Alternate Gerrolds (16 page)

Then some right-wing religious zealot down in Orange County saw the story; his teenage son had borrowed a copy of the magazine from a
friend; so of course the censorship issue came bubbling right up to the surface like a three-day corpse in a swamp.

Dhor took full advantage of the situation. He ended up doing a public reading on the front steps of the Los Angeles Central Library. The
L.A. Times
printed his picture and a long article about this controversial new young fantasy writer who was challenging the outmoded literary conventions of our times. Goodman Hallmouth showed up of course—he’d get up off his death bed for a media event—and made his usual impassioned statement on how Dhor was exposing the hypocrisy of Christmas in America.

Of course, it all came to a head at Art and Lydia’s Christmas Eve party. They always invited the whole community, whoever was in town. You not only got to see all your friends, but all your enemies as well. You had to be there, to find out what people were saying about you behind your back.

Lydia must have spent a week cooking. She had huge platters piled with steaming turkey, ham, roast beef, lasagna, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes in basil and dill, corn on the cob, pickled cabbage, four kinds of salad, vegetable casseroles, quiche and deviled eggs. She had plates of cookies and chocolates everywhere; the bathtub was filled with ice and bottles of imported beer and cans of Coca-Cola. Art brought in champagne and wine and imported mineral water for Goodman Hallmouth.

And then they invited the seven-year locusts.

All the writers, both serious and not-so, showed up; some of them wearing buttons that said, “Turn down a free meal, get thrown out of the Guild.” Artists too, but they generally had better table manners. One year, two of them got trampled in the rush to the buffet. After that, Lydia started weeding out the guest list.

This year, the unofficial theme of the party was “Satan Claus is coming to town.” The tree was draped in black crepe, and instead of an angel on top, there was a large black bat. Steven Dhor even promised to participate in a “summoning.”

I got there late, I had other errands to run; it’s always that way on the holidays.

Steven Dhor was holding court in the living room, sitting on the floor in the middle of a rapt group of wanna-bes and never-wases; he was embellishing the legend of Satan Claus. He’d already announced that he was planning to do a collection of Satan Claus stories, or perhaps even a novel telling the whole story of Satan Claus from beginning to end. Just as St. Nicholas had been born out of good deeds, so had Satan Claus been forged from the evil that stalked the earth on the night before Jesus’ birth.

According to legend—legend according to Dhor—the devil was powerless to stop the birth of baby Jesus, but that didn’t stop him from raising hell in his own way. On the eve of the very first Christmas, the devil turned loose all his imps upon the world and told them to steal out among the towns and villages of humankind and spread chaos and dismay among all the world’s children. Leave no innocent being unharmed. It was out of this beginning that Satan Claus came forth. At first he was small, but he grew. Every year, the belief of the children gave him more and more power.

Dhor had placed himself so he could see each new arrival come in the front door. He grinned up at each one in a conspiratorial grin of recognition and shared evil, as if to say, “See? It works. Everybody loves it.” I had to laugh. He didn’t understand. He probably never would. He was so in love with himself and his story and the power of his words, he missed the greater vision. I turned away and went prowling through the party in search of food and drink.

Lydia was dressed in a black witch’s costume, she even wore a tall pointed hat. She was in the kitchen stirring a huge cauldron of hot mulled wine and cackling like the opening scene in Macbeth, “Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble—” and having a wonderful time of it. For once, she was enjoying one of her own parties. She waved her wooden spoon around her head like a mallet, laughing in maniacal glee.

Christmas was a lot more fun without all those sappy little elves and angels, all those damned silver bells and the mandatory choral joy of the endless hallelujahs. Steven Dhor had given voice to the rebellious spirit, had found a way to battle the ennui of a month steeped in Christmas cheer. These people were going to enjoy every nasty moment of it.

I circulated once through the party, taking roll—seeing who was being naughty, who was being nice. Goodman Hallmouth was muttering darkly about the necessity for revenge. Writers, he said, are the Research and Development Division for the whole human race; the only
specialists
in revenge in the whole world. Bread Bryan was standing around looking mournful. George Finger wasn’t here, he was back in the hospital again. Railroad Martin was showing off a new t-shirt; it said, “Help, I’m trapped inside a t-shirt.”

And of course, there was the usual coterie of fans and unknowns—I knew them by their fannish identites: the Elephant, the Undertaker, the Blob, the Duck.

“And then—a horrible thing happened. A
second
shape appeared behind the first, bigger and darker. Its crimson eyes blazed with unholy rage. A cold wind swept through the room. A low groaning noise, somewhere between a moan and an earthquake, resounded through the house like a scream. Black against a darker black, the first shape turned and saw what stood behind it. It began to shrivel and shrink. The greater darkness enveloped the lesser, pulled it close, and—did something horrible. In the gloom, the children
could not clearly see; but they heard ever terrible crunch and gurgle. They heard the choking gasps and felt the floor shudder with the weight.

Steven Dhor got very drunk that night—first on his success, then on Art and Lydia’s wine. About two in the morning, he became abusive and started telling people what he really thought of them. At first, people thought he was kidding, but then he called Hallmouth a poseur and a phony, and Lydia had to play referee. Finally Bread Bryan and Railroad Martin drove him home and poured him into bed. He passed out in the car, only rousing himself occasionally to vomit out the window.

The next morning, Steven Dhor was gone.

Art stopped by his place on Christmas morning to see if he was all right; but Dhor didn’t answer his knock. Art walked around the back and banged on the back door too. Still no answer. He peeked in the bedroom window, and the bed was disheveled and empty, so Art assumed that Steven had gotten up early and left, perhaps to spend Christmas with a friend. But he didn’t know him well enough to guess who he might have gone to see. Nobody did.

Later, the word began to spread that he was missing.

His landlady assumed he’d skipped town to avoid paying his rent. Goodman Hallmouth said he thought Steven had gone home to visit his family in Florida, and would probably return shortly. Bread Bryan said that Steve had mentioned taking a sabbatical, a cross-country hitchhiking trip. Railroad Martin filed a missing person report, but after a few routine inquiries, the police gave up the investigation. George Finger suggested that Satan Claus had probably taken him, but under the circumstances, it was considered a rather tasteless joke and wasn’t widely repeated.

But ... George was right.

Steven Dhor had come awake at the darkest moment of the night, stumbling out of a fitful and uncomfortable sleep. He rubbed his eyes and sat up in bed—and then he saw me standing there, watching him. Waiting.

I’d been watching him and waiting for him since the day he’d first spoken my name aloud, since the moment he’d first given me shape and form and the power of his belief. I’d been hungry for him ever since.

He was delicious. I crunched his bones like breadsticks. I drank his blood like wine. The young ones are always tasty. I savored the flavor of his soul for a long long time.

And, of course, before I left, I made sure to leave the evidence of my visit. Art saw it, but he never told anyone: sooty smudges on the bedroom window, and the ground beneath it all torn up and churned, as if by the milling of many heavy-footed creatures.

WHEN THE GHOST APPEARED, Kris Kringle was humping an elf.

The centuries-old oak bed was creaking and groaning like a whale with indigestion, as Kringle pounded furiously away. The headboard banged against the panelled wall with every thrust. Kringle’s red pants were down around his ankles, so were his silk boxers. The flabby pink mounds of flesh that were his buttocks shook like two great bags of jelly; they looked like Christmas puddings, all blotchy and purple with veins.

“Kriiiinnngllllle. ...”
the sepulchral voice repeated ominously, this time accompanied by the rattle of rusty old chains.

The fat man didn’t hear it—or maybe he didn’t want to hear it. He kept grunting with lust, again and again, while beneath him, the elf—almost smothered by his weight—shrieked in ecstasy or discomfort. It was impossible to tell.

“Kringle! Goddammit! Stop that now!”
demanded the voice.

Kris Kringle rolled over abruptly, rising up on one elbow, his tumescence shrinking and disappearing into the folds of flesh at his groin. “Ho ho ho!” he boomed jovially. “Mmmmeeeeerrrrrrryyyyy CCChhhhrrriiisssstttmmmaaaaassss!! And what would you like Santa to bring you, little boy?” Beside him, the elf lowered its knees from where they had been pressed against his chest. He wore an annoyed expression as he struggled to sit up, straightening his long blonde wig, and at the same time trying to pull down the nearly-transparent nightie to cover his childish modesty. His lipstick was badly smeared.

“Kringle . . . !
” The apparition’s words came from the darkest depths of the grave; they were hollow and raspy and carried the weight of years.
“I have come for you
!” Again, there came the hopeful rattle of moldering chains.

“Wait a minute, goddammit!” squeaked the elf. It reached up onto the headboard behind itself, fumbling for the remote control. At last, it found the clicker and hastily punched the pause button. Santa stopped booming in the middle of a loud enthusiastic “Ho—!” His deep voice trailed off slowly, the bright twinkle faded from his eyes, and some of the redness faded from his bulbous nose. The machinery whirred softly to a halt and Santa sat silently waiting, his naked lap open.

“Odds bodkins!” squeaked the elf. “What is it
this
time?”

In response, the tall gray specter elongated itself, stretching out one bony arm to reach across the intervening distance. It plucked the elf up out of the cushiony feather bed and held it aloft. “Do you recognize me, Brucie Kringle?
Ho ho ho . . . !
” it moaned.

The elf’s eyes widened in sudden horror. “Ye gods and little fishes!” He chittered like a cockroach with a thyroid problem. “I thought we
killed
you!”