Page 56 of Scary & Bright
“Now, let’s finally take care of you and remove this thorn in my side so we can all go back to enjoying the holidays, shall we?” Santa asked as he rolled his shoulders and raised the blade over his head with both hands.
Time froze. This was the end of my rope. This was the end of it all. Beside Santa was the ghost who’d dragged me here in the first place. The one I owed this entire experience to. Oddly enough, I almost wanted to thank him, but I never got the chance to. The South Pole went eerily silent save for the ringing in my ears as Santa Claus brought down the blade in a strike so forceful and confident it would cut through me like a hot knife through butter.
This time, I kept my eyes open—forced my gaze to lock onto the great man before me. I wanted him to see my face the exact moment he did what he had forced my Krampus to do year after year after year.
I wanted him to see me die by his hand.
And I hoped to haunt him every day and every night for as long as I could force my soul to stay.
24
HOLLY
At least that was my intention.
But when Santa Claus brought down his mighty sword in front of his elvish men at arms, their great and vicious mounts, the wolf pack and foxes, his scummy Spirit assistant, and his own brother, who currently hung in the balance between death and life, it never found me. The steel of the blade came down hard with such brutal intention that when it hit against the same invisible barrier that had saved my life over and over again in the swarm of his own troops, it exploded with a thunderous fury.
The sound was like the cacophony of two trucks smashing into each other, and the gasps of the crowd behind me assured me that this wasn’t my imagination. This wasn’t my brain saving me from the trauma of my own gory death. This was real.
Shrapnel exploded in all directions as the blade shattered into pieces. Those pieces flew through the air like piercingly sharp metal rain, and even Santa Claus himself took a step back to try to avoid them. I could see the expression on his face evolve from that of an arrogant, angry man with too much power to that of a confused, frightened person as the reality set in that I wasn’t going to be dying that day in the snow. His nostrils flared as he turned to the Spirit beside him.
“Spirit.” Santa Claus sighed, his eyes blinking hard with frustration. “Would you happen to have any idea as to why no harm seems to be coming to Krampus’s guest?”
The Christmas Spirit shot to attention, his eyes wide with worry as he fidgeted with his fingers, cracking each of his knuckles as if it were the most important thing in the world.
“Well, no,” he admitted, tilting his head, his long winter hat lazily flopping to the side. “Outside of maybe, erm…”
“Spit it out!” Santa cried, his teeth clenched together like a vice.
“It’s possible she’s, um, not on the Naughty List,” the Spirit finally said, stumbling over his words as if they were an old cobblestone path. His posture shrunk as he spoke, knowing that the worst was likely coming. “That could be why nobody can harm her. Y-you can’t harm folks on the Nice List.”
“How could that be possible, Spirit?” Santa spat, tossing the hilt of his broken sword to the side. “How could that be possible when I have properly trained you over the course of many years—hundreds of years—to select someone from the Naughty List?”
“Well, she was on the Naughty List, sir.” The Spirit gulped. “But there is always the chance that she was on it and now is not on it.” He coughed and forced a smile.
Santa extended his hand to the Spirit, palm side up.
“List,” he demanded. “Give me the list.” He flexed his fingers impatiently. “Now, if you don’t mind.”
The Christmas Spirit bolted into action, disappearing into the air with a glimmer, only to reappear again only a second later, holding a thick leather-bound book. He floated it over to Santa and carefully set it in the great man’s open hand, who immediately began flipping through the pages impatiently.
Krampus was still laying in the snow, facing away from me, and before I could even tell myself it maybe wasn’t the best idea, I dashed toward him, kneeling in the snow beside him. His skin was icy, and the hair down his arms and spine was frozen stiff. I draped myself over him, hoping that whatever heat was left in my own body would be enough to bring him at least a smidge of comfort. His lungs were barely inflating, as the tension around his neck only allowed him to take the smallest, kitten-sized breaths.
“What is your name, girl!?” Santa snapped. He was so preoccupied with confirming or denying the Spirit’s suggestion that he didn’t even seem to care that I had approached his brother.
“Hollis…” I said, still trying my best to be strong and not let the grief take hold of me as I held on tight to Krampus, trying to be there for him in the only way I knew how. “Hollis Nash.”
Santa pulled off one of his gloves with his teeth and continued flipping through the pages of the book.
“Hollis Nash, Hollis Nash…” he recited quietly to himself as he searched for me amongst the countless other names. He clucked to himself, fishing a pair of reading glasses from the breast pocket of his coat and carefully balancing them on the bridge of his wind-burned button nose. “Hollis Nash… Well, there’s one thing for certain.” He looked up and shot both me and the Spirit an annoyed glance. “She is most definitely not on the Naughty List.” His lips pursed together like he was physically restraining himself from saying what he truly wanted to say, but the doubt was plastered across his face. He took a deep breath and flipped over to the front half of the tome.
“So why don’t we check the Nice List?” Santa continued, rolling his eyes.
Krampus twitched underneath me, and I gently caressed the side of his face with my index finger, assuring him that I was still there. We were both still alive, and perhaps all this pain and suffering was going to pay off in the end. His eyes were tightly closed, and I knew it was his body’s response to such trauma. To stay alive, to take every painful, minuscule inhale meant that he had to go into pure conservation mode.
“Hollis Nash, Hollis. Nash,” Santa said again, narrating to himself. Every single thing out there in the snow waited on pins and needles as he searched. Every soldier and toy. Myself. The Spirit. Hell, I would have even wagered the animals were waiting for a resolution at this point.
“Well, I’ll be…” Santa said, shifting his weight and correcting his own posture. “There she is. Hollis Nash. Nice List.”