Christmas on Crack (7 page)

Aleph
shook himself loose from the woman’s mental grasp and ran forward with his
sword. The woman dodged out of the way like a sexy cheetah.

“Oh,
look. It’s a naked little elf,” she said, sending a fist to the back of Aleph’s
head. Again he slashed with his blade and managed to cut Kay across the arm.
Her blood fell to the floor with a splat.

The
blood bubbled and grew into several chunks of hairy, black flesh. They rolled
in front of Santa Claus, who was still grinning like an idiot.

Kay
said, “Oh, look at what you’ve done, you dumb little thing.” She punched at
the elf again but Aleph blocked the attack with his arm.

The
woman was strong. Aleph’s head hurt like hell but he still slashed several
times at Kay, missing each time. She was fast, too.

Finally,
he said, “What the fuck did you do to him?” Kay laughed. “Whatever do you mean?
What makes you think I did anything to him? He and I are lovers, you know. Have
been for years. Who are you to get in the way of true love?” She walked over to
the chunks of flesh and spat on them.

Aleph
was about to rush her again when he saw the chunks start to grow until they
were the size of infants. The pieces of hairy flesh formed into miniature apes
with red faces.

Kay
proudly stood next to them. “Here you go, little elf. Meet the red faces of
god!”

The
apes ran to Aleph, grunting and pounding their little fists in the air. He
slashed down with his sword, catching one of the creatures in the head. Its
split skull opened up and spat out sugarplums. Another slash of the sword and
two apes were decapitated. Their tiny heads rolled to Kay’s feet. She screamed.

“How
dare you!”

Seeing
her rage only made Aleph more determined to hack his way through the angry
apes. One of them got to Aleph and grabbed his penis. It pulled and pulled
while the elf pounded the ape’s head with the handle of his sword. “For fuck’s
sake, get the hell off my dick!”

The
red-faced ape grinned and pulled harder. Finally, there was the tearing of
flesh and Aleph’s penis was ripped off and in the ape’s mouth.

Kay
laughed. She jumped forward and grabbed Aleph’s neck. Face to face with the
woman, the elf could smell her sweet peppermint breath.

“Oh,
you’d fit perfectly in my bitch-box. You want to be my bitch, dear?” she said.
“Drink my piss, eat my—” Kay screamed.

Aleph
hadn’t seen Gimel walk into the room. He hadn’t seen the elf take his giant
bone-penis glove and shove it up Kay’s skirt. But that’s what happened.

Kay’s
hands dropped from Aleph’s neck and she fell to her knees with Gimel’s hand
still inside her. “Get the fuck out of me!” she screamed.

Gimel
was in a trance. He pushed his fist in, pulled it out a tiny bit, and shoved it
in again, deeper and harder than before. Kay let out a howl like a dying
baboon.

Once
he got his bearings, Aleph brought his sword up and brought it down on the
woman’s neck.

Kay’s
head rolled over to Santa’s feet. Her neck gushed sugarplums that smelled like
peppermint and menstrual blood. “Fucking hell,” Gimel said.

“Yeah.”
Aleph dropped his sword and fell over, exhausted. He looked over at Santa. The
jolly, fat man was still staring into space, grinning like an idiot.

XXIII.

“He’s a
goddamn zombie!” Diana shouted. “Look at him! He just sits there all day,
drooling and mumbling about that woman!”

Smitty
listened to Diana as she vented. It had been a week since Christmas and Santa
showed no sign of getting better. “I know, Diana. I’m sorry.”

“All
day I have to hear about her beautiful tits, her delicious spit, her heavenly piss.
I swear if I have to hear about it one more time, I’m going to kill myself.”

“Take
it easy, Diana. Aleph’s going to be here any minute. He said he’d see if there
was a way to help Santa so let’s just wait and see. No use getting more upset
until we

know if
there’s anything we can do.”

Diana
sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

There
was a flash of light and Aleph stood in front of them, naked and with a bandage
over his crotch. “Hello Mrs. Claus...Mr. Smitty.”

“What’d
you find out?” Diana said.

“Well,”
Aleph said. “Kay, the woman who kidnapped your husband, we couldn’t find
anything more on her even after we did the initial search of the house. But
here’s the weird part. A few days later we went back to the town, only to find
that the town had.. .disappeared.”

Diana’s
jaw fell open. “What are you talking about?” “The town .I knew there was
something strange about it, but I didn’t think it was that significant. I
thought it was limited only to Kay. But now it’s as if the town was never
there.” Smitty said, “Maybe you guys weren’t checking the right place. Maybe
you got lost or something.”

“No,”
Aleph said. “The city of
Tusk
never existed, at least not in that form. We did find some other information...about
a small village named Tusk from the fourth century. It may or may not be
related to our situation.” “What? What about it?” Diana said.

“Nevermind
that. It’s not going to help your situation.” Aleph didn’t want to go into
detail and risk having a vengeful wife on his hands. “I do have good news,
though.” Diana’s face got considerably less upset. “What? Is my husband going
to get better?”

“Well,
yeah. But it’s a good news, bad news sort of thing.” Smitty spoke up. “What’s
the good news?”

“The
good news is Mr. Claus will go back to his old self.” Diana looked hesitant.
“And the bad news?”

Aleph
sighed. “It’s going to take about five years.”

XXIV.

Diana
handed Smitty a bottle of beer. “So, did you think about it?”

“Yeah.
All night.”

“So?”

“I
don’t know. I haven’t made a decision,” he said. “What do you think?”

“It’s
not the type of decision I can make for you.”

“I
know.” Smitty drank the beer in one gulp. “But a squidfoot delivering Christmas
presents? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“But
it’s only for five years.”

“Ha!
Only for five years,” Smitty said. He threw the beer bottle into the trash and
started to pace back and forth.

“You
like kids, don’t you? You always say you like seeing them happy?”

“Yeah
__
”

“Well
then?”

Smitty
sighed, his tentacles drooping to the floor. “But what if I’m no good at it?
What if I ruin Christmas for everyone?”

Diana
stood up and put her arms around him. She gestured to a large box in the middle
of the room. “Then I’ll put you in my bitch-box.”

Smitty
laughed and kissed her back. He put his face into her hair and inhaled her
scent. His nose wiggled.

Diana
had always smelled so nice, but there was something different this time. Was
it a new shampoo? A new perfume? What was that smell?

Was
that …
peppermint?

Frosty
the Snowman stepped onto the stage for the third time that night. With one icy
hand he grabbed the stripper pole and swung his hips to Bing Crosby’s voice
crooning over the club’s PA system.

A
gang of bikers crowded the club. Every seat was filled with tattooed, leather
jacketed, pierced members of The Crack Pipe Kings Motorcycle Club. They had
been here all night, just like last night and the night before.

Frosty
didn’t know why they were always there. He figured they liked the girls of the
club and he was a snow
man.
But he seemed to be their favorite and they did tip very
well.

The
stage lights illuminated his snow body and the crowd went wild. They cheered,
clanked beers, and head butted each other in excitement.

Frosty
the snowman was a jolly
happy
soul.

Blue
sequin bikini briefs glittered in the spotlight on his pelvis. The light was hot
and Frosty could feel his snow beginning to melt. Fortunately, his dances were
only four minutes long.

He
began to dance around.

That
was his cue. He turned slowly, facing the audience, reached down sliding his
finger under the special Velcro strap and quickly tore off the briefs revealing
his smooth snowman physique. Frosty ground his hips against the pole and the
audience roared.

* * *

Karen,
Jackie, Billy and June were building a magnificent snowman. He was almost as tall
as the stop sign he was next to. They had given him two pieces of coal for
eyes, a red button for a nose, and even a corncob pipe.

The
last touch was the black silk hat that Karen had found. It was hard to reach,
but with help from Jackie and Billy, Karen got the hat on top of the snowman’s
head.

All
four children stepped back to admire their creation, straight into the path of
an oncoming snowplow. The driver wasn’t paying that close of attention, he was
shitfaced. All four bodies were very small so there wasn’t even a thump as they
got over taken by snow and pushed by the plow. They were crushed into a large
mound of ice and their bodies weren’t discovered for two weeks.

It
turned out there was a little magic in that old silk hat they found. The snowman
they had built leapt to life and began to dance around.

A
bum walking by yelled “Yay! It’s Frosty!”

Frosty
waved back. “Good Day, Sir.”

He
went walking down the street, as happy as could be. Everyone waved at him and
shouted greetings as he strolled by.

He
came to an alleyway and there was a very skinny man wearing a very dirty trench
coat leaning against the wall.