WARNING: Scenes of gory, zombie-involved violence. Merry Christmas!
Black Pine Creek, Christmas Eve
By Liam Volke
The darkened forest slanted up at a sharp angle from the road, but he didn’t stop till they were all the way up to the ridge, and well out of sight of their predators.
‘Mr. Elf! You’re hurting me!’ The girl whined.
If Fin didn’t have her hand firmly in his own, he wouldn’t have known if she was still with him; he marched up through the trees and did not bother to look back, or even hold up a branch for the girl to pass under without getting swatted by it. He could not stop. If he did, if he listened to her sobbing, he would be confronted by the enormity of what he had done.
I
‘It’s getting late,’ said Fin, tapping his thumb on his crossbow.
‘Mmm,’ Matthias replied. The old elf was staring at his silver pocketwatch. It looked out of place with his heavy, green parka.
‘The Chief said it wouldn’t take longer than an hour,’ Fin said.
‘So he is late. That means we tarry, that is all.’ Matthias put away his watch somewhere deep within the layers of his coat. He crossed his arms and fixed his gaze on the forest. Fin could tell the older elf was trying to seem unconcerned by the Chief’s absence, but the stoic front didn’t convince Fin. Only a few moments after putting it away, he excavated the illustrious pocket-watch again, as if pulling it right out of his chest. He repeated this over the next few minutes. Matthias had to admit he was right, Fin reasoned: the sun, already low in the sky this far north in the dead of winter, was on its way down again. In another hour it would be behind the southwestern ridge of forest sprawled before them. The forest’s trees were not towering, but they grew close together, packed with spruce and pine and fir, each coated with white globs, like an army of stalagmites. On the other side of it lay a small town, each and every inhabitant dead. All but one.
‘I think we should go in and find him,’ said Fin.
‘He is used to doing things on his own,’ Matthias reasoned.
‘He’s never done this before.’
‘He ordered us to stay here, with the reindeer.’
‘What about going back to HQ for reinforcements?’
‘It is a quick search-and-rescue, in and out. It is not meant to be a full on assault. We need every man, woman and elf we can spare back at the base. And you very well know we cannot go very far without the Chief. Our fuel is already quite low. The only way out of here, I fear, is with the girl.’
‘So we just wait?
‘We just wait.’
Something about this did not sit right.
Fin hopped down from the sleigh. He needed to move or else he would become stir-crazy. He couldn’t keep watching Matthias and count how many times he checked his damn pocket-watch.
‘Fin,’ said Matthias. ‘Fin. What is that? Irish?’
‘It’s actually short for Finwë.’
‘Oh. Swedish?’
‘Elvish.’
Matthias tilted his large head to one side and gave him a curious look. ‘I did not know there were Elves that have Elvish names,’ he laughed.
‘They do if their parents had them in the 60’s,’ said Fin.
When they were students at North Pole Univeristy, Fin’s parents became avid fans of a certain English professor who wrote about elves and dwarves and rings and wizards, and who also had the audacity to invent a new language for elves. They named their son after one elf-hero from the Englishman’s stories. Fin did not share this affinity. He couldn’t stand it, in fact, so he tried to circulate the name ‘Fin’ among his friends and colleagues.
‘Well, Fin,’ said Matthias, as he leaned over the side of the red polished sleigh, ‘you are, what, a hundred?’
‘Ninety-eight.’
‘Well there you are. You are young yet. Shy of your first century. You have the impetuosity of youth in you, my boy. As you should; but as the saying goes, “for everything under the sun, there is a season.” When you get to be my age, you start to see things differently. And when you work with the Chief long enough you learn that he has always had his own way of carrying out his affairs. Our present circumstances are no exception.’
Fin didn’t like the way Matthias used his age as leverage; he did not like it when anybody did that. He was only a year out of school himself, and being a part of the Workshop meant most of the others were older than him. Matthias, for one, was old, and this was impressive, Fin had to admit. The senior elf had thick silvery mutton chops framing his round face, a small red cap with a little golden tassel, and a pince-nez at the end of his nose Fin never saw any elf under two-hundred wear. He heard Matthias once boast how he made the finest hobby-horses, and Louis XV’s children even sent the Chief a letter, giving him their regards for the elf’s craftsmanship.
‘And you know what else,’ Matthias said, gaining assurance from his own ramblings. ‘The Chief is an exceptionally efficient man. Every year we find ourselves working down to the eleventh hour, ninety nine point nine percent certain that we will not make our deadline. And yet every year we pull it off, thanks to him. When all seems lost,’ he paused, and sighed. ‘He is there, a brilliant beacon in the dark.’
Fin wanted to say that this year was different. They had never had to face a deadline like this before. They never had to face the End of Days. What if this was the one thing even the Chief could not prepare for? He wanted to say all this, but the old fool seemed so happy and hopeful, cocooned up in a warm cabin inside of himself. His face seemed lit like a candle sat inside his skull. The light did not seem to infect Fin, however. The younger elf paced back and forth before the forest, only a hundred yards away. Wisps of cloud wove themselves across a darkening sky like long ghostly dragon tails. The reindeer snorted and shuffled their feet; they seemed anxious as well.
The sun drooped a little behind the sharp treetops. Their shadows stretched out and clawed at the frozen, bare earth. A deep groan came from the heart of the forest. Fin looked over to Matthias, wide-eyed.
‘That could have been anything,’ Matthias said, regaining composure. ‘Could have been a wold. Or a caribou. The forest is full of wild things.’
There were less wild things these days. Fin would have preferred the company of wild things to this. He could still recall the first time he saw Them. It was the smell. The rising stench when they encountered a group of them feasting on a dead polar bear a hundred miles north of here. The Chief wanted to stop and get those awful creatures off the bear, and give its remains some dignity. But Matthias thankfully tempered the Chief’s compassion with the good sense that they were running out of time, and that little girl was still out there. They flew the sleigh low enough so Fin could try to pick them off with his crossbow--he was reputed to be the best shot in the North Pole, an impressive skill for someone so young. As the sleigh dropped in altitude till they were hovering a few dozen feet above the feast, the smell of their decayed flesh rose up. Fin nearly gagged. He had to hold his breath as he took aim. There were six of them. Their skin was blue and black from frost bite. Yet they moved their limbs as if they were full of blood and life.
How did these Deadfolk get this far north? They were widespread farther South, closer to the Equator. Perhaps they had run out of food. Fin shuddered to think of the thousands of cities, quiet and empty. Somehow they had found out about the Chief’s rescue operations and started following the refugees as they came north. They may have been soulless, mindless monsters, but their instincts made the Dead Ones good hunters. Fin heard whisperings around the Workshop that they had even learned to swim. The older elves scoffed at the idea, but as they began to be spotted wandering icy mazes off the coast of Greenland, the elders began to think differently. A month or two ago, before this pandemic was unleashed, they wouldn’t have believed these things could ever exist, that one by one, the governments of the world fell, and no amount of military might could stem the tide of chaos that washed over them. ‘Pah! Zombies!’ One crotchety gaffer said. ‘Next thing you’ll be telling me the Easter Bunny is real!’
These were strange days. Old Svetlana was saying it was the End of Days. But she had said that almost every year since 999 AD. now the points on her long ears drooped and curled like dog ears.
Fin heard another groan, this time louder. Matthias looked up from his watch-gazing and the reindeer’s heads shot up, each pair of onyx eyes fixed on the white woods. Another groan sounded from another corner. Fin shuddered. No caribou made a sound like that.
‘Something’s wrong,’ he said.
‘That’s enough, Finwë. You’re frightening the reindeer.’ Matthias put all his energy into sounding composed. ‘I have my blunderbuss, a bag full of ammunition, and if all else fails, the Chief has given us permission to use the fireworks.’ The “ammunition” was comprised of hundreds of unopened presents, ones which many would never receive. The war-effort was new to most denizens of the North Pole. They were inexperienced in the manufacture of arms, so they used whatever they could spare. Fin eyed the blunderbuss with doubt. It was a gift, Matthias told him, from the Baron of Saxony in the mid 1700’s. At first, Matthias thought it was the strangest trumpet he had ever seen, until it blew a hole in his roof, and couldn’t get rid of the smell of gunpowder form his hut for weeks. He locked it away in a heavy wooden chest beneath the floorboards, until this year, of course.
Out of the darkling forest Fin saw a single speck of red, like a tiny ember carried on a draught of air. He looked long and hard at it, flitting in and out of the trees, before he realized what it was. The soft, warm glow shone on the end of a brown snout, dark eyes and ahead crowned with great black antlers.
‘Rudy!’ Fin shouted. When the reindeer cleared the trees he bounded toward his brethren with great distress, and a limp in his back leg. Matthias’ ruddy face turned deathly pale at the sight. The reindeer then collapsed. His belly swelled and fell; he was breathing, but in sharp, shallow intervals. Claw marks scored his side, and a gash in his neck dribbled blood into his fur. Matthias climbed down and inspected the wound.
‘Do you think it was...’ Fin left the question in the air. ‘Can you help him, Matthias?’
‘I can dress his wound, and I have iodine. You are going to be alright, Rudolph, old boy.’ He said this with exaggerated, desperate liveliness.
Fin climbed up onto the sled and rummaged through a small sack. Out of it he drew an axe for wood-chopping, and a small metal cap with a flashlight attached to it, which he strapped on underneath his hood. The axe he tucked in his quiver of arrows on his back, and then he leapt down to the ground and marched off to the forest.
‘Where do you think you’re going, Finwë!’ Matthias shouted.
‘If anything happens, fire a flare.’
‘If you leave now then I will make sure you are fired from the Workshop.’
‘So fire me,’ Fin called back, though inside he winced.
‘Don’t pull that Rambo-tambo braggart soldier nonsense on me, young one. You are staying here and we are going back together.’
‘Not without Father Christmas.’ Fin then turned and marched straight toward the thick line of trees, paying no more heed to the older elf’s angry shouting. The sun was behind the trees now.
II
Fin followed Rudy’s hoof prints, which was mercifully easy in the pristine snow. The hard part was moving. Once inside the woods, the snow was several feet deep in some parts. As long as he kept to Rudy’s path he managed, but sometimes he found himself up to his eyes in snow, which he would have to climb on top, only to have it collapse under him. The groaning in the forest became a low hum, a white noise Fin almost forgot about.
When the trees grew closer together, the snow was not so deep, but Rudy’s path became harder to follow. He nudged a tree’s branch and it triggered an entire avalanche upon him. He thrashed his way up and out, spitting out mouthfuls of snow and pine needles. The angry thrum of Dead Ones grew more quiet and placid. This made it harder for Fin to place where it was coming from. The town couldn’t be much farther, he thought. Could it? The trail dipped as the forest sloped downward into a small valley. The sun had not completely set, but the world down here was a chilled blue, and Fin had to rely on his flashlight completely. Behind the black parapets of trees on the ridge before him, the sun blazed red. None of that dying light touched the bottom of the great bowl Fin trudged through, eyes to the ground, crossbow drawn. The prints, which were more like the trail of two slugs slithering parallel through the snow, seemed to wind up the hill.
When he reached the ridge he saw a little ways below him an open road running parallel to the ridge. When he climbed down closer to it he saw the road was littered by vehicles. One pick-up truck lay in a ditch on the other side, a couple lay where they had careened into each other on the ice road. Several lay in the ditch on both sides of the road, in both directions. A thick later of frost lay on all of them, and some of their windows were broken and frosted over. Most were headed to the right, Fin noticed, which he gathered was the way out. All seemed quiet, so he climbed down the ridge and out onto the road. One of the cars was t-boned by the other, its front crunched like a soda can into the first one’s side, and the torso of a woman was splayed across it from out of the smashed windshield. Her mid-section appeared skewered by a jagged ridge of smashed glass. The driver’s door of the other car was open, and in the dim light Fin could make out the shape of a person, head leaned to the side, almost falling out of the door.
‘Are...are you alright?’ he asked, and immediately felt ridiculous for doing so. That they had been there a while was plain to see, and he asked more out of habit.
He resumed his task, and scanned the ground for Rudy’s prints. He could make them out in the beaten down and packed ice on the road, and the prints wove their way through and between the wreckage, off to the left down the road. He followed them between the cars, and keeping his head turned to the ground. He was lucky to look up when only a few yards away from someone standing in the road. The man was quite tall, dressed in a brown polyester jacket, and a grey fur ushanka on his head. Fin didn’t realize his light was shining right on him until the man turned around.
‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry,’ he said. ‘How rude of...’ his elfish goodwill evaporated at the sight of the man’s face: a gorged and blackened hole lay where his nose and upper lip should have been, under round, lidless eyes, that were fixed right on Fin. The elf stood paralysed as a gravelly rumbling came up from deep inside the man’s barrel chest. He limped forward, raised up a hand and and reached out to Fin. Fin shrieked and fired an arrow, slipped and fell hard on his back. His hands trembled violently as he tried to load up the crossbow again. He looked up and there the man stood, right above him. Not knowing what else to do, Fin scrambled under the man’s long legs, just before the man could bend down and scoop him up. It turned its head and was met with an arrow right in the eye. The impact knocked its hat off, and the tall deadman crumpled to the ground.
Fin let out a compulsive laugh. You’ve slain your first zombie, he thought. He felt giddy as he rose to his feet, only to meet gazes with two more: the one from inside the t-boned car, a short man with poppy-red earmuffs, mittens to match, totally blackened eyes and a trail of blood dripping from down the sides of his mouth; the other was the torso of the woman, dragging herself up on top of the car to see who was making all the commotion, and if he was edible. The wild, celebratory mood vanished. They looked very hungry.
Crossbow raised, Fin backed away, and then turned to run. Others had shown up, perhaps hiding in the other cars, a closing a ring around him.
‘Bless me,’ Fin said, and bolted between the two in his way before they could close tight enough around him, and right down the road. He prayed his little legs would serve him; elves were always light on their feet, especially Christmas elves. He was amazed these sloth-like creatures managed to overrun their living, sentient counterparts. But the ones behind him gave chase better than he expected. There was no time to follow Rudy’s prints. The little, ear-muffed man seemed especially fit, and led the chase with great zest. At first he went along like some hellish ape, using as knuckles as well as his feet, trying to gain purchase on the icy road. But as he picked up speed, the little man ran loped along on two feet with alarming speed. The road was slick, and Fin’s boots didn’t bite into it very well; he slipped and stumbled several times. As he ran he turned back and tried to fire a shot at their leader, only to shoot wide of the mark. He heard the snarls and groans from hoarse and infected throats. The dark road bounced in and out of view as he stumbled and his headlight swung up and down. At once, the hungry snarls from their hoarse and infected throats were near at hand, and then they grew distant, and all Fin could hear was his own huffing and puffing. The road bent down to the left, and he cut into the forest just around the bend to shake them off. But just as he cleared the turn, the road opened to an open view of the town, just a little ways down the hill in the valley, across an iron bridge over a frozen creek. Fin tried to slow down, but the road dropped so steeply he slipped and went sliding down the path into a snowbank on the left.
Less than a hundred yards away on this side of the bridge, dozens of Deadfolk meandered around in silence, near the creek, in and out of the trees, and in front of a sign that said ‘Welcome to Black Pine Creek, the Friendliest Town in the North. Population: 5034.’ He realized for the second time that his headlight flitted around wherever he turned. The ones near the bridge noticed, and stopped whatever errands they were running, and moved towards him. He could hear the bloodthirsty little man leading the charge from the top of the hill. Then, a large, gloved hand came over his mouth, and a great arm seized him from behind, and dragged him into the cover of the trees.
III
Fin’s cap was yanked right off his head and hidden, while the other hand remained over his mouth. It was very strong and firm, but it didn’t hurt him. He felt his head pressed into something soft, almost furry. He looked up, and saw a tall dark figure putting a finger up to its mouth, as if to say ‘don’t make a sound.’
Just outside the edge of pines the band of Deadfolk trundled past and headed for the town. By the time they reached the others, Fin noticed, they seemed to run out of purpose, and joined the ranks of aimless wanderers.
‘Not very bright, are they,’ came a deep voice in the shadows. The hand on Fin’s face loosened. Fin turned to see its owner, a tall man with a long, full beard hanging over a stout chest and belly. Without thinking, Fin wrapped his arms around the belly, sinking his face into the warm, soft, and ancient beard.
‘Sir,’ said the elf, fighting back tears. He felt like a child again. ‘You’re alive!’ Even in the dark he could make out the Chief’s face, and thought it did not smile, his eyes always smiled, and glinted.
‘My child, I told you to stay with the sleigh,’ he said.
‘Yes sir. I’m sorry, sir, but Rudy came out without you. We feared something had happened. I couldn’t wait any longer. Matthias kept checking his blasted watch every twenty seconds.
‘There is much you have yet to learn from Mr. Matthias. He is a good teacher and you would do well to pay him more respect.’
Fin felt wronged. This was not the response he was hoping for. ‘He swore he would fire me if I came in after you.’
‘Well I have the final say, don’t I? All the same, I am somewhat grateful that you went against my direct orders this time. Good thing you aren’t as well-trained as Mr. Matthias.’ He winked. ‘I am also relieved to hear that my beloved Rudolph made it out alive. They spooked him at the bridge and he threw me off. Poor thing had never been so scared in his life. I should have known better than to bring him in with me.’ They had landed the sleigh beyond the woods and not in the town because the reindeer so unnerved by the presence of the Undead they could not go near the town at all. ‘I suppose he is to be forgiven and excused for running.’
‘Well I am here, and I will not run, sir,’ said Fin, trying to appear as brave and loyal as possible, and meaning it. ‘I vow that I will--’
‘No, do not swear. There’s no need, I believe you and I am glad to have you. But we cannot tarry. There is not much time, and we still have yet to find this girl. My spirits are flagging already, and we won’t make much of an escape if I am all out of Cheer.’
‘So what is the plan, sir?’
‘No lights from here on in. We must rely on our senses, and our guts, and our hope. The bridge is well guarded by these devils. But I believe a ways down the creek the ice is not as thin and loose. But I need a better look. The footing does not look as firm for the non-living. I think we can reach it by the cover of the trees.’
Without confirming with Fin that he understood and approved of the plan, he turned and made for their destination. Fin had to catch up, as they squeezed their way between the needly branches. The Chief made sure to hold the low-hanging boughs, to keep them from whipping Fin in the face. They negotiated their way through a dense, snowy undergrowth, till curved down toward the cree, a ribbon that made for a clear border between the wilderness and the town. This must be the eponymous creek, Fin thought. Here, they climbed down a steep but low ridge, till they were right on the banks. There was a patch of tall, colourless reeds here, more open to the sky but still able to conceal them from dead, curious eyes. Fin got a better view of the Chief, who was dressed in a great white coat that went down to his knees with red thread finely woven into it, and a silver belt girdling the widest part of him. Instead of a long red cap he covered his head with the hood of his coat. In one hand he held a long twisted crosier with interwoven lines of red, green and white spiralling up the length of it, like the most beautiful candy-cane you had ever seen. Some said it was made from the core of a great holly tree sacred to the Druids. Svetlana had once told Fin that it was made from timbers of the Jesus’ cross. (She also told him the centre of the earth was filled with molten chocolate, which he later learned at University to be untrue.) All the same, the crosier inspired wonder in the young elf, and he felt safer knowing the Chief had it with him now.
Here, the creek was widest. But they were at a safe distance from the congestion of Dead Ones by the bridge. Only a pair of them patrolled the ridge across from Fin and the Chief, and they walked as slowly as a decrepit elderly couple going for a stroll in the dusk. Fin wondered if that wasn’t exactly what they were once upon a time. Perhaps they dreamed they would walk together in young, uncreaking bodies again once they died. Now they were condemned to walk in these frigid corpses till the frost broke them. He hoped their spirits had successfully unmoored themselves form all this, left their bodies behind, wherever they were now. He saw the Chief looking at them as well.
‘Do you believe in God, Fin?’
He was shocked by the question. But what was the point in lying?
‘Sometimes,’ Fin admitted.
‘Yes,’ The Chief smiled wryly. ‘Me too. Sometimes.’
The Chief tapped the ice with his staff.
‘Seems solid enough,’ he said, shrugging. He was uncertain, but clearly not worried. So Fin would not worry. The old saint took a tentative step, and then placed he other boot down. If it held the Chief, Fin reasoned, it would certainly hold me. Half a foot of snow was layered over the ice. It crunched under their feet, a sound Fin always took a small pleasure in.
Midway across the creek Fin tripped, and his whole little body fell flat onto the ice. The nearly cried out, expecting the whole creek to crack and splinter. Fin lay prostrate, winded and a little warm blood trickling from his nose, but he didn’t dare move to cry or curse. Several heartbeats later and the ice had not broken. Then the pain came. Fin was eager to see all the welts on his body just from falling down so much on this mission--if that the worst fate he was subject to here.
‘Are you alright,’ the Chief whispered.
‘My nose is bleeding,’ Fin whispered back. When he got to his feet, the Chief pointed out what Fin must have tripped on. There was a small lump in the ice. Fin had to get on his hands and knees to get a good look at it. And then he gasped, as he made out the features of a head, half submerged in the ice, up to its nose. It was glazed over with frost, and its eyes were half open an almost neanderthal-like furrow on its brow. With his sight down nearly flush with the surface of the creek, Fin could make out other similar lumps in the snow interspersed throughout the ice.
‘It would seem,’ said the Chief, hunched over beside him, ‘that Hell has frozen over.’
IV
They continued on to the other side of the creek. The Chief whispered something into a small snowball he made and gave it to Fin to put on his nose till the bleeding stopped. They climbed up the bank on the other side, the Chief helping Fin up on the higher parts. When they reached the top, the town lay before them: hollow, window-smashed houses and alleyways with trash cans, some telephone poles toppled over across streets and yards. Beyond the small bungalows before them Fin saw a few spires of Church belfries. There was also one enormous building with a great tower and an old fashioned clock. This must have been the town hall. The evening had come and there was nothing but a cool, violet glow from the rim of the southwestern sky. The town was quiet, which frightened Fin knowing its streets were bustling with Undead feet. How long would it take before they realized there was nothing left to eat here, Fin wondered. He prayed the Dead Ones weren’t looking for the same thing they were after.
‘How are we going to find this girl?’ Fin asked. ‘How do we even know she’s still alive?’
The Chief was quiet for a moment. He was taking in the husk of Black Pine Creek. ‘My heart tells me she is.’ As he stood there, a faint light pulsed through the green strands of the crosier, like a blip on a heart monitor. This was a gauge of the Chief’s level of spirit and hope. He was operating on a hunch only, but even Fin knew from experience that the Chief’s hunches were usually right.
They climbed the fence of the nearest house, and scaled the walls to the roof. The Chief stood on the rooftop, crosier in one hand, the other planted on his hip as he surveyed the town. ‘It is quite strange doing this without the reindeer,’ he mused. ‘I hope I can still manage.’ Fin had always longed to go with the Chief on his annual expeditions. He never in his wildest dreams imagined he would ever do it like this.
‘It would be faster if you rode on my back,’ said the Chief. He lowered himself down and Fin hopped up on his back. Fin felt like an elfling again, riding piggy-back on his father, or his older brother Elrond. Now, he was the size of a human boy, and riding on the back of his boss, who also happened to be a living saint. Strange times, indeed.
The Chief raised his crosier, and holding it with both hands, charged to the other end of the roof as nimbly as a cat, and drove the crosier into it just as they reached the edge, and vaulted over the twelve foot gap between this house and the next. He didn’t make a clean landing, as he bent over when he hit the other side and spun his arms, trying to push his body forward, Fin all the while wrapping his arms around his neck in a vice grip. The Chief swung the crosier forward and hooked it to the chimney top and pulled them forward. Fin heard the tinkle of icicles underneath the eaves breaking off, and instead of hitting the ground, they fell on something else, and Fin heard a growl coming up from below.
‘It’s been some time since I’ve done it this way,’ the Chief huffed. ‘I’m a little out of shape. No matter. Before I recruited the reindeer this was always how I used to do it.’ Fin was a little shaken, and did not like that they may have disturbed one of those creatures, but his carrier became more surefooted after the next few roofs. It was difficult when two-storied houses cropped up, or if two houses had their driveways side by side, making the gap even wider, but sure enough the Chief managed every time, though they rattled more than a fair share of icicles. Fin figured the Chief must have done this with an enormous sack in tow, so he could not be as great of a burden by comparison. However, he could spot a person here and there in the street beside them, rummaging through the bushes, crawling across a lawn, dying on a doorstep. And Fin could sense a strain in the Chief with every bound. He did his best to keep cheerful, hale and hearty, but the evening was thick with darkness, and no place for roof-hopping. It seemed to sap the Chief of his energy.
They would climb down to scramble across streets, and then repeat the process. Before they left HQ, the girl’s parents told the Chief she was not in their house, but a friend’s house a couple of blocks away. When they reached their address, the Chief scanned the neighbourhood. It was dim all around of course, but right in front of them was a massive black hole in the shape of a rectangle. It was a park, with a soccer field and a playground, and there was enough light to see it was not completely deserted. The Chief sighed.
‘It’s there,’ he said, pointing forward. ‘Just across that.’ The park could not have been larger than sixty yards to the other side, but for them it might as well have been the Sahara Desert. A number of shadows murmured throughout.
‘Blast it all!’ The Chief rasped. ‘I was hoping it wouldn’t be in that direction.’ Down along the streets before them the park dwellers also spilled out, so even to go around the park would mean descending to walk among the damned.
‘Why are there so many here?’ asked Fin. ‘Did they spot us? Are they looking for us?’
‘I certainly hope it’s us they’re looking for, and nobody else,’ the Chief said. ‘Come. Let us get to the end of this block before we climb down.
Just as the Chief was about to jump, Fin yelped. An arm swung over the rooftop, a few inches from their left, and it startled the Chief as well as Fin, making him slip, and the two went crashing down into the yard between the houses. When they rose from the snow craters they made and brushed it off and out of their faces, Fin could not see their faces, but he knew that every one of them were looking right at him and the Chief.
‘I should have retired years ago,’ the Chief sighed. ‘To the corner on the park’s right!’ He raised the crosier in the air, and like a mace he swung it into the head of the nearest deadman and with a loud and deep crack he flew into the side of the house and crumpled to the ground. ‘Run!’ the Chief shouted, and before Fin had time to be shocked, he ran. To the right, the block of houses kitty-corner to this one was fifty feet away, and slightly uphill. He quickly found himself running through a maze of moaning, faceless shadows, hungry for blood. He looked behind and all he could see of the Chief was his crosier shining red like a firebrand over the undead heads. Fin pressed on, and they thickened. He was like a germ in the bloodstream of an enormous cancerous body, attacking him with all its might. Dozens of feet crunched in the snow toward him, the darkness writhed and groaned all around him, while he spun around with axe in one hand and crossbow in the other. To his left he saw a small gap, and a car on the park side of the road. He slipped through and climbed up the trunk and onto the top. There he saw them swarming around him; his car was pressed in by many leprous hands. Where was the Chief?
‘Behind you!’ the voice boomed. Fin wheeled around, and there was the Chief a little ways downhill into the park. ‘Jump!’ he cried. It was the only way to get off this island. He sprang over the monsters’ heads, his feet skirting their fingers as he landed and rolled down toward the Chief, still keeping the Deadfolk at bay with his mighty Christmas club. Fin reached the Chief just as he split the skull of a vicious looking young man.
They cut through the playground and down toward the field. Fin hewed one tall woman at the shin with his axe as he ran, but then he nearly got it stuck in the neck of a boy his own size. Fin had to kick him away to get the axe out, as the boy squealed in pain and snarled at him. With deadly aim the Chief struck several in the head and sent them headlong to the snowy earth. The other side was very near, and the crosier was glowing brighter in all its green, white and red strands as they closed in on the row of houses facing the park. The number of Undead thinned out here, as most of them were behind. They pursued them through the park, falling over each other as they entered.
‘Which house is it?’ Fin asked, when they emerged from the park. The Chief darted from one to the next, jogging his memory.
‘Six-Ninety Five, Six-Ninety Three....Six-Hundred-one! That was the address! Ah, yes, I remember this one now!’ It was the second last house on the left, another squat bungalow surrounded by tall and skeletal hedges. They charged forward, and the light in the crosier surged brighter and faster, and even started to ring. The Chief’s spirits were lifting.
When they entered the yard they found two Undead snooping about, trying to find a way into the house. Perhaps they smelled fresh, living meat. The Chief raised the crosier in the air, and it whirred.
‘Here now! There is plenty more meat on my bones!’ he shouted. They sniffed, and cautiously advanced on him. The Chief slapped his belly like a drum. ‘Yes, yes, come to feast on this, you hobgoblins!’ The first one, a lanky thing with one arm, the Chief hit so hard its head twisted on its axis almost all the way round, and it flopped aside. The second one, a tall, fat one, bigger even than the Chief, charged into him; the Chief tried to step out of the way, but when the man dove forward he grabbed onto the Chief’s arm, bring him down as well. Fin watched in horror as the fat creature rolled overtop the Chief, and the Chief held him up with only the crosier to keep the man from going for his jugular. Fin dashed toward them with axe held overhead, and he jumped and brought it down right where his neck met his right shoulder. Blood squirted out, but the axe was wedged in so deep he couldn’t get it out. The man climbed off the Chief and wheeled round, enraged at this little pest. For a moment Fin believed he would surely be disemboweled right then and there, but the Chief came in behind, and with a sickening crack the big man’s head split clean off, sending the head right over the high prickly hedge into the next yard. From the neck the enormous body showered the yard with blood, and it went crashing into a snowman nearby.
‘Some trees take more than one man to fell,’ the Chief said. ‘Thank you, Fin.’
‘I struck down a boy,’ Fin blurted out, just remembering. ‘One of them. In the park. He couldn’t have been more than eleven.’ Tears welled up, and suddenly he was unable to control his sobbing. ‘They took children too, sir.’
‘They did,’ the Chief admitted. ‘But not all of them.’ He lifted Fin up, still sniffling, up over the eaves, and then jumped up after him.
It was a small metal pipe, but it would do. The Chief said he had gone down worse chimneys. Fin, never having done this before, could not recall a more uncomfortable experience, being compressed till he was thrice thinner than he was before. He felt like a tube of sausage as he slithered down the chimney, and didn’t know how the Chief managed it. He pulled out a small hourglass from his breast pocket, and flipped it over. As the tiny grains of sand funneled down, so the Chief and Fin shrunk and slid down. The house inside was dark and very cold, but for the sickly moonlight that spilled in through the back windows. Fin heard the collective groan coming from just out front, but he could breathe again and felt a little more secure inside.
V
They found the girl in the basement. Sofia was huddled behind the washing machine in the undeveloped basement, a skinny thing wrapped up in an adult’s winter jacket. She couldn’t have been more than eight, with dark brown curly hair, and big olive eyes. At first, she hesitated to come out, but after she got a good look at the Chief, she got up and jumped into his arms, recognizing him instinctively. ‘Santa! Santa!’ She squealed. Her voice was hoarse, as if it hadn’t been used in some time, except for crying, perhaps. Her scrawny legs were covered only with tights. She told them that her babysitter was upstairs; Sofia had managed to lock her in the bathroom, before hiding down in the basement, eating cat food for a day and a half.
They heard the tinkle of glass breaking upstairs. When they went upstairs they saw a Deadwoman had broken a window in the kitchen and was trying to climb through. They had the house surrounded.
‘Well, it looks like more house-hopping,’ the Chief said, tired. It would be much more difficult without the crosier to vault across with. Just then Fin remembered that while they were searching for Sofia he had peaked into the garage adjacent to the front foyer, and he saw a car.
‘Sofia,’ he said, ‘ do you know if there are any keys to that car out there?’
‘I’m afraid it’s no use,’ the Chief said. ‘I cannot drive those blasted horseless sleighs.’ For him, horseless sleigh was a dirty pair of words.
‘I can,’ Fin said, thrilled to finally be useful to this mission. ‘If we could procure a key. Sofia?’
She shook her head. It was the house of a family friend; how could she know that when she likely wouldn’t have even known in her own house? Fin knew this, but had to try.
He held up the Chief’s match to the walls and found a small box hanging by the garage door. There were four keys inside, so he grabbed each of them and they slid into the garage as the Deadwoman began to climb through the kitchen window.
Fin flipped a switch and a small lightbulb came on above the car, lighting up the cluttered garage. The car itself was very small, and the windows frosted over. Fin pressed a button and it made a loud chirping sound, and Fin exchanged glances with the Chief.
‘I think that means it’s unlocked,’ he said sheepishly. The windshield was frozen over, so the Chief lit the same match, sucked in air and blew it out over the glass, sending out a bright green flame, thawing it within seconds.They filed in, with the Chief in the passenger seat and Sofia on his lap, while Fin took the helm, even though he could barely see over the dashboard. He pressed a button near the rearview mirror, and the garage door slowly opened with a screech as frozen metal ground against metal. The Chief cringed at the sound, and looked skeptical, but Fin gave him an entreating glance, hopeful this would work. It would have to work. Even if it did advertise them to the entire neighbourhood.
After a few jerky stops and starts, he navigated them out of the garage before their assailants understood what was going on.
‘Do you know where you are going?’ The Chief asked, a note of dismay in his voice.
‘Away from them!’ Fin replied, as he turned right and away from the mob that clogged the street.
‘Take Governor Street up ahead,’ said the Chief, peering out his passenger window. ‘Go left and it should take us to Main.’
They sped forward, swerving around the few stragglers in the road before reaching Main Street. The bridge lay at the end of it.
‘From what I recall,’ said the Chief, ‘there are few straight lines in the town of Black Pine Creek, but Main is one of them.’
This would have been an advantage, but the Dead Ones stood in scattered numbers all along the ice-laden street, without any regard to oncoming traffic. Most inconsiderate. Fin slammed his foot down and the car picked up speed. did his best to swerve around any jaywalkers, but on occasion he would nick one or two.
Thump-thump. Some were pulled under and rocked the car with most uneven driving; the passengers bounced violently in their seats.
Thump-slam. One rolled up the hood and onto the windshield, sending a web of cracks across the glass, concentrated where the man’s shoulder struck.
‘We’ll not last longer with this dreadful sport,’ the Chief shouted over the engine and the angry, wordless songs of the dead.
Snap. Off went Fin’s side view mirror.
‘How much farther, do you think?’ He asked, struggling to keep his view over the dashboard and his foot on the pedal at the same time.
‘Less than a furlong, by my life,’ the Chief said. Fin looked up through his side window and the building he thought must be the city hall whizzed past. The dead didn’t form a wall by any conscious effort till now; they walked as if drunk through the streets, and it wasn’t more than one or two at a time Fin drove into. He winced every time needing to remind himself they were no longer the people their bodies once carried. This street seemed to stretch on forever.
‘Slow down! Whoa, now.’ the Chief said, out of habit. ‘Extinguish the lights.’ Sofia was in tears, and the windshield was about to burst. When they reached the bridge they could not risk crashing into another body. And because that was just the way this day was going, there stood a mob between them and the entrance to the big iron bridge. Fin slowed down as he approached, and shut off the headlights. They didn’t seem to see the car. Would it be possible to breach the line in the shape they were in? Fin looked over to his superior, his hero, and saw the old saint’s wheels were turning.
‘This machine runs on petrol,’ he said. ‘Not Christmas Cheer. It does not live like the reindeer. And yet,’ he paused, and put a hand to the fractured glass. ‘This was machine rendered by man and came from the earth’s ore. There may still be some spirit in its metal.’
‘Sir?’ Fin looked on him utterly mystified, and alarmed knowing the chase was creeping up somewhere behind.
‘Drive, Fin. Drive straight and true,’ he said, his voice distant but resolute. ‘Drive!’
Once again, half weary and half terror-struck, Fin pressed his child-sized foot to the pedal, and the engine raised its voice. The Chief placed both hands on the dashboard and pushed his weight into it, like he was trying to move the car from inside, and before Fin knew what was happening the mob sunk out of view in the windshield. The Chief cried out like he was lifting an impossible weight, as the car lifted into the air, and nearly vaulted over the heads of the Undead. It rose to shoulder height, and Fin felt the whole car bounce as it skipped from one head to another. And then with a lurch and a crash they were back on the ground again. They cleared the bridge.
Fin wanted to cry out he was so elated. The car climbed up the road that wound into the forest, up the slope where the Chief first found him. They sped along, Fin’s body stretched out so he could operate the wheel and pedal. He glanced back at Sofia, face full of wonder as she tried to look over her seat through the back window, back at the hurdle they just cleared.
‘Christmas lives!’ Fin declared. He looked over to his Chief, who still had his hands braced on the dashboard, his head bowed. He was breathing heavily, and sweating.
‘Sir?’
When he turned back to the road another figure slammed into view. Sofia screamed. Just before the window shattered and Fin lost control and they swerved and sailed into a deep bank of snow, he could make out the shape of the bloody little man with the red earmuffs.
Fin came to with a cold wind and something tugging at his arm. A hand, smaller than his. Sofia. He turned and saw her curly haired silhouette.
‘Mr. Elf?’ She squeaked.
‘Yes. Yes, I’m here.’ He could make out a body that lay on the hood, its arm slung over the dash, its lower body sandwiched between the hood and heavy snow. The little man did not move.
‘Is Santa okay?’ Fin leaned over, and saw the great bulk of the Chief leaned up against the passenger window. A trickle of blood ran down his head. He shook the Chief the way Sofia shook him. He shook harder. He grabbed his face, and shards of glass fell from his beard. The ever kind face was cold, and slightly damp. He lifted up his beard and felt for a pulse, but failed to find one. He grabbed the Chief’s lapels and shook them violently, barely moving the old saint.
‘Sir!’ he shouted. He listened for something, any little sign, but moments passed, and the Chief would not stir. The girl started to sniff and whimper, but he could not reach out and comfort her, imprisoned in his own shock and disbelief.
A distant snarl broke the silence outside. He shook the Chief again and he went limp like a marionette cut down from its strings when Fin let go. The snarling grew louder, and was answered with a groan, and then another. They were close.
Fin loathed the choice at hand, but found himself taking it any way. He reached in and found the Chief’s small, ornate red matchbox. He then tried to open his door, but found it sealed up. The snow seemed to come up on all sides, so there was no option but to go through the broken windshield. Fin tried to pull out Sofia, but she cried in protest and pulled back. He shouted at her, and reached in, unbuckled and grabbed her from her seat. She didn’t resist, but she kept crying. He climbed out first, shoving the little man’s arm aside, and brushing the glass out of the way. He stood up and then took her hands and drew her out of the car.
‘I think he’s breathing!’ she said.
‘He’s not. We have to go!’ She cried even louder as Fin hauled her out, over the Deadman’s corpse and over the mound of snow. He then grabbed the crosier. No light flowed through it. The woods were to their left, up a small slope. Only thirty feet away Fin could make out the wreckage he had first encountered down the road. From the opposite end, a fresh party limped its way toward them.
VI
‘Upsy-daisy, now,’ he said, hurrying her along up the hill. ‘Keep down.’ Fin dragged her along a trail, insistent on moving. He stepped over a root, and Sofia snagged her foot on it and fell. It was only then he realized that the child did not have the advantage of sharp, elfish sight that could pierce the blackened woods, if only a little better than humans could.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered, his knee-flex manners kicking in, but without feeling it. ‘We’ll stop here for a moment.’ They stood in a small clearing, ringed in by magisterial old pines, with a long felled tree right across it. He sat her down on it, and sat himself a couple of feet away. He leaned his head into his hand, and gazed into the trail before them through the pines. It was only then the pain flooded in: whiplash, and possibly a cracked rib. It felt like somebody was twisting a crude, jagged knife in his side every time he breathed in too deeply. He also heard the girl whimpering again. Fin knew it was selfish of him to be so distant from her, but he felt exhausted and helpless against the resentment that came over him. If not for her he would be back at the workshop, safe and sound, where he would be much more useful than here in the middle of nowhere; and more importantly, there Chief would be alive. Why did they risk their lives for this one little urchin? Millions more were not spared the carnage. What about that boy he ran into in the park? Who was he? Was he less deserving than Sofia?
He imagined bringing her back with Matthias, to tell the last remainder of the human race, and the elves, that their benefactor--no, their saviour--was dead. He did not want to be the one to bring this message. The sobbing sounds of the girl became more and more loathsome however hard he tried to summon up any kindness. Earlier today he would have had more will to care for Sofia. He would be first to admit that, unlike most elves, he was not great with children; he still was a child compared to most other elves and so was treated as such. But he was still naturally caring, and this coldness alarmed him.
A new thought occurred: with the Chief gone, would they even be able to get the sleigh off the ground? It ran on Christmas Cheer, of which the Chief was the main conduit. But nobody else knew what happened yet; perhaps their ignorance would sustain them. Perhaps their belief that the Chief was alive would give them fuel. He couldn’t be sure. Fin was expert in what he could see with his own eyes and render with his own hands. He failed Christmas Spirit Studies, although to be fair it was the hardest, most elusive subject on which only a gifted few could grasp. But he heard the Spirit as described as a kind of electricity, static and ever-present, but charged when someone in particular came into the area. The Chief was that conductor. Perhaps Fin could harness whatever floated along in the air down from HQ.
But was it even worth it? Whether they escaped or not, the outcome looked grim. To him, the world had already ended. Any further destruction and loss would be a formality. He gazed down the winding path that ran down and then up through the wide bowl.
There was a scream. Fin whipped around and saw a larger figure emerging from the trees, only a few feet away from Sofia. He took out his axe, bolted up onto the log and leapt from it at the figure. He overshot it though, and went crashing right into the Deadman. The axe went flying into the trees, and when he got to his feet, the Deadman rose as well, and stood in the way. The crosier leaned against the felled log nearby. Just as the Deadman charged forward screaming like a banshee, Fin reached for the crosier, and as he saw the Chief do, he swung it with all his might, and with a bright flash of light he smashed the man’s head like a piñata; Fin ran for cover as rotted brains and a fountain of blood showered down on the clearing, as well as shards of the crosier. All of it he had in his hands were a few splinters, amounting to nothing more than a stick. The Deadman lay in a heap on the ground, blood still pooling out from the shoulders.
When he turned back to the girl, she was hiding beneath the log, and when he went closer, she shrunk away more. He looked at the shards of the crosier in his hands. These and the matches were all he had left of the Chief. He put them in his breastpocket. This girl had caused so much grief, but for some reason he saved her all the same.
‘I’m sorry,’ Fin said. ‘I’ve been a scrooge.’ He only felt profound sadness and shame. He was bound to her, whether he liked it or not. How oculd this be made better, he thought. Then he remembered the matches.
‘Let’s have a little light,’ he said, trying to sound encouraging. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of this gloom.’ He struck it, and a little pearly light leapt out between his fingers. It was certainly hot, but it did not burn down the wick, and it did not resemble any flame he had yet seen in the Chief’s repertoire.
‘Yulefire,’ he explained, though he wondered at it almost as much as Sofia did. It was the most beautiful point of light he had ever seen, closer and warmer than any star. He had heard tales of it, how it helped others who were lost find their way home. It resembled, ever so slightly, the twinkly in the Chief’s eye.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Shall we?’ He took one step toward the path, and then he stopped. He could feel his heart breaking open.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, meaning it. ‘I’m so sorry, Sofia.’ He felt the unshed tears pent up in his chest falling out now, and he was seized with sobs and hiccoughs. Sofia climbed over the log and hugged the elf.
As they walked, Fin began to wonder if they were not headed straight out of the woods, but were rather moving parallel to its edge. The trees seemed to stretch on farther than he remembered. There was now no hope of retracing his steps. Distant cries were always on the edge hearing; the Dead obviously had no trouble bushwhacking. The Yulefire fell on the trees close in front of them, which he preferred to the open clearings where they couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of them. They ran up against an old lady in a green overcoat, eyes milked over, fingers frozen blue and saliva dripping down her mouth. She also had a knife lodged in her gut. Sofia and FIn yelped and evaded her, only to find a pair of teenage boys in hoodies, one of them missing his lower jaw, the other with lips completely missing showing a wide, abscessed grin. They just dodged this pair, and hurried along. Sofia kept her hand over her mouth, and both stayed low. Fin got a sick feeling that if he were to cast a light over the surrounding fifty yards he would find several pockets of them, moving through the brush. But were they all after him and Sofia? They couldn’t be that fast. Some were well ahead of them. What were they doing here? The match attracted them, no doubt, but Sofia could move with greater speed with it lit. We must be close, he thought. They dashed from one tree to the next. Any minute now, they would be clear of the trees altogether. They did start to thin out more eventually so it could not be much longer. But every open shadow could also be hiding something.
There was a flash, just off to the right out view, over the trees. Then there was a crackle that split the air. Then, another flash, a whistle, and then a great bang.
Fireworks. Matthias. He was finally under attack.
VII
He could not be more grateful for the older elf’s plight. Matthias could have taken off any time without them, but he chose to stay and wait. Or perhaps Fin’s theory of Christmas Spirit was wrong, and he was forced to stay put on the ground. Either way, what a wonderfully stubborn old ass!
He brought Sofia to the last outcropping of trees and hid behind to get a good view. They came pouring out, dozens of them, off to Fin’s right. A hundred yards away Fin saw the sleigh turned over on its side, and a little head popping up over it. More fireworks fired up from behind the sleigh. It swam through the air like a tadpole and burst, knocking some off their feet, and sending a bright green fire raining down on the Dead Ones’ heads. There was another bang from the sleigh. Matthias was finally using his blunderbuss. Scraps of old presents went flying from it, spraying the numbers of undead with the flaming debris of cellphones, action figures, and coffee makers.
The Dead were pushed back to the trees temporarily, and now was their chance to move. Fin motioned for Sofia to run. A man crashed through the trees behind them, so Fin dashed out of their hiding place, following Sofia out into the open field.
‘Don’t shoot!’ Fin hollered.
‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!’ Sofia echoed. Fin ran with the match still lit in his hand, and through the Yulefire flickered, the wind did not put it out. Small fires burned all around on the ground, some fuelled by corpses. One had half a dollhouse stuck in its face. Fin hoped, prayed Matthias would see them amid this waste and not fire sharp-edged presents at them in a moment of panic.
‘Finwë? Is that you, my boy?’ The old elf said from behind the upturned sleigh. His large head popped up over the top side.
‘I have Sofia with me,’ said Fin.
‘I see that. Now get behind before they see you! Come here, my sweeting.’ He ushered them both in behind the sleigh. Fin saw farther out in the field the reindeer had formed a ring around Rudy, his nose still aglow, but dimly so. There were only eight of them that he could see.
‘Prancer,’ Matthias explained, before he broke into a sob. ‘One of those devils came up without my seeing it and attacked the reindeer.’ He sunk down to the ground, leaned against the sleight. ‘It spooked the others and sent them running, pulling this thing along till it toppled over. I unhitched them all. It was then that we realised old Prancer had been bitten. It wasn’t fatal. I knew he would...turn...but I couldn’t do anything. I simply couldn’t. And then...’ he stopped, buried his face in his hands and cried. It was strange to see this old veteran cry. A few hours earlier and he wouldn’t have believed it. Now, anything seemed possible. Next to the Chief, nobody loved the Reindeer more than Matthias.
Sofia wrapped her arms around the curled up Matthias, only a little taller than him when she stood. I’m glad it was you we came for, thought Fin. She seemed to be handling it quite well for an 8-year old. Though he wouldn’t have admitted it, there were plenty of brats out there he wouldn’t miss, though some surely remained alive and well back at HQ.
Matthias looked up at Fin for a moment, wiping the dribble of snot from his nose. ‘Where is the Chief?’ he asked.
‘He is...’ what could he tell this broken-hearted man? ‘He is on his way.’ He seemed content enough with this answer, though the lie made something small and tight twisted in Fin’s stomach. Sofia looked at him, and back at Matthias, but said nothing.
Fin needed them to try and push the sleigh over again, and somehow rein in the team, even though Rudy was injured. He had to try and save them; he could explain about the Chief once they were safe. But the advancing undead were not helping things. The senior elf being presently indisposed, Fin took the great blunderbuss and loaded it some more, and cocked it. It was heavier than he imagined, impressed that Matthias wielded it so easily. He climbed up the sled and looked over. The small fires had almost run out, but he could see passing shadows, and was certain a couple were less than twenty feet away from the sleigh. He aimed at one in the middle, keeping it steady on the sleigh’s rim. With a slight tug at the brass trigger, there was a loud blast and a kickback that knocked Fin off the sleigh and onto his back. Just before he fell though, in the brief flash of the gun blast, he saw a great wave, in the hundreds, emerging from the trees.
‘My blunderbuss!’ Matthias cried. The gun lay on the ground, smoking, the barrel split open like a banana peel, and the metal charred. ‘What did you do to it?’ He shrieked. Fin rose form his back slowly. His head was throbbing, and the pain in his side was spreading.
‘I fired it,’ Fin said.
‘You fired too much, I daresay!’ Matthias said, brandishing the busted gun.
‘Not enough, I’d say. Look.’ Fin pointed and Matthias looked around the side. He could barely see the elf’s face with nothing but the kerosene lamp on the ground to light their hiding place, but he knew Matthias’ face was pale.
‘Everything,’ Fin said, each breath scoring his lungs. ‘We must throw everything at them.’
‘There is not much left in the bag,’ he said. ‘Mostly just the fireworks.’ He took a swig from a glass bottle of Scotch he must have pilfered from the sock. Fin jumped up and seized it from Matthias’ hand, and before had time to complain, he tore off a piece his shirt and stuck one end of it in the bottle. The other he dipped in the flame of the lamp.
‘What in blazing heaven...’ Matthias said, as Fin ran out from their cover. He stopped when he was thirty yards away or so from them, halfway between them and the sleigh. What are you doing, he thought. Before he could consider an answer, he shouted “For Prancer!” and sent the bottle soaring toward the mob.
Before the Undead could reply the flaming bottle landed among the ones in front. A few were instantly lit up; there was an awful scream that throttled the air, and the flailing bodies tumbled into others and lit up dozens more before the rest got wise and kept their distance. Most of them fell and burned up on the spot, but a few kept running around, and one came charging at Fin like a flaming comet. The elf sensed it was time to get back. He returned, and made snowballs to throw at the fiery Deadman. He pelted it, but failed to slow it down, till it reached the sleigh and crashed right into it. It staggered back, and collapsed. The sleigh did not catch on fire, and Fin sighed in relief. But the Dead pressed on.
‘Fireworks,’ Fin said.
At once, him, Matthias, and even Sofia pulled out long, multicoloured rocket firecrackers on the end of sticks. There were less than a dozen left, but they were large, and there was one nearly as tall as Matthias, with red, white and green spiraling up it like a candy cane. Taking as many as they could carry, they planted them in the snow a few feet away from the sleigh. A smell of roasted flesh rose up from the charred heap just in front of it.
They lit three. When the fuses ran down, one spun out off to the side, one went up above and past the mob and hit the trees, and only one headed right for its target. They all burst at once, and for a moment the world seemed almost festive again. The one that hit the undead fired off like a machine gun and knocked down a whole line of them. The trees behind them caught fire, while the one that missed exploded a red dome of light, huge, but only burning the zombies on that end.
‘Aim the ones like that better!’ Matthias barked. They fired off the enxt round, and the blast hollowed out the centre, even sending a few Dead Ones flying. The smell of sulfur hung heavy in the air. Still they came; the forest and town seemed now to be sending every last Dead One at them. They were down to their last: the huge candy cane rocket.
‘One last chance,’ Matthias said.
They took the great rocket and planted it in the snow. He took a match, lit it, and held it up to the snaking fuse. The Dead oozed ever closer.
‘For Saint Nicholas,’ said Fin.
Matthias beamed. ‘For Saint Nick.’
The candy cane blasted off, and it went hissing like a dragon into the masses. Fin saw the bodies flying before he heard the blast. And then light. A dome of white grew from underneath the Dead, and it faded, and one of blue surged up in its place, then red, then gold, purple, silver. The blast knocked Matthias, Fin and Sofia off their feet. A cloud of smoke hung over their target. The forest burned behind, lighting up the heart of the smoke like a huge, glowing coal.
They rose, and coughed. They watched it all, and for a few seconds it remained silent, except for the burning pines. Then minutes passed. Nothing. Sofia came out from behind and watched with them.
‘Did it work?’ Fin finally said.
‘It may have kept them at bay for a while. At least until the Chief returns. Where is he?’
Fin knew he would have to tell him eventually, but before he had to steel himself to answer, Sofia cried out, and pointed to the haze. Shadows passed over the warm glow. Something stirred in the furnace. And out they came again.
‘Heaven help us,’ said Fin, falling to his knees.
‘Oh shit,’ said Matthias.
VIII
Some, whom Fin thought they had killed, picked themselves up and carried on, though perhaps short an arm or a foot. A chorus of languished creatures rose up in groans, howls, and inarticulate murmurs. Hell seemed to have emptied all its bowels on the three of them. Coming in under the roars was one lower and fiercer. It shook the earth to its depths. There was something different about this though, Fin thought. The more he listened, the more mechanical this roar sounded.
Then, out from the burning treetops and red clouds of smoke, a huge, shining thing emerged. ‘Like a bat out of hell’ would have been inaccurate. In the near-blinding light it was more like a great creature with many limbs and heads, armoured in steel, half angel half demon knotted together, hurtling out bright and blazing from some unknown, ageless depths. It soared right over the the heads of the undead army, and landed before the three survivors. The light dimmed.
A truck. A red pick-up truck, at least its metal frame was red hot, with at least a dozen undead hanging onto it like lions with their teeth and claws sunk into a large prey. In its open back stood a great, tall figure, dressed in a tattered white coat, blood all down his head, and dripping from his long beard. Where his hands clutched the truck cabin, the metal crumpled like tin. He had a fierce, pure fire in his ancient eyes.
‘Sir.’ Fin whispered. The Chief turned and looked upon Fin, who trembled in his gaze.
‘I did not like being cramped in that infernal automobile,’ the old saint said. He took something out of his coat, and blew it at the zombies clinging to the truck, and all around. A white flame unfurled, blinding and paralysing the creatures.
‘The Yulefire will not last, we must ride,’ he shouted.
‘But sir, the sleigh,’ Matthias said. ‘A runner has broken off, and Rudolph is not fit to ride.
‘We have a new sleigh now,’ the Chief said. ‘I just needed some time to learn how to ride it. Now let us hitch the able-bodied to this, and we shall ride in all haste from here.’
While the Dead Ones writhed in pain and groped in blindness, the Chief and the others gathered the reindeer and attached them to the front. They were bounding in energy now that their old friend was back; they were without fear, though not without injury. Even Rudy seemed better, but the Chief kept him in the back. Fin, Matthias and Sofia shuffle into the cabin, while the Chief navigated the team over to Prancer’s body. He lifted the dead reindeer into his infinitely voluminous sack, and laid it down beside him and Rudy.
‘On, Dasher! On, Dancer! On...’ he paused, and the team faltered. ‘On, Prancer.’ He named his fallen comrade with great love and woe, and continued naming each one, as it lifted up, up, up into the dark. The fire still burned in the forest, and the monsters, recovered, wandered out into the dark waste, clueless where their prey had gone. Soon they would forget why they had even come out here, doomed to walk until their legs broke off from the freeze.
Fin’s passenger door didn’t close properly, so he had to hold it, as a few inches of cold air blew in at the door’s bottom. They rose up through icy clouds.
Fin felt something cold on his foot. He looked down and saw a hand clutching him through the door’s opening. He yelped and let go of the door, and tumbled out. Matthias lunged for him and caught him by the hand. Fin dangled in the freezing air, wind whipping at him, nothing below him except for that short little man with the red earmuffs, full of spite, gnawing on his other hand. He howled in pain as his bones were being gnashed, and nearly slipped from Matthias’ grip. A small ball of Yulefire floated down from the Chief and landed on the man’s face, exploding on impact. He screamed, and let go, plummeting into darkness. Little by little Matthias heaved him up into the cabin. He rocked his mangled left hand, a bad gash in his palm and a red, fleshy stump where his pinky used to be. Fin was close to fainting, as he watched the infection spread from the wound, draining life out of him, and replacing it with something else. The colour left, and a greenish grey seeped in. He looked at Matthias, who looked on him with doubt, sorrow, and a pang of fear.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, half delirious. He opened up the door, and was about to lean out and let the open sky take him, hopefully to smash his body against a hard mountain and die instantly.
‘No!’ said the Chief, his voice resonating throughout the truck’s frame. ‘There is another way,’ he said.
IX
They returned an hour before dawn, welcomed back with cheers, hot cider, and medical attention. Fin felt very weak, but he made it through the night and did not turn. They managed to cauterize the wound with Yulefire, stopping the bleeding and isolating the infection. The Chief had seen it happen on his travels only a few days ago; whatever it was, it spread slow enough that it could be stopped if the infected flesh was removed, and it had not reached the the brain or the other vital organs.
Sofia was brought to her parents, both anxious and remorseful for having been parted with her. Her father, Mikhail, was a tall man, balding, though still quite handsome, and her mother Maria nearly as tall, with the same full, curly black hair and olive eyes as her daughter. Sofia introduced them to Fin, the brave young elf who agreed to go on this search-and-rescue mission before even meeting them.
That Christmas Day evening was also marked by a funeral. Prancer was cremated, and one and all mourned him out in the open ice fields beyond the Workshop’s walls. They let arctic winds carry his ashes off, and send his spirit home. Fin watched from the Infirmary. The nurses would not let him attend, however dogged his attempts to escape. He was wrapped in bandages and stitches. From the window by his bed he could see the blazing pyre out on the field, ringed in by men, women, children, elves, and reindeer. Dancer, Prancer’s elder brother sang out a long, mournful elegy; a sadder sound was never heard in the North Pole.
Later on, the Chief came to visit him.
‘Sir,’ Fin said.
‘Fin,’ the Chief said. ‘I am glad you are awake. You’re already looking better.’
There was a pause, and both seemed at a loss for what to say.
‘I am very sorry about your hand,’ the Chief finally said.
‘It’s alright, sir.’ It wasn’t. His livelihood was in his hands, and he felt nearly hopeless, but he tried to be brave for the Chief. ‘How’s the saying go? “Better to live with one hand than die with two?” I can’t remember.’
The Chief smiled. ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve asked Thaddeus to make you a prosthetic. It won’t work with quite the same efficiency, but he said it can be used for working.’
‘Thank you, sir!’ He was not expecting this. He feared he would never hold a hammer again. The Chief knew his heart. Of course he did.
‘Sir?’ He said.
‘Yes, my son?’
‘I...I am sorry for leaving you. I wish there was...I wish...’
‘Do not apologize. I’m sorry you had to make that choice. When I awoke, and you were both gone, I knew you had done the right thing. Your choice gave me strength.’ The Chief kneeled down, and took Fin’s remaining hand. ‘Thank you,’ he said. The twinkle in his eyes faded for a moment. He looked like an old man in that moment. He was thinking about all they had lost, and what was to come; Fin knew the Chief always looked old when he thought on these things.
‘It’s not over sir, is it?’ Fin said.
‘No.’
Another reconnaissance mission earlier that day brought back reports of massive undead migrations crossing the borders of the Arctic Circle.
‘But,’ he said, ‘We will be ready for them when they come.’
‘What do we do in the meantime?’
The Chief paused, and looked out the window. In the main courtyard, surrounded by tents and makeshift huts erected by the world’s refugees, the great Christmas Tree towered, decked with Yule-candles. At its feet lay thousands of photographs, and candles for all the loved ones lost. Men and women stood around it, and held each other close.
‘For now,’ said the Chief, ‘Merry Christmas.’
I saw this book in the Travel Lit. section at Bolen Books in the Spring, and thought about it for months afterwards, till I finally read it. I have often wondered what the world of a monk is like, and Ward offers a small glimpse inside, in What the Buddha Never Taught. This book is an account of his stay at Wat Pah Nanachat in Thailand, a Theravada Buddhist monastery founded by the revered Ajahn Chah, and filled with a cast of flawed but endearing characters. He arrives seeking enlightenment and release from suffering, and finds there is suffering inside Pah Nanachat’s walls as well. Only here, there’s nothing to distract you from it: suffering must be faced head on. It is all too easy to romanticise the monastic life, but Ward shows that there is nothing romantic about it. The life of a bhikku, a Buddhist monk, is very hard. One gets bogged down in day-to-day suffering like anybody else, not to mention the possibility of falling asleep after hours of meditation, a cobra snake coiled behind the toilet door, the intense summer heat in a tin-roofed, and the constant threat of boredom. Ward also encounters what he sees as problems with the way the monastery is run, buttressed by centuries of deeply ingrained tradition. The appeal of the exotic wears off quickly, and what remains is a daily struggle to overcome ego and find peace. But while you can sense a clear tone of skepticism throughout, Ward tells the story of his adventure with humour, honesty, and humanity.
