The Doom That Came to Christmas, Part 5
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be serializing my Christmas horror story, The Doom That Came to Christmas. I hope you enjoy it! Please feel free to share!
I am born anew.
The nightmare looked down upon the realm of mankind in revulsion and veneration. Here was a world ripe with corruption and hate, fear and jealousy, anger and malignancy, and all of it shrouded in the spirit of hope and love and renewal and deific joy.
The nightmare tittered.
It did so love a good mask.
***
Pulled by eight great, glimmering stags, Santa’s sleigh blasted through the darkened sky. In a blink, the elven village with its houses of red and green, with its twinkling lights, had vanished into the mists of shadow and swirling snow. The sleigh banked to the left, to the right, bounced through the turbulence.
The elves—Thistlebud, Rosemary, and Deerspigot—clung to the sleigh for dear life. Rosemary slipped at one point, almost tumbling into the tumultuous clouds, but Deerspigot caught her at the last second. The two of them bumped and slammed into the cargo bed. They’d both be covered in bruises come the morrow. Thistlebud had buried the head of his axe into the top rail as an anchor. The wood there was marked with a dozen similar gouges and cuts, the memories of numerous other, happier rides on the sleigh.
Krampus, hunched over and hulking, glowered from his perch. The snow and ice clung to his fur and dripped in icicles from his hood. His ancient, creaking bones ached, doing little for his already malicious disposition. In one hand, he clutched a red velvet pouch, tied shut with a green ribbon.
Santa stood proudly at the front of the sleigh, holding the reins in one gloved hand. In his other hand, he held his shepherd’s crook. The long, curved stick, was carved from an ash tree that had been old when the Earth was young. Runes glowed upon the crook, pulsing with magical energies.
“Why not use that fancy stick of yours to teleport us where we need to go?” Krampus asked, showing his ice-caked fangs. “That is, if you can manage to pull it out of your ass for a few minutes.”
His red hat whipping in the wind, Santa turned to dismissively regard Krampus. “The crook could open a portal, yes, but it’s magic is not eternal. It is fading. It might have a dozen more jumps in it. It might have one. No sense in wasting its power.”
“I knew it!” Krampus said. “Good ol’ jolly Saint Nick, renowned for his ability to fly his sleigh all over the world in a single night! Only you, you fat and lazy sot, you’ve been using your walking stick to teleport all over the globe! You’ve squandered your magic!”
“Careful, goat,” said Thistlebud, clinging to his axe.
“I didn’t always look like this,” Krampus growled at the elf. “Ask your boss sometime. He’ll tell you. Once upon a time, I was a handsome fae prince. That, I’m afraid, was before we face the Crawling Chaos the last time. But have I ever been thanked for my sacrifice? Noooooo. That’s a gift dear ol’ Santa can’t seem to conjure.”
“Don’t pout,” said Santa.
Krampus snorted.
With one of his claws, he untied the green ribbon from the pouch he carried, revealing three piping hot Christmas cookies. The rich, sweet smell wafted through the air.
“What’s that?” Santa asked, raising an eyebrow.
“What’s it look like?” Krampus said. “Cookies for the trip.”
“Did… Anya give you those?”
“That she did.” Krampus sneered, popped a cookie into his mouth, and winked. “Like I said, I didn’t always look like this.”
Santa snapped the reins, urging the reindeer to fly faster.
He wanted this dreadful business to be finished.