Elves moonlight, you know. At least Starkweather did, the Santa’s helper gig being strictly seasonal after all. Others reported to the North Pole for fall training, which Starkweather had to do as well, but he also picked up a part time job as a safety guard at the Ultima Thule Nuclear Power Plant.
It was, he figured, an easy commute.
But Ultima Thule was a growing city, and its pride and joy, the Ultima Thule Municipal Zoo, had just added a new educational exhibit, a cage of genuine Ecuadoran monkeys. And that’s when it started.
Right in the midst of the buildup to Christmas.
Children littered the streets of both Thule and Ultima Thule, noisy brats mostly and misbehaving, as children will do when adults aren’t looking. And tired, hungry elves are taking a break at the zoo for their lunch.
“Are you an elf, Mister?” one kid asked, causing Starkweather to quickly pull his stocking cap down. But no, it was too late, the child had already spotted his ears.
“Nah,” he said, reaching into his lunch sack, grubbing around. “I’m the Science Officer on a spaceship.” He pulled out a banana.
It must be said Starkweather wasn’t too smart, but the child did distract him. That’s what he claimed after. And no one knew how the iguanas got out later.
But as for Starkweather, he ran from the kid then, seeking only a place to eat in peace, half-peeled banana clutched in his fist, and both not being overly bright and being tired from his grueling work schedule, the spot he picked was the primate exhibit.
He opened the cage door, thinking he’d just slip in –
Monkeys! Banana-crazed monkeys piled out the door! Trampling over him! Stealing his lunch as well!
Picking himself up, he followed the monkeys — he had no choice. The place they were headed to, they being warm-weather creatures by nature, and finding themselves in the midst of a raging blizzard outside, was the hottest in town: The Ultima Thule Power Plant core.
It was Starkweather’s job — what choice did he have? He found a big sack and cleaned out the monkeys, they now glowing pale green and several already not feeling well due to radiation poisoning, and, his shift ending and time to report back to Santa’s Workshop, he took the sack with him.
What else could he do? He stashed it in the sleigh at the back door, pulling another sack out to make room. He then went inside.
The other elf workers all clustered around him. “Starkweather,” they cried out, “what kept you! Have you forgotten the date again — it’s Christmas Eve! We’ve just finished getting the Big Guy’s sleigh ready.”
“Uh, oops,” Starkweather said. He explained the situation to them, but when they went out to retrieve the monkey bag, they discovered the sleigh had just taken off.
“Those were to be stocking stuffers,” Pomegranate, the foreman elf said. “Santa himself won’t notice the difference, he works so fast, but we can’t have kids waking up in the morning to stockings filled with dying, radioactive monkeys, now can we? It’s unprofessional.”
“There is the backup sleigh,” Rassleman, one of the stable elves offered. “And backup reindeer as well. If we can find the original presents, we can follow Santa’s route and re-substitute them.”
The others agreed, but the blizzard still raged, and search as they might, the original bag Starkweather had thrown off when he stashed the monkeys could not be found. They tunneled through drifts. They burrowed through snow piles. But still, they came up empty.
But then Catawba, one of artist elves, ran from the toy factory brandishing an odd-colored lizard. “Guess what!” he called. “The zoo must have had another breakout! Look what I found in the paintshop warehouse!”
They followed him back and, sure enough, hundreds and hundreds of once-green iguanas had spilled a vat of obsolete pigment, and colored themselves a bright shocking pink!
“They are kind of pretty,” Rassleman opined.
“Find a bag,” Starkweather said. “Pack them in it. Pomegranate, why don’t we substitute these?”
“They are kind of pretty,” Pomegranate agreed.
“Pretty?” Starkweather said. “When the kids see these, it’ll be the best Christmas ever!”
And so, Christmas morning, while Santa still slept off the eggnog offerings he always indulged in too much on his trips, the elves gathered outside to bury the monkeys. Pomegranate said some words.
Even Starkweather felt a little sorry.
But then Rassleman dashed in from the stables. “I’ve got bad news, fellows. It turns out that paint last night was lead-based. It’s on the news. It made the iguanas turn fiercely carnivorous — ”
“You mean, the children — ?”
“Every one — eaten!”
The elves bowed their heads, except for Starkweather. “Hey guys,” he said. “Let’s look on the bright side. With all the kids dead too, we won’t have to work nearly as hard next December!”
___
© 2008 James S. Dorr
James Dorr’s new book, DARKER LOVES: TALES OF MYSTERY AND REGRET, was released December 2007 by Dark Regions Press as a companion to a previous collection, STRANGE MISTRESSES: TALES OF WONDER AND ROMANCE. Other work has appeared in ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, NEW MYSTERY, ABORIGINAL SF, FANTASTIC STORIES, DARK WISDOM, GOTHIC.NET, CHI-ZINE, ENIGMATIC TALES (UK), FAERIES (France), and numerous anthologies.
Tags: christmas, James S. Dorr
December 27th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
A little creepy - I’m glad I read this after Christmas and not before. Nice work!