Chapter 24
Blair
The next day I found myself wondering, why couldn’t I just get abducted by the butt-probing aliens?
That was what I’d like to know. Yeah, on one hand, it would be extremely invasive.
In the movies, they never told you what exactly they were doing with all that booty research.
For all I knew, that could have been a precursor to this alien breeding program bullshit.
But the real question on my mind was, How much cardio did those initial test subjects have to go through?
Because the way my leg started to cramp as soon as we took off running from Krampus…
Hate crime. This whole situation felt like a hate crime.
With a roar, Krampus slammed his cane down on the bank building, which crumpled like a cardboard box. The ground shook, and I lost balance, trying to catch myself before I fell. My leg seized in a sudden, sharp cramp.
As a woman in a red dress ran past me, the heel of her stiletto cracked, and she fell to the ground, screaming like those damsels in distress in old horror movies. Krampus lunged, scooping up the woman and stuffing her into his sack before slinging it over his back.
Krampus grabbed a handful of icicles hanging from his beard and threw them like javelins.
They made short work of the schoolyard and fountain, reducing both to piles of rubble.
Desperate, I tried to stand. But the pain in my leg was enough to make my eyes water.
Another icicle spear obliterated the second-story window of the pottery shop I was next to.
The glass shattered. Panic spiked under my skin like a thousand tiny needles, but before I could even utter a scream, he was there.
In a swift motion, Osid snatched me up and pressed me firmly against the building’s wall, positioning himself between me and the deadly rain of glass. “Hold on,” he said, voice oddly steady amid the surrounding mayhem.
His arms braced on either side of me, and he tucked my head beneath his chin as he used his body as a protective shield. Then there was only panic, the sound of shattering glass, and the heat of him. The wall behind me cracked, and I gasped.
“Look at me,” he said. Osid held my face, ensuring I obeyed. I saw the fear in my eyes reflected through his. His thumb stoked along my cheek as he said, “Stay perfectly still.”
The glass clattered to the ground behind him, a jagged piece striking him in the shoulder and sinking deep, but he didn’t flinch. His eyes remained locked on me, steady and grounding.
When the last piece fell, he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away from the destroyed pottery shop. With a steady breath, he grabbed the shard of glass embedded in his shoulder and wrenched it free.
I sucked in a breath. “What are you doing? You can’t just take it out, you’ll cause nerve damage or something!”
Osid tossed the shard of glass to the side with a wry smile. “What’s this? Concern?” Without waiting for an answer, he picked me up, threw me over his good shoulder, and took off running. “Careful, wife, you will give me the wrong idea.”
The townsfolk began to glitch even harder as we ran past them. We dashed past a man holding a snowball, frozen in mid-throw. Krampus’s cane came down on the man, and his friends dissolved into pixelated fragments.
I screamed as Krampus advanced on us. A massive clawed hand came down and wrenched a lamppost covered in red string lights free from the ground and stuffed it into his sack. A reindeer flew past Krampus’s nose, causing the giant to blink away from it and swat at the reindeer like an annoying gnat.
“I can’t outrun him forever, we need some kind of plan!” Osid yelled over the chaos.
“Right, plan!” My eyes darted wildly, trying to find anything that could help. Krampus slammed his sack down again and plucked the red tinsel from the Christmas tree and fed it into the sack. “Red!” I shouted.
“Red?” Osid parroted back, clearly confused. “I asked for a plan, not colors!”
“That is the plan,” I snapped. “Look, he’s only picking up red things and stuffing them into his sack. We can use—”
Krampus roared again, the sound reverberating through the town like an earthquake.
He took a step forward and crushed the bakery beneath his hooves.
The force of it caused Osid to stumble, and I fell on top of him.
I pulled Osid behind a pile of neatly wrapped presents stacked near the Christmas tree as Krampus clawed his way closer.
“I got an idea, but you need to cover me. Think you can keep him distracted long enough for me to get some lights on a reindeer?”
His teal eyes widened, then a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Without answering, the king broke into a sprint, peppering fireballs along Krampus’s side.
The monster roared, lashing out at the faster, much more agile king.
Not wanting to waste a second, I dashed out into the open, making a beeline for the closest lamppost. Krampus’s head snapped to me, his glowing red eyes zeroing in.
His bellowed roar sent piles of snow toppling from rooftops, but Osid cracked a fireball against the side of his face, regaining his attention.
It broke against Krampus’s cheek, the fur underneath lighting up as it burned away.
“You’re doing great, babe!” I yelled, tugging the string lights off the lamppost. By some miracle, there was no plug. I didn’t know if it was battery powered or some kind of alien power tech Earth was too dumb or too capitalistic to figure out, but either way, never look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Rudolph!” I screamed, coiling the lights around my arm. “Where are you, you sad-sack reindeer?”
A pathetic sounding bleat came from behind the Christmas tree. Rudolph poked his head out soon after and trotted over to me.
“Oh, there you are, good reindeer.” I wove the light around his antlers.
Once done, I grabbed hold of the front of his saddle and swung one leg over his back.
Or I tried to. I couldn’t quite get my leg over the hump and ended up sliding off.
I tried again with a little jump and damn near fell on my face.
They make mounting a horse look so easy in the movies.
Backing up a few steps, I shook out my hands and got ready. “Third time’s the charm.” I bolted forward, ready to jump on, but a piercing cramp shot up my leg. “Ow! Fucking charley horse!”
“What’s the holdup?” Osid asked, looking back. Krampus swatted him as soon as his back was turned. The king went flying before landing in a heap not far from me. Groaning, he pushed himself back up and shook the snow from his hair.
“Are you all right?”
“Does it look like I’m all right?”
“All right, jeez, so testy.”
“Testy?” he repeated with contempt. He stalked over and hoisted me onto the saddle.
I slipped my feet into the stirrups just as he placed the reins in my hands.
“I already don’t have much faith in your plan as it is.
Whatever you’re going to do, you better do it quick before that thing kills us both. ”
“It’ll work,” I hissed. “You just need to catch another reindeer and grab the nose after I trap him in the lake.”
“Oh, just catch another flying beast with horns bigger than my torso? Is that all?” he sneered.
“No,” I said, putting a hand on my hip. “You’ll also need to be the one to grab the nose. It’s only two steps, my darling, do you really need me to write them down?”
“Fine, I’ll catch your reindeer.” Osid hooked a finger beneath the chain of my necklace and lifted until the Tamagotchi slipped out from beneath my shirt. “I better hear this cursed thing sing after I’m done. At least three bars.” He turned and walked away.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I called after him.
“Three bars,” he shouted, not looking back. Krampus ripped the candy shop clear off its foundation and shook the contents into his waiting maw.
Steeling myself, I flicked the reins and said, “On Rudolph! To the top of the giant’s nose and on to the deepest depths of the lake! Now dash away! Dash away!”
Rudolph obeyed, leaping into the air with the powerful kick of his hind legs.
In three strides, we had risen above the rooftops and onward toward victory.
Instead of the sniveling sad sack he’d been only moments before, the sense of purpose had renewed the reindeer’s lease on life, and he charged at Krampus with the steely authority of a warhorse.
I, however, made the mistake of looking down. Only to realize that I was terrified of heights.
The buildings beneath me shrank to the size of a mere dollhouse. Ice froze my veins, and I let off a bloodcurdling scream so loud that Krampus, Osid, Dasher, Prancer, Vixen, and all them other reindeer fucks turned to look at me, baffled.
I was a lot of things, but I was no damn quitter. So I kept screaming and kicked Rudolph to go even faster, because fuck kaijus, fuck aliens, and fuck heights!
Rudolph flew past Krampus’s face. I locked an arm around his neck and used my free hand to flip him the bird. “Hey, you giant sadistic Santa reject, you want these red lights? You come and get them!”
The monster’s piercing red eyes locked on to the blinking Christmas lights around Rudolph’s neck.
Krampus let out a strangled cry before reaching out for us.
With a sharp flick of the reins, Rudolph was off toward the lake, Krampus hot on his heels.
His clawed hand took a swing at us, nearly clipping Rudolph’s flank before the reindeer could lurch out of the way.
My stomach shot down to my feet when we dipped again; the ground rushed up to meet us. Rudolph veered upward, clipping the tops of pine trees as he shot up and away from Krampus.