Krampusnacht: Twelve Nights of Krampus (3 page)

An older girl, about eight, points. “Mom, what’s that?”

Not missing a beat, the woman replies, “Where the wild things are, honey.”

I feel an immediate, irrational bout of rage. Not everything is reducible to a famous kid’s book or a movie franchise.

I bend down to talk to the little girl. I’m pretty sure she gets a good whiff of the costume: it’s earthy and gamey and a little like smoked meat. “I’m Santa’s helper,” I growl. “You might not know me, but I know you. I hope you’ve been good, or I might have to take you where all the bad children go.”

The girl looks at her mom.

“That’s terrible,” her mother says. “Do you even work for the store?”

I don’t break character. “It’s a European tradition,” I say, in my creepy-scary monster voice. “I’m Krampus.”

The woman breaks into a smile. “Oh! Like Zwart Piet! I’m Dutch.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about, so I flash my tongue at her and growl.

She claps her hands. “Wonderful!” She pushes her daughter toward me. “It’s okay, honey. You’ve been good this year, but maybe some of these other kids haven’t.” She winks at me.

Snow starts to fall as I spot Gwendolyn. She’s wearing a red velvet coat that follows the curve of her waist. It’s trimmed in white and for a second I wonder if Payne has gotten progressive and cast a female Santa. I imagine her walking me through the crowd of kids on a Krampus leash, and then I realize that’s a little too fetishy and won’t happen—except it could happen later in the privacy of my apartment.

She sees me and puts her hands over her mouth. Realistically speaking, what I’m wearing shouldn’t work. The straps should be slipping and the horns falling and the costume chafing, but it all holds. It feels like it’s part of me, like it is me.

I stick my tongue out and hiss.

“You look amazing!” Gwendolyn says. “Lennox, doesn’t he look amazing?”

Lennox, in her green elf costume, sneers.

When Gwendolyn kisses me, she kisses my lips and the border of the mask.

Payne’s heavy hand clamps down on my shoulder just as I pull back to study sweet Gwendolyn’s face. He spins me and I’m looking into the frightfully jolly, boiling red face of St. Nick. Behind him, Lennox smirks. I don’t know what she’s so smug about. Payne likes me and will probably ignore the fact that I was just smooching his daughter.

“You’ve got a show to put on, Brian,” Payne roars in a Santa Clausy tone that puts my creepy-scary monster voice to shame. Together we walk into the crowd and up onto the platform where Santa’s throne sits.

Payne yells “Ho Ho Ho” at the kids and their parents until they stop talking and focus on us. I didn’t feel it before now, but a solemnity emanates from him that I’ve never felt before. The smiles fall off the crowd’s faces. I develop a sudden new respect for Payne: he has charisma, something I’ve only got in my tongue. He begins to speak, and I can’t focus on the words; the words don’t matter. He’s talking about tradition but I feel as though I’m teetering on the cusp of ages, on the gauzy film of modernity that shields us from our deep and creepy past. I feel the spiky fur of my body stand up all over. I stamp my hoof and it makes an impossible clopping sound on the particle board stage.

Payne tells the crowd about Krampus while I snarl and giggle malevolently. I smack my clawed hand with the birch switch. I’m ready.

I start scanning the crowd and all I can focus on are the kids. I’m seeing kids for the first time for what they really are: rotten little adults
in potentia
. I want to crush the rottenness from them. I want them to think twice about becoming mean-spirited jerks. They stare back at me. None of them are seeing a Maurice Sendak ripoff now. They’re seeing their one natural enemy. I expect they’ll start crying but they don’t. They’re still. They’re waiting.

Payne is done talking. I look into his eyes. I’ve always thought they were brown but right now they’re blue and sparkling, a jolly St. Nick blue. He nods, the smallest movement. I race out into the crowd with a speed that surprises even me.

The next few minutes are pure chaos. The kids run from me like a vast school of tiny fish fleeing before a shark. A few of them seem to glow with a wicked red aura. They are mine. I know it. They know it.

The parents are into it. They’re cheering and clapping. I see a couple of them push their kids back into my path, as if they
want
me to catch them. It’s glorious.

One by one, kids fall panting into fake snow banks or into their parents’ arms, shrieking with laughter. On my final round through the parking lot I see Lennox handing out candy canes and small toys. I wonder if that isn’t Payne’s job, but I catch a glimpse of him on his throne. He’s watching me. I can’t read the look on his face. It doesn’t matter. All I care about is the dance of terror I’m performing with the few remaining kids.

The bad seeds, the ones with the red glow, sweep as a small flock out past the margins of the parking lot into a wooded area I’ve never noticed before. It’s a forest of pine trees. Somehow, they’re decorated with tinsel and colored lights that multiply our shadows and throw them in all directions. One of the children, a boy, turns and looks at me as he runs, a grimace of pure malice on his face. He trips and falls.

I don’t slow down as I scoop him up and toss him into the basket on my back. I feel his weight back there but I don’t mind. I know, somehow, that all the kids will fit if they have to.

When we arrive at the hellhole, the rest of the kids are hiding in nearby trees. I can feel their anticipation. They want to know what I’m going to do with their fallen comrade. I admit I’m curious too.

The hole is ringed with rocks. Heat blasts out of it along with a red light that glows dark and dull, seeming to absorb the light from the trees rather than add to it. I peer down into it. The fire is full of writhing masses: body parts, tentacles, chthonic mysteries I wish I’d never laid eyes on.

I want to take the little monster on my back and dump him in. I pluck him from the basket and hold him in my claws. I stick my tongue out and he’s silent, solemn, as stunned and docile as any mouse on the verge of death by cat.

I want to throw him in. Something makes me stop. That something is me. I’m remembering stuff, specifically, all the crappy things I did as a kid. Even though I’m not good all the time now, I try. I grew up. I got better.

I’m not done yet. I get lots of chances. Maybe this kid deserves that too. Hell, maybe what’s happening right now will help him change.

I put him down. He scrambles over to where the other kids are hiding and scoots into the underbrush. Their eyes peer out at me.

The horns slip off my head. I just barely catch them before they fall into the hole. I step back from it. I’m suddenly conscious of my tee shirt and jeans under the heavy Krampus costume. I look at my hands. They’re just my hands in brown gloves: no claws.

“It’s okay kids,” I say to the children in hiding. “Come out. Let’s go get some candy.”

“You can’t fool them. It’s not okay and it’s not over.”

Payne stands behind me, still in his Santa regalia. His hands rest on his hips and he seems to fill the corridor between the trees, my only exit. There’s no getting past him. I realize I’m genuinely scared of the flaming hellhole behind me.

“What are you doing?” I ask. I already know the answer but I hope I’m wrong.

He takes a step closer. He casts a quick glance toward the tree under which the kids hide. “I thought for a minute there you were really going to do it.”

“I wouldn’t,” I stammer.

“I know,” he says. “Pity. Gwennie had such faith in you.”

The air goes out of the world as I begin to realize Payne really was too good to be true. He’s not a standard regulation bad boss: he’s simply evil. If I step back from him, I’ll be too close to the hole for safety. I start talking. It’s one way to stall while I figure out how to get away.

“So,” I manage. “Ritual sacrifice.”

Payne nods. “You think this business runs itself? In this economy? No, to have a real toy store you need real magic.” He gestures at the hole. “This is mine.”

I take a step to the side. The trees crowd together, shuffling subtly so there’s no way through. Real magic is real.

“You’ll have to remove the costume,” Payne says. “It’s an antique, and quite infused with certain… properties. I don’t want it to burn with you.”

“So that’s it?” Still stalling. “Krampus is sacrificed?”

“Take. It. Off.”

The jolly has come off the Saint Nick. I dawdle as I undo the wooden toggles. I talk quietly.

“If I’d thrown the kid in, then what?”

Payne takes a step or two closer to me. “You’d have been part of the team. Part of the family.”

I bend down to undo the strap on the hoof and step out of it. I’m feeling the cold now.

“He didn’t do it, did he?” The voice is high-pitched and comes from behind Payne. Lennox. She’s here, no doubt, to watch the grand finale.

I wonder if Lennox has played Krampus. I wonder if she sacrificed a child to earn her place on the team.

Gwendolyn steps through the trees behind her. Her eyes are rimmed red and she’s sniffling. At least someone feels bad about my imminent demise.

“Gwen,” I say. “Please, you can stop this.”

She shakes her head. Her expression is hard. “I thought you were meaner. I thought you would do it. Do you know what you’ve given up?”

I stare at her. I’ve always thought she was the most beautiful woman, but it’s like I’m seeing her for the first time.

She scowls. “You actually became Krampus. That power you had, that strength. It could have been yours forever. I could have been yours.” She turns her head away and two perfect tears roll down her cheeks.

I’m still trying to process the idea that Gwen was looking to bone a monster when Payne speaks to me for the last time. “Guess she was wrong.” He shrugs. “Oh well.”

When he makes his move, I’m ready. He rushes me, hands out in front, aiming a classic shove straight at my chest. I’ve watched him for a long time, though. You have to watch a guy when you’re in love with his daughter. He’s top-heavy. I’m channeling all the Kung Fu movies I’ve ever watched as I grab his red velvet coat and pivot. Instead of moving me, his force carries him around me and forward. I let go just in time for him to pitch into the hole.

A gout of flame spouts up around him, towering ten feet into the air and plunging back down again like a frisky burning porpoise.

On some level, I must be aware of what Lennox is going to do. I step out of the way as she rushes me and she plunges into the hole after her rotten boss.

I figure it’s done: two human sacrifices for one.

Gwendolyn surprises me. One moment she’s walking toward me, arms outstretched. I’ve been so in the habit of thinking of her as a gentle, almost fragile beauty that I imagine she only wants to collapse in my arms and thank me. For what, I don’t know. The end of the story? Some kind of happily ever after? I just killed her dad, but he was an evil wizard. Thanks for a job well done, then.

I walk into her embrace.

Her hands are around my throat and she’s choking the crap out of me. Her grip is surprisingly strong. I struggle to push her hands away, but the best I can do is throw my weight backward and take her off balance. The world goes dark and we fall straight toward the hole and this is not what I wanted, not at all.

We hit the ground hard. Real snow poofs out from under us. We’re in the circle of rocks, but the hell hole is gone. Gwendolyn is out cold.

I stand up and dust snow off the costume. I look down at Gwendolyn, at her perfect red lips and her white skin, the white trim on her costume, and for the first time I see that red glow, the same one I saw around the bad kids. She has it. Some people don’t grow out of it, I guess.

This is clarity, I realize. Whatever this night has done to me, it’s given me something I never had: a way to evaluate people. Oh, it might be crude, but it sure is better than whatever I’ve been working with up until now.

Despite everything that’s happened, I am still completely shocked when I hear the jingle bells ringing in the sky above me. I don’t see the sleigh or the reindeer, but all of a sudden
he’s
standing in front of me. I expect him to shout Merry Christmas in my face, but he doesn’t. He’s solemn. A sense of peace breathes out from him. A hush comes over the grove. I shoot a look over to the kids under the trees. They’re all fast asleep.

“Hello, Brian.”

“Hi Santa.”

He snaps his fingers, and five or six tiny men in green outfits scurry out from under the trees. Each one throws a sleeping kid over his shoulder and hurries away, back toward the toy store. Gwendolyn still lies there unconscious, but I’m learning to ignore her.

“They’re going to make sure those kids get back to their parents, right?”

“Yes,” Santa says. He smiles at me, and it’s like the whole magic of the season wraps around me, relaxing every muscle. “They won’t remember what they’ve seen, but let’s just say that they might find themselves wanting to be a little bit less naughty from now on.”

Santa is a badass.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here, Brian,” he says. “The truth is that I haven’t been able to come here for some time. Mr. Payne’s magic was doing more than making a hole in the world. It was contaminating all levels of this reality. My toy factory hasn’t been able to work at full efficiency for three years.”

“That’s a real thing?” I think about all the toys we sell at Super Fun Toy Super Store. If only parents knew that Santa was giving them away, Payne might have been out of business long before tonight.

Santa reaches into a pocket and pulls out a green and red ball. He hands it to me. It’s tiny. I hold it in my palms for a moment. It dissolves in a puff of smoke and I feel an intense rush of joy that doesn’t subside. I want to race around the clearing, do a cartwheel. I’m scared that I might hurt myself, though, so I just ride the wave.

“That’s a toy,” I tell Santa. “Wow.”

“It’s a type of toy,” he says. “You can understand why I want to be able to keep making them. There isn’t enough joy in the world. The fact is, people like Payne make what I do next to impossible. I need help, Brian. After the job you did tonight, I think you’re an ideal candidate for the position.”