A selection from "Xmas" by Douglas Hutcheson

XMAS

by Douglas Hutcheson



T

he little pale creatures peered out from dank holes in rusty slagheaps, their beady pink eyes almost blind in the daylight, though the sky stood thick and dark with gun-metal grey clouds and splotchy green smoke churning from tall factory towers that scraped at the horizon where the yellow sun sank like a fetid yolk spilled into stagnant pond scum. The whir of great engines grew louder. The thin creatures popped their balding heads up to risk a glance and confirmed the approach of a sleek silver car hovering above the scorched earth.

Inside, the whole family sang a familiar carol:  “Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells!”  Mom and Pop and their son and daughter with faces all lit up pumped their arms into the air and then clapped their hands together. The hovercar steered itself along the narrow path that its program required to get the family home again with what should be their utmost safety.

“It’s more of them,” said a hissing voice from one of the scampering creatures. Others around it hissed back in reply and then bared their stained and broken teeth.

“Load the rocket launcher! Make ready to fire!” shouted a creature some feet behind them. He crawled further atop the heap, scraping himself on jagged rocks and crushing long-discarded cans of soda and candy bars and Styrofoam dinner boxes with logos of secret and once-powerful organizations whose true purposes, along with their actual existences, had long passed into the shadows of myth. “They’re almost upon us!” The creature shouted and then spat at the earth. He drew from a twisted leather belt a sword he had fashioned from an old copper pipe–-he had beaten the metal down until it stood almost flat but it sported sharp serrated edges where the pipe had split under the makeshift working. “Let your hatred speak through your weapons, my brave comrades! We shall settle for nothing less than total annihilation of the enemy of our kind! Fire! Fire! Fire!”

Scarred and dented rifle barrels blazed and barked, their tiny fires flashing from all around and within the slag heaps. The bullets struck the hovercar and sparked and pinged the air, but did little else to the armored body of the vehicle.

“What was that, Father?” the daughter asked.

“Honey?” said the wife.

The father stopped his singing and swivelled to face the sparkling dashboard. It glowed phosphorescent for a moment as its digital readout bars shot up and down. “Computer, status report,” he said to it.

A pink face emitted from a heads-up display and smiled at the family. “Sensors have detected small-arms fire. There is no damage to the hull. The situation is under control. Your vehicle is proceeding on course.”  The face beamed at them for a moment and then disappeared.

The father beamed back, and then turned to the children. “See. Nothing to worry about. I designed this old girl to stand up to almost anything!”

The face popped back up. It was still smiling and speaking in a calm tone, but what it said was:  “Warning. Sensors have detected a surface-to-surface missile. Your vehicle is taking evasive action.”

“Show me!” yelled the father.

The car windows shifted from displaying a false pastoral scene of a flowery meadow full of colorful butterflies and brisk noon sunlight to revealing the dense junkyards and heaving factories that were looming outside. In the immediate vicinity, a missile flew toward the hovercar, its nose cone displaying an angry toothy grin and bloodshot eyes that the creatures had scrawled in sloppy homemade paints.

The family screamed almost as one. At the last moment of what seemed surely their doom, the computer pulled the hovercar skyward and the projectile passed beneath them without touching the vehicle; it struck the ancient broken hull of a rusted-out ice-cream truck. The truck exploded into raging balls of fire and spinning shards of shrapnel.

The car’s face leapt into view again, still grinning. “Your vehicle has avoided the threat,” it said. “Your vehicle is resuming its original course.”

The destruction and desolation outside disappeared from the family’s view and the marigolds and monarchs and dappled light greeted them once more on the hovercar’s windows.

“Whew! That was a close one!” said the son.

“Too close,” said the mother. She glared at the father.

“I am sending a report in for the authorities now,” said the father, pretending not to notice her distraught looks as he typed on the keys in the dashboard. “They will sort out this lot of ruffians soon enough.”  When he had finished with the message, he leaned back against his seat and tapped his fingers on the armrest. “I cannot fathom why these terrorists still clamber up and try to attack decent citizens, especially during holiday season—the holiday season—of all times! Can you believe it?  What utterly astounding gall they have developed of late!”

The daughter, littlest of the bunch, banged her heels back against the bottom of her car seat. She crossed her arms, stared up at her parents and repeated the oft-heard refrain:  “Are we there yet?”

“No, not yet, dear. You know we have five miles still to go before we reach home,” her mother answered.

“But I am bored!” she responded.

“Me too,” said the son, who started poking his finger into his sister’s side and giggling at himself.

“Father! Make him stop!”

“Son, stop poking your sister. We need to act civilized, especially in these barbaric times.”

The son crossed his arms. “Aw, she just likes to whine!”

“Look, can we all just try to act like a proper family for just a few hours maybe, at least for today?” the mother scolded.

“Listen to your mother, children. This is a holy time, after all, is it not?  We should endeavor to make the most of it. Besides, if the two of you will not play nice, your mother and I might have to consider withholding your presents.”

The son scoffed. “But that is the only really cool part of all of this holiday junk!”

The father turned to face him. “My son, you should not speak like that about this holy time! Not ever! Never let me hear you refer to the sacred period as ‘junk’ again, or I will see to it you receive real punishment for blasphemy.”