeaWorld.

Skipp
skated a wide circle around the group, keeping an eye out for crabs. He saw
some kids go to the playground and run away screaming.

Rudy
watched his dad slip and fall about twenty times. Rainey tried to help him up
for the first few minutes, but finally crawled away, pretending to look for an
earring as he rolled around calling for help.

He
saw Julette doing some crazy backward skating maneuvers while Staci followed
after her. They whizzed past him and he spun to watch them.

Rudy
and Skipp noticed the crabs at the same time.

Three
of them.

They
skittered and slid across the pond, heading straight for the family.

Pieces
of children dropped from their claws as they approached, skidding across the
ice, leaving bloody trails.

“Crabs!”
Skipp yelled. He raced from the far side of the pond, hoisting his gun.

“Crabs!”
Rudy yelled, pointing behind Julette and Staci.

Staci
stopped, staring at the approaching crustaceans. “Shit, Grandma, crabs!” She
pointed.

A
laser beam shot from the crab on their left. It grazed across the surface of
the pond. The beam zig-zagged back and forth, cutting the ice and opening a gap
between the crabs and the backward-skating Julette.

Julette
said, “What?”

She
turned just in time to notice she was plunging into the water, and that three
crabs skittered to a stop at the edge of the ice on the other side of a freshly
lasered gap in the frozen part of the pond. Julette dropped into the water with
a huge splash and a birdlike screech.

Staci
stopped as she watched two of the crabs pick her grandma from the pond and pull
her apart as she blubbered for breath. Blood erupted from tears in her big
body, spraying the crabs and splashing into the pond.

The
third crab leapt the gap. It landed poorly, and slid onto its side, careening
across the ice.

Skipp
hop-skated full speed toward it, unloading both barrels of the shotgun as the
crab staggered to its pointy feet and scuttled at his sister.

The
crab’s legs were blown out from under it and it was plastered in the side with
heavy shot. It slid past Staci and splashed into the pond.

Staci
turned and skated to her brother, who was reloading.

The
other two crabs ate their grandma, stuffing her into their chittering maws.

Rudy
called, “Come the fuck on, kids!” He was at the edge of the pond, off the ice,
waving at them.