Krampusnacht: Twelve Nights of Krampus (24 page)

“That’s why he came over here earlier,” Arnold said. “He was going to bring it back to you. My son. He was just trying to patch things up.” As he thought about that, John saw the anger draining out of Arnold’s face. He looked sad, on the verge of tears. “I’ve got to say he was a damned sight more mature than his father.”

Bewildered by his own misunderstanding, John asked, “He came to return my Maggie’s Christmas stocking? And he said I was just… angry?”

Arnold nodded. “That’s right. So he came home and confronted me with it. Made me feel, well, like a damned fool. I realized I’d taken things way too far. So I came back here to make amends. And I guess it’s a good thing I did, because as I walked up I heard the crash in your workshop. I looked in here and saw that your storage boxes had fallen off the bench and knocked you clean out. Lying here on the garage floor, John, unconscious in the middle of December. You could have frozen to death.”

John put a hand on the workbench as he lifted himself off the concrete. “You, uh, didn’t see anything else as you came in, did you Brooks?”

Arnold shrugged. “Just you and the… well, what’s in the front yard there.” He peered at John. “It’s awful dark outside. Is there something else I should have seen?”

John shook his head. “Nah. Just remembering something. An old Christmas story my granddad told me years ago.”

“Christmas,” Arnold said as he replaced the lids on the toppled boxes and stacked them on John’s workbench. “Well, in the spirit of Christmas, I decided it was time to come over here and set things right. I’ve been living with a demon since that night, and I tried to blame you for putting that demon inside me. But tonight I realized that I was the one who’d become a demon. Only one responsible for the ugly, spiteful way I was acting was me, not you. And there’s only one way to make a demon like that go away.”

“Whazzat?” John asked.

The muscles along Arnold’s jawline tightened as he stared straight into John’s eyes. For a long time he didn’t speak, and when he turned and moved toward side door, John thought that maybe he was going to leave without saying anything more.

Then Arnold stopped himself with a hand on the doorframe, turned to look at John over his shoulder, and said, “I forgive you, John. You haven’t apologized for what you did to me, probably to a lot of others. I don’t know if you even feel sorry for any of it. But I forgive you nonetheless. I forgive you because forgiving is the only way to banish a demon.”

John watched Arnold closely. He recognized how much of a struggle the man went through to get those words out.

“Maybe it’s time we forgive each other, Brooks,” John suggested. “If you been fighting your own demons, I do regret whatever part I had in putting them there. And I suppose I did deserve a little taste of my own medicine,” he added, imagining himself cringing feebly before the terrible vision of the Krampus, just as he’d once forced Arnold to do, cuffed and nearly naked on a deserted stretch of highway.

John offered his hand. Arnold, after a reluctant pause, reached out and took it. “You give your boy Chad my thanks for… well, for what he told you about tonight. He’ll know what I mean.”

“Speaking of him,” Arnold said, “let me finish what he came over here to do.”

Reaching into his hip pocket, Arnold brought out a neatly rolled Christmas stocking with “Maggie” written along the cuff.

* * *

Arnold and Chad were both at John’s front door promptly at 6 a.m. the following morning. By the time the neighbors were out of bed, there was no trace at all of the devastation that had been wrought with John’s front-yard Christmas decorations. Santa was returned to his upright position with his robe settled around him in a dignified manner. The reindeer were reassembled two by two across the lawn, harnessed in the traces of the bright red sleigh with a pair of stockings draped over its edge.

A little Christmas tableau with almost nothing to spoil its quaint charm. Almost nothing. But some people who stopped along the walk on River Street to admire the cheery scene might have noticed a strange little card lodged within branches atop Santa’s staff of holly. Peering closely, they might have wondered at the wild, grotesque image of a snarling demon with sharp horns and a curled tongue drawn on that card. And, at a time when every window and storefront seemed blazoned with sentiments like “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays,” they might have read, with just a little curiosity, the words on that card that conveyed a different spirit of the season in the homes, and the hearts, of John Nast and his neighbor Arnold Brooks:

Gruss vom Krampus.

* * *

Scott Farrell is an author, performer, and educator, and his writing (fiction and non-fiction) has appeared in the books Steampunk Shakespeare, Martial Arts And Philosophy, and Living A Life Of Value, as well as in dozens of print and on-line publications around the world, including The New York Times and “Blogging Shakespeare” the official blog of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. He performs regularly with the educational tour program of the Intrepid Shakespeare Company, and he is the founder and director of the Chivalry Today Educational Program; Scott also teaches weekly classes in historical sword combat at two fencing academies in San Diego, Calif., where he lives with his wife, April. Discover more of Scott’s work at his Facebook page, “Scott Farrell - Author,” or his website, www.ScottFarrellAuthor.com.

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About the Editor

Kate Wolford is editor and publisher of Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine at
fairytalemagazine.com
. She teaches first-year college writing, incorporating fairy tales in her assignments whenever possible. Her book
Beyond the Glass Slipper: Ten Neglected Fairy Tales To Fall In Love With
is available from World Weaver Press.

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Copyright Extension

Introduction
Copyright © 2014 by Kate Wolford.

Prodigious
Copyright © 2014 by Elizabeth Twist.

The Wicked Child
Copyright © 2014 by Elise Forier Edie.

Marching Krampus
Copyright © 2014 by Jill Corddry.

Peppermint Sticks
Copyright © 2014 by Colleen H. Robbins.

Ring, Little Bell, Ring
Copyright © 2014 by Caren Gussoff.

A Visit
Copyright © 2014 by Lissa Sloan.

Santa Claus and the Little Girl Who Loved to Sing and Dance
Copyright © 2014 by Patrick Evans.

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Copyright © 2014 by Guy Burtenshaw.

Nothing to Dread
Copyright © 2014 by Jeff Provine.

Raw Recruits
Copyright © 2014 by Mark Mills.

The God Killer
Copyright © 2014 by Cheresse Burke.

A Krampus Carol
Copyright © 2014 by Scott Farrell.

Table of Contents

Praise for Krampusnacht

KRAMPUSNACHT

Copyright Notice

Contents

Krampusnacht

Introduction

First Night of Krampus: “Prodigious”

Second Night of Krampus: “The Wicked Child”

Third Night of Krampus: “Marching Krampus”

Fourth Night of Krampus: “Peppermint Sticks”

Fifth Night of Krampus: “Ring, Little Bell, Ring”

Sixth Night of Krampus: “A Visit”