anta woke up sweating. It was a horrifying dream, but as his yellow eyes cleared the dream faded away. He was sitting in his easy chair, near a sputtering fire. An empty bottle of “Fighting Cock” lay next to the chair, reminding him of his fight with Mrs. Claus the night before.A glance up at the “Z-Minus” clock showed that he had 22 hours until his night’s departure to deliver a planet’s-worth of gifts to waiting children.
He held his throbbing head as he heaved himself up, and knocked on the bolted door to his bedroom. “Honey? I’m going to go get rid of some recalled stock. I’m going to stop in Milwaukee and see if Dingle wants to help me out.”
Silence.
“…Uh, I thought it’d be nice if you came along?”
Silence.
Santa whispered a short fuck under his breath and tucked his shirt into his red trousers. He cinched up his wide belt and put on his trademark coat. He retrieved his hat and gloves and opened up the front door. The mixture of cold air and snowflakes slapped him across his face and sharpened the point of his headache. “Seamus? Seamus!”
A small elf holding a clipboard saluted and shouted “Merry Christmas!”
Santa almost jumped out of his skin and gripped his forehead in pain. “Seamus! I’ll batter you until you look like Burl Ives if you sneak up on me again!”
“Sorry chief.” The elf handed him the clipboard and frowned. “You know sir, they’re not too happy with what you are planning to do.”
Santa grunted while looking over the clipboard. “Who’s not happy—did you remember to get all that stuff from the 70’s on there?”
“Yes sir. A few of the guys from the 70’s aren’t happy. Also, every Chinese elf on our staff is upset. They wrote this petition…”
“Can it. If it can kill a child, I’m not delivering it to anyone. They should think about these things first—for goodness sakes, if it can pop an eye out, they shouldn’t be made for kids.”
Seamus walked over to the barn and slid open the massive door. “I hooked up your eight strongest. They tend to pull to the left and fight amongst themselves, but with such a big load, you’ll need all the horse-“
The reindeer closest to Seamus jerked his head and glared into the small elf’s eyes.
“That is to say, deer-power. Sorry about that, Caligula.” He tried to pet the brawny deer but it tried to bite off his tiny fingers.
The ‘old sled’ was packed almost to the barn’s roof with massive bags of toys. They were just like the other massive bags that hold Santa’s toys, but they were marked with danger tags and some had the Bio-Hazard logo. The eight rather ugly reindeer jostled and kicked each other except for the smallest one out in front: Santa’s favourite, Rudolph.
“Seamus. Why is Rudy linked up to these brutes?
“Milwaukee is under heavy fog. You’ll never be able to find Dingle’s double-wide without him.”