The Curse Before Christmas
Chapter 1
Chapter one
Myth Monster Games
Chicago, Christmas Eve day
In a grove of glass trees, you encounter a cloaked figure holding a lantern made of woven twigs and tiny bones. The figure offers passage—but only if you answer this riddle:
"I was yours before you asked.
I was broken when you dared.
I echo through what you chase,
yet vanish when shared.
What am I?"
Patrick
"A secret," I said under my breath.
I hit the function key to pause the game and another to open up the code window. I studied the lines of C++, tapping my pencil on the desk to help me think. Everything looked perfect. What could possibly be causing the elf animation to glitch?
"Time to stop now," came a perky voice. "It's Christmas!"
The voice was a distant bell I easily ignored, focusing on my screen. Then a face swam into view, blocking my line of sight.
"It's Christmas Eve!" Eleanor exclaimed.
I made a face. "Technically, no. Eve implies nighttime, and it's not even noon."
Eleanor tsked. "Don't be so pedantic. Christmas Eve Day then. Come on, Patrick. It's time to get out of that noggin of yours. Cake? Secret Santa? Fruit punch? Par-tay! Par-tay! Par-tay!"
Eleanor made a rowing gesture with her hands—a gesture that was always ridiculous but was even more ridiculous when Eleanor did it.
She was plump, middle-aged, and matronly, with a short helmet of reddish-brown hair.
Her red yoga pants and poinsettia top added to the impression that she belonged in the 70's, maybe teaching preschoolers, and not in 2025 leading a team at a hip game company.
And yet, Eleanor was the best game producer I'd ever had.
"Patrick is too good to party with the likes of us," snarked Raphael. He was another coder on the team, and his cubicle was next to mine. As usual, he was sticking his nose into my business.
"Not us," I replied mildly. "Just you."
Raphael's sneer grew like the Grinch's heart.
He'd hated me from day one. I figured he was homophobic.
Which was strange because I wasn't even out at work.
Not that I was in, exactly. It was just no one's damn business.
Raphael seemed to sense it though. Typical bully—he had better gaydar than I did.
Eleanor patted my shoulder. "Come on. Party at eleven. Office closes at noon. Thems the rules." She bustled out of my cubicle with an air that assumed my compliance. She did the mom-guilt thing so well.
"Yes! Off until January second, baby!" Traya popped out of her chair. She was an animator, but she seemed happy to abandon her work indefinitely.
She probably had holiday plans with a Satanic cult.
Traya was uber goth with hair dyed darker than a black hole and worn up in high pig tails.
Those pig tails swooshed around like whips of doom.
Add white face paint, black lips and nails, and funereal schoolgirl clothing right out of Wednesday's closet, and she could be Beelzebub's main squeeze.
Then again, for all I knew, she was married to an accountant and grew dahlias in her spare time.
I didn't know much about any of my coworkers, truth be told.
And that was fine with me. I'd been lead coder on the team for the past year after moving to Chicago from a game company in LA. I wanted to be closer to my parents in Ohio as they aged. Besides Myth Monster made some of my all-time favorite games, and the chance to work on a new online RPG, Veilborn: Echoes of Midwinter, had been too enticing to pass up. But damn, Illinois was cold, and I’d yet to make even one real friend.
Though I was on good terms with the guy who ran the convenience store on the bottom floor of my apartment building. Small wins, everybody. Small wins.
I refocused on my code. I wanted to close out my open bugs before Christmas break, and I was good at this. Code had rules and predictability. Unlike people, it didn't vanish when you reached for it.
I was vaguely aware of people moving around behind me, the dragging of chairs, the laying out of food on a table.
Then I saw it. There was an extra period in the elf's fidget loop file name.
Having the wrong file name should have broken the game, but when I looked out on the server, I found an old animation file with that exact name.
An extra period? Really? Why couldn't people be more careful?
I fixed the name in the code to match the correct file name. I ran the sequence again. No glitch.
With a sense of triumph, I went into Jira, our bug tracking software, and closed the bug. Ka-ching! Take that!
Suddenly, my computer screen went black. Eleanor stood there with a pink-nailed finger pressing on my monitor's power button.
"Hey!" I said.
"Now, don't give me that. I was watching. I know you just finished. No digging into something new. Come on, Scrooge. It's our annual Christmas party, whether you like it or not."
"Scrooge? I'll have you know I always play Santa at our family Christmas."
Eleanor's face got a tragic look, and she lowered her voice. "Which you're not having this year. The invitation to come to mine for dinner still stands. I don't like the idea of you—" she looked around and her whisper turned into a barely audible hiss "—being A-L-O-N-E on Christmas."
Geez, did she think there was anyone on the team who couldn't spell?
"I told you, I'm fine. I'm looking forward to a quiet, meditative holiday. I'll ruminate on the reason for the season. And eat the tin of cookies my mom sent. It'll be great."
Her disapproving frown deepened. "It's only a short drive to Wayne. I'm making ham. With all the fixins? Come on. What'd'ya say?" Her tone turned into a singsong wheedle.
"That's sweet, and I'm sure your ham is the hammiest. But I have plans for Christmas dinner." Those plans included Chinese takeout and a new game I'd been anxious to dig into. But Eleanor didn't need to know that.
Sam, in the cubicle on my other side, popped up and held out a couple of action figures. "You could take Butch and Spike with you to keep you company," he offered. "Only, make sure to bring them back in January, k? They're my favorites."
I widened my eyes. "You have favorites? Is that fair, Sam?"
Sam got a guilty look and sank back into his chair.
His cubicle was arrayed with at least fifty action figures.
If I was a nerd, Sam was at a whole other level of geek.
He even still lived at home with Mom. Poor Sam looked around at his figures anxiously and whispered something under his breath.
It very much looked like, I didn't mean it.
Eleanor mildly slapped my shoulder. "Stop it. Good will towards men, Patrick."
"What? I was kidding."
"Sam, Patrick, come on. It's cake time."
Sam, all lumbering, 6'2” and 250 pounds of manchild, hoisted himself up and headed for the confection.
But I felt rooted in my chair. I wished I'd never told Eleanor I wasn't going home for Christmas.
Probably the whole team knew. I felt like I had a big "L" stamped on my forehead, and I didn't need their pity right now.
Or ever. Though I just… maybe wished I had someone to talk to who knew me for real.
Anyway, I was alone this Christmas out of a spirit of self-sacrifice, and that ought to count for something. It was my parents' thirtieth anniversary, so me and sis had gone in on two tickets for a holiday cruise. Which was great. I was so glad my folks were going.
No, really. I was. I was twenty-seven. And Christmas was just a day on the calendar. I had zero regrets. Okay, very few regrets.
Loser or not, there was no avoiding this par-tay. I spun my roller chair around and foot-scooted myself into the cubicle aisle to join the circle of my illustrious colleagues.