From The Nights Before Christmas © 2010 by Kerry Allen
Chapter One
There were two things by which Harvey Doyle did not wish to be greeted when he arrived at the office. The first was daylight; the second, superstitious peasants armed with holy water and wooden stakes.
Upon his arrival the evening of December 23, he added a third unwelcome sight to the list: coworkers flinging Christmas flotsam everywhere in preparation for an office party he hadn’t been warned about.
His left foot slid backward. If he remained quiet and made no sudden movements, he could retreat to the elevator and call in sick before anyone knew he’d been in the building.
“Merry Christmas, Harv!”
He winced at the combination of the nickname and the shrill voice, amplified to a scream to guarantee it traveled from the far side of the room—a vast distance of fifteen feet. If the fluorescent green stripes in her black hair, troweled-on makeup, and graveyard chic wardrobe were insufficient to draw one’s attention, Taffy could always command it with an auditory assault on the senses.
The elevator doors nipped at his heel as they closed.
His hope of escape deflated with a sigh. “Christmas is two days away.”
Also on the far side of the room, Mason crouched to stick a plug in an electrical outlet. Thousands of tiny light bulbs blazed to life. The room’s temperature warmed by five degrees in the time it took him to straighten from the task. “The whole crew won’t be together again until after New Year’s, so we’re partying tonight. Everybody will be here by ten.”
Harvey stopped at the unmanned front desk to collect the stack of messages addressed to him, knowing he would be unable to return them before morning unless the overburdened circuits sparked a fire and the building had to be evacuated.
He longed for a match to facilitate such a disaster when Taffy lifted from a box a pompadoured snowman dressed in a sequined jumpsuit. Powered on, it would gyrate to barely recognizable renditions of Christmas tunes.
“Yes!” She hoisted it above her head. “I was afraid this got lost in the move. We’d never be able to replace Frelvis.”
Harvey made a mental note to send a thank-you card to Satan for shutting down whatever factory in Hell no longer produced such monstrosities. “We agreed last year to abolish this tradition.”
“We had a meeting and agreed the problem is it’s impossible to get a decent gift for ten bucks, so we upped the limit to fifty.”
“I recall no such meeting.”
Mason unraveled an extension cord and passed one end to Taffy. “You were off kicking puppies, serving eviction notices to widows, and repossessing wheelchairs from crippled orphans.”
“You would have been outvoted, anyway. You can’t stop the spirit of the season.” The snowman’s hips groaned to life with the first tinny notes of “Blue Christmas,” and the sparkle in Taffy’s eyes rivaled that of her glitter eyeshadow. She glanced in Harvey’s direction and stuck out her tongue at his profound lack of enthusiasm. “Lighten up, Grooge.”
He had erroneously believed Harv to be the epitome of objectionable labels. “What did you call me?”
“Grooge, a mashup of your role models, Grinch and Scrooge. We considered Scrinch, but that sounds like some kind of sphincter spasm.”
Mason saluted. “Out of respect for your authority, we went in a different direction.”
One day, he would learn better than to ask. Harvey strode toward his office. If his ancestors could fortify crumbling castles against mobs of angry villagers, surely he could barricade a door against a handful of festive coworkers. “I have some calls to make before the frivolity renders work impossible.”
“Stop!” Taffy lunged into his path, arms flung wide to bar the way. “You can’t go in there.”
Her objection seemed excessively vehement for a simple request to stay and socialize. “Please tell me you haven’t stashed something in my office.”
A number of gifts littered the room, stacked on desks and leaning against the walls, so secrecy was not the order of the evening. The only reason he could imagine for hiding something was that the something couldn’t be wrapped, such as a Shetland pony or a prostitute. Knowing his coworkers, either was a possibility.
Mason handed him a cube decorated with images of an anthropomorphized kitchen sponge engaged in a variety of wintertime pursuits. “We don’t expect you to reciprocate, but you’ll graciously accept tribute from us lowly minions.”
Harvey peeled back a flap of wrapping paper, revealing a box containing four books. The exposed side of the box was printed with a pair of hands holding an apple.
A muscle under his eye jumped. If he were near an open window, he’d be tempted to follow its example. “The entire set. How thoughtful of you.”
“I knew you’d like it because it’ll help you on the job.” At Harvey’s mystified look, Mason elaborated, “It’s a topic of cultural relevance. It’ll help you connect with the young people… and a lot of their moms.”
Taffy squinted at the package of similar size and wrapping on her desk. “You better not have given me the same thing.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Mason smirked. “I got you the movie, since I know you can’t read.”
She fluttered her fake eyelashes at him. “Now I’m sure I made the right decision getting you a one-year membership at the Bottom’s Up Club. I assume you already own the assless chaps that constitute the junior member uniform.”
“Sure do, but I’ll have to borrow the ball gag your boyfriend uses to shut you up before your mouth manages to defeat even a double dose of Viagra.”
Harvey marveled at his uncanny ability to be standing between them every time they went for each other’s throats, as if he were the axis around which their animosity orbited. “Yes, increasing the monetary value of the gifts has clearly altered the tone of this occasion for the better.”
Taffy waved a hand to dispel the cloud of cynicism. “Never mind him. I got you something I know you’ll appreciate. Go on, take a look.”
She stepped aside so he could do so. Wary of what awaited him inside, Harvey turned the knob and pushed open the door with all the caution of a bomb squad rookie.
Taffy bounced on her toes, eyes locked on his face to gauge his reaction. “I took a little off the top to subdue her.”
He wouldn’t accomplish much in the way of work with a woman lying atop his desk, one limp hand weighing down the files in his inbox. She wore a red velvet dress, cinched at the waist with a wide leather belt and adorned with white fur trim at the hem, cuffs, and collar. A matching hat sat askew upon her head, revealing a short cap of dark hair and one delicate ear that came to a point at its apex.
Whatever department store employed her would have raised the alarm when she didn’t show up for work, if for no other reason than to ensure return of the costume.
The red cellophane bow stuck to the woman’s forehead resembled a cluster of bloody spikes erupting from her skull, but the more likely cause of death was the pair of punctures on the right side of her neck. A dark bruise ringed the bite from the force employed to suck her dry. The remainder of her skin was a cadaverous shade of gray.
When she received none of the effusive thanks she expected, Taffy peered around the doorframe. “Oops. Guess I took a little more than I thought.”
Mason shouldered his way inside and pressed his fingers against the woman’s throat, observing protocol even when faced with the obvious. “How can you not remember draining somebody to death, Taff?”
“I don’t know! I remember her cussing at me when I brought her in because she was late for her job or something. I just wanted her to sit down and shut up so she wouldn’t ruin Harv’s surprise. I remember biting her.” She touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip. “The next thing I remember is pulling boxes of decorations out of the storeroom.”
“None of that matters now.” Harvey moved the woman’s leg to gain access to his desk drawer, in which he placed the messages that would now have to wait. Her thigh was cold to his touch through the red-and-white-striped stocking that resembled a candy cane.
If she had known how her day would end, she might have chosen attire which made her look less like food rather than more.
“Where did you find her?” When disposing of bodies, procedure dictated leaving them where they could be easily found and identified, a courtesy to the human law enforcement responsible for investigating missing persons cases.
It was more courteous, of course, to leave the meal alive, but accidents happened.
Taffy looked away. “Um… my roommate brought her home.”
Mason’s eyebrows shot up. “For you?”
“I already ate! It would be stupid to let her go to waste, and I thought Harv would like her.”
Harvey pinched the bridge of his nose, behind which a dull ache had begun to accumulate. “You cannot regift a human.”
“Why not? They do it with fruitcake.” Taffy lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “Same diff.”
“The ‘diff’ is that fruitcake does not die in transit to the recipient.”
“They’re both inedible.” Mason raised his hands to ward off the dual glares he received for that comment. “The easiest law-abiding course of action is to dump her at the nearest hospital. To atone for the books, I’ll take disposal duty.”
The inbox crashed to the floor, scattering papers across the carpet like a blanket of snow. A pallid hand shifted to clutch the edge of the desk.
Taffy slugged Mason in the arm. “What did I tell you? Exactly like fruitcake. Fruitcake never dies!”
Harvey removed his coat and draped it over the woman. Her cheek felt cool against his palm, but no more so than someone who’d braved the wind between the parking lot and the lobby. When he lifted his hand, her skin had regained a healthy rosy hue. “It seems reports of her demise were exaggerated.”
Mason rubbed his abused arm. “There was no pulse. I held it for a minute. Nothing, and she was ice cold.”
Harvey recalled the dead weight of her leg, the chill that went more than skin deep. He’d handled enough dead to recognize one of their kind.
He had to have been mistaken in her case, though, because the dead didn’t come back to life; didn’t restart their silent hearts, color with blood they’d been drained of, and warm from within; didn’t move their lips in a weak attempt to communicate.
He lowered his ear to her mouth. A faint breath caressed his skin, and he discerned a single whispered word.
“Rosebud.”
.
From The Nights Before Christmas © 2010 by Kerry Allen
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