Dark Fiction - Naughty

Naughty

By Casey Douglass

for #fridayflash

The kosh fizzed through the air, the speed making it look like it was made of rubber. The white haired skull met it with a small crack, like a child poking a finger into a Kinder egg. The sturdy body teetered for a moment before falling forward, the whiskered face welcoming the hard wooden floor with a crimson kiss.

‘No no no! You idiot Mike!’

‘What? You made the signal to brain ’im John!’

‘That wasn’t the signal. I did the signal to edge away!’

‘Bollocks! I know what I saw!’

The two balacalvered figures stared at each other; their eyes shining in the weak firelight. The one nearest the body nudged it with his toe.

‘I think he’s dead.’

‘Oh shit! That’s all we need.’

‘Fill up ya bag and lets go!’

‘We can’t leave him.’

‘’Course we can! What else we goin’ to do? Wait for the old bill? Screw that!’

The larger man turned away and brandished his bin bag. With surprising speed he stripped the mantel piece, the area under the tree and the biscuits on the plate nearby. He turned to the other who stood motionless looking down at the body.

‘Move!’ he shouted.

Flinching, John produced his own bag and made a show of scouring the room for any valuables.

‘Forget upstairs! No point chancin’ our luck here too long!’

The John nodded and continued his searching.

‘Right I’m full! You?’

‘I got some stuff.’

‘Good, lets go!’

‘Mike?’

‘What!’

‘Where’s he gone?’ the voice quivered.

‘Who?’

‘The body.’

Mike turned and looked down at the floor; at the space that should have been occupied by the old man. There was nothing, not even the sticky pool of blood remained. He looked at his partner and shrugged. John’s eyes began to bulge and he pointed. Mike thumbed his kosh and began to turn.

Before he had twisted even partly around, a great darkness enveloped him, a rustling hot silence that pressed into his body in odd ways. He screamed but the blackness snatched his words away as if he was shouting into an abyss. Pricks and prods jabbed into him, piercing his skin. Blood tricked down from a deep gash in his forehead and made his eye sting. He yelled for help, for mercy, but everything seemed to close in around him, the space compressing him into an unnatural position. With a series of loud clicks, he succumbed to the pain, the last noise he heard was a high squeaky voice that said, “I love you!”

John watched the fur lined boot lift slowly from the red velvet sack, a sickening squelching noise slithering into his ears. He looked up the red trousered leg, past the black belt which struggled to contain the large girth of the belly, up past the golden buckles and into the red capilaried sneer that filtered through the white beard, the eyes sparkling like gimlets. John’s lip trembled.

‘Now then!’ boomed the man. ‘Who has been a naughty boy!’

John fell to his knees, tears running down his cheeks. ‘Me,’ he said meekly.

‘And what do you think I should do about it?’ Footsteps thudded nearer, the floor almost buckling.

‘I’m sorry! It wasn’t me! I told him not to. I know it’s wrong to do what we do but I never hit noone.’

‘Hmmm, Santa sees the truth in what you say. You have been very naughty though. One of the houses you robbed last year? There was a little girl who woke up and found that all of her presents were gone.’

‘I’m sorry, really I am!’

‘Her father killed himself two weeks later!’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes, oh! This year she wrote me a letter asking me to catch the bastards that did it. Her words too! You see what you have done?’

‘Yes! I see I see!’

‘Very well then, you will perform a community service rather than a disservice for once.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You will come with me and I will put you to work in my workshop, to right the wrongs and make amends for your misdeeds. I think...a hundred years should suffice.’

John’s head lolled forward as he tried to suppress a sob. ‘Thank you.’

‘Oh it won’t be a walk in the park, far from it. The work is hard and fiddly, have you ever tried to make an iPad?’

‘No.’

‘You will learn. Although I should warn you, the elves are...shall we say, a bit randy. I have to regularly let them sate their desires or they begin to produce strangely shaped toys. Most unsuitable for children. Your task will be to ease the pressure, so to speak.’

John looked up and pulled his balaclava off. His face was ghostly white and tear streaked. ‘Female?’ he asked quickly.

The figure looked down at him and smiled. ‘Not on the production line.’

John leapt up and sprang for the window. With a swoosh his world fell into darkness. Moments later he felt like he was flying and felt terribly cold. He trembled amongst the toys and games, cursing the choices he had made and the life he had led. For a brief moment, a spark of defiance arose in him as he psyched himself up. He would show them that they must fear him. Yes! That would make things much easier! The thought soon slipped away into the dark mire of fear however. He cried quietly, when he realised that his finger had poked into something wet and sticky, and vaguely spherical. It definitely wasn’t a Kinder egg.

The End

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