6. Soren
6
SOREN
L oneliness makes a person do strange things. That's what I’m thinking about as I watch the grumpiest therapist in the world guide the next child up for their turn on Mall Santa’s lap. Mall Santa is me.
“Ho ho ho!” I call out. Sophie looks like she wants to murder me. My wink gets an eye roll. Her elf ears and outfit don’t fit her perfectly. I had to guess her size. Who knew she was hiding that chest under her sweaters? Well, everyone knows now. I glare at one of the fathers standing in line with their kid. He’s been ogling her. He notices my death glare, and his eyes dart away from the both of us.
“What’s your name?” I ask the kid on my knee. Sophie leans in.
“This isn’t murder,” she hisses. The kid looks between us.
“Timmy,” he finally says.
“Well, Timmy, what would you like for Christmas?”
“Soren, please tell me this is a joke. That one of the shop owners is a pervert.”
“What’s a pervert?” Timmy asks. Sophie blanches. I cover his ears.
“Think of the children,” I scold in humor.
“I’m not the murderer inviting children in my lap,” she huffs. She shuffles back down the platform, looking guilty for introducing Timmy to strange words. After thirty more minutes and countless coughing kids, she’s about to wring my neck.
I haven’t had this much fun in a while. I always played Santa at home during the Holidays. I wasn’t going to do it here, but then loneliness made me do something weird: convince my therapist to marry me.
I could have just convinced her to move in, probably. But this guarantees some permanence. She said to work on a better me—self-improvement, routines, and a hobby. I was doing what she asked of me, and I had to admit that she wasn’t half bad at her job.
No more empty house, a live-in therapist, someone to play Santa with. Things were looking up.
Sophie was right, though; I had ulterior motives for being here. I looked over at the nut pagoda. A man shook pecans on a tray, slowly filling up little baggies. Whatever jackass hired him to work in a mall probably deserved to die too. Didn’t they realize that although technically the mall wasn’t a place designed specifically for children, it was somewhere you were very likely to interact with them?
He sure as hell knows. His eyes flick up from bagging nuts to look at the line of kids gathering in front of Mall Santa. I grind my teeth.
“Time to go,” I say, popping up from the throne. “Mrs Claus and I need to do some Christmas shopping.”
“That’s not Mrs. Claus, that’s an elf!” A kid exclaims. All the other kids gasp in horror.
“Mrs Claus is an elf. Interspecies marriage is legal in the North Pole.” I drag Sophie away.
“Hey, we can’t just leave them,” she complains. I knew she secretly liked it. I look at the time on my phone.
“The new Santa will be here in five minutes. The kids get weird when they see two Santas next to each other.” I drag her towards the nut pagoda and consider killing Richard in front of everyone. What a fitting name because he looks like a Dick.
I slide my hand into Sophie’s, lacing our fingers together, and then continue walking by. My therapist surely wouldn’t like me murdering someone in the middle of the mall.
“Where are we going?” She asks suspiciously.
“Trying on lingerie at Victoria’s Secret.”
“I refuse.”
“Who said anything about you?” I flash her a confused face, and she takes a deep breath. “Can you help me pick out the right size?” She lets out the breath with a groan.
“They say not to take work home, but what if work takes you home?” She asks some higher power. This is fun. I smile at her, and she gives me a distrustful look back.
“You’re having fun, too,” I tell her. We walk around the mall with no destination in mind. I never stray too far from Dick the Nut Guy, always keeping him in sight.
“You must be mistaking my obvious displeasure for some other emotion.” Her eyes scan me. “Is that a common issue of yours?”
“Not at all.” I pull us back towards Dick when I see him undoing his apron and tossing the plastic gloves.
“Can you tell me what you have planned?” She asks.
“See the nut guy?” I ask her. She looks around and spots Dick leaving the pagoda before nodding.
“Let’s kill the shit out of him,” I say with a smile.
“Both of us?” She blanches.
“You’re just the mascot, don’t worry. Cheer me on, or whatever you think a therapist should do.”
“Shit,” she hisses as we follow Dick down an empty hallway. There’s a bathroom at the very end and two big doors that lead outside. We walk past something on the wall. I quickly turn around and stare at it in surprise.
“I thought they got rid of all of these,” I say in awe.
“Oh god,” Sophie says. It’s a fire ax. They were all supposed to be removed since the glass breaking hurt too many people, and also, maybe, they don’t entirely trust us with a mounted ax in public places anymore. Luckily, this one has a door I swing open. I grab hold of the weapon.
“Are you following me?” We both startle and look at Dick, the nut guy. He’s got a mop of orange hair on his head and is wearing a Home Alone shirt sporting the words “Filthy Animal.”
I look at Sophie; she looks at me. I shrug and lunge at the guy, lifting my axe. This inspires Sophie to start cheering. It’s a very shrill mascot cheer. Dick jerks backward and falls on his ass. My axe swings past him and buries in the wall.
“Strike one,” I say, wrenching it back out of the wall. The Santa hat’s ball falls in my face, and I flick it out of the way. “Hey, Dick, if I get three strikes, you get to live!”
“What!” He yells. I lift the ax high and bring it down towards his head. He flings himself backward, and the blade sinks into his thigh. Blood gushes.
“Ooo nicked it.”
“This is a fucking mess!” Sophie yells as crimson spills on gray tiles. “What the fuck, Soren!”
“The misses hates a mess,” I tell Dick. The mall music shifts to Last Christmas. “Fuck I love this song.” Despite having more blood on the floor than inside his body, Dick scrambles down the hall towards the doors.
“Can you stop singing along to the music?” Sophie growls. “I can’t believe this is really happening.”
“This is a great time to show off,” I tell Sophie.
“It really isn’t,” she insists, clinging to the wall with bulging eyes. I slide my hand down the ax’s handle, gripping the base loosely. Then I line myself up. Dick is a good twenty-five feet away and a moving target. It’s a hard throw to get, especially since this axe isn’t as sharp as it could be. I have to put a lot of force into it as I throw.
It twists fast, spinning in the air in a blur before sinking between Dick’s shoulders. He drops to the ground and doesn’t move. I look over my shoulder at Sophie with a satisfied smile.
“See, great time to show off,” I say. She looks absolutely exasperated. This is a lot more fun than the last kill. Everyone should drag their therapist along for murders. I walk down the hall towards the guy, careful to avoid the trail of blood leading to him.
“Oh my god. Oh my god . Is he dead?” She asks. I press my black Santa boot to his back and rip the ax out. Then I lift it up one-handed and sink it into the back of his neck. Sophie screams.
“Well, if he wasn’t before, he is now.”
“I don’t know what I thought was going to happen,” Sophie says. She’s got a thousand-yard stare on her face.
“Me either. That fire ax was a good find.”
“No, Soren. I meant—Gah!” She throws up her hands and then stomps to the bathroom in the hall. With that, I work on getting the guy in the Santa sack I have. By the time Sophie comes back out, he’s in my sack, waiting by the double-door exit.
“Ready, Mrs Claus?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she sighs. We push out into the cold parking lot.
“It’s Santa!” Some teens cry out with a laugh as I carry the sack back to my truck. I wave and give a ho-ho-ho. After I toss the body in the back, I climb into the driver’s seat.
“So.” Sophie turns her head to me. “How do you feel?” I give a laugh.
“Fantastic. Let’s do a few more.”
“Interesting,” is all she says. There’s a flash of hungry curiosity in her eyes that makes me repress a shudder. Does she have any idea how attractive it is when she looks fascinated by me?
The next week is a blur. With a sidekick in tow, I feel more inspired than ever to keep killing. I’m hungry for it each evening. We finish our dinner, and her eyes bug as I drag her back out.
“Again?” She asks in exasperation. I can’t stop; I don't want to. This is addicting. I’ve never had a more thrilling time in my life and have never been so close to someone else. Usually, there’s a crevice that separates me from everyone else. But Doctor Moore is different. She’s right here beside me. Even if grumpy about the fact, she’s still on my side of the crevice, hand in hand, as I drag her from murder to murder.
I don’t ever want this to stop, but there’s a growing concern flashing in Sophie’s eyes each new time I drag her out. Her exasperated complaints about the carnage start to sound like true worry.
“You need a break,” she insists. We’ve just broken into a house. I press a finger to my lips and keep moving through the house.
“Soren, please,” she begs.