Humbug, page 24
Olivia couldn't see them from her position next to the car - and even if she'd had a clear view, she was weeping too much to notice - but Jeremy saw them. He saw them duck under the exterior shutter door and disappear into the shadows when the door closed. And when they floated into view again at the fringes of the Creature's purplish glow, his heart contracted in his chest.
Fear.
The elf came around the van's open rear door and saw them too. It froze. Its hand went to the knife in its pocket.
The men in trench coats didn't stop. They kept coming. Gliding.
Jeremy heard the elf drag in a breath, and then it ran at them, screaming, the knife held aloft. It reached them at the perimeter of the Creature's glow, where the violet light met the shadows. Jeremy saw the knife flash. The elf screamed, shrill and horribly childish. There was a flurry of movement, a struggle. A flapping of material. Then the scream abruptly cut off.
For a moment, nothing happened. Jeremy saw them there at the edge of the glow, three spectres in black. He glimpsed the green of the elf's costume. The creature in the van continued to pulse its bright purple light. Pulsing, pulsing.
Jeremy gasped as the elf's body hit the ground just a yard from his boots. Black blood streaked across the concrete and up his shin. Some of it splattered on Olivia's jeans and her weeping stopped, just like that.
The elf's head was almost completely severed from its body. A thin strip of flesh was the only thing connecting its skull to its neck. The flesh was bright red and no thicker than packaging tape.
"Holy shit," Jeremy said matter-of-factly.
Olivia made a small sound next to him. He detached his eyes from the elf and looked up, and then pressed his back hard to the wall.
Fear. Like never before.
The three men in trench coats were right there, between where he and Olivia sat and the open back of the van. They stood by the twitching body of the elf, the thing that had once been a child - blood gushed from the stump of its neck, ran to the shoes of the Trench Coat Men, and flowed neatly around them. It would reach Jeremy's feet soon.
Don't move. The words whispered in the far recesses of Jeremy's mind in a voice that wasn't his. Don't speak.
Olivia heard that voice too and squeezed her lips together, choking back a rising scream of terror.
If the men in black coats and trilby hats were looking at them, Jeremy couldn't see their eyes. In truth, he couldn't see their faces. No eyes, no noses. No mouths. Even this close, their features were masked in shadow. Did they even have features? Were their faces below the brims of those hats?
Don't move. Don't speak.
The musty air in the underground lot was crackling with static now. A sound Jeremy thought he'd been imagining was building steadily, bearing down on his eardrums, making them throb: a dull but constant whine, piercing right into his brain. He was in an airplane again, dipping towards the runway at O'Hare. He was six years old and he was crying while his father told him to keep quiet, it was almost over.
Don't MOVE. Don't SPEAK. KEEP QUIET.
The Trench Coat Men turned, slowly and in perfect unison, to face the van. The creature inside it disappeared from Jeremy's view but the glow from its forehead orb began to burn brighter. Jeremy's eyes ached behind his glasses; he longed to shut them but something was willing him to look, to watch. The dark figures by the van's open doors became shimmering shadows, bleeding into one black mass. It was, Jeremy thought in a strange, absent sort of way, like looking directly into an eclipse.
It's almost over.
The figures moved as one and climbed into the back of the van.
The doors swung closed of their own volition.
I'm going to die, Taryn thought.
The hands fastened around her neck, the thumbs pushing into her throat. They weren't those of a person. They weren't human anymore.
It's almost Christmas and I'm going to die. I'll never see my family again.
The Mrs Claus pressed harder, squeezing tighter. Taryn could actually feel her windpipe being sealed shut, cutting off her air supply. She'd never experienced anything like it before.
How strange.
Mr Krighton's voice, from the front of the biology classroom: "When we inhale, we take in oxygen. That oxygen diffuses from the alveoli in our lungs into our bloodstream, where it's picked up by hemoglobin in our red blood cells. At the same time, carbon dioxide passes the other way from our blood into our lungs, and we exhale it as a waste gas. That's what breathing is, ladies and gentlemen."
So strange.
Her hands spasmed by her sides. She was blacking out, she could feel it coming. The thing choking her was grinning, just like the elf had been earlier. It was a fixed smile, molded into a once-human mask. Its remaining eye rolled wildly, entirely red now and weeping blood from the socket.
I wonder who she was, Taryn thought, looking past the Mrs Claus at the hole in the mall ceiling, far above them. Snow wasn't drifting through it anymore. Darkness pushed in around the edges of her vision. I wonder if she knows she's killing me.
The thing's belly bounced against her torso as it worked at her throat. Taryn imagined she could hear Christmas crackers being pulled somewhere and just barely understood that it was really the bones in her neck starting to crunch together.
I'm going to die, she thought again. A gradual dawning realization. Nothing she could do about it.
The mall ceiling was eaten by the darkness.
The handcuffs bit into Jeremy's already-bruised wrists. His boots scraped and scuffed on the concrete as he thrashed his feet, scrambling for purchase with his heels. If he could get his legs under him - maybe even behind him - he might be able to slide one hand free. And then he could get the other one out, too.
He hadn't really tried, after all, had he? Anything to get out.
Anything, if it meant he could put his hands over his ears and block out the sound.
It started the moment the van doors closed. Banging, thumping. Muffled metallic clanging. The sound of things slamming into other things in a small, enclosed space. A struggle.
The purple light continued pulsing from inside, brighter and brighter, seeping through every paper-thin gap in the body of the vehicle. There were no windows in the rear doors but it was coming out around their edges, and between them. It was coming from under the van, through the front windshield, through the driver and passenger side windows. With each sudden, violent movement, the light blazed brighter, sending crazy shadows leaping around the underground parking lot.
And now the van was rocking from side to side, suspension groaning, the remaining air hissing from its mostly-deflated tires. Something hit its interior panel with enormous force, causing a huge dent to bubble outward.
The sound. The sound he desperately wanted to stop, to escape from any way he could.
The sound of savage, frenzied murder.
The van rocked towards its front wheels and the windshield blew out, showering glass over another vehicle in the next bay. Jeremy got one leg under him. He finally had some leverage and started pulling with every ounce of his strength against the pipe, straining until his wrists were screaming and sweat stung his eyes.
Anything to make it stop.
Next to him, Olivia's head was down and her hair masked her face, but Jeremy could see her shoulders heaving rhythmically. She was either hyperventilating or sobbing, or both.
"Lady," he stammered, panic taking over. "Hey! Olivia."
She shook her head; she heard him and she wasn't going to look up.
"Olivia!" Jeremy spat. The cuffs bit into his skin, splitting it. His eyes blurred with tears. "We have to get out. Right now. Please!"
She started to raise her head.
And suddenly, it all stopped. The van rocked one last time and settled onto its spent tires. The parking lot was once again illuminated solely by the sickly yellow fixtures spaced too far apart around the walls, and by the shaft of light spilling down through the hole in the ceiling. The purple light was gone.
Jeremy slumped back against the wall. His wrists were cut and bleeding, but he couldn't feel them. It was over - their chance was gone. The whole thing had lasted less than a minute. They were next.
Just beyond their parking bay, the van doors creaked open and the Trench Coat Men stepped back out.
Taryn had been in darkness, right on the cusp of passing out, when the hands gripping her neck abruptly released.
Her eyes went wide and the mall concourse flooded back. She gasped air back into her body. Just a little. Not enough. The Mrs Claus was still on her, straddling her on the mall tiles, crushing her beneath her bulk as blood trickled from her gored eye socket. But those powerful, murderous fingers weren't wrapped around her throat anymore.
Taryn gaped up at her, bewildered and agonized. The Mrs Claus wasn't looking at her now; she was staring straight ahead, her hands poised in midair like she was waiting for something and might still return to killing at any moment. The grin, still fixed on her face, flickered.
Suddenly, her teeth parted and a horrible, animal moan escaped her mouth. It started low, like a cat mewing, and then shot to a high keening shriek. It was the first time Taryn had heard her make any sound at all and it turned her insides to ice.
The Mrs Claus stood up. Taryn's lungs expanded gratefully and air rushed into them, and she exploded into a fit of painful coughing, rolling onto her side. She clutched at her throat; she could still feel the fingers there, digging in.
Flailing drunkenly, the Mrs Claus stepped over her, narrowly missing her arm with one of her heavy boots. She staggered away, still screeching like a wounded animal. Taryn watched her through hot tears, coughing so hard she feared her throat might come out of her mouth. But she could breathe again - that's all that mattered.
What's wrong with it? she thought, wheezing air into her burning lungs.
Something was definitely happening to the Mrs Claus. With each step, her body seemed to crumple a little more, as though her bones had turned to jelly inside her. Taryn saw her sideways from her position on the floor, thumping heavily across the concourse, leaving smatterings of blood in her wake; her knees were beginning to buckle and her costume was darkening all over as more blood soaked through from beneath.
She's going to collapse, Taryn thought, propping herself up on one shaky elbow. She's trying to escape but she won't make it.
She glanced back towards the JeanScene store, half expecting to see the Santa lumbering towards her to finish the job - "I'll get her, dear, don't worry" - but the place was just as empty as before. Bright, welcoming, abandoned.
Taryn's eyes fell on the hammer, resting beneath one of the free-standing display carousels. Its handle was dark red with dried blood.
Sensing another coughing fit on the way, she forced herself to sit up and looked back down the mall concourse.
Mrs Claus was gone.
Nineteen
Emma Price hadn't found Daddy.
She had found the candy machine, however, and that'd do just fine for now.
Daddy would be along soon, anyway.
She'd retrieved her dinosaur backpack from the bench - the one she and Mommy had been sitting on when they'd first seen the ELF - and that'd been the first good thing. She liked dinosaurs and so she liked her backpack, just as she liked her dinosaur-patterned bedroom curtains and the plush dinosaur toys lined neatly on the shelf above her bed. She also liked the cat toy the tall girl let her take from the store and she stuffed it into her backpack for safe keeping - she'd introduce it to her dinosaurs once they were home from visiting Grandma and Grandpa after Christmas.
Em had been slipping the pack on when the candy machine caught her eye. It was just beyond the entrance to the concourse, in the corridor that led to the exit, and it was the second good thing. They'd used the corridor earlier, after they'd been out in the snow. Maybe it was still there. She could build a snowman.
That'd be the third good thing. One, two, three.
Em walked to the candy machines, her sneakers flashing pink across the tiles on either side of her. Somewhere further back in the concourse, she thought she heard noises. Someone shouting, maybe. But the noises were brief and far away, and the candy machine was right there.
There were three machines, all lined up right next to the concourse entrance: one for sodas, one for chips, and one for candy. Em went to the third and put her palm against the glass, gazing up at the colorful candy bars stacked uniformly in their spirals. There were plenty she liked - KitKats, Skittles, M&Ms, Reece's Pieces - and looking at them made her stomach gurgle. Mommy wouldn't want her having candy before dinner, but she wasn't here. She'd gone away with the elf, down below in the elevator.
Em stretched for the vending machine keypad but couldn't quite reach it, even on her tiptoes. Even if she could have pushed the buttons, she had no money. The concept of exchanging currency for goods hadn't quite landed with her just yet.
She settled back on her soles. There was a lady's handbag on the floor next to the machine and she thought Mommy has a bag. She could reach the buttons. Or Daddy.
"I want Mommy," she said.
Suddenly, a great bubble of sadness and fear surged up from deep inside her. The numbing effects of shock she'd experienced since entering the mall were beginning to fade; what she felt now was panic, or the beginnings of it, and that new sensation - one she was so unfamiliar with - manifested itself in hot, welling tears and a trembling in her throat.
I want Mommy, she thought, and Daddy. I want them here.
Em opened her mouth to say it again, and this time it would have tailed off into a desperate wail of despair that brought the things prowling the mall straight to her, but before she could speak, a new sound carried her way. A nearby sound.
Something metal.
Em turned to her right, her keen ears zeroing in on the new noise. It was close. Just round the corner, maybe.
Two warm tears broke free and rolled down her cheeks, but her panic abated for the time being. The new sound called to her and she started walking towards it distractedly. Maybe the sound was Daddy. Maybe he was coming back for her and Mommy, and they could go home.
The sound again. Metal on metal.
Em came to the corner of the corridor. The ATMs were on her right, glowing silently, watching what was about to happen. She turned the corner and looked.
First, she saw the shutter. A metal barrier blocking off the mall exit, the way they'd come in. It hadn't been there before, had it? Cold wintery wind blustered through it and danced up the corridor, nipping at her bare hands. Beyond, she could see the roofs of some cars in the parking lot, glinting under starlight.
Next, she saw Santa. He was crouched by the base of the shutter, fiddling with something. His big shoulders jiggled under his red coat and the bobble on his hat bounced against his ear. There was an ax on the floor next to him.
Em drew in a shuddering breath and was about to yell "SANTA!" when something stopped her. A prickling on the back of her neck, like lightning had struck somewhere nearby. It pushed the cry of delight back down her throat and held it there.
Something had changed in that moment, in that exact second. Something that had been was now gone.
Santa jerked something away from the base of the shutter with a grunt and straightened up, pushing the barrier up in the same movement. The shutter rolled open, exposing the mall entrance again. Santa stooped to grab his ax, and froze.
Em took a step backwards. She didn't know what made her do it.
Humbug.
She saw it, then. Felt it.
Humbug.
It was going away, or had already gone. That thing, that "Bad! Humbug!" creature down below, where Mommy had gone, where the Elf had taken the boy with glasses. Em hadn't seen it with her own eyes but she knew it was there. She'd known the moment they walked into the mall. It was there, and now it wasn't.
The bad humbug.
At the other end of the entrance corridor, Santa spluttered out a series of nonsense words and spun clumsily on his heel. Em turned the corner in the same movement. She pressed herself to the wall and closed her eyes.
Thud, thud, thud. Santa was coming, rushing up the corridor towards her. He was moaning now, like a deer that's been nicked by a hunter's bullet. A wounded, panic-stricken animal.
Em squeezed her eyes tighter, just like she did last Christmas when she was trying to make herself fall asleep before Santa came.
He was coming now.
Thud, thud, thud.
"Mommy," Em whispered. "Daddy."
The Santa Claus came around the corner, ax in both hands, and thundered right past Emma Price. The hem of his coat brushed her backpack but his blood-laced eyes didn't see her, and even if they had, his melting brain wouldn't have allowed him to stop. He had to get back, to protect it, to PROTECT IT AND FEED IT AND SAVE IT.
Em stayed where she was, eyes closed, long after the Santa's heavy, erratic footfalls had faded. She didn't see where he went, didn't see how he staggered and bled and coughed bile into his artificial beard. She stayed right where she was, whispering "Mommy, Daddy" over and over.
When she opened her eyes, she was alone again.
Twenty
The three stood between them and the van, wraiths in shadow, featureless and silent. The mall creaked and groaned above them; in some far corner of the underground lot, water dripped melodiously into a puddle.
Plop. Plop.
Olivia watched them through the sweat-soaked strands of her hair. Her ears felt stuffed, like she'd just gotten off a plane. Her own, rasping breaths sounded far away.
The three didn't move from where they stood, but their presence reached for her anyway, invisible fingers tracing her skin, chilling her to the bone.
She knew the kid, Jeremy, felt it too. He was quaking next to her, his cuffs rattling against the pipe.
