Krampusnacht: Twelve Nights of Krampus Read Online Free Page B

people. Oh, it might be crude, but it sure is better than whatever I’ve been working with up until now.
    Despite everything that’s happened, I am still completely shocked when I hear the jingle bells ringing in the sky above me. I don’t see the sleigh or the reindeer, but all of a sudden he’s standing in front of me. I expect him to shout Merry Christmas in my face, but he doesn’t. He’s solemn. A sense of peace breathes out from him. A hush comes over the grove. I shoot a look over to the kids under the trees. They’re all fast asleep.
    “Hello, Brian.”
    “Hi Santa.”
    He snaps his fingers, and five or six tiny men in green outfits scurry out from under the trees. Each one throws a sleeping kid over his shoulder and hurries away, back toward the toy store. Gwendolyn still lies there unconscious, but I’m learning to ignore her.
    “They’re going to make sure those kids get back to their parents, right?”
    “Yes,” Santa says. He smiles at me, and it’s like the whole magic of the season wraps around me, relaxing every muscle. “They won’t remember what they’ve seen, but let’s just say that they might find themselves wanting to be a little bit less naughty from now on.”
    Santa is a badass.
    “You’re probably wondering why I’m here, Brian,” he says. “The truth is that I haven’t been able to come here for some time. Mr. Payne’s magic was doing more than making a hole in the world. It was contaminating all levels of this reality. My toy factory hasn’t been able to work at full efficiency for three years.”
    “That’s a real thing?” I think about all the toys we sell at Super Fun Toy Super Store. If only parents knew that Santa was giving them away, Payne might have been out of business long before tonight.
    Santa reaches into a pocket and pulls out a green and red ball. He hands it to me. It’s tiny. I hold it in my palms for a moment. It dissolves in a puff of smoke and I feel an intense rush of joy that doesn’t subside. I want to race around the clearing, do a cartwheel. I’m scared that I might hurt myself, though, so I just ride the wave.
    “That’s a toy,” I tell Santa. “Wow.”
    “It’s a type of toy,” he says. “You can understand why I want to be able to keep making them. There isn’t enough joy in the world. The fact is, people like Payne make what I do next to impossible. I need help, Brian. After the job you did tonight, I think you’re an ideal candidate for the position.”
    The thought of being able to leave the store only adds to the joy I’m feeling. My cup runneth over, and I clap my hands. “What do I have to do?”
    Santa pauses, looks me up and down. I get the sense that he’s a little reluctant to say this next part. “Well, what I need is a new Krampus. The job fell out of favor with humanity a couple of centuries ago. Sure, there’s been an uptick in the popularity of the idea recently, for reasons I don’t completely understand, but people just want to put Krampus on for a night. They don’t want to be him. They don’t really understand about good and evil, or how to distinguish between the two.”
    “But I was just in costume, too. I was just pretending.”
    He holds my gaze for a long moment. I think about what happened earlier, think about the lights around the kids, about my claws, and the way the fur of the costume seemed to sprout from my body. Gwen saying that I became Krampus. This is the moment that I realize I can be more than just an orphan with a terrible job and a crush on the evil daughter of my evil boss.
    Briefly I worry about what this is going to do to my already almost non-existent sex life. It’s only a small quibble. I look down at Gwendolyn, sleeping the sleep of evil. There must be other women like her out there, who find big hairy beasts appealing. I bet some of them aren’t even evil. There’s somebody for everyone. Surely Krampus is no exception.
    I nod. Santa winks.
    When the change happens, I grow