The Fat Man_ A Tale of North Pole Noir - Ken Harmon [70]
Funny, during that kiss, time stopped. Happiness was a long stretch of road in the car with the radio on, the top down and plenty of sandwiches in the back. It was a perfect kiss on top of the world, full of the kind of mush that would make little boys squirm and old maids cry. It was good, better than I deserved, and I could almost let go. I vaguely heard, “Hang your stockings and say your prayers,” but I snapped to when I heard the screams.
There are a lot of ugly things in the world, but the balloon creeping over Kringle Town Square made you wonder if there was enough ugly left to go around. It was like a haunted blimp, cobbled and stitched together parts from parade balloons that had been discarded long ago. It had the tail from an old Hermy the Hedgehog balloon, a popular want from a couple of Christmases past. The body looked like it came mostly from the Polka-Dot Pig balloon, with a few patches of the Fur Troll Patrol balloon. Two legs were from some kind of cat balloon, another leg was from Ghost Duck. The final balloon leg was a long, tan, curvy gam that had been sawed off that Malibu doll. The head was the snarling, unfriendly puss of the long-forgotten action toy the Crocodile Cobra. The balloon that these parts formed was bad news and looked worse than any storm cloud. It was a Frankenstein dirigible. Even on fire, the Hindenburg looked better. But the worst part was what was in that wicked, hissing mouth of the Crocodile Cobra. It was full of Misfits.
The Misfits hadn’t disappeared. They hadn’t given up. They had tucked themselves in a balloon as ugly as they were, snuck right into Kringle Town and were now looming above Santa’s sleigh like a nightmare. But it was worse. You can wake up from a nightmare. The Misfits were real and they were jumping up and down like banshees, ready for war.
Zsa Zsa stood at the tip of the Croc Cobra’s lip, roaring like an earthquake. She had war paint on her face and was wearing a mean suit of battle armor with a sledgehammer in one hand and a rusty spear in the other. The Misfit army behind her was outfitted more or less the same way, all of them with wild eyes throbbing with hate.
Below, elves scattered like they were being thrown out of a bucket. The ones who could fly took off in a hurry, and the landlubbers darted through the square looking for cover. The ghastly sight had even spooked the hotshot reindeer and they just stood in their places with their mouths open, shaking their jingle bells in pure horror. And in the middle of the gloom stood Santa, helpless, doomed. He stared up at the Misfit warship as still as he could be. The only way you could tell he wasn’t a statue was that statues don’t have tears running down their faces.
“Are you waiting for an invitation?” Rosebud screamed. “Do something!”
I scanned the crowd for inspiration. There wasn’t much. Halfway across the square I did spot little Ralphie. He had come to the Loading of the Sleigh Parade in his cowboy outfit, but now looked like he was wetting his chaps. But he was carrying his Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model BB Gun with a compass in the stock. An elf’s gotta do what an elf’s gotta do.
“Is this thing loaded?” I asked Ralphie, jerking the Red Ryder from his hand.
“Y-y-yes,” Ralphie stammered. “I’m not supposed to have it loaded, but sometimes I do.”
“Good,” I said, giving the lever a yank. “You might want to take cover, Ralphie. Go and get yourself a good hiding place.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to blow that balloon out of the sky before it gets to Santa’s sleigh, pilgrim,” I said.
“You’ll shoot your eye out!” Ralphie cried out of habit, but I didn’t really hear him. I took aim at the balloon, but it was hard to keep the Red Ryder steady in the