A long, familiar needle tore into his eyes again.
Max called it the sleepneedle. He knew what brought it back, but he couldn’t get rid of it.
4 a.m., again.
He could hardly move. Melissa grunted on the other side of the bed and turned away.
She must know. The smell of whisky seeped from his skin; he couldn’t hide it anymore.
Christmas Eve.
Tomorrow, he’d stop. Again.
Whisky was a train: it let him off, making him feel safe. Then he boarded the next one, and it took him farther. There was no going back. Max knew the name of the final station, but didn’t know how to stop travelling.
Tomorrow. But now he needed water. He steadied himself against the wall. It felt cold against his sweating skin.
He must’ve left a light on downstairs. Maybe the kitchen.
Noise.
Somebody was in the house.
Sleepneedle became background noise. A hallucination. Someone cursed quietly.
It was real.
Max’s pulse thudded in his ears.
Who would break into a house on Christmas Eve? A special kind of asshole.
No time to drown anger in whisky. Switch on. The Afghan desert exhaled on his face.
Sometimes, Max thought he needed whisky like antibiotics and gunfire like therapy.
Guns in the minefield. Assholes in his kitchen. Home.
Otherwise, he’d drown in boredom. Nobody would understand. No therapist. Not even Melissa.
He grabbed the baseball bat from the other room, meant for the kids who never came.
Killswitch on, sleepneedle off.
On tour again, with his brothers. Old habits don’t die. Max went down slowly, as quietly as he could. The last stair creaked. Avoid. He pushed the bat against the kitchen door. It fell open.
A man in a dirty red coat bent over the sink, gagging—vomit stench everywhere.
After a moment, it stopped. The worst was over. The man turned, wiping vomit from his long white beard.
“You have three seconds. What the hell are you doing in my kitchen, asshole?”
The man stared at him. Eyes red. Drinker’s skin. Max knew it from the mirror. The man’s fingers stopped moving through his beard. He grabbed a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one, inhaled.
“Vomiting. What’s it look like?”
“4 a.m. You’re not fucking vomiting in my kitchen. Get the fuck out.”
“Else what?”
Max froze.
“I got a bat, you idiot.”
“And I got a job to do.”
The intruder turned and took the whisky bottle from the drawer, as if he owned the place.
He took two glasses and set them on the table.
“Sit.”
Max didn’t dare smash this guy’s head in. Every time he thought about it, sleepneedle stabbed hard behind his eyes.
“You don’t tell me what to do in my house.”
Max sat.
The man ignored him, reached for the bottle, and poured them each a glass. He grabbed it immediately, as if he hadn’t been vomiting moments earlier.
Six fingers wrapped around the glass. The joints looked wrong. Irregular.
Each finger except the thumb had a letter tattooed.
S A N T A
Max took a sip and nodded at the fingers.
“You take your job seriously, huh?”
The man didn’t react, but poured himself another glass.
“The tattooist was a fucking idiot.”
He set the empty glass down.
Then he stared quietly into nothing, as if remembering something he didn’t want to see again.
Max emptied his glass. His teeth felt coated, but he hoped this wreck of a Santa would pour him another drink.
Santa’s eyes were fixed on Max.
“Mixed up letters. Idiot burned more books than he ever read.”
The smell of vomit and old rot filled the room.
Santa grinned. Sharp, yellow teeth. Teeth no man should have.
“I taught him a lesson. But the name stuck, Max.”
Max blinked.
“How do you know my...”
“The name’s Satan.”
Max’s neck went stiff. Sleepneedle moved behind his eyes, ready to sting. He shook. Wanted to run. But where? Santa sat in his kitchen, impossible and wrong.
“So, Santa. Where are your presents? Never got one. Not even as a kid.”
Santa pulled a book out of his pocket. It had a leather jacket and looked worn, ancient. Dust entered the room with it, old and stale. He flipped through a few pages, and after a while, his expression shifted. Pleasure, just a flicker.
“Here we go. You are an asshole for life. Born never to receive presents.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry. Some people are born with their assholes right on their forehead. You’re one of them.”
Max didn’t say anything. Santa pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
“Don’t worry. I was like you.”
“But... I had Melissa. You gave her a SIM card. And you didn’t think to give me anything? Like chocolate. Or socks. What kind of Santa are you?”
Santa lit a cigarette.
“One who follows protocol. Nothing personal.”
“Why did you give her that SIM card?”
Santa inhaled.
Exhaled.
Smoke drifted into the corners of the kitchen.
“To get away from you.”
Melissa grunting in her sleep. Turning away from him. Smell of whisky. Of course, she’d want to leave.
He used to make her laugh.
She deserved better now.
He didn’t know why she stayed this long anyway.
“So what’s next, Santa? I’m an asshole for life, and you’ll just keep ignoring me?”
“No.”
“So?”
Santa dropped the cigarette on the floor and crushed it under his boot. He glanced at the bottle. Almost empty.
“I am going to eat you now.”
“What? Eat me?”
Max’s heart kicked hard against his chest. Sleepneedle stung. Santa didn’t blink. His lips pulled back, almost a smile, revealing long, yellow teeth that had eaten people before.
“Protocol, nothing personal. I need to get rid of people who see me. Not fun, believe me. Ever eaten too much turkey?”
Santa lit another cigarette.
“Adults are the worst. Tougher meat. They taste dry.”
Santa’s stinking breath wrapped around Max, poisoning the air, thick and sour. It stuck to the soul. The clock on the wall beat like a second heart, counting him down. He had the bat, but no chance. He’d end up like many others who met Santa at the wrong time.
“One more drink, Santa? Reserved it for special moments.”
“Sure. I’ll empty this one before it goes bad.”
Santa poured himself another.
Max rose and went to the drawer. The empty bottle he’d hidden was still there. He wrapped his fingers around it and turned. It was heavy, too heavy for a bottle like that. Sweat blurred his vision.
Santa sat with his back to him, talking about something Max couldn’t hear.
White noise.
A train in his head.
Santa’s mouth kept moving.
The bottle rose and smashed down on Santa’s head.
It cracked like boots on winter ice.
He made a sound, tried to get up.
Max hit him again.
Again.
Santa mumbled.
Then the train went quiet.
And with it, the sleepneedle.
Blood covered the table. Something pale mixed in, but Max refused to look at it.
The stench of hot blood suffocated him.
He opened the window, breathing in the cold winter air.
Max dragged the body through the back door, leaving a trail across the floor. The snow turned red and muddy beneath him as he stumbled toward the old cistern. The metal cover was icy; his fingers burned when he forced it open.
Santa was heavy, but Max hauled him to the edge. One push, and the body fell into the dark. It hit the bottom with a dull thud.
Max closed the cover.
On his way back, he covered the red trail with fresh snow. Then he returned to the kitchen and started cleaning.
6 a.m.
Almost done.
He reached for a bottle.
Today was not a good day to stop.
He paused and looked at his hand.
A new finger. One too many.
The joints felt wrong.
Five of the six had a tattoo:
S A N T A
An old memory crawled up from a place he hadn’t known existed.
He forced it back down.
It wasn’t his.
“Max?”
Melissa was getting up. He couldn’t face her.
The blood was cleaned up, the stench mostly faded.
He could handle her looks when she saw the bottles and heard his excuses.
But he had six fingers. And a tattoo.
Not now.
He grabbed his jacket and fled the house.
Outside waited a truck.
A reindeer was painted on the hood. Below it, a Fraktur logo read:
Rudolf Logistics
The door unlocked as Max approached.
Ping, ping, ping.
He climbed inside, hands shaking.
“Fingerprint, please” said a kind, female voice.
A symbol appeared on the screen.
Max pressed his new finger on it.
“Welcome back, Santa. How do you feel today?”
Light flared in the house. Melissa was looking for him.
Max pushed the motor button. The engine woke beneath him, a low vibration without sound.
He looked at himself in the driving mirror.
Pulled back his lips.
Yellow, sharp teeth.
“Stay inside, Mel.”
Max put the truck in gear.
Asshole for life.
Asshole for eternity.
Sleepneedle placed second in Dylan Bosworth’s Christmas Noir challenge at Drek Death and Doom. Grateful to Dylan and the judges.
Photography by Franccesca Spinetti Collado , modified by Ashmore under the Unsplash license.
Congrats to you, man. Great read. Addiction sucks but also fuels good horror.
Loved this! Horror, despair, and little moments of comedy sprinkled through - a great mix, and I loved the way you wrapped it up.