SUBMITTED: November 16, 2004 BY:PAUL REVIS

Deadly Santa

For several years during the Christmas season Santa stood in the entry

way of our home. One of those benign hardware store, motion figurines that

slowly swing a light bulb candle to and fro in one soft plastic hand and a tiny

sack of presents in the other. The thing played a medley of Christmas carols, not

the whole song you see, but about half, in its primitive electronic fashion. The

snippets of tunes get annoying and boring rather quickly and so thankfully can

be switched off to preserve one’s sanity. We rarely turned them on more than

once, just to be sure they still worked, so that normally Santa stood silently on

his little plastic stand, head and arms swaying.

I hated Santa after about the second year. There seemed to be something

just a little evil in his plastic doll face and nylon whiskers. Maybe it was just my

imagination but I could swear that Santa would smile. It wasn’t the friendly

smile that should come from that staple of Christmas lore. It was a smile of the

purest hatred, of evil. Maybe it was just the shadows projecting from his tiny

candle that gave him that look, but it made me shudder. One year after the

Christmas season was over and the ornaments were carefully returned to their

boxes, I thought I heard Santa chuckle and say “kill” ever so softly as he was

being returned to his place on the shelf in the closet. “It has to be the box
squeaking against the wooden shelf” I remember thinking, and “Besides,” I said

out loud, “I just spent three hours repairing your broken arm, how ungrateful.”

After all, Santa is a “Kindly Old Elf”, and kindly old elves aren’t in the habit of

killing, especially unplugged hardware store Santas.

This winter has been unusually warm for the Midwest, an area of the

country used to six inches of snow by December first. My neighbors and I

celebrated this fact by decorating our homes in the traditional way with lights

and geejaws earlier than normal for the Christmas season. The more well-to-do

lighting their yards like a midnight crime scene, while others almost not at all.

Either way, the power company execs were grinning up their sleeves in delight.

As usual my wife began her annual decorating early, and one of the first

decorations to grace the inside of our home was Santa.

I came home from work just after darkness enveloped the village, as I

usually do following the time change, to see Santa in his traditional place next to

the closet where the coats and shoes go. This year the smile was not just an

illusion. The evil and hatred in that face was almost palpable. After hanging up

my coat and putting my boots away I reached down and turned on the electronic

tunes that were supposed to be Christmas carols, the annual system check.

Something was amiss, the annoying bits of Christmas music suddenly sounded

like funeral dirges.

 “Sounds like Santa’s voice is going bad,” I joked to the wife, “too many

years of smoking that pipe non-stop.”

“Turn it off,” she demanded, “I don’t like that sound at all.”

The music wouldn’t turn off. No matter which direction I turned the control

knob the music got louder.

“I said turn it OFF!” shouted my wife, “Stop being such a jerk!”

“It won’t shut off,” I retorted, “it just gets louder.”

Not only was the music getting louder, the pitch was getting higher as well, and

rapidly becoming painful to hear. Even our faithful dachshund began to howl

her protest of the screeching dirge.

“Enough of this,” I shouted and reached for the power plug. “Die Santa!”

“Not me, YOU!” shouted the tiny mechanical demon, and sparks flew

from the electrical cord. I flew against the opposite wall, the shock knocking me

from my feet, my hand burning. The smell of ozone and burnt flesh filled the

room as I lay in a dazed heap, hardly able to speak or even move. The electricity

seemed to flow in and out of my brain in waves, but at least the music had

stopped.

Santa’s pedestal had melted into a black jell at the figurine’s feet exposing the

sound producing electronics, now a smoking mass of circuit board and solder.

Even in my dazed state I know I heard Santa laugh.

My wife’s screams, not only in sympathy for me but for her house which

was now in danger of catching fire, brought my son running out from his room,
fear filling his eyes. Smothering the flames with a coat pulled from the closet,

they dragged me further into the living room. Only Augusta our brave and

faithful dog perceived the danger that followed us. Barking wildly she attacked

the machine’s face pulling the fluffy beard and mustache from the plastic,

revealing a most wicked countenance. Shaking her head to rid herself of the

fuzzy mouthful, the poor beast never saw the razor-like teeth of the toy Santa as

they bit into her throat. One pitiful yipe was all any of us heard, and our

beloved pet was dead.

Grinning a bloody, wide grin Santa began to stalk us with a determined

mechanical gate. Certain that we all could out move the machine, my son made

a dash for his bed room and the little league baseball bat he kept as a souvenir.

Nothing and no one was going to kill his dog and go unpunished for the deed.

Somehow the tiny demon Santa knew my son’s intent. Its attack was blindingly

fast. A flying leap put the murderous toy onto my son’s back where it began to

claw and bite furiously at the boy’s body. The soft plastic of the machine’s

hands peeled away in it’s fury revealing razor sharp claws with which it

inflicted deep gashes.

My wife reacted as only a loving mother could to the screams and the

sight of blood from her only child. With a terrifying scream of her own she leapt

off the floor, grabbed the devil machine by the throat and with a lightning

motion slammed it’s bloody head onto the ceramic tiled floor. As if on a stack of

bearings the head and body rotated so that now Santa faced my wife. Hate and
death filled the faces of both. Another lightning fast motion as she again

grasped the tiny machine, and again slammed it onto the ceramic, this time

shattering tiles. The machine hardly took notice of the abuse, but raised it’s

claw-like hands and sank the daggers of his fingers through my wife’s arms

ripping muscle from bone, slashing blood vessels. Despite the searing pain she

again slammed the devil machine to the floor. No effect, and now she could

hold on to the thing no longer.

The effect on Santa was, at best, curious. He seemed to double over with

laughter at the site of my wife’s now useless arms as they bled at her sides. Her

screams of pain seemed to give him ecstatic pleasure. He even jumped up and

down as he laughed as though he were having the time of his evil life.

The entire attack had taken no more than a minute and a half, maybe two

at most as I lay helpless from the electrical shock, recovering enough to move.

Despite the carnage being reeked on my little family, I knew that this was

my only chance to move. Santa played rough, but I liked to think I played even

rougher. I sprang for the little league bat from my son’s room and then across

the darkened hall to my bedroom for even heavier armament.

Thankfully Santa hadn’t seen me run and was now in the kitchen,

hunting, opening cabinets in a vain attempt to find me. I took my stand just

behind the half wall that separates the kitchen from the dining room and softly

called to the little demon.

Silence. For what seemed like several minutes. Then the whir of gear motors

and the slow squeak of a mechanical thing, stalking. A sharp squeak and a

grating chunk sound and Santa appeared on the breakfast counter, drying blood

on his teeth and hands and the look of pure hatred on what remained of his once

benign plastic face.

I held the ash bat in my right hand directly in front of me, taunting the

metal beast with my left. If I had it figured right Santa would have to make a

longer leap than he was truly capable of and would hit me just above the left

knee. Having studied me for at least four years he would by now know that I

was right handed. I counted on that.

Unflinching, I watched as he slowly crouched until his blood stained

hands reached the edge of the counter. He paused for a second or so, smiled,

and leapt at me.

Santa came in a little higher than I expected, but then I always did swing

at almost anything. My left hand grabbed the bat handle above the right as he

flew toward my left side. Too bad Santa didn’t know my little secret. I bat left

handed. The look of hunter’s victory was quickly replaced with one of surprise

as the tiny machine flew toward me. I swung the trophy bat with all the force of

an angered father and husband coupled with hatred for the thing that had

invaded my home. The bat connected a little low, sending the machine through

the patio door on a high pop-up trajectory. Some things just never change. The
patio door exploded in a shower of glass, each piece reflecting the colors of the

Christmas lights both inside and out.

Gears, sprockets, tiny motors, springs, and parts of all sorts seemed to

explode from inside of Santa, and then implode as if on rubber bands, it being a

generally accepted fact that you can’t kill a demon. Only one part failed to re-

attach itself to the beast, an arm.

I immediately lay the trusty bat in a handy place, just in case, and then

grabbed my true weapon of choice from my back waist band. Two shots from

the huge .44 Magnum burst into the machine. The first striking the center body

driving parts into the ground. The second opening a gaping hole in the toy’s

head. Slowly the thing tried to stand, and a third shot sent it skipping across the

lawn, the twisted metal flailing as it attempted to regain it’s feet. My shooting

coach would have been proud of me.

I watched in amazed horror as the twisted mass of metal began to crawl back

towards me, jaws gnashing like a hungry wolf at the sight of a wounded rabbit.

One more shot struck the head a second time, another explosion of parts.

“I have more bullets”, I shouted, “and I still have the bat! Give it up and

go back to the devil where you came from!” I fired the two final rounds at what

was left of Santa, just for the effect you know, and calmly reloaded the big

revolver with one of the two speed loaders in my pocket. The first shot had sent

Santa skipping over a retaining wall in our back yard and out of sight. The

second shot totally missed.

 Feeling somewhat bolder but not quite convinced, I ventured out into the

yard to assess the situation. By this time the sirens of several police cars could

be heard converging on my home. Either my neighbors don’t appreciate gun-

fire as dinner music, or my son’s call to the 911 emergency number had been

finally believed. Now, to be fair, “Santa is trying to kill us!” shouted over the

phone is hardly going to be convincing even to a police operator.

The full moon glistening off the newly fallen snow, and the squeaks and

whirs of crumpled gears, and motors soon revealed my tiny enemy. “Where,” I

wondered out loud, “does this thing get it’s power?” A gray, twisted mass of

metal surrounded the large holes produced by the ounce and a half of copper

jacketed lead fired into it, the grotesque thing stood on one foot and it’s

remaining arm.

“You just don’t know when to give up, do you?” I asked quietly. One had

to admire it’s tenacity, if nothing else.

I had let my guard down a bit, feeling certain that it could hardly do me

any harm in it’s present condition. The lightning leap it made caught me

somewhat by surprise. High and a little inside, the one remaining arm shot out

as it passed, raking my lower jaw to the bone as I jerked away from the attack.

This had definitely gone on far enough. I began once again to taunt the thing,

prodding it for another attack. It crouched for a final attack, gears grinding

loudly now, it’s machinery slowing perceptibly. Santa leaped with the two

remaining limbs that functioned and I swung that trusty bat with all I had.
 After what seemed like twelve hours of explanations to the police, I was

allowed to go home and begin to restore the ruin of my house. There next to the

shattered patio door lay the severed arm of Santa. Gingerly, I prodded it with

my foot. You just never know about these devil doll things. It just lay there, not

moving. I picked up the piece to examine it more closely, and began to laugh

out loud like a man possessed. I threw it into a bag and drove to the hospital

where my wife and son were recovering from their wounds. They had to see

this. The manufacturer’s name was stamped into the metal…”HALLMARK”,

but below that another faded stamp could be seen. An eagle grasping a

swastika, and the legend; “Toys for America” “Berlin, Germany, 1939”