Santaphobia

by Brian Herbert and Marie Landis

Windshield wipers worked furiously, making a hum-wap, hum-wap that kept snowflakes from obscuring the driver’s vision. The long black Cadillac rounded a corner and stopped in front of a department store that glittered with holiday lights. At the front entrance, sheltered by an overhang, a man in a Santa Claus suit stood near a red donation bucket.

Roger Watterton pulled his Cadillac into a loading zone, not expecting to be there long. He left the engine running, took a long drag on a cigarette, then stepped out of the car into the blizzard. In a few seconds, snow covered his black wool overcoat and tinted his eyebrows white. Protectively, he cupped his hand over the cigarette.

The store windows were full of Christmas toys, and somewhere he heard a choral group singing “Silent Night.”

Upon reaching the shelter of an overhang at the entry, he shook his short, thin-legged body, as a dog might do after a dip in a lake. Still, the snow clung tenaciously. He brushed a few white flakes off his cigarette, saw that it was still burning. With his free hand he pulled his coat collar up until it concealed the lower portion of his face.

The man in the wrinkled Santa Claus suit smiled at him and rang a little bell.

A coy, manipulative sort of smile, it seemed to Roger. The Santa creature was fat and red-nosed and jolly looking, but Roger wasn’t fooled. He knew the true purpose, the conspiracy. This Santa creature was just one more pagan icon out to trick him.

“Donation for the poor?” asked the smiling Santa, pointing to his red bucket.

Returning the smile, Roger reached into his coat pocket and brought out a small piece of wrapping paper. “Don’t look,” he said, wagging a forefinger at the volunteer. “I don’t like to draw attention to myself when I’m making donations.”

“I admire your modesty,” the Santa said.

Turning his back to the man, Roger took a deep drag on his cigarette, causing the ember tip to glow red. Carefully, he rolled the wrapping paper around the cigarette and stuffed his “gift” into the wide slot on the cover of the bucket.

“God bless you!” called the Santa, as Roger walked away.

“Go to hell,” muttered Roger. He slid into the warmth of his car and slammed the door, blocking out the infernal tinkling of the Santa bell, and the carolers’ voices.

The man could never identify him or his car, because Roger had artfully painted what looked like ice and snow over the letters and numbers of the license plates. They were old plates picked up in a junk yard, anyway. Later, upon returning home, he would switch back to the originals.

As he pulled away from the curb, he saw smoke rising from the donation bucket. Good, he thought. That ought to destroy all the paper bills.

God how he hated this whole Santa Claus routine! Granted, he’d had a couple of stiff drinks tonight, but he could still think clearly, could still identify the deceivers. The trouble with most people was their inability to see the truth, the flimflam of life. All the glitter and glow of Christmas was a sham, nothing more than heathen nonsense. And Santa Claus, jolly old St. Nick was the Devil! With a capital “D.”

O O O

Roger had learned that fact early in life from his grandfather, a minister of God. It was his grandfather who’d showed him how the letters in Santa and Satan were identical. Each was an anagram for the other! Satan wore red, said his grandfather, just like fat Santa. And all those “helpers” in Santa costumes were really Satan’s demons doing the evil bidding of The Unholy One.

Roger thought back to a time when he was six, a small boy walking through a department store with his mother, and how he’d taken several small cars and some candy off the toy counters and stuffed them in his pockets. Suddenly his mother, unaware of his thefts, had seized his arm and pulled him toward a crowd of children gathered around a huge man in a red suit.

“Let’s get you in line to see Jolly Old St. Nick,” she’d said, her voice rising in excitement. “Hurry, hurry. You can sit on his lap and tell him what you want for Christmas!”

The child had protested that he wasn’t interested, but to no avail. He was left to stand in line by himself. As his time neared to mount the lap of the mammoth Santa, he’d felt increasingly uneasy. Fear crept up his spine like a snake. He started to step out of line, but before he could do so a horrid gnome-creature in a green costume seized him and lifted him onto Santa’s lap.

Santa stared down at Roger with red, watery eyes that were hard, putting a lie to the smile and rosy cheeks. He didn’t smell right, either, smelled like sour milk and cigar smoke, and his voice boomed like thunder. Roger looked around for his mother but didn’t see her in the crowd. His fear increased.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” sang Santa. “What would you like for Christmas, little boy?”

“I want my Mama!” shrieked Roger. With that, he reached up and punched Santa in the eye with a tiny fist.

“Brat!” growled Santa and with a deft move he shoved Roger off his lap to the hard floor. Roger’s head thumped against the faux marble.

“Poor little guy slipped,” Santa said to the green gnome. “Give him an extra candy cane and bring me another kid.”

The unsmiling gnome gave Roger two pieces of broken candy and reunited him with his mother, who hadn’t seen the tumble and didn’t notice the bump that was growing on her child’s head.

Roger began to hate his mother that day, and never liked her again afterward. They’d never gotten along again.…

He would have taught his own children all about Santa-the-Satan, if he’d had offspring. His own parents should have taught him that important lesson in life, but never had. Unlike his grandfather, they were heathens, and as a result he’d been forced to find his way to the Lord without parental guidance. Roger’s entire life had been difficult, and he’d never married.

It wasn’t his fault that women didn’t appreciate what a good Christian man he was. He’d repeatedly told each female he’d met during his adult life that muscle growth meant an extreme lack of brain development, that his own five foot six inch spindly body indicated intellectual prowess that gave him the power to outmaneuver large-bodied men. Anyone who thought differently had a paucity of brain cells.

Though he regularly spelled out his arguments, meticulously and at great length, no woman had stuck with him for very long. The last one, whom he’d lived with for a time, had listened and then said, as she was threatening to leave, “I’d like you, if you’d just give that God and Satan crap a rest, Roger.”

Well, he’d given her a rest for that blasphemous remark, putting her into a coma that lasted for a month.…

O O O

Now, a few blocks down the street, Roger parked the car and stepped out onto a snow-covered sidewalk. The blizzard had let up a little. He made his way along the sidewalk, but icy patches made progress difficult. A gaggle of rosy-cheeked women passed by him, clutching purses, boxes, and evergreen garlands as they chattered and laughed, slipping and regaining their footing.

Roger glowered at their foolish merriment. He stubbed his toe on a large rock buried under the snow and was about to kick it out of the way, when he focused on yet another Santa’s helper just ahead, waving one of those hellish little bells, smiling seductively.

Roger picked up a rock.

“Charity for the poor?” sang the Santa’s helper.

Roger heaved the stone at him, but it missed its mark and fell at the man’s feet.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” roared the intended victim. “You drunk or crazy?”

“Are you?” screamed Roger. He ran over and punched the demon-creature in the stomach, and the Santa doubled over, howling in pain. This pleased Roger immensely. He might not be large and muscular like those Hollywood types, but he prided himself on his wiry toughness, particularly when he was dealing with Satan’s helpers. Quickly he administered a swift kick to the demon’s shins. Then, looking like a scrawny frog in an oversized coat, Roger bounded in short leaps toward the car, climbed in and pulled away from the curb.

A block away, he spotted another red suit standing in a doorway.

Satan-Santa was everywhere.

Full of righteous anger, Roger braked the Cadillac and got out.

“Merry Christmas!” the demon said, and rang his bell vigorously over a red donation bucket. “Can you give something to the poor?” He took a small step toward Roger.

“Stay away from me, you evil thing!” screamed Roger. He ran headlong into the creature, knocking it to the ground.

“Little creep!” the creature shouted. It rose to its feet and swung the donation bucket at Roger like a weapon.

This red-suited adversary was large and irate, decidedly not jovial any more despite the costume, a fact that encouraged Roger to retreat. He made it to the car, locked the door and started the engine.

The irate Santa slammed the bucket into the side of the Cadillac.

It was a hostile action that caused Roger to consider using the small twenty-gauge shotgun that lay on the seat beside him, concealed under a coat. He’d purchased the weapon last fall to dispose of another thorn in his side … birds. He couldn’t stand their twittering that sounded just like those damnable Santa bells. Even though it was winter, and the birds had flown south, he still carried the gun. You never knew when you might run into a bird. The weapon was filled with birdshot and ready to go. So far he’d only used it once against a human … a parcel deliveryman he’d encountered on a dark residential street years ago.…

That deliveryman, dressed in a Santa Claus suit, had howled in pain and anger when Roger released a load of bird shot into his ankles. And he’d protested even louder when Roger had released the parking brake on the delivery van and sent the driverless vehicle careening down an incline, where it crashed into a private garage and burst into flames.

No one had been killed in that incident, which was in conformity with Roger’s moral code. He only terminated life when it was absolutely necessary, when the Lord told him it was the thing to do. Generally, he preferred to hobble his demon adversaries, leaving them to watch helplessly and consider their hell-destined souls as he performed his best work, the prevention of their heathen practices.

He believed himself to be a fair man, not a Grinch or a Scrooge, those creatures and characters of literary imagination. He didn’t go around saying, “Bah, humbug!” No, he, Roger Watterton, had a divine purpose. It was his mission in life to harass all the Santa Clauses, the true Devil’s advocates, the power behind a pagan conspiracy by heathen merchants to bilk honest people out of their hard-earned dollars.

As his present attacker continued to beat and dent the Cadillac hood with the bucket, Roger thought about the shotgun again and wondered if he should be more severe this evening with the heretics in red suits. Quickly, Roger backed the car up and then slammed the automatic transmission into first gear. He turned the steering wheel hard, then accelerated.

Perfect.

He ran over the bastard’s foot, then sprayed him with snow, gravel and ice as the tires spun and the car roared away from the scene.

Maybe one day Roger would lead a movement that could spread to all regions of the country, and from there to the rest of the world. He envisioned Santa “Wanted” posters on the Internet. Dead or Alive.

That should assure him a favored place in heaven.

He sighed, lit another cigarette and steered the big Cadillac up a freeway on-ramp, then off the freeway again a couple of miles south of the downtown area. This was a less trafficked part of town. On a street with no infernal holiday decorations he pulled up to his favorite tavern, far from giggling females and demon Santa Clauses, far from false merriment.

In this bleak, impoverished neighborhood garbage pails overflowed with trash, buildings collapsed upon themselves and streets overflowed with pools of vehicle oil and debris. Men and women with vacant eyes sat silently on the sidewalks, resting their backs against cold building walls.

There were no Santas here. Thank God, thought Roger as he entered the tavern and heard the familiar clinking of pool balls and beer glasses. There were a few Christmas decorations inside, but nothing worth making a scene over. A plastic tree stood in one corner with a few tired ornaments decorating it and three small, wrapped gifts.

He pushed his way past several dozen men who stood with drinks in hand, watching a pool game. Almost too hot in here, it seemed to Roger, so he removed his coat. He didn’t recognize any of the men, and that was unusual. Still, he felt better since arriving, and would feel even more so with a few more drinks. He climbed onto a barstool and ordered whiskey on the rocks.

“Hard night?” asked a curvaceous brunette seated beside him. Good figure, but horrible face, like something from a vampire horror movie. Bella Lugosi’s girlfriend. He hadn’t seen the woman here before, considered telling her to leave but had second thoughts. After all, he didn’t own the place. Still, the owner rarely encouraged females here. Where was the owner, old Pete Dominico? Roger didn’t recognize the man working the bar.

The woman draped a thin, uninvited arm over Roger’s shoulder, and the heavy floral smell of cheap perfume engulfed him.

He winced.

The bartender slapped a drink on the bar in front of Roger.

“You new here?” Roger asked.

“No, been here since the dawn of time,” came the response.

The brunette still hung all over Roger. “You’re a cute little shit,” she said. “How about buying me a drink?”

Roger shrugged his shoulders. “Well—I guess I could do that.”

Another drink followed and then another, and soon he was bragging to her how he had been beating up Santas all over town, how Satanic the whole concept of Santa Claus was, and how he, a good Christian man, destined for heaven, was out to discredit the entire heathen process whenever he could.

She didn’t say much in response, seemed more interested in her drink.

“I’m trying to save children from being lied to,” Roger said in a voice rising to a crescendo. “I see the demon Santa everywhere, on every street, in every doorway. He leaps from place to place and whenever I find him I punish him, delivering God’s wrath!”

A great gurgle of sound came from a crowd of men who had been eavesdropping, and they burst out in laughter.

“Those aren’t real Santa Clauses, you drunken idiot!” one of the men shouted. “They’re charity volunteers called Santa’s helpers. The money they collect goes to poor people!”

“What kind of a jackass is this guy?” another man asked.

Now the woman, who’d been silent as she wallowed in her free drinks, released her arm from Roger and joined in the dissonance. “Didja hear what he was telling me? This wimpy little dork says he beats up Santa Clauses! I bet I could take this guy myself, with one hand!”

The entire bar erupted in laughter.

Roger looked into the woman’s reddish eyes, then turned away and finished his glass of whiskey, trying to ignore the insults that continued to rain upon him. Presently he stepped down from the barstool and shouted, “Santa Claus is Satan! The letters in their names are the same! Don’t any of you understand the significance of that?”

At that moment, the door of the tavern flew open and with it came a freezing gust of air, a whoosh of wind that blew a layer of snow across the tavern floor. Roger shivered. He heard bells and laughter and the deep “Ho! Ho! Ho!” that was so despised by every cell in his body.

Suddenly a huge, oversized Santa Claus filled the doorway.

“Now’s your chance!” the impertinent brunette shouted at Roger, “Go kick Santa where it hurts! Kick his jolly red ass!”

The tavern rocked with derisive laughter.

The Santa in the doorway was so tall that he had to duck to enter. Roger guessed he was over seven feet in height, with a girth so immense that he barely cleared the sides of the entry. Santa stepped inside, shook the snow from himself and ordered a triple whiskey with a beer chaser.

“Better stay away from here, Santa!” the bartender said as he poured the large portion of whiskey in a beaker and placed it beside a large bottle of beer. He pointed at Roger, who was the shortest man in the tavern. “Santa, this tough guy wants a piece of you!”

“That’s why I’m here,” the visitor answered. He fixed an intense stare on Roger. “You looking for me, Watterton?”

“No,” Roger said, not looking up. How did this Santa thing know his last name? He began to worry, then decided it was all a trick … a sick joke. His friends, the ones who weren’t showing themselves tonight, had set the whole thing up. They’d hired a giant to scare him, and they would all come rushing out from wherever they were hiding to have a good laugh.

I’ll play along with them for a while, Roger thought.

He watched Santa guzzle the whiskey and beer, the boilermaker. A horrible thought occurred to him. What if this Santa wasn’t a trick after all? Roger felt sweat trickling down his forehead. This wasn’t the way he liked to fight the men in the red suits. He preferred to attack guerrilla style; hit hard and run. He wasn’t big enough to fight a guy this size in a tavern crowded with strangers.

The immense Santa strode toward, him, with the floor shaking beneath his tremendous weight.

“Drinks for the house!” Santa announced in a loud, cheerful voice. “And double that for my friend Watterton.” He put his arm around Roger, a big beefy appendage with wet, cold snow dripping from it.

Roger relaxed. This Santa was a pussycat. Not a threat, after all! But when he looked up at Santa, Roger noted how disturbingly red the eyes were, how they glittered demonically, and how the conical hat on his head seemed to throb and pulse.

Was there something under the hat? A pair of protrusions?

Oh God, they’re horns! he thought. Blue horns ripping through the hat! Blue?

Was this part of his friends’ Christmas joke? Another gimmick to scare him? Or … The thought was too horrible to complete.

Santa smiled, the manipulative smirk that was so familiar to Roger on all of the Santa’s helpers he’d seen. Then, as though he could read minds, Santa said, “You’re right about me, Watterton. I’m not the Santa Claus loved by little children, and I’m not what you think I am, either.” He reached out a long arm and tugged Roger closer to him. “Now hold still so I can take your measurements.”

“What for?” asked Roger, his voice as small as a child’s. He squirmed in the creature’s powerful grasp.

“Why, to fit you for a spacesuit, of course. We’re flying to my planet tonight. We don’t have any Santa Haters in our zoo, and I’ve come to get one.”

The creature rubbed Roger’s forehead on the exact place where he’d been bumped as a child by the violent department store Santa.

“No!” squealed Roger, trying to pull away. “No!”

Santa released his grip and turned away, but his victim was frozen in place, paralyzed, trapped in a nightmare of fear.

“No!” Roger screamed again.

The giant in the red suit ordered yet another beaker of whiskey and a second beer. A spiked blue tail slipped from beneath his jacket and twitched violently. He turned and faced Roger again, his features placid and reassuring as he spoke.

“You really don’t have any choice in the matter, Watterton.”