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  Last Christmas

  Last Christmas

  Heide Goody & Iain Grant

  Pigeon Park Press

  ‘Last Christmas’ Copyright © Heide Goody and Iain Grant 2018

  The moral right of the authors has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except for personal use, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  Published by Pigeon Park Press

  www.pigeonparkpress.com

  [email protected]

  Last Christmas

  Luke believed in Father Christmas, so when he heard the scraping at his window on Christmas Eve he knew who was out there.

  If asked who brought the presents on Christmas night, Luke knew that it was the jolly fat man with his sleigh and his reindeer. He knew that the other kids in his year 6 class, the ones with cruel, inept or stubbornly honest parents, said that there was no Santa and that it was just your parents pretending, but Luke didn’t buy that explanation. Luke had seen Father Christmas on TV, had a received an e-mail from him the year before last, he’d seen the videos of children flying out to meet him in Lapland. The choice between believing in a little magic or a worldwide adult conspiracy would always tip in magic’s favour. And if there were cracks in the Santa logic or grey areas in Luke’s belief then he papered over those cracks and ignored those uncertainties as any religious person would.

  Luke believed in Father Christmas but that didn’t stop him being frightened by the sound. He hunkered down on his side, bunched his quilt under his neck, screwed his eyes shut and pretended to be sleep or dead or invisible.

  He sees you when you’re sleeping, thought Luke. He knows when you’re awake.

  The scratching was followed by the softer sound of the window opening. A waft of chilly night air brushed over his exposed ear. Luke didn’t move. There was a hard sound, like wooden heels stepping onto his window sill, the radiator and then much more quietly onto the carpet floor. Luke didn’t move. Father Christmas – it must be Father Christmas, it must – stood in the centre of Luke’s bedroom, his hard shoes brushing against the toys that littered the limited floor space. Father Christmas breathed like he had a blocked nose, a raspy, throaty sound. Breathing, surveying. Luke didn’t move.

  And then Father Christmas approached and Luke’s petrified mind retreated further down. He was asleep. He was dead. He was invisible.

  Warm breath now played over Luke’s exposed ear. It crept into Luke’s nostrils. The smell was dense, built up of layers of sweat and filth and old food. And for a split second, Luke considered that the figure crouched over him might not be Father Christmas after all…

  A hand with nails – with claws – grabbed Luke’s shoulder and flipped him over. He opened his mouth to shout and something hard and rectangular was slammed into his chest – a box? – and as Luke drew another breath, he was swung upside down and his face mushed against a mass of foetid fur, hide and muscle.

  With two steps, the thing that had him was on the window sill again. A push and a swing and Luke was in the frozen air and being hauled upwards, up the outside of Cleveland Tower. Survival instincts over-ruled fear and Luke opened his eyes. Holloway Circus roundabout was hundreds of feet below him, the concrete pagoda at its centre a tiny spire, the hour hand in the clock of the roundabout. Orange street lights and the neon frontages of the fast food outlets across the road looked almost festive. Directly below him was the ragged hide of the monster that held him. He saw its hoofs, sure and swift, finding purchase in the section gaps of the tower block wall.

  A blast of wind stung Luke’s and drew blurry tears.

  He cried out as the thing bounded over the lip of the building and onto the roof. The creature dropped Luke. He rolled onto the roof, still instinctively clutching the box that had been thrust into his arms. He coughed and gasped and tried to blink away his tears. The cold bit into him. There was no snow in the air but it felt as if there should be.

  The creature – it must have been at least eight feet tall, not including the huge curved horns – stalked across the roof. The children in the cage began to keen and sob as the thing approached. It was a tall cage but barely wide enough for the four children within. Luke saw the dirty, ancient leather straps that looped round from the top of the cage to the middle. Shoulder straps. So the beast could carry it. Carry its catch.

  The creature slide a greasy bolt on the roof of the cage, opened it and turned to Luke.

  Luke saw its face for the first time – the snout, the eyes, the tongue.

  Krampus, thought Luke, too scared and addled to remember where he had even heard the name but perfectly aware of what the word meant and of what was going to happen to him now.

  “Excuse me, sir. Is that your cage?” called a voice from across the roof, which was not what Luke expected to happen next at all.

  A man and a woman stood by the door to the stairs. The white man was tall and broad-shouldered, like a WWE wrestler. The Asian woman was positively tiny in comparison. The man wore a suit and tie. The tiny woman wore a tiny black party dress that, in Luke’s prepubescent opinion, didn’t cover as much flesh as it should. Luke was shivering in his thin pyjamas. He couldn’t imagine the woman was much warmer.

  The Krampus wheeled towards them and with clawed arms spread wide hissed threateningly.

  “Not sure if I quite got that,” said the man, walking towards the beast. “I asked you if this was your cage.”

  The Krampus mumbled something around his massive voice-strangling tongue that sounded like, “Por thlagn meschth Sheol-Niggurauth. Pon thfyeh. Pon thfyeh.”

  The man gave an uncomprehending shrug and turned back to the woman, who was gripping the edge of the doorway and not going anywhere.

  “Help me out, Nina. I struggle at the best of time. But with the tongue and the whole speech impediment, I haven’t a clue.”

  “You need help?” she replied and Luke realised she was very drunk. “I was quite happy in that bar, Rod, and you made me climb five hundred flights of stairs to –”

  “It wasn’t five hundred flights. There’s no building with five hundred –”

  “- five hundred flights of stairs,” she insisted, “and expect me to speak Venislarn goat dialects! It’s bloody freezing up here if you hadn’t noticed!”

  “I think you can put your own needs aside for just one moment.”

  “But it’s Christmas.”

  “A time for a charity and a spot of human kindness,” the man, Rod, sighed and turned back to the Krampus.

  “Sorry about this.” He flashed an ID card at the monster. “If you could try to speak in English. My colleague started the office party a little early. This. Your cage?”

  The Krampus gestured. Yes, of course it was his bloody cage.

  “Right,” said Rod. He gave Luke a small reassuring smile and made soothing gestures to the terrified kids in the cage. “And you are collecting these for…?”

  “Myem-un per Yoth-Sheol-Niggurauth. Skeidl kro –”

  “English, please.”

  “Moth-er,” it lisped horribly. “Sheol-Niggurauth. Black Beast with Thou-sand Young, Suck-ler of Mis-er-y.”

  “Thought so,” said Rod. He dipped into his jacket pocket for a sheet of paper and, as he did, Luke saw that the big guy had a pistol holstered under there like he was a spy or a cop or something. James Bond versus the Krampus.

  Rod unfolded the piece of paper, checked the details on it and then held it out for the Krampus to read.

  “Under the Treaty of Birmingham as instated by the court of Yo-Morgantus –”

  “Yoch leis kod junq!” spat the Krampus defiantly and grabbed his hairy crotch for emphasis.

  “Do you kiss your mom with that mouth?” retorted Nina.

  “Dho set ruvae.”

  “What? Never?” said Nina. “Aw. I mean, I know there’s a thousand of you but everyone needs some quality time with their mom.”

  “Fat hurrech bu’nin Mair-Rauth!”

  “- As instated by the court of Yo-Morgantus,” persevered Rod, “you have a fixed quota for the year.”

  “Zha! Is end of year,” said the Krampus.

  “Not for another…” He consulted his wristwatch. “It’s not even nine o’clock, so it’s eight days until new year. Then you can start fishing again.”

  “But is nee-ded,” said the Krampus thickly and licked his lips with that monstrous tongue. The tip of his tongue even dipped inside his crooked nostril for a moment or two and Luke, despite his fear, was impressed by that.

  “Needed for what?” said Rod.

  “To give.”

  “Give what?”

  “Give heart.” The Krampus mimed eating an apple except it wasn’t apples he was collecting. Not by a long shot. “Give heart to moth-er. Spe-cial gift.”

  “Well, we all like to give our mum a special something for Christmas.”

  “Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?” sang Nina apropos of nothing.

  “But,” said Rod, in the adult tones of one who knew they were doing all the work (Luke’s mom used it all the time), “you’re going to have to throw these ones back. Rules.”

  “Shut clau!”

  “Your god’s rules. If mummy Niggurauth wants to take the matter up with Lord Morgantus then that’s for her to sort out. You and us, we’re just the little people. So, get the kids out of the cage.”

 
The Krampus turned to his haul with a growl of frustration and then turned back to Rod imploringly.

  “But is naugh-ty chil-dren.”

  “And?”

  The Krampus reached through the bars of the cage and grabbed the tallest girl by the arm. She squealed and struggled.

  “Is troll,” said the Krampus. “Puts pic-ture of school friend’s vos glun’u on in-ter-net.”

  “Did she?” said Nina, shocked.

  “Snap-chat,” said the Krampus.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Rod.

  The Krampus grabbed a lad who was trying to cower at the back of the cage.

  “Hit Ger-man Shep-herd with stones.”

  “A dog?” asked Rod. “Or… or an actual shepherd?”

  “Called Wolfie.”

  “Yep. Still not narrowed it down. Mate, listen. They might be the naughtiest kids in the city but they’re not yours. Let them out now.”

  The Krampus strode towards Luke. Luke shuffled a foot back, the box tumbling from his lap but he found himself trapped between the Krampus and the edge of the roof. The Krampus pointed a wickedly long nail at him.

  “Bar-gain,” it said.

  “What?” Luke whispered.

  “You can’t have him,” said Rod.

  “Bar-gain!” growled the Krampus.

  “Just shoot it!” yelled Luke. “Shoot it!”

  The Krampus cast an enraged glare at Rod.

  “Byach, muda khi umlaq!” it swore furiously.

  “What did you say?” slurred Nina as though only now becoming conscious of the situation. “What did you call me?”

  “Muda khi umlaq, lat wei!”

  “F’ing fighting talk,” she snarled. “You’d better start playing ball or we’re gonna take this outside.”

  “We are outside,” pointed out Rod.

  Nina looked around herself slowly and nodded in reluctant agreement.

  “You’d better start playing ball,” she told the Krampus, “or we’re gonna take this inside, ya hear?”

  By this time, the Krampus had rooted around under the rags and fur that covered its body and produced an old-fashioned device with chunky buttons.

  “Bar-gain,” said the Krampus and clicked the device. It hissed for a second and then Luke heard himself, heard his own voice say, “No, I would. I’d give anything for a PS4.”

  The Krampus clicked it off. Luke stared.

  “We were just talking,” he said. “Josh has got one. I’ve only got an Xbox. We were just talking.”

  “Bar-gain,” said the Krampus and stamped its hoof.

  For the first time, Luke looked properly at the box the Krampus had forced upon him. It had been bashed and battered and the Christmas wrapping paper, which look as if it had been applied by someone without eyes or hands had mostly ripped away. Beneath the paper, the logo and image on the cover were unmistakeable. It was a Playstation console.

  “But…”

  Rod was double-checking his sheet of paper.

  “Well, technically,” he said, “items offered in trade aren’t part of the quota system.”

  “But…”

  “What?” said Nina. “Fuzz-face is allowed to take him?”

  Rod gave her a helpless look and blew out his cheeks.

  “He is.”

  “You can’t let him!” shouted Luke.

  He looked at the children in the cage. An inkling that they were saved and he was not was beginning to dawn on certain faces. Luke despised them all and would have traded them in a heartbeat. Heartbeat. His heart.

  “You can’t!” he screamed but Luke could see by the adults’ faces that they were going to let the beast have him. And so could the Krampus.

  The shaggy goat-faced giant went to the cage, opened the door and, one-by-one, hoisted the children out and deposited them in on the exposed roof in their onesies, their dressing gowns and their slippers. Each one was a stab in Luke’s heart.

  Rod clicked his fingers and gestured for the children to come over to him. He ushered them on towards Nina and the door.

  Luke kicked at the badly-wrapped present he had unfairly trade his life for and then spotted something.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “This is a Playstation 3.”

  “Pff!” spat the Krampus and waved his complaint aside.

  “It’s a PS3,” he repeated. “I wanted a PS4.”

  “Is good pres-ent,” said the Krampus.

  “I wouldn’t give you a quid for this tat.”

  The Krampus stomped over.

  “Is box. Is game. Bar-gain,” he snarled with a fearsome finality.

  “It isn’t the same though, is it?” said Nina, stepping from the shelter of the doorway for the first time and making her way across the roof on unstable high heels. “Is it, Rod?”

  “Don’t ask me,” said Rod. “Last games machine I had was a ZX Spectrum.”

  “They couldn’t be more different. The PS4 has got a completely new architecture. It’s hundreds of times more powerful than the 3. And the controller is infinitely better.”

  “Is good pres-ent,” said the Krampus but there was a confusion in his eyes.

  “It’s not what he wanted.”

  “Man in shop said…”

  “It’s not what he wanted,” said Rod.

  “The deal’s off,” said Nina.

  The Krampus’ monstrous mouth worked in growing bewilderment and annoyance. He looked at the children he had already given up and the boy he was now about to lose.

  “No!” he shouted. “Bar-gain! Play-sta-tion! Mine!”

  “You want to make a complaint,” said Rod, “you come down to the office after the bank holiday.”

  “Bank hol-i…? No! Mine!”

  Luke saw the big man’s hand rise towards the holster in his jacket but he was too slow. The Krampus’ jaw distended impossibly and it produced a discordant roar of defiance, its tongue flapping about like a flag in the wind, before the creature turned, sprinted at Luke, scooped him up and leapt from the roof.

  Rod ran to the edge of the roof, gun drawn. The goat beast, the Krol-Rauth or Krampus, was falling away towards the Holloway roundabout. With impossible strength, it struck out with its hoofs, skidded down the concrete pagoda at the roundabout’s centre and bounded across to the far pavement. Nina could see the indecision in Rod’s body language.

  “And the answer’s no,” she said.

  “You don’t know that,” he said.

  “You’d be street pizza.”

  “But maybe I could… angle myself and grab the flags outside the Radisson Hotel or…” He saw a windblown flap of paper near his feet and picked it up. “Bugger.” He ran for the stairs.

  “You lot, downstairs,” Nina instructed the freed children and herded them ahead of her. Partway down the stairs, they passed a woman coming slowly up the stairs.

  “Do you like children?” said Nina.

  “Do I what?”

  “Good,” said Nina. “Here are some free children. They’re yours.”

  “They’re not my children.”

  “Stay with her,” Nina told them and ran on.

  “They’re not mine!” yelled the woman but Nina was gone, running as fast as she could on high heels and with a skinful of alcohol inside her. She wished she had asked Rod for a piggy back, but suspected that travel sickness would rapidly follow, and it might put a considerable dent in their working relationship if she honked down his neck.

  Five hundred flights of stairs later (or something that felt very much like it) she ran out onto the street. Rod was long gone. A group of youths waited for the lights to change so that they could cross Suffolk Street.

  “Hey, you! Your trainers. Give them to me,” she said to the smallest one.

  “Gotta be shittin’ me. Get lost,” said the youth.

  Nina bent over to catch her breath and considered using vomit as a tactical weapon.

  The youngest’s mate nudged him. “Hundred and you might be talkin’,” he said.

  Nina rolled her eyes. “I am not paying a hundred pounds for second-hand toe cheese.” She dug in her pocket. “Fifty’s all I’ve got, and you can have these as well.” She slipped out of her high heels. A look passed between the small youth and his mate.

  Moments later, she was wearing luminous trainers and sprinting out towards New Street the still twinkling lights of the pedestrianised shopping area.