Blood Lite II: Overbite (16 page)

“You’re probably wondering why I’m dressed as Santa,” Santa says, “and why I have a sleigh and a reindeer.”

“No,” I lie. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“Sure you are. Who wouldn’t be?” He steps so close I can smell a hint of nutmeg and cinnamon on his breath, and I catch myself wondering if he isn’t really who he claims he isn’t. “Three years ago business was in the crapper. People weren’t buying real trees anymore. Artificial trees could be purchased on the cheap at any discount department store and people were becoming so damned eco-conscious. Thank you Walmart. Thank you Al Gore.”

Rudolph’s gaze isn’t flinching from my hands. I curl my fingers into fists reflexively—not so much an act of aggression as an attempt to hide my much loved and needed digits.

Santa steps back and begins pacing the basement, looking at me only occasionally. “The world was changing. I was forced into confronting the truth that if I wanted to eat”—Rudolph’s tongue wets his hairy lips—“I’d have to change with it.”

“So you bought yourself a Santa suit,” I say.

“Very good! I bought myself a Santa suit. And a sleigh. And let us not forget the reindeer. His name is Harvey, by the way.”

But I know he’ll always be Rudolph to me.

“I hoped that kids would drag their parents to my farm to meet Santa, and while here, their folks would buy a tree. Christmas is, after all, for the kids.”

For the first time since I sent him home I think of Gregory, and I’m glad he left when he did. Like Santa said, Christmas is for the kids, and I’d hate for my boy to have to see me kill the big guy in red. That might put a damper on the holiday for him for, gosh, a couple of years at least.

But that’s the only way I can foresee this night ending. Either I die, or Santa dies.

“And it worked! Families came in droves. They fed Harvey, they took pictures of little ’uns in the sleigh, and they all wanted a piece of me. Santa sells.” He pauses, and both his smile and the twinkle in his eye fade. “But I still didn’t sell enough. Tree sales only rose marginally. Most people came for the free family fun and left without opening their wallets and purses. Cheapos.” From his right pocket Santa pulls a knife. It gleams in the light of the basement’s solitary bulb, dangling from a cord overhead. “And to make matters worse, I began to notice fresh stumps in my fields each and every morning.” From his left pocket he pulls an oversized candy cane. Somehow I find this more menacing than the knife. “Poor sales, the cost of all the razzle-dazzle, and stolen stock. It all adds up to guaranteed bankruptcy. So I decided to take action. If I’m going down, at least I’m taking one thieving son of a bitch with me. And wouldn’t you know, you’re the first thieving son of a bitch I’ve caught.” With a sound like metal scraping bone, he shaves a piece of candy cane from the tip. It plummets to the ground completely unlike a gentle snowflake, and I feel my heart plummet with it.

He’s whittling a dagger.

A sick, twisted, delicious dagger.

“You know,” he says, his hands busily carving his cane of death, “it costs a lot of money to feed Harvey. He’s got a voracious appetite. Carrots only tease him. What he really craves is meat. You got any on you?”

Behind Santa—oh, sweet Jesus—behind Santa I see a pair of small feet appear down the stairs. It’s hard to see in the dark, but the puffy purple coat, rainbow mitts, and Pikachu earmuffs can only belong to one person.

The boy.

His eyes widen and his mouth forms an O as he sees me chained to the wall. Or maybe he’s just excited to see Santa Claus. Either or.

At least Santa and Rudolph haven’t heard him. Yet. The boy ain’t the quiet type.

Santa touches his finger to the tip of the candy cane. “Ooh, sharp,” he says.

And then he does it. Gregory jumps up and down and yells, “Santa Claus! It’s really you!”

Santa turns.

Rudolph turns.

Santa says, “Who the fuck?”

The boy’s expression turns from glee to shock.

Rudolph crouches, as if he’s about to charge.

I kick my feet off the ground and land on the back of Rudolph’s neck, squeezing my legs on both sides.

Rudolph charges. At my boy. The hairy, stinky son of a whore.

I hold on with my legs and all my might. We move forward. My arms are pulled back behind me. The chains strain in the wall.

And then they break free.

Rudolph rockets forward with me straddling him like a horse.

Santa grabs hold of the boy.

“Gregory! Down!” I yell. I’m afraid that if I yell, “Duck!” he’d look around for water fowl.

He ducks.

Santa turns to face me as Rudolph and I near him. I swing my arms wildly past his face. The chains, still attached to my wrists, hurtle through the air.

The poor bastard doesn’t even have time to blink.

Skin tears, blood sprays, teeth shatter, an eyeball dislodges and the big man crumples in a heap. But before he collapses he tosses the candy cane in the air.

I catch it.

In one swift motion I plunge the dagger into Rudolph’s neck. The beast bellows a pained gurgle, gnashes his teeth one final time, and collapses even harder than Santa did. I’m thrown forward and hit the ground with a thud. I tuck my shoulder and roll but the impact hurts like hell. I come to a stop on my back and look up, dazed as all get-out.

The boy steps into my line of vision and looks down at me. His expression is hard to read.

What have I done? I’ve caved Santa Claus’s face in with a chain. I’ve plunged a candy cane into Rudolph’s neck. I’ve messed up my son for life.

Plus, I’ve ruined Christmas.

Gregory opens his mouth and says, “Hi, Dad.”

I’m too shocked to answer.

“You okay?” he adds.

I remain silent.

“Sorry I came back.” He kneels down beside me and wipes some reindeer blood from my brow with the back of his purple sleeve. “I went home to tell Mom you’d be back soon with the cheer, but she was already asleep. Everyone had left. I waited up for you but got scared. I didn’t know what had happened. I had to come find you.”

What a good boy. What a good effin’ boy.

The pain coursing through my body seems to dissipate a little. I sit up and wrap him up in my arms, squeezing him to my chest. Gregory squeezes me back.

“You saved my life,” I say, not yet ready to let him go.

“Dad, we killed Santa Claus,” he whispers in my ear. He doesn’t sound too upset about it.

“Nah, just some farmer named . . .” What the hell was his name? “Just some farmer.”

“Oh. Okay, then.”

And just like that, he’s fine. He’s stronger than I’ve ever given him credit for.

We stand together and I drape an arm over his shoulder. He’s taller than I realized. Guess it’s time I started paying more attention.

“Is it wrong to kill a man?” he asks.

“Not in self-defense.”

“Is it wrong to take a dead man’s tree?”

I reach into my pocket, pull out my wallet, and toss a bill onto dead Santa’s ample belly.

“Not if you pay for it.” That was my last twenty. I have no idea how we’ll get through the holidays. But what the heck, it’s Christmas.

Hoping for a miracle, I say to the boy, “Let’s go home and decorate our tree.”

The Unfortunate Persistence of Harold Francis Beamish

AARON POLSON

On their way to drunkenness, a pair of seventeen-year-old boys swayed across the Wellman River Bridge in a rusty Ford F-150 moments before hitting the dead man. Bobby, pale and thin as a twist of plain paper, slugged back the last swallow of beer, crumpled the can with his left hand, and tossed it out the window, aiming for the railing. But the can flew wide, winked in a flicker of moonlight, and vanished into the darkness below.

“Whoo-hooo!” he howled out the window. Heavy metal pounded from the truck’s speakers, cranked too loud despite a loose wire and buzz in the dash. Bobby thumped his liberated hand on the side of the door to the beat. “That’s some badass guitar playin’, D.”

“Yeah, but your damn speaker’s blown and you’re likely to put a dent in your door like that,” Darren mocked. The linebacker took a sip from his own can, rubbed the stiffness in his knee with the other hand, looked up at the bend of dark roadway ahead, and dropped the beer. “Jesus, stop!” His hands locked against the dashboard as cold foam leaked onto the rubber mats at his feet.

Bobby sent the brake into the floor with his right foot, the tires locked in a howl, and both boys tumbled forward. The body hit with a thump, a dull metallic sound muffled by flesh and clothing. Gears whined in protest as Bobby thrust the truck’s shifter into park. His beer-addled brain had received the impulse a split second too late.

“Shit.”

Tiny insects swam through the Ford’s headlight beams. The engine puttered at idle, shaking the seat and rattling the empty can at Darren’s feet. Neither boy moved for a long minute, but then Bobby lowered his forehead and rested it against the steering wheel.

“Had to be a deer,” he muttered.

“Like hell.” Darren lifted a finger and pointed to the windshield. “I saw his face, Bobby. All white and big as a frying pan. He looked right at me.”

Bobby’s door groaned as he pushed it open. His feet struck the rough asphalt with a dull crunch, and he staggered a few meandering steps toward the front of the truck. The vehicle waited, growling on its haunches.

“Hey, I can’t get out,” Darren called.

“Climb out my side. The lock’s busted, remember?”

Darren grunted as he scooted across the bench seat. A moment later, they stood side by side on the blacktop, staring down at a lumpy body, a man, one arm cocked above his head, the other twisted under his back. The moon reflected in the man’s face, painting it a shade of silver gray like a pile of raw clay. Countless crickets and bullfrogs joined the engine’s chorus.

“Definitely dead, Bobby.”

“Aw, hell!” Bobby’s fist pounded into the fender of his truck. He yelped and proceeded to stuff the scraped and bleeding knuckles into his mouth. Darren approached the corpse, slowly, knelt, and put a hand on his jacket.

“Soaked, too.”

“Bud?” Bobby mumbled with his hand in his mouth.

“Whassat?”

“Is it blood?” Bobby asked again, rubbing his sore hand against his pants.

“No.” Darren leaned a little closer, sniffed, and scowled. “River water. He’s as cold as a fish.”

Bobby drew back one foot and kicked the fender. “Goddammit, I killed a man,” he complained, hopping backward with throbbing toes.

“Don’t think so.”

“What?” Bobby stopped hopping.

Darren’s hand hovered over the dead man’s face, trembling slightly at a nasty gash in the side of the head. “He’s been dead awhile. Real cold.” He rose to full height and dried his palm on his shirttail. A chill breeze whispered through the trees on either side. Darren squinted into the stretch of road behind the truck as Bobby paced a circuit between the taillights and driver’s door. “How was a dead man—”

“What the hell are we going to do?” Bobby interrupted Darren’s thought process. “I’m drunk, D. I killed a man and I’m drunk . . .”

“Shhhh. Quit blubberin’. You didn’t kill anybody, but we can’t call the cops with both of us drunk.” Darren cocked his head to one side, listening. “Someone’s comin’.” He moved to the body and poked his hands under the arms from behind. “Hurry up and grab his feet.”

Bobby stared for an instant, enough time for his dulled sense to take over. “Let’s leave him—”

“Too late. Now, come on. In the truck.” Darren’s face flushed with serious intent, and his eyes caught sight of a brown wallet on the pavement. He hesitated.

Bobby started to whine. “But . . . we could just leave—”

“But nothin’. Never mind leaving him. Who’s gonna believe he was already dead?”

Bobby tugged at his mess of dark hair. “Why do you keep saying that shit about him bein’ dead before?”

“Just help me, all right?”

They hoisted the corpse toward the back of the truck. Cold, fetid water soaked into their clothes, through Bobby’s untucked flannel shirt and Darren’s hooded sweatshirt. They heaved the body over the side and rolled it onto the bed. It landed with a dull thud and tiny crack as the skull bounced against sheet metal.

“Poor bastard,” Bobby said.

“Ain’t gonna hurt him anymore.” Darren climbed into the driver’s seat. “Get in, dammit!” Headlights crested the hill behind them on the other side of the bridge. Bobby yanked the passenger door open and tumbled inside. With a pop and a groan, the truck slid into gear, and they rolled away.

“Thought you said that door was busted.”

Bobby looked up, his face pale and green against the dashboard lights. “Just from the inside.”

The taillights overtook them, and a black sports car whizzed past, fading into a pair of red taillights before slipping around a curve. The truck slowed, and Darren cranked the wheel toward the right shoulder.

“What’re you doing?” Bobby’s eyes swelled as he white-knuckled the door handle.

“Heading back to the river, you dumb bastard.”

“River?”

“We gotta stash the stiff.” Darren nodded over his shoulder. “Smelled like the river, so I figure we might as well plant him back in there.”

A break in the trees over the river broke open the midnight sky as the truck bounced across the narrow bridge. Darren twisted his hands on the steering wheel, looking for the pull off that led to a few fishing plots near the bridge. Bobby continued to mumble under his breath.

“Quit your yammerin’, would you?”

“You didn’t kill the guy, D.” Bobby tucked his lips together in a pout.

Darren shook his head. “No. But you didn’t touch his cold-as-a-dead-carp skin. I’m sure he was already dead . . . had a scar on his head, like a bullet wound.”

“Bullshit . . . where’s the blood.”

“Dunno.” Darren’s eyes ballooned as he shook his head.

Bobby shifted in his seat and peered, pale-faced, at the body in the back. Arms and legs flopped like a carnival ride with loose bolts. The boys tossed in their seats while the truck navigated a few assorted dips in the rutted dirt road. A splash of cold mud sprayed across the passenger window. The truck rattled to a stop, and Darren clicked off the lights.

“Leave ’em on, okay?” Bobby pleaded.

“What?”

“It’s so damn dark.”

Darren punched Bobby in the arm. “Chickenshit, you want to broadcast to the rest of the world we’re dumping a hobo into the river?”

“Please, man?”

Darren shrugged. “Let’s get this done.”

Bobby pulled at his lower lip between two fingers as Darren hopped from the cab. The crickets and bullfrogs had taken a break. The headlights glinted against broken beer bottles, and the river lapped against the muddy banks, snaking around the bend back toward town in one direction, vanishing beneath the bridge in the other. Darren glanced at the flickering surface of the water and back toward the truck bed. A shadow shifted, and a damp chill brushed against his neck.

“Come on, you wuss.” Darren chided Bobby as he forced his own reluctant legs to move. He lowered the tailgate and tugged the body out by the ankles. The foot jerked; Darren’s hands fell open, and he reeled backward.

“What?”

“The fucking thing moved.” Darren’s eyes narrowed. “I thought it moved.”

“Couldn’t have, right?”

Darren shook his head. “Right. It’s . . . it’s just late.”

Their boots shuffled in dirt and crunched glass fragments as they slid the corpse from the tailgate and hauled it to the edge of the river. Both strained to see under the glare of Bobby’s halogens, and they swung the body three times to gain momentum, releasing at the apex of the third arc so the body flopped over the edge and landed with a plash and spray of murky water, a perfect belly flop. It bobbed, turned over, and stopped.

“No . . .”

“Oh, shit.”

The dead man, highlighted by the truck’s high beams, hooked one arm on a length of driftwood, and bobbed at the surface of the water. Shadows danced and played on the dead man’s face, appearing as though he smirked at the boys.

“I figured he’d float,” Bobby said.

Darren glared at him. “Why didn’t you say somethin’?” He slid down the bank, landing on a few smooth stones at the edge of the water.

“Hey! What’re you doing?”

Darren waded into the waist-high water, shivering as the cold muck soaked through his jeans and settled around his legs and testicles. “Setting our friend free.” With his hands at his sides, Darren wobbled through the current toward the corpse.

“Darren?” Bobby flinched.

“What now?”

Bobby waved to the bridge. “I hear a car.”

A few feet away from the body, Darren paused, listening. His ears filled with splashes, his bones chilled from the rush of frigid water, his stomach tight and knotted.

“I don’t hear anything—”

Darren froze. The flash of headlights cut the words from his mouth.

Bobby ran for the river, tumbled headlong and crashed into the cold water. “Get that damn stiff outta here.” In slow motion, he staggered past Darren, toward the dead man, but, just as he reached out, the body rolled over, slipped from the grasp of the tree limb, and began rolling downriver.

“D-did you see that?”

Darren’s eyes locked onto the headlights as they slowed in the middle of the bridge. His face flashed to the bank, Bobby’s truck, and the high beams. “We’re in deep shit.”

“The stiff, moved. Swear to God, man.”

“Get down, you dumbass.” With tremendous effort, Darren pulled his lethargic feet from the mud, grabbed Bobby’s arm, and dragged him to his knees. Both boys were up to their necks in the cold water, both their hearts pounding in their chests as the headlights swung around the dirt road at the end of the bridge and pulled into place next to Bobby’s truck. The riverbed echoed with two slamming doors followed by muttering too distant for either to make out.

“D—who are they?” Bobby whispered.

“Don’t know. Maybe the guys that . . .” Darren held his finger to his head like a gun.

Dark silhouettes shuffled across two sets of headlights. Two large bodies gathered in front of Bobby’s truck, blotting the light. One shape raised an arm and brought it down quickly. Glass shattered, and one headlamp went dead.

“Mothermmph—”

Darren clamped a wet and fishy hand across Bobby’s mouth.

Crack. The other lamp sputtered. Black shadows against a dark sky swelled at the edge of the river.

“Duck,” Darren whispered and dragged his friend with him, making an underwater tackle on the smaller boy. Bobby struggled, kicking and clawing, but Darren was stronger, and held him under as long as he could. When they surfaced, sputtering, they heard doors slam, and the other set of headlights wheeled away back toward the road.

“Sons of bitches . . .” Bobby panted. “D—they . . . smashed my lights.”

“Lucky they didn’t smash us.”

“The—” Bobby stopped abruptly, his eyes ballooned, and he thrashed out of the water. Scrambling on the muddy bank, he slipped twice, caught his footing, and scampered toward the truck. Darren followed, steadily mounted the embankment, and shook as much water from his clothing as he could.

“What’s your problem, Bobby?”

Bobby’s face went white under the sliver of moon, pale and bloodless. “G—grabbed—my leg.”

“What?”

“Somethin’ yanked my leg. Pulled on me just now.” Bobby slouched against the driver’s side fender of the truck. “That dead son of a bitch.”

Darren’s fingers ran through his hair, chasing out as much muck and filth as possible. Nature fell in with its chorus again, a rhythm of crickets and frogs punctuated by a distant hoot of a barn owl. Coupled with his soaked clothes, the raptor’s call broke a shiver over Darren’s back like a half-rotten two-by-four.

“Bullshit.”

“You said he kicked you earlier, right?”

Darren tugged at the waistband of his sweats. “Imagined it. That guy was done. Dead. Finished. Cold. He had that bullet wound.”

“No blood, though.”

“Right . . .”

“So how’d he get outta the river and down the road?” Bobby frowned. “Let’s just go, okay?” He tugged his door open.

“Can’t.”

“What?”

“Tires slashed. At least the front two.” Darren walked over and kicked the rubber with a dull thud. He slumped to his haunches and looked under Bobby’s open door toward the rear. “Got those, too.”