A Hell of a Christmas

by Pil Lee

Lucifer was pissed off with never getting any presents and he gave everyone double duty on Christmas Day.

Mike tried to complain but he was given short shift.

“Oh, go poke out your left eye,” was all the response he got so next year he called together a meeting of the head office staff to try and solve the problem.

“Every year we go through the same shit,” he said, adjusting his eye patch. “The boss doesn’t get any presents and so we have to work our butts off to make him feel better.”

“But it’s been like that for centuries,” pointed out Claire from HR.

“Exactly,” said Mike, “and it will go on like this forever if we don’t do anything about it.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Well obviously we get the old bastard some presents,” said Mike, shaking his head in disgust. HR. Should stand for Help, I’m Retarded, he thought.

“Can we just ask Santa Claus to drop by here on Christmas Eve as well?” said Claire.

“He’s a Saint, remember,” said Julie from Quality Assurance. “Saint Nicholas. That’s the whole problem. They’ve made what should be a seasonal social celebration into a religious matter. And once you involve religion in every day affairs, logic and reason just go right out the window. You can’t even get presents, for god’s sake…”

Mike could feel Julie start to wind herself up on her favourite topic and the stench of brimstone was starting to waft into the room from below so he hastily headed her off.

“Whatever the reason, the fact is that Santa won’t normally deliver here. So we’ve got to persuade him to.”

Macchiavelli from Legals twirled his beard and leered at Claire. “He means force him to, my dear.”

“Yes, that’s the plan,” said Mike. “We force Santa to add us to his itinerary.”

Macchiavelli raised an eyebrow.

Mike took a deep breath and revealed his plan. “We kidnap a reindeer and keep it hostage until Santa agrees.”

There was silence in the room.

“That’s your plan?” said Kev from Audits. “We steal an animal to force a Saint to visit Hell?”

“Not just any animal,” said Mike, bristling. “We steal Rudolph, the red arsed reindeer.”

“Red nosed,” said Julie.

“Whatever”, said Mike. “Just imagine, Santa turning up on rooftops all over the world without Rudolph. The famous one. The only one everyone can remember. And what about when all the little kiddies find out that Rudolph is being Tortured in Hell and Santa did nothing to stop it!”

“I think this is where I come in,” said Josef from Publicity. “We’re going to need international satellite spots, live web feeds of the torture, SMS Save Rudolph numbers…”

“Yes,” said Mike, “but only if Santa doesn’t come to the party. Nothing happens to the deer unless Santa says ?No’.”

Josef started to mutter but Mike cut him off. “You still have the second most important job,” he pointed out. “We need you to mock up a DVD with the art department of all those things so that Santa will see what will happen if he doesn’t agree.”

“What’s the most important job?” said Claire.

“Stealing old red arse.”

Mike struggled with the thermostat on his suit. He could hear Kev and Macc swearing under their breaths and assumed they were doing the same. Spending millennia in the hottest place imaginable and then travelling straight to the North Pole was what some people might think of as rash. He finally got the automatic override disabled and was able to ramp it up to 40∫C. He breathed a sigh of relief and checked out their location.

“We’re right on target,” he announced, sighting the stars. “Santa’s Workshop should be just over the next rise.”

They trudged through the snow up the hill and then squirmed on their stomachs for the last 5 metres. Peering over they had a clear view of the compound.

“Nine targets inside a fence at 10 o’clock,” said Kev, enjoying himself.

“Roger that,” said Macc, grinning away.

Mike shook his head. Everything could go horribly wrong in a second and he imagined being swarmed by 500 elves who had only ever seen a tall fat man in a stupid suit would wipe the smile from their faces.

“Just shut up, get the deer with the red nose and get out of here,” he said, crawling down towards the corral. He slipped the bottle of chloroform out of his right pocket and a handkerchief out of the other. “Have you got that tranquilizer gun ready?”

Kev held it up with a nod as they came up right to the edge of the animal pen. Mike and Macc braced him as he took aim at the smallest reindeer. The dart found its mark right in the left shoulder, and Mike held himself ready in case the chloroform was needed as well. There was a moment of silence in the whole corral, then Rudolph keeled over with a crash and lay still.

“Right, let’s get it out of there,” said Mike, starting forward under the fence. Suddenly the area was lit up as if by a hundred lightning strikes and a voice boomed out of the sky.

TO BE CONTINUED