Candy Canes and Buckets of Blood Read online

  The going became tougher the deeper they went. The tree boughs sagged with snow and hung low to the ground. They had a choice of either crouching low to crawl through the pitch blackness beneath the trees, or stick to the more open areas where the snow came up past their knees and made walking extremely difficult.

  “What about avalanches?” asked Esther.

  Dave looked up at the snow. “It’s a risk, but what choice do we have? The trees will help to break up any slippages, but let’s hope that nothing happens to unsettle the snow.”

  He tried to recall what he knew of avalanches. Unfortunately, his only sources of information were James Bond movies and old disaster flicks.

  “If there is an avalanche there’s things you should do,” he said.

  “Like pee to see which way is up?” asked Esther.

  “No, not that,” said Dave. “If we get caught, we should try to swim uphill, face upwards.”

  “Swim?”

  “Yeah, like our lives depended on it.”

  She held up a hand. Dave could barely see it in the darkness.

  “What?”

  “I heard elves laughing. Must mean we’re on the right path.”

  He nodded, then thought she probably couldn’t see him. “Yes, you’re right.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Watch your rope,” he said. “You’re in danger of treading on the fluffy bit.”

  “Sally.” She held up the furry striped end of the bell-rope. In the poor light, it wiggled like it had a life of its own. “This bit is called a sally.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I did a weekend heritage skills course,” she said. He saw her shiver as the snow blew off the hill in savage gusts.

  “I love you so much,” he said and kissed her fiercely on the forehead.

  “I know,” she replied.

  “And we’ll get our kids back.”

  “I know.”

  From ahead, up the slope there was a sharp, loud noise.

  “What was that?” Esther said.

  “Sounded like a branch snapping.”

  “More like a Christmas cracker.”

  There followed a rapid report of dozens of bangs.

  “A thousand Christmas crackers,” added Esther.

  There was another sound a more ominous one. A cracking sound which came from the earth itself. A rumble followed, felt as well as heard. It seemed to be growing louder.

  “Oh no. Please, no.” Dave turned to Esther.

  “Just swim,” said Esther. “I got it.”

  Dave felt out for a tree to shelter behind but his hands could find only wispy branches and snow.

  Esther began to say something but her words were lost as the roar of the avalanche became the voice of an angry giant, punctuated by the crack of uprooted trees.

  The ground bucked and tumbled. They were thrown off their feet. Dave could no longer see what Esther was doing. He couldn’t see at all. When he should have been thinking clearly about what he needed to do to save their lives, he was consumed by two thoughts: that the furry bit of a bell-rope was called a sally, and he should have married Esther ages ago.

  ***

  50

  Guin shifted uncomfortably inside the sack the elves had stuffed her in. She constantly bounced against the sharp backs of the elves carrying her. She coughed, breathing in gulps of the foetid, stinking air inside the sack. She didn’t like to imagine what this sack had been used for – rotten animal hides? Manky bales of hay? She decided, miserably, if she wasn’t released soon, she’d either choke to death with a lung full of dust and dirt or contract plague.

  She was dropped, suddenly and painfully, onto a hard surface. She cried out and heard a couple of elves tittering. “You’d better not be laughing at me!” she said. She held Wiry Harrison tightly in her hand and he gave her the courage to speak her mind.

  Something gripped her through the sack material.

  “Get off!” she shouted in alarm.

  “It’s me!” hissed Newton. “I’m in the sack next to you.”

  Guin considered this. “I repeat, ‘Get off’. I did not sign up for this. Dad said—”

  She was about to say he’d promised she wasn’t going to share a bedroom with Newton, but thoughts of her dad cut her off. The last they’d seen of their parents was in the church, but they’d heard shouts on the hillside, and then there’d been the bangs and the rumble of an avalanche and…

  “It’s okay,” said Newton, seemingly reading her mind. “I’m here.”

  She sniffed. “Is that meant to make me feel better?”

  “I’ll keep trying.”

  The floor beneath them suddenly shifted and rattled.

  “Are we on a cart or something?” said Newton, a moment before Guin was going to suggest something similar.

  “I don’t know. Why haven’t they killed us yet?”

  “Let’s be glad they haven’t.”

  “But they will.”

  “But not yet,” he said, like it mattered.

  The cart – no, Guin thought it was a train: there was a click-clack noise below the creaks and rattles – carried them for several minutes. Guin occasionally felt the closeness of the forest trees or heard them scrape alongside. Then the surrounding noises changed. There was a closeness, a dull echo to things.

  “I think we’re inside somewhere,” she whispered.

  The train stopped abruptly and she nearly rolled on Wiry Harrison.

  “We’ve stopped,” said Newton unnecessarily.

  Nothing happened for some minutes. Guin tried to find the opening in her sack but the elves had tied it tight. She’d probably have better luck trying to peel it apart at the seams.

  Next to her, the gangly teenage boy was clucking and making weird sing-song noises. “That’s it. That’s it. That’s right. I’m your friend.”

  “Are you trying to be comforting or creep me out?” asked Guin.

  “I’m not talking to you,” he said. “I mean, I am, but I was making noises to the— There’s an animal here. I can feel its muzzle. Yes, there is. Yes, there is,” he simpered to whatever he was talking to.

  “Probably rats,” said Guin miserably.

  “It’s a big animal,” said Newton. “I don’t think it’s a horse.”

  Guin thought about what kind of animals elves would hang around with. “Maybe it’s a reindeer,” she suggested, not sure if she was being sarcastic.

  “Are you a reindeer?” said Newton. “Yes, you are! Yes, you are, you lovely girl! Come snuffle me! Yes, you do, you – ow!”

  “What?” said Guin.

  “It bit me,” said Newton indignantly.

  Guin drew herself into a ball in the dark horrible confines. “Rats,” she muttered. “It’s rats and we’re going to get the plague and die.”

  Newton jabbed her, possibly with an elbow. “You know this keeping our spirits up thing? It’s a team effort, you know.”

  Footsteps approached. “þáút ogrðu far í Gerd,” said an voice.

  “What are they gibbering about?” muttered Newton.

  Guin shushed him. “I’m trying to listen.”

  Several pairs of little hands were laid on them. Guin heard the shing of drawn blades before the sacks were slashed open with almost no regard for their contents. They were hauled out.

  She coughed and sucked in fresh air – well, relatively fresh air. The air stank of damp and dirt with a pervasive underlying smell of something like petrol. They were in a cave of some sort. It was lit by row upon row of Christmas fairy lights, some old, some new, many of them broken, many of them fizzing and flickering like a fuse was about to blow. The lights were strung across ceilings, tacked to walls and wrapped round and round the dripping pipes that ran everywhere.

  It took her a while to appreciate the scale of the place. Not just because of the gloom but because the size of it defied any rational expectations. The cave’s sloping sides – she supposed it was big enough to be called a cavern
really – rose up higher and higher until, at its conical top, there was a patch of dark grey which could possibly be the night sky of the world above. Along its sides and across its wide floor, elves in their dozens scurried and worked at distinct but disorganised work stations and storage areas.

  She and Newton had been deposited alongside the train track. It was a ridiculously narrow and low train, little more than a children’s theme park ride, with crude open top trucks behind a little pink locomotive that would have looked cute if it wasn’t so wonky and rusted.

  “Steam engines,” said Newton. “Environmentally very unsound. Mum would have— Oh, my God!”

  In a stall by the train line stood a reindeer – well, some sort of deer, or, some sort of hoofed … some sort of quadruped. It definitely had four legs. Of that Guin could be confident. It had probably started out as a reindeer, or reindeer-shaped but…

  It was a patchwork of fur and material that was not fur, wrapped around a body featuring a couple of very un-reindeery legs (one of which appeared to be elegantly carved from solid wood) and strange, very unhealthy looking lumps and bumps under the skin. Hide, cloth and patchwork flesh were held together with fine white stitching.

  And the head… The skin was almost entirely bald. One of the antlers had been fixed in place with metal brackets and screws. The eyes were grey-green and shrunken, like ancient withered grapes. Its mouth was devoid of flesh, flat teeth champed and snapped against a jawline of exposed bone.

  “It’s a zomdeer,” whispered Newton. “Frankenstein’s reindeer,” said Guin at the same time.

  Whatever, it was a reindeer even Father Christmas would struggle to love.

  ***

  51

  The zomdeer or Frankenstein’s reindeer or whatever it was, reared and bucked in its dirty little pen. Elves were unpacking bales, boxes and bags from the other trucks. Newton supposed they were meant to be important goods and materials for the elves but, for the most part, looked like the leanest pickings off a rubbish heap. Regardless, the elves’ industry meant Newton and Guin were left standing alone for a while. Newton looked along the track they’d come down. There was a long high tunnel, but no suggestion of an exit apart from a quartet of elves standing on guard near the rear of the train, holding knives and larger billhook-type blades.

  He looked down at Guin. Her pale little face looked even paler in this gloomy light. There was a concerned, distant look on her face. “Don’t worry,” he said, dropping into his default carer mode. “I’ll look after you.”

  Guin looked at him. “What?”

  “I said I’ll look after you. Don’t be afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m just saying if—”

  “Yes, but I’m not,” she said with quiet certainty. “I was thinking, why do elves need reindeer?”

  The patchwork reindeer thing rolled its shrivelled eyes and stamped its hoofs.

  “Reindeer are cute,” said Newton.

  “That one isn’t.”

  “We just haven’t got to know her yet.”

  “Her?”

  “Only female reindeer have antlers in winter.”

  “Those antlers are bolted on.”

  “We haven’t got to know it yet,” said Newton. Emboldened by his need to show Newton Woollby loved all animals, cute and ugly, he edged towards the reindeer. The creature blinked and angled its head as though trying to focus its clearly useless eyes on him.

  “Hey, Blinky,” he sang softly, holding out the flat of his hand to her muzzle as he slowly approached. “I could make friends with any of the horses at the stables,” he told Guin.

  “That is not a horse,” said Guin. “It barely qualifies as an animal.”

  “She just needs to be shown a little love. Maybe she’s feeling out of sorts. Hey, what do reindeer take when they’ve got a stomach ache.”

  “A joke? At this time?”

  “Elk-a-seltzer!” Newton grinned.

  Guin did not crack a smile, not even a fake one.

  “You like my jokes,” Newton simpered to Blinky. “ You do, don’t you? Don’t you, you lovely little—”

  The reindeer jerked forward and snapped at Newton’s hand. He snatched it back barely in time before hard, yellow zombie teeth clacked together on the space where his fingers had just been.

  “Bad reindeer!” he gasped in alarm. “Naughty Blinky!”

  “I was saying—” said Guin, “—why do elves need reindeer? They’re not native to this country and—”

  Whatever Guin was about to say went unsaid as the nearest elf, having finished overseeing the unloading of the train, barked an order at them and waved his knife. “Takka pokjót, ljóður mað!” The elf gestured viciously at a bulging sack.

  Newton looked at Guin, perplexed.

  “I think he wants you to carry it,” she said.

  “You understand elf now?”

  “I’m going by context.” She pointed at the sack. “Takka pokjót?”

  The elf waved its knife encouragingly.

  Newton bent and tried lifting the sack. Whatever was in it was too heavy for him to lift. He grasped the wet corners and dragged it along, directed into the centre of the cavern by the elf.

  The place definitely had the feel of a storage area. Add a forklift truck and some hard hats and it could be the distribution centre of a major company. Half-constructed (or possibly deconstructed) market stalls were leant together in one place. Piles of scrap wood – furniture and fencing – sat alongside far neater piles of freshly cut logs. A mountain of stollen, stacked like bricks, was positioned alongside a vat of sweets wrapped in colourful tissue. Shiny Christmas present boxes, red with gold ribbon, sat in a vast pile, waiting to receive their toys. A giant storage container, like a lorry container but on reinforced sledge runners, stood by the pile. On it, in wonky writing, someone had painted the words:

  NORF AMERICA

  Newton was curious, but was distracted by the strings upon strings of sausages hanging above them. “Hot dog sausages,” he grunted as he heaved the sack along.

  “Are you actually hungry?” said Guin.

  “No, I’m… The elves run the market.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I don’t get why. None of this makes sense.”

  “Not just me, then.”

  The elf barked at them.

  “He wants you to leave it there,” said Guin.

  “Good.” Newton let it drop and wondered when the feeling might return to his arms.

  Elves – horrible sharp-faced elves, toddler-sized but as far from human as it was possible to be whilst still retaining all the standard features – gathered round Guin and Newton. They prodded and pushed the pair towards another tunnel leading out of the cavern.

  “I think our dad and mum are alive,” said Guin.

  “That’s the spirit,” said Newton.

  “No, I do. If they’d been dead, they’d have brought them here.”

  “Sure,” he said, happy to say something that gave her hope.

  Her hand gripped his. “Didn’t you see?”

  “What?”

  She raised his hand. He looked at it. It was red with smears of blood.

  “Your sack. It was that Duncan man’s body.”

  Newton felt sick. In a frenzy he tried to brush the blood off on his jumper. But he was also thinking that maybe she was right. Maybe their folks were alive, somewhere.

  ***

  52

  Dave had taken his own advice and thrashed around so he was facing uphill as the avalanche hit. As snow tumbled onto him in slabs and looser chunks, he’d tried to move upwards. It was a mostly hopeless task that was made even harder by no longer knowing which way was uphill after a few moments. A tree branch crashed down next to him and he held onto it, sliding along and hoping he was going the right way. After a few seconds all was silence. He could hear the distant echo of the avalanche, but he knew he was buried in the snow.

  “Don’t panic
. Don’t panic.”

  Dave’s paramedic training had equipped him to keep his cool in extraordinary situations – although that was usually in the face of other people’s imminent deaths, not his own. He’d tried to explain to Guin how her swimming lessons were giving her a similar skill. The breathing control she needed when she swam with her face in the water came from the same place. He firmly believed mastery over some of the body’s basic functions was key.

  Could he do it now? He made a conscious effort to slow his breathing. He knew his first instinct would be to pant wildly, but he needed to slow down his entire body to remain calm. It would also help him make the best use of his limited oxygen. He made a brief survey of his body. He didn’t seem to be injured. His legs were both locked in place. His left arm was curled around his face, giving him space for the air he was so thankful for. He could flex his fingers slightly. His right arm was by his waist and a quick jiggle told him he had some movement.

  Cautiously he moved it gently back and forth, fingers trying to pick up any useful information. He was careful not to make sudden movements, for fear of disturbing the air pocket around his face. His fingers pushed further, there was a rush of different sensations. He knew he was disoriented, but he really wanted to believe it was open air he could feel. Did he dare to push himself that way, knowing if he was wrong he might completely cut off his air supply by disturbing the snow? He had no real choice.

  He pushed his arm as hard as he could, and then eased the arm protecting his face towards it. Snow fell into his face, filling his mouth. He pushed on, clinging to the belief that this was the way out.

  Then he was through. His arm and shoulder were free. He was able to shove the snow off his face. He sucked in long, greedy breaths and shoved snow off the rest of him, grappling for the rope so he could find Esther.

  She was nearby. If he didn’t have the rope to follow he would have walked straight past her: underneath a large chunk of what looked like a fir tree. She only had a light covering of snow, but she was out cold, and there was a bruise across her face where the tree had struck her.

  “Esther!” he cried, feeling for a pulse. She was alive. He scooped snow away from her and checked her breathing. She started to come round as he felt along her limbs.