Remember me from last year? I was the police officer there when Little Johnny tried to kill you last year. I was happy to see that it all worked out.
I’m writing with my wish list for this year.
I would love to have one of those things that warms up your shaving cream can, and maybe one of those new four bladed razor things. I could use a new DVD player for the bedroom as well, and maybe some good movies with Robin Williams in them since he’s my favorite actor. And any movie with that Angelina Jolie person is good, too.
As always, I could use a new tie, new socks, and plenty of underwear since I never seem to have enough to last.
I don’t want to be greedy, but I could really use some new slippers, too.
Thanks for all the gifts in the past. I’m looking forward to this Christmas.
Yours Truly,
Detective Tannenbaum ///
Black Friday, November 24
Brandy. Cigar. House all to myself. It was the best Black Friday I’d had since I wasn’t sure when. Peace and quiet with only myself and my thoughts to worry about. There was a cold turkey sandwich sitting next to me, and the TV had some numbing show on about the many other traditions celebrating the holiday season all over the world. It was mindless and blissfully free of worry.
I was away from the station for the whole holiday weekend, starting Thanksgiving eve until Monday the 27th. I, Detective H. Tannenbaum, was given time to myself without even the fear of being on call. I was completely off duty.
The Chief explained that he would like me to take the holiday off after last years mess. (The papers were still writing about it.) I can’t tell you how grateful I was to have the opportunity to let some other poor shmuck deal with the crazies this holiday. I was going to take it easy this holiday. No murders. No toy theft rings. Nothing more complicated than maybe a stolen car.
The wife and son were out with the in-laws shopping at the mall to catch all the early specials, and good for them. It left me in a robe, old comfy boxers, with the remote and quiet. So quiet, in fact, I heard the mail fall through the front slot. I waited for a commercial before I retrieved it.
There were about forty ads, one bill, and a letter addressed to me. I mention the letter because not only was it odd to get personal letters, but the envelope itself was odd looking. The envelope was red and white striped, and it smelled like mint chocolate. I opened it and was amazed that the paper inside was addressed from Santa’s Office.
It simply read, “Dear Detective Tannenbaum, How could I forget the man who SAVEd ME from Little Johnny. I really thought I would be DONE FOR if not for you COMEing TO MY RESCUE on that roof top. I hope all is well, and I’ll do what I can to bring you what you want on your list, but it’s all up to the reindeer. THEY’re working hard. Maybe, LIKE, I could coax them with FRUITCAKE.
Yours, Santa Clause.”
Something about the letter seemed odd. I didn’t save Santa, he saved me. Why did he say that I saved him? ///
November 25
I slept in. It was a Saturday morning, and I had nothing to do. I was actually the last one up. My wife and son were watching early Christmas specials on TV. My wife made coffee and breakfast: a rare treat since I was almost always out the door before she could have a chance to make me breakfast.
I sat there, eating my breakfast in the kitchen alone, and thought that the best thing for the day would be to just get out and do something. I checked the paper for movie listings and decided that would be the place to start.
I took a long shower and realized then how nice it was to not have to deal with anything at all for once. My case load was totally empty, and the thought of the chief actually giving me a simple holiday with nothing complicated seemed just alright with me. It would be the first holiday season I could smile about as I walked into it.
I got the family moving and we were off to a movie, and then a nice dinner.
I couldn’t help but notice the new building that seemed to come from nowhere next to the theater. It was old looking even though I could almost guarantee that it had not been there the last time I had been through that area. The sign on the building’s main door simply read, “Fruitcake Factory.”
Since when had fruitcake become so popular that it needed a whole factory?
More importantly, why did the factory bother me so much that I couldn’t even watch the movie without thinking about it? It even bothered me all the way through dinner. I drove past the place on the way home just one more time, and it bothered me all the way to bed time. ///
November 26
I went to church for the first time in ages.
Afterwards, I ran to the store for a few things for dinner and picked up a holiday movie for the family to enjoy later. I noticed that it had already started, the bell ringing Santas.
I walked by and dropped in my change, and it struck me as funny that the guy in the red suit didn’t say “thank you” or anything at all. I turned around to look at him just before stepping into the parking lot, and he must have been hung over with the way he looked. Odd.
I shrugged and left it at, “Better him than me.” ///
November 27
Back to work. I felt refreshed after the weekend off. Four days of pure freedom to cleanse my soul. It felt good, but I had to admit that I was happy to be back at work.
I spent the first half of my day cleaning and organizing my desk. It was about one when I got a call to check out a scene. “Should be a simple one,” the chief told me. “Just some old lady who died in her apartment. Should just be a simple write up to go with the coroners report.”
I arrived at the apartment complex, a small building made easy for senior citizens to live out their final free days.
The old lady’s apartment smelled of burned sweets. The windows were open, and the place was being aired out by a couple of fire police. I met the coroner, Stan, and got the details.
The woman was seventy-nine, lived alone and was baking when her heart gave out. Nothing seemed odd, until I walked through the little apartment and found the packages.
In the living room I found hundreds of cellophane wrapped packages placed all over the furniture. Red and green wrapped things. When I got closer, I found that they were fruitcakes. Hundreds of prettily wrapped fruitcakes.
“She must either love fruitcake,” one of the uniformed officers commented as I looked on, “or she has one hell of a list to send gifts to.”
Odd as the fruitcakes were, I filed the report quickly and hoped I was done with it. ///
November 28
“You’re coming to my party, right?” Glass asked me as I was settling in my office for the morning.
“Oh, yeah. Friday, right?” I said as I plopped down into my chair. “Yeah, what time again?”
“I thing Laura said she wanted people to start arriving by about seven,” Glass said. “Whenever after that is probably fine.”
“We’ll be there,” I assured Glass.
I was just about to taste my coffee when my phone rang.
“Hey, we’ve got the results from the autopsy,” I heard over the receiver. “This one may be a little more complicated that we thought.”
A quick walk down to the morgue, and I was looking over the autopsy report. Seemed our little old baking lady died from dehydration, not a heart attack. One would assume she would have noticed being thirsty. The report also stated that she had not eaten in several days either.
I had a small, sinking feeling that I was about to get stuck with a lot more than just a simple naturals death case. ///
November 29
The first stop in the morning was to the old lady’s apartment. Nothing had been touched since the day her body was removed. Her family had been notified, but they lived hours away and were not going to get there until Friday for the funeral. They were supposed to be able to get what they wanted from the little apartment, but I was afraid there would have to be more of an investigation.
I sighed as I looked around the kitchen. It still smelled a little like burned fruitcake in the apartment, but mostly it smelled like the fruitcake stock piled in the livingroom. I couldn’t help but feel that there was something very odd going on in the apartment. Something just didn’t add up.
I looked for all the normal signs of struggle but found nothing. Nothing at all to lead me to believe that there could have been anyone there aside from the old woman.
I sighed with defeat and was about to leave when I noticed a small box sitting on the foyer table. It was odd in that it was a shiny, blue aluminum gift box, similar to a jewelry box, except for the way it opened from the center of the top like an X. There was nothing inside the box, though it had a little weight to it’s bottom. All I could see was a small black hole in the center of the shiny blue inside of the box.
I picked it up and placed it in an evidence bag. Just a hunch, but it gave me an odd feeling as I though about it. ///
November 30
It was a long day. The lab missed the box in the morning, and said they wouldn’t get to it until late. Glass came in and reminded me of his party before he left the office.
I was finally able to contact the old lady’s son, and he said that he hadn’t been able to reach her for over a week when the police called to tell him the news of her passing. He asked how it happened. I explained what the scene was at her apartment and what the coroners report said.
“Are we sure we’re talking about my mom?” the son asked. “She hated cooking, and was really bad at it. And she hated fruitcake.”
It was his mother we were talking about, it seemed. The case was getting very strange, and I wanted to run far away from it.
And on top it all off, I had to deal with my own in-laws for dinner.
I stayed in the office as long as I could waiting for a call from the lab, but unfortunately, all I got for my troubles was a report from fingerprinting. The only finger prints on the box whatsoever were the old lady’s. Odd as that was since someone had to have given it to her and so on. I told them to look further into it and headed home.
I could have sworn, though you’ll think I was crazy, that I saw a flying saucer in the sky on the way home. My wife asked that I picked up some milk on the way home, so I took the long way to hit the grocery store. As I was almost home, I saw it rising from the direction of the movie theater and disappear into the sky in seconds.
I tried to reason that it was just my imagination and reflections of Christmas lights off my windshield, but I knew somehow that it really was there. ///
December 1
The lab report finally came back about the box. Something happened to one of the technicians while they were trying to take the box apart, and he was taken, unconscious, to the hospital. There were some very unusual parts in the bottom part of the box. Some things they could recognize, like a sort of power pack and a small laser device that shot out through the hole in the box. The rest of the parts were totally unknown. The technicians couldn’t come up with any ideas as to what the box was meant to do.
The tech sent to the hospital wasn’t actually injured, just knocked out. He was hit by some beam from the box, and fell to the ground. The hospital was to notify the lab when the tech recovered, and they promised to let me know when they knew.
I met with the family at the woman’s apartment to let them in. I hadn’t ruled out completely some sort of foul dealing, so I had to watch what was touched. When we opened the front door we were hit full on with a rush of cold air.
All of the fruitcakes were gone.
There was a perfectly round hole in the center of the far wall of the living room. No debris. No signs of tearing a hole in the wall, and no fruitcake. It was as if the wall just disintegrated so that someone could get at the fruitcakes.
I spent the next several hours at the apartment with an investigation team looking for clues that were just not there. No finger prints. No tracks leading to or from the building, and not even a single witness who saw or heard a thing!
It was about ten that evening when I finally arrived at Glass’s party. All I wanted was a drink, relax and forget about the whole strange ordeal of the day.
“About time you made it,” Glass welcomed. “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to be able to get here. I heard about the trouble.”
“It’s a mess,” I admitted, really wanting to change the subject, so I turned my attention to the food. “Nice spread.”
“Funny thing, though,” Glass observed. “My wife said she looked all week and couldn’t buy a fruitcake anywhere. Not a single fruitcake anywhere. Odd, huh?”
That was it. I set my drink down and walked right out, ignoring the pleas of my friend to stay as I left. ///
December 2
A day off indeed. I stopped in at the office to see if there was any word from the lab or the hospital. No luck. There was a message from the son of the old lady. He wanted to know if there was any news on what had happened to his mother.
The lab had a report about the wall. It was void of anything. Nothing found. No a single fingerprint. No residue from a cutting tool. Not a thing. It was as though a perfect circle piece of the wall had just vanished into thin air. I had nothing to go on.
I went home, tired of thinking, and wanted nothing more than to just forget about it.
I did try to forget about if for a little as I helped with the making of some cookies. Or, I should say, I was the taster for the cookies. Sadly, my mind kept coming back to the whole list of mysteries that was making the case a whole lot bigger than I wanted it to be. ///
December 3
I slept in and missed church.
Spent most of my day watching football, but I didn’t really pay much attention to the game. I was too deep in thought about the case of the old lady.
I took the family out for dinner, and I noticed something odd. It may have been the light outside of the little shopping center, but the guy dressed as Santa ringing the bell looked like his eyes were too dark. It caught me by surprise, but he looked away before I could get a better look. He was gone when we left after dinner.
I then remembered the guy dressed as Santa who looked hung over. Was that it? I was beginning to doubt my senses. First the lights in the sky, and then black eyed Santas.
I wondered if I should worry about my sanity. ///
December 4
Another Monday morning. I just arrived at my office and found that there was a message waiting for me from the hospital about the technician from the lab. He had awakened Sunday afternoon.
I headed over to the hospital and was directed to the psyche ward when I inquired about the tech. I was eventually directed to the room of the technician who had been unconscious for about four days. He was frantic when I saw him.
“...cups flower, two teaspoons of baking powder...” he was rambling.
“Excuse me,” I said, trying to break his litany. “What are your repeating?”
“Need an oven,” he said. “And flour.” He seemed to not even notice that I was in the room as he paced back and forth nervously.
I tried several more times to get his attention, but to no avail. He was lost to whatever he was frantic about.
The doctor on duty said that if he did not calm down soon, they were going to sedate him. He hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink since waking, and the were getting concerned. I was told I would be notified if anything changed in his condition.
It was odd, but I was fairly sure he would be happy if he could be baking fruitcake. How does one get zapped into wanting to make fruitcake? ///
December 5
Glass was waiting for me in my office when I got to work. “I’m sorry if I said something or did something the other night that,” he said as I walked in.
“Huh?” I asked, only half paying attention.
“You know, the party?” Glass explained. “You left in a quick hurry. I figured I must have said something.”
“Oh,” I said as I remembered the night. “No, it was just one of those days.” I looked at the files on my desk. “You know, I figured I was going to have a nice easy holiday, but no! Instead, I think I’m sitting on top of something really big, and really strange.”
“What do you mean?” Glass asked.
“I’ve got an old lady who baked fruitcake until she died; I have a gift box that we can’t figure where it came from that makes people want to make fruitcake; a hole in the side of an apartment that a half ton of fruitcake disappeared through; and I have no leads whatsoever.”
“Fruitcake?” Glass chucked. “That’s what it was that I had said, huh? Now that you mention it, have you noticed the total lack of fruitcake anywhere?”
“No,” I said. “I hate the stuff.”
“Yeah, well, check it out if you get a chance,” Glass said as he turned to leave my office. “Just a thought.”
The hospital called to say that they sedated the technician, and they had been keeping him tied to a bed. No change in his manic behavior.
The lab insisted that the box could not have been made in America with any kind of technology that was available to the general public. “Way beyond us,” the lab guy explained. “We’re calling in a specialist.”
Dead ends. All dead ends. I went home feeling as though nothing had been accomplished. ///
December 6
Glass was right. I stopped at the grocery store for a can of coffee and did a quick look around for fruitcake and found none. I stood there in line behind this harry guy with my coffee and creamer, and I asked him if he’d seen any fruitcake anywhere.
“You know, I haven’t!” he said rather adamantly. “I love that shit, and I haven’t seen it all damned season. I tell you, it sucks. I really love it, and no one’s seen any! I asked the manager and he said some shit about just never getting a shipment. Funny thing is, no one has gotten it! I’ve looked all over for it, and no one has gotten a piece! How can you have Christmas without any damned fruitcake?”
The chief came into my office and asked what was going on with the old lady’s case. I showed him every thing I had. I pointed out the dead ends I had hit, as well. “And, not that this is really part of the case, but did you notice that there’s no fruitcake being sold anywhere?” I said in summation.
“No, didn’t notice,” the chief said. “But no one ever eats it, so I can’t see why that’s such a big deal.”
“It just seems strange to me that an old lady is dead because she was cooking fruitcake, and then we find a box that I think made her do it. We’ve got a lab tech in a psych ward wanting to make fruitcake, and then there’s not a damned fruitcake on the market. I’ve been calling all over and no one has any.”
“I think I should just take you off the case,” the chief said with a sigh.
“Look, I’m just trying to go off of whatever there is to grab,” I explained. “I’m really out of leads, and the missing fruitcake thing seems to at least be something worth checking into.”
“Okay,” the chief said with a nod. “You check into it, but lets just try to get this cleaned up and done with as soon as possible.” ///
December 7
On a whim, I called grocery stores all over the state. Not a one had a single piece of fruitcake. I started calling out of state and found the same to be true everywhere I called. Not a single piece of fruitcake on a shelf anywhere.
I left the office early. I was puzzled. What about the fruitcake factory by the theater?
I pulled up and was surprised to find that the front entrance was just a facade, and that there was no actual way in. In fact, I drove around the building and saw no entrance at all. There had to be some sort of way in I figured, but I found not a one. At least not a one at ground level. What kind of factory had no doors in or out? Not even a truck bay.
I couldn’t shake the whole thing when I got home. I tried to put it to the back of my mind since I was to take the wife and kid to see Santa at the mall.
We got to the mall, searched for a parking spot and stood in line for forty-five minutes for Santa only to have my son not want to go near the man dressed as the king of the holiday.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as he left the display where the Santa was sitting in his Christmas throne.
“He looked...” my son seemed to look for the right words. “He didn’t look like Santa,” my son finally said. He was afraid. He’d never been afraid of a mall Santa before.
I went to get a closer look at the man in the red suit and almost yiped when I saw the eyes. They were black. There was no color in the pupil at all, just black.
I wasn’t hallucinating this time. It was there, I assured myself as I looked at it for several minutes. What was wrong with the Santa?
I tried to inquire at the mall information booth where the Santa had come from, but the line for mall gift certificates was way to long. The mall’s office was closed until the next morning, so I reasoned that I would have to wait to inquire about the Santa until morning. ///
December 8
I started to try to call the mall office first thing in the morning, and I wanted to throttle them by eleven. It took me that long before I finally was connected with someone who actually could answer the Santa question. Seemed that all the mall managers in the area had been going through some new agency. I got a run around for a little bit before I finally got an address.
I was brought a list of some of the local food venders who had supplied fruitcake to the grocery stores in the previous years before I could get my coat on to check on the agency. I sighed and returned to the matter of the fruitcake before I became too distracted with personal whims.
I called the first number, a place that made store brands for grocery stores nationwide, and talked to Buck. “Yeah, well, we made a lot a it in October and the begin’n a November, but it’s all been shipped out since, and we got nut’n left in our warehouse. Can’t say where it was shipped ta, really. Ya’ll need t’talk to someone in ordering and shipping side a things fer that.”
I was transferred.
Amy, in shipping said, “We shipped it all to a secondary warehouse for holiday shipping.” I got an address and phone number.
No one answered at that one.
I called the second place and got the same deal. All the fruitcake was out and sent to the same address for holiday shipping.
I found that same answer at the next fifteen places.
I was beginning to wonder how big this thing I was checking out really was. Or was I just losing my mind and imagining a whole conspiracy? I mean, who would start some sort of national conspiracy involving fruitcake?
Maybe I did need to give the case over to someone else. ///
December 9
I needed to get away from everything, so I wasn’t going to bother making it to the office until I realized that I never did check out the whole Santa thing. I called in and had someone find the paper with the agency’s contact information that I felt on my desk. I waited until after lunch when my wife returned from her shopping to check it out. I told her I wanted to do a little bit of my own shopping, and I was off.
I knew the street listed. It was the same as the movie theater that I liked. I was there in moments and a little confused when I found that the address for the agency lead me to the fruitcake factory.
Again, I wandered around the place looking for a way in, this time on foot, and again I found no way in. There was only the one sign out front, and what I thought was the main door at first glace was really just a different pattern of brick work.
I went home, confused, and starting to wonder if I should even believe my senses any longer. ///
December 10
Went out late last night and watched the factory. Nothing happened for hours. I fell asleep at one point.
I was awakened by a strange light in the sky. It shone down, brilliant blue, right onto the factory. I watched as some strange, lighted disk descended into the factory. I watched for some time afterwards, and then the strange disk lifted back out from the top of the factory into the sky.
I know I’m not crazy. It really happened. But how the hell was I going to write up a report that explained the strange case of the missing fruitcake as being directly related to UFO’s?
I needed someone else in on this with me. /// December 11
“Glass,” I said when he answered his phone. “I think we need to talk.”
“What’s up?” he asked as he stepped into my office.
“This is going to sound crazy, but I need help with this case,” I explained. “You see, The old lady was hypnotized to make fruitcake by aliens who have bought all the fruitcake in the country.”
Glass stood there for a few minutes, and I could see he thought I was crazy.
“Honest,” I pleaded. “I saw the spaceship at the factory last night!”
Glass shook his head. “Go home and take some time to think about what you just said before you get yourself fired,” he said as he turned to leave.
He was my only real hope of someone who may have believed me. I sighed and decided to take his advice. I went home.
I sat down in my study with the file and refused to look at it.
I was spacing out when my eyes came across my letter from Santa. I picked it up and sighed. He’d believe me.
I opened the letter and glanced the words and it suddenly struck me... The big words... “SAVE ME”?
“Santa!” I gasped. “He’s in trouble!”
“Dear?” my wife said cautiously as she peered into the office. “There’s a little man to see you.” ///
December 12
I have to admit that my first sight of Tingles, the elf, was something I would never forget. He was dressed in a red and green suit that was filthy and wet. His long white beard was frazzled and his eyes bloodshot. “Before we talk, please, can I maybe use your bath?” he asked after we introduced ourselves.
We couldn’t say no. I found a robe for him to wear as my wife showed him to the bathroom. She took his suit and washed it as he relaxed in the robe that just looked too comical as large as it was on him. We offered him coffee, cocoa or tea, but he asked for brandy or scotch if we had it. “No ice,” he demanded.
I brought him a glass with a double scotch and sat down with a double for myself.
“So, why are you here?” I wondered.
“Because you were taking too &$#!ing long figuring out the damned letter,” Tingles said. “Detective indeed. Hrmph.”
“So Santa is in trouble?”
“No, things are hunky dory at the &$#!ing north pole,” Tingles chided, agitated. “That’s why we sent out a distress letter with an obvious help message! And then, just because things are going so well, they sent me to get your ass in gear!”
“So what happened?”
“Santa is weird,” Tingles explained. “I mean, weirder than normal. He’s been making us make all sorts of fruitcake instead of toys. I think there’s something wrong with the fatso. None of us have been able to find out since he’s kinda big and keeps locked in his office looking into that magic mirror thing he’s got.” Tingle’s held out his glass. “Another, if you don’t mind.”
I poured him another double.
“So the other elves sent me down to get you to come to the pole to find out what’s wrong.”
“Why me?”
“Because Santa likes you since you tried to save his fat ass last year!”
So there I was, traveling on the back of a reindeer with Tingles, after we sobered him, up to the North Pole. It was a rough ride, and Tingles said that without the magic corn Santa gives the reindeer, it would take a bit. ///
December 13
If I were a poet or writer of fantasy novels, I may have had the words to describe the workshop and mansion of the great Santa. What I could say was that it was lovely, grand and gorgeous. For a start.
We stabled the reindeer, and I followed Tingles into the small town where the elves lived. It was incredible. There were little pizza shops, and an elf liquor store, gas stations, and even a strip club with a neon sign bragging, “Nude Elves.”
“Not what I expected,” I mentioned as we walked through the streets.
“Hey, we elves are people too,” Tingles exclaimed defensively. “Just because it’s all the way north don’t mean we don’t like a little of the modern world as well.”
We got to the center of town where a great bell was hanging. Tingles climbed a small ladder and ran the bell with a mallet hanging beside the bell. He struck it three times, and before long the town center was full of little elves in colorful clothes.
“I have brought the detective,” Tingles said proudly. “Who will now take him to see Santa?”
“I will,” I young elf voice rang out from the crowd. Before long, the owner of the voice, a small, dark skinned elf, stepped forward. “I am Jangle, the bring of I bringer of Santa’s mail. I will take the detective to see Santa.”
“Very well.” Tingles shrugged and walked away as did all the other elves, leaving me alone with the dark skinned elf.
“I’m Jangle,” the elf introduced himself to me. “If you’ll just follow me.”
I followed him through the town into the great mansion that had a large carved sign the simply read “Santa’s” above the large oak front doors.
“He’s been keeping to himself in his little study, mostly,” Jangle explained as we went through the halls.
Finally, we came to a double door with mistletoe carved into the frame.
“Good luck,” Jangle said as he turned and ran for what seemed to be his life.
I shrugged and opened the door. “Santa?” ///
December 14
I was on my way back with Tingles, and all I could think about was what happened in Santa’s study.
I walked into the study and could see the mirror. THE Mirror! The one that can look into any place in the world. It was blank then, but before it on the desk was THE LIST. It was just sitting there, massive and amazing. Santa’s back was to me as he was sitting in a large golden throne that seemed to be his desk chair.
“Santa?” I asked again. Again, I was met with only silence.
I stepped lightly around to the front of the desk and found that Santa was staring blankly into the distance.
“Santa!” I said more sharply.
He sprang to life and looked at me with black eyes. BLACK EYES!
“Who are you?” the Santa asked in a strangely menacing growl as it stood, towering over me. I fell back into a chair, as startled as I was.
“Detective...” I started, but the black eyes turned red and I ducked away just in time to miss the laser beams that shot from the Santa’s eyes and obliterated the chair I had fallen into. I rolled on the ground and found cover behind another chair.
More laser blasts spewed from the Santa’s eyes as I pulled my gun.
I peaked out from behind the chair and fired a bullet into the center of the Santa’s forehead.
I heard a thud, and what sounded like shorting wires.
I holstered my gun as I approached the fallen Santa. It was a robot. It wasn’t the real Santa. “The others must be fakes as well,” I realized. I really was onto something huge, I realized as I pieced it all together. But how the hell was I supposed to stand up against aliens? ///
December 15
“Where have you been?” my wife demanded as I ran into the house frantically trying to arm myself.
“North Pole,” I stated as I loaded my three hand guns. I handed one to Tingles.
“What?”
“No time to explain, but you need to promise not to talk to any black eyed Santa’s!”
She looked at me as though I had grown nipples on my forehead. I didn’t have time to explain. “Look, just trust me and stay in until I come back. Something big is happening.”
“Your office called and was wondering where you were, and I’ve been so worried,” my wife said, tears about to fall.
“Just trust me,” I said as I snagged my keys and headed out the door.
Tingles and I headed for the factory. It was really the only place I could think of to start.
“There’re no doors here,” I explained as we pulled up to the building. “So we’re going to have to get in through an upper window or something.”
“Right,” Tingles said.
We got to the building and could see a window about two floors up. It was really only a matter of figuring out how to get up there. Before I could even begin to think about it, Tingles whistled and the reindeer we took to and from the pole seemed to fly out of the black sky from nowhere. “Never know when your going to need a flying quadruped,” Tingles said.
We were inside in no. There were no fruitcakes being produced, only those little gift boxes like the one in the old lady’s apartment. There was an assembly line, with dazed looking people doing this or that to complete the boxes. As we got closer to the assembly line, I could see the same look of blank obedience on their faces that I saw on the tech’s face after he was hypnotized by the box.
“What do we do now?” I wondered quietly to myself.
“Look,” Tingles said, pointing to the far section of the building. There, sitting on four extended legs, was a flying saucer. It was quiet and not lit at all, but I knew what it was.
Tingles and I went in close to look at it, but then a beam of light hit me... ///
December 16
I awoke in a room. It was furnished with only a bed and a small table. On the table was one of the little gift boxes. It had a hand written note on it that simply read, “Open Me.”
I looked around and began to try to figure out where I was. The room was lit, it seemed, from all sides without a single lamp. The walls were kind of a blue-gray color, and I couldn’t discern a door from anything.
And then it struck me: Was I in the space ship? My heart jumped at the thought, and I began frantically looking for the door. There had to be one.
“Tingles?” I called out in hopes that he may have been imprisoned near me. I called a few more times before I decided it was useless. I was trapped. I had no idea where I was.
And then I realized that I had no idea how long I had been sleeping. ///
December 17
I found myself sleeping again after searching for what seemed like hours for a door. I awoke when I heard a slight sliding sound from the side of the room that my back was facing. I didn’t move as I heard something come into the room. It passed me and I hastened a quick glance at it. There was a Santa in the room, and it was bringing me food.
I sat up quickly and it turned to look at me with black eyes. I ran from the room through a door that had been opened up. Outside I found a small panel with buttons, and I pressed a few until the door closed. Even from the outside, I could hardly tell there was a door if it were not for the panel beside where it had opened.
I took only a second to get my bearings as I looked down the corridor. No one was around, and either way looked just as good a direction, so I just picked side and began down the corridor. I was cautious. No use getting caught a second time.
I chose the right direction, evidently, because I found that at the end of the corridor. The corridor turned left sharply, and there was a table in the corner that had my weapons. I rearmed myself and continued down the corridor.
The corridors were smooth and featureless, so when I came to another panel, I pressed buttons until a door opened. I couldn’t believe my eyes when the door slid away. ///
December 18
There, before me, wrapped in cellophane, was the real Santa. I would recognize him anywhere. He was staring blankly into space, and I suddenly was overcome with the fear that Santa was dead.
I lunged into the room and tore open the cellophane around him. He didn’t move. I touched him, and I was relieved to feel that he was still warm. He was breathing as well.
“Santa,” I said in his ear, still trying to be quiet. “Santa.”
He moved, slightly. He looked up at me after a few moments and had a questioning look in his eyes. And then, as though magically revived from nothing, he stood up and looked around. “They got me, didn’t they?” he bellowed.
“Yeah, me too,” I said as I sighed of relief.
“Detective Tannenbaum,” Santa said with a chuckle. “Should have known it would have been you coming to my rescue. You seem to always get stuck with this kind of thing, you know?”
“Tell me about it.”
“What day is it?” Santa asked, seeming somewhat frantic. “Do we still have time?”
“I don’t know. I was knocked out and I have no idea how long I’ve been alseep.”
And then we heard them. The robot Santas were coming! ///
December 19
I pulled out one of my handguns and handed it over to Santa as I readied myself with another.
“Best we get our ass’s out of here before they kill us so we can’t stop their evil plans,” Santa said as he opened fire on the robots. I was impressed with how good a shot he was.
“They’ve got my sleigh,” Santa said once we had all the robots downed. “We’ve got to get my sleigh!”
We headed off in search of his sleigh, and didn’t run into any more robots until we spotted the sleigh and four reindeer in what looked like a pretty sizable hangar. There were quite a few of the robot Santas around the sleigh, and I was running out of bullets.
“We’re never gonna be able to get them all!” I shouted as I shot another down.
“Just get to the sleigh!” Santa commanded. “We’ll be fine once we get to the sleigh!”
I took aim carefully, trying not to waste time or bullets. I had never felt my adrenaline pump so wildly as Santa and I made our way to the sleigh.
We jumped into the sleigh as more robot Santas arrived, only these had lasers and were firing back at us. Santa handed me a machine gun that he seemed to pull from nowhere. “Cover us!” he shouted as he took the reins. He snapped the reins, and we took flight. I fired at the robots as they came forth, and we spun around a few times in the sleigh before Santa finally stopped spinning and faced a wall.
There was an amazingly deep roar of rockets being fired from the underside of the sleigh, and we were flying from the space ship into the night sky through a blasted hole before I knew it. The lasers were behind us, and I sat down with my heart beating in my throat.
“It’s not over yet!” Santa said as he turned the sleigh around. ///
December 20
I couldn’t believe that Santa was turning around.
“What are we doing?” I asked, panicked.
“Blasting the fuckers from our sky!” Santa shouted. “Yeehaw!” His eyes were ablaze with Christmassy fury.
Rockets flared from below the sleigh and headed off to the flying saucer. They hit on target and the whole space ship exploded into a fire ball and a rush or hot wind.
Santa turned the sleigh away from the explosion and seemed to settle into his seat.
“What now,” I asked.
“To the North Pole!,” Santa said.
“Why?” I asked.
“They’ve got a plan to enslave the human race, and we’ve got to stop them,” Santa explained. “We need my other sleigh and some magic corn for the reindeer for this. It’s gonna be a tough one, but the fate of Earth is in our hands!” ///
December 21
In Santa’s office, I learned what it was that was really going on. It seemed that about a decade past, an alien scout ship came to Earth and took back to their home world some samples from the planet. In those samples, there was a fruitcake. The aliens loved the fruitcake so much that they came back for more. They had been here for several years collecting, but it just didn’t seem to be enough for the demand on their home planet, so they sent an invasion fleet.
The plan was that on Christmas morning, thanks to all the robot Santas, every house in the world that celebrated Christmas was going to get a little box. When opened, the box would hypnotize and brainwash the person holding the box to make fruitcake. “Well, not every one would make fruitcake,” Santa explained in more detail. “Some boxes would make people grow wheat for flour, and to harvest fruit and candy it and so on. It was a well thought out plan, and they would have gotten it out if you hadn’t stumbled upon the plan. How did you end up stumbling upon it?”
I explained about the old lady dying in her apartment.
“I see; so that’s what they were working out,” Santa said thoughtfully. “They were trying to figure out some last details before executing their Christmas plan, and they were trying to get the answers out of me. Unfortunately, the alien powers they used were too much even for my awesome Christmas magic when I was caught off guard. But now I’m ready! We have to stop them before it’s too late.” ///
December 22
How can I even begin to explain the Sleigh? It was large and bright cherry red. It had a gun turret, rockets like nothing I’d ever seen, the capability to drop bombs, and bright silver jingle bells. It was awe inspiring, like a Christmas death machine.
Santa gave me a flak jacket and old fashioned flight goggles and told me I would be manning the gun turret. He was dressed in his bright red suit and had the look of vengeance in his jolly eyes.
We were almost ready, and Santa pulled out a sack of magic corn. I watched on with awe as he took a small handful from the bag. It was emerald green and shiny, and it had a scent that seemed almost familiar. Then, Santa took out what looked to be a large, candy cane striped bong. He placed the corn in the bowl, took it to the head of the teem of reindeer and lit it up. I would never have imagined such a thing as Santa smoked up all of his reindeer.
“And the last bit just for good ol’ Santa,” he said as he took a long pull from the bong. He exhaled, and it looked like green garland as the smoke spun in the air around Santa’s head. “It’s time we’re off!”
With that, we got into the sleigh and we headed into the night sky to stop the aliens.
“What’s the plan?” I asked.
“The mother ship,” Santa bellowed cheerfully. “It’s the only way to stop them for good!” ///
December 23
There I was, in a heavily armed sleigh, flying through the night sky in search of an alien mother ship. Was I losing my mind?
“There she is!” Santa called out.
Sure enough I was looking at a huge flying saucer hanging in the sky. It was silent until they must have spotted us. We were fired upon by laser blasts!
The reindeer evaded the oncoming blasts expertly. “Steady Dasher, steady Donner, steady Cupid, Comet and Blitzen,” I heard the fat man say as we tried to stay out of sight.
The blasts subsided to make way for the several smaller UFOs. They fired upon us, but somehow Santa expertly avoided being hit.
“These are yours,” Santa hollered. “Blast the little fuckers!”
“Got ‘em!” I shouted as I took aim. I blasted two right away, but the other three were trickier.
The mother ship grew larger and larger as we got nearer. I could feel the sleigh buck and turn to avoid being obliterated by huge blasts from massive cannons on the mother ship that began to fire upon us again.
I turned my attention back to the three ships and found that they had retreated. “They’re gone!” I said.
“The big guns are on us,” Santa called as he kept the sleigh out of harms way. “Firing the rockets!”
I could feel an intense wave of heat as the rockets roared off to the mother ship. The whole sleigh turned sharply as the barrage of blasts kept coming for us. As we turned tail, I saw three large explosions hit the mother ship. The sleigh seemed to be going faster and faster as the mother ship exploded into a giant ball of flame in the sky. I had seen nothing like it, as the thunderous explosion fizzled away.
The flame was gone, and nothing remained of the mother ship.
“You did it!” I shouted. And then I thought about the factories.
“Worry not,” Santa said. “The mind control and robots were all controlled from the mother ship. With that gone, the robots will fall, and the people should snap out of it.” Santa chuckled loudly. “Now to get you home.” ///
December 24
I awoke on my couch. My wife was looking at me with tears in her eyes. I sat up and she held me. “I was so worried,” she cried. “Where have you been?”
I shrugged. I could have said, ‘Saving the world with Santa,’ but instead I just explained it as, “It’s a long story.”
I went to the office and called the chief. “Where the hell have you been!”
“There’ll be a full report on you desk after the holiday,” I explained and then hung up on him before he could berate me further. I called the hospital, and they told me that the technician had snapped out of his hypnotized state sometime in the night.. They were releasing him shortly.
Santa was right about the factory as well. It was silent and the people were gone. The robot Santas were lying in hunks on the ground. It really was over.
I sat there in my easy chair that night and made a very important decision. I was going to another country for Christmas next year. I had had it with the crazy shit that happens on Christmas.
The End
