Home for the Holidays

3 - A Few More Cups

Nick was drunker than he had been in a long time. One of his least favorite parts of lacking income was the inability to get good and truly tossed without a fair share of guilt. Sharing booze with 'family', he had no such obligation. From the moment Bill had handed him his first cup, Nick had taken on a singular goal: Forget any misgivings, and possibly the rest of the evening.

Luckily for him, it turned out Bill and Marie could really throw them back. What started as a quick game of cards with several convoluted drinking rules he couldn't remember, quickly turned into a straight drinking contest. The alcohol turned on him before he even noticed, and the room took on the pulsating, spinning blur quality that only existed on the other side of the line.

As he sat back in a plush armchair, there wasn't much else in the world he cared about beyond himself. His fingertips were numb, but there was a fresh cup of something brain-smashing between them. Was there anything else that mattered? An instinct, more than anything, tilted his head to look at James. The kid was curled up under an electric blanket, brooding. His eyes flicked watchfully between the three of them, and Nick felt he was missing something important.

When he couldn't figure it out, Marie took notice and prodded. "What's going on, James? Don't want to join in all the festivities?"

James worked his hands, trying to keep the cold out of them. "Sorry, I think I just had a bad burger or something on the road."

Nick looked at him quizzically. Years ago, he had implemented a simple rule: No stopping for apprentices. They hadn't stopped for burgers anymore than they had traveled through a magical candy-cane village. Nick sipped his drink. Candy canes! That's what this is made of.

"Where's the bathroom again?" asked James. His face looked gaunt in the dim light of the living room.

Be it imaginary burgers or moodiness, something was wrong with the kid, even Nick could see it. A flash bulb went off in the corner of his mind showing a mess of fur in the snow, but it was gone too quickly to grasp fully. Suspicion crept back into Nick's booze-addled brain. He couldn't figure out why, but it was getting stronger every second.

"Just down the hall on the first floor. Can't miss it." Bill pointed in the direction Nick had been exploring earlier.

"Thanks, hopefully it's just indigestion." James slunk off in the direction of the bathroom looking more melancholy than food sick.

"He's a good kid, you know?" Nick's words were thick, dripping from his mouth like a decadent sauce. "Always does—" Nick faltered, "mostly does what he's told. One of the better apprentices I've ever had." James was many things, but he wasn't a liar. Nick knew there was something to the burger comment, but in his current state of half awareness, he was having more than a little trouble connecting the dots.

Bill's eyes narrowed. "Do they have apprentices in accounting now?"

Nick hiccupped, only half realizing his mistake. "Oh yes, accounting, loads of numbers. Have to get them all figured out somehow, don't we?" The room was starting to spin. Why was the room starting to spin? Nick's stomach turned and he felt the horrible rush of bile come bubbling up into his throat. "Oh god, will you excuse me." Nick took off running for the bathroom. "For the love of god, James, I hope you—" his sentence was cut off by vomit spewing forth from him like a vengeful internal volcano.

"Oh god, I'm sorry about that, I'll clean it up!" Nick fell to his knees, holding his head between his hands. A great pain had come barreling back from the corner of consciousness he tried to banish. "Oh god, don't get sober on me now," slurred Nick, trying to convince his own brain.

James stepped out of the bathroom. "I wouldn't worry about the floor." His tone was dead and flat.

"No, come on now, I won't be a rude house guest."

"Too late for that."

"Why are you being so pissy, my boy, aren't we having a good time."

"For someone with so many rules, you don't seem to pay much attention to them." James pulled a shotgun from behind his back and pumped it, loading a shell.

"What the fuck?" Nick backed away reflexively and tried to pull the harpoon gun from his jacket. A switch snagged and the weapon extended, pushing through his coat pocket and sending a harpoon flying into the ceiling. Plaster rained down, mixing with Nick's vomit on the floor and forming a grey-brown slurry. "Oh god, I'll pay for that too, but in fairness, you did pull a gun on me."

"I'm not pulling it on you, idiot."

Nick shook his head. "Wait, then who's it for? Is Bill a hunter?"

"Bill and Marie have been sober for over a decade." James held up Nick's tome. "You dog-eared the page. Turns out, much like you, wendigos like their liquor."

"Wendi-what?" A roar cut through the house and all at once, the lights went out.

"You just had to make a scene, didn't you?" James turned on a flashlight attached to the end of the shotgun. "And to think, you didn't want me to spring for the extra tactical gear.

"Hey, who's the apprentice and who's the?" A clawed hand caught Nick from behind and threw him in the air. He collided with the ceiling, missing the embedded harpoon by inches. The concealed rifle tore the rest of the way through his jacket and clattered down the hallway. Nick landed in a squelching pile of his own sick and the smell almost made him vomit again.

Thunder roared through the entryway as James fired the shotgun. Pellets of bright white fire spread out in a cone, briefly illuminating Bill whose eyes glowed red in the darkened house. The pellets ripped through his skin, starting little fires wherever they touched, and spraying brown-black liquid onto the floor.

Nick rolled to his side and watched as Bill batted at the fire, his skin tearing where it had touched. From somewhere beneath the human formerly known as Bill, a larger creature began to emerge. His bones creaked, growing and pushing against the taught cover of skin. Fur sprouted in ugly patches, tearing and rending his human form. A horrible crunching filled the room as two bloody elk horns extended from the man's skull.

"Ahhhhh!" Screamed Nick. "James, it's a Krampus!"

"It's not a Krampus, dumbass." James fired another blast from the shotgun. The creature screamed and turned away. With a single, hulking blow, it ran through the front door, sending the weak, wooden rectangle flying off and into the snow storm. Before James could get another shot off, it was out of range and lumbering through the storm.

"It's not?" Nick asked, watching the door resentfully. "I've always wanted to fight a Krampus."

James held up the tome again. "Wendigo, remember?" He shook the book like someone would shake keys for a small toddler.

Nick vomited again. "Oh, right, right, of course, the wendigo." He wiped his mouth. "Well, either way, that leaves us with a pretty significant problem."

"What's that?"

"Well, you've pissed one of them off, but where's his dear partner?"