Ho-Ho-Homicide Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Ho-Ho-Homicide

  For information on appearances, signings, autographed

  About the Author

  Also by John G. Hartness

  Ho-Ho-Homicide

  A Bubba the Monster Hunter Short Story

  John G. Hartness

  Falstaff Books

  Charlotte, NC

  Ho-Ho-Homicide

  A Bubba the Monster Hunter Short Story

  “I told you I hate Christmas, right?” I grumbled as I stepped through the automatic doors into my own version of hell: a mall in December.

  Skeeter’s voice chirped in my ear like a gay Southern Jiminy Cricket. “You’ve told me that at least a thousand times, you overgrown hillbilly grinch. But we’ve got a job to do, so shut up and head to the mall office.

  “You realize you ain’t told me what the job is yet, right?” I turned a corner between a Bath & Body Works and a Victoria’s Secret, paused for a minute in front of the lingerie store window to check out the sales girl, and continued on my way with the lead weight in my stomach just an ounce or two lighter for the good visual.

  “I know. You’ll see the job in just about six more feet.” Skeeter replied. Skeeter is kinda like the Oracle in the comic books, except he ain’t in a wheelchair, he ain’t a chick and he never was a superhero. Okay, so he’s nothing like Oracle, more like an irritating little shit that sits on his butt back at the office and yips at me like a chihuahua on crystal meth while I do all the dangerous work like killing zombies, fighting vampires, tracking down rakshasas, wrestling yeti or…

  “You are absolutely shitting me.” I said, stopping dead in the middle of the hall. “Oh, hell no!” I said to the air, turning on my heel and heading back the way I came.

  “Bubba, you gotta.” Skeeter wheedled.

  “I ain’t gotta do nothin’ but pay taxes and die. And we ain’t too sure about the whole dying part.”

  “And you don’t pay taxes, but that’s beside the point.”

  “I don’t make no money, Skeeter. I’m too busy saving the damn world for your Uncle Father Joe.” It’s not some kind of Big Love thing, Skeeter’s Uncle Joe is a Catholic priest, so he really is Uncle Father Joe. He gets Skeeter and me our assignments, and he and Skeeter do something to make sure the rent gets paid and I have beer money. And I drink a lot. Come to think of it, I was headed to the bar right that second when a stone-cold, dead-sexy, knock your jawbone in the dirt and put a whole lotta lead in your pencil hottie came around the corner and gave me a hug like I was her long-lost prom date or something.

  “Oh thank goodness you’re here!” She squealed, and hugged me again. Since the last women I saw that looked this good was on a stage wearing four-inch platform heels and tassels that spun in opposite directions, I was pretty sure this was a case of mistaken identity.

  “Did you forget your glasses, honey?” I put my baseball glove-sized hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her back a little from me. This not only gave her a little more room to look at me and decide I wasn’t whoever she thought I was, it gave me a little room to breath before my appreciation of her perkiness became a little too obvious for a hug, if you know what I mean.

  “I don’t wear glasses, silly. I’d know you anywhere. You’re Santa Bubba! Father Joe told me to expect you tonight, and he said I should be your extra-special elf helper.” She gave me what I’m sure she thought was a conspiratorial wink, but really looked like she’d had a stroke. Or maybe a palsy.

  “Oh, he did, did he?” I asked in that tone of voice I use to make Skeeter leave, but this cutie was stuck to me like glue. She took my right hand on both of hers and started pulling me back down the hallway I’d been trying to escape from. It looked kinda like a speedboat trying to steer an aircraft carrier, but I figured I’d go along with it for a while. After all, she was eight shades of hot.

  “What’s your name, darling?” I asked, finally giving in and walking down the hall with her.

  “Collette. I’m a novice at St. Cecilia’s.” She saw I was following of my own accord, so she stopped dragging me and skipped ahead of me a few steps. Skipped. Like on the playground, skipped. I did not skip along with her, but I did appreciate the way it made things on her bounce.

  “Skeeter!” I whispered sharply.

  “Yeah, Bubba. I see you’ve met your assistant for this job.”

  “She’s a nun, Skeeter!”

  “Technically she’s a novice. She hasn’t taken her permanent vows yet.”

  “She’s hot!”

  “Well, good. You’ll enjoy that, I’m sure.”

  “I can’t be around a hot nun! It ain’t right. I might…do something. Or something.” That sounded stupid even for me, but I didn’t have anything better.

  “I’m pretty sure she ain’t gonna do anything, no matter what you want to do. And Uncle Father Joe says she’s real smart about this kind of gig.”

  “Yeah, about that…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you ever gonna tell me what kind of gig this is, or am I just gonna start killing anything weird? And in a mall at Christmas, there’s a lot of weird, and whole lot of just damn annoying.”

  “One thing at a time. Go with Collette and get your uniform.” I looked at where the sexy nun had stopped in front of a door in the hallway and just stood there, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. I tried not to look at her boobs. I swear I did. But I’m only human, and she was bouncing up and down a lot. I went to where she was standing there, and she pointed to the door.

  “OH. HELL. NO. I don’t care if Jesus himself said so, THAT ain’t happening!” I pointed to the door, shook my head, and turned to go. But Collette was fast, and standing in front of me again before I even finished the turn. She stood there, blonde hair in pigtails, blue eyes looking up at me from where she stood, all five foot five and maybe a hundred-twenty pounds, and she dropped a pout on me that would make the Gerber baby proud.

  “Please?” She said so softly and sweetly that I thought my own momma couldn’t have asked me any sweeter. My resolve started to waver, but then the door opened and six guys in red suits with white fur trim clumped out, Santas heading out to the mall for their shifts. My resolve harden as I watched those scruffy sad-sack Santas walk down the fluorescent hallway like they were going to the electric chair, an electric chair soaked in the pee of six-year-olds.

  “No way, Sister.” I nodded my head to her, and that was a mistake. As I dipped my head, she brought out the big guns. She unclasped her hands from behind her back and clasped them together in front of her belt buckle instead, turning up the power on her wistful, pleading smile and shoving her 32 double d’s right up front and center. I looked. I went to confession for it every day for a month, but I looked. And they were some remarkable boobs, too.

  “Please?” She had me. She knew she had me, so reaching up to tickle my beard was just icing on the cake. All my resolve melted into a ginormous puddle right there in the hallway, and I went into the Santa dressing room as meek as warm milk.

  I came out a few minutes later dressed in a Santa suit, shiny patent leather boots, toy sack, fuzzy hat and all. I carried the fake beard, though. I had some dignity left. That flew right out the window when Collette walked up to me dressed like the hottest damn elf I’d ever seen. She was rocking the pointy shoes, green tights that went all the way up to about Canada, and a red and green smock thing that stopped somewhere slightly north of decent, not that I was complaining. I couldn’t see any hint of pants under the smock, and that sent my mind spinning off in all kinds of directions that should never be considered with a nun in the room.

  “You look great!” She chirped, and I grunted at her in reply. I wasn’t sure I could open
my mouth without drooling all over her, and I figured even a nun would draw the line somewhere.

  “Follow me,” she said, skipping off back down the hall towards the main part of the mall. I followed her like the world’s biggest five-year-old, dragging my beard along behind me. I did stop and put the stupid thing on before I got to the mall, though.

  “All right, Skeeter. We’re here and in costume. What’s the plan?” I whispered, looking out into the maelstrom of overweight shoppers and screaming kids.

  His voice rang in my ear like an out of tune ukulele, which is three of the ten most irritating sounds in the world. “Now you take over for the afternoon shift Santa and try to find the pixies that have been causing so much trouble.”

  “Pixies? Like the goth band?”

  “No, jackass, like the fairy creatures. Pixies.”

  “Seriously, Skeeter? You sent me out here, got me dressed in this stupid costume and made me get all hot and bothered over a nun just to catch Tinkerbelle? I think there might be a better use of our time, don’t you? Like drinking beer and watching football.”

  “The pixie or pixies that have taken up residence in this mall have killed three people in the past two weeks, Bubba.”

  “How the hell does Tinkerbelle kill anybody?” I asked.

  Collette came back to grab my arm and start dragging me through the mall, making me look even more insane than if I had been standing in one place talking to myself wearing a Santa suit. At least the Bluetooth thingy was sticking out of my beard so people could see I wasn’t completely insane. Unless they heard me talking about pixies, that is.

  “Pixies are vicious little buggers, man.” Skeeter chattered away at me while I tried to look down the nun’s shirt. It wasn’t my proudest moment, but she wasn’t a full nun, so I figured I’d only go a little ways to hell for it.

  Skeeter went on. “Pixies are a lot more like miniature Wolverines than Tinkerbelles. They’ve got razor-sharp claws and fly faster than hummingbirds. There’s a pack of them infesting the mall and they’ve been responsible for three dead bodies. Or at least skeletons. By the time the pixies get finished going all Edward Scissorhands on them, there’s nothing left but bone. This might be grosser than zombies.”

  “So I’m chasing hummingbirds with claws. Great. Bertha might be a little overkill for this one.” Bertha is my .50 Chrome-plated Desert Eagle. She’s my best friend. Skeeter comes in a distant second, ‘cause Bertha never argues with me or gives me crap for spending too much time drunk in titty bars.

  “Yeah, I think you might have better luck with a smaller weapon this mission, Bubba.”

  “Sorry about that, Skeeter, my weapon don’t come in a size small.” I laughed at my own joke and saw the tips of Collette’s ears turn red. Shit, I didn’t mean for her to hear that. “Sorry, sister.”

  “It’s okay, Bubba Santa. I’m not a sister yet. I mean, I am, because I have three brothers, but I’m not a sister sister yet. I’m just a regular sister. You know?”

  “Yeah, I get it.” I whispered to Skeeter. “Is this chick for real?”

  “Dumb and cute, just like you like ‘em.”

  “Yeah, and getting ready to be married to God. And that’s a jealous husband I ain’t messing around with.”

  “Oh good, you’re not a total jackass.” I could see Skeeter grinning in his little nerd Command Central, enjoying my torture.

  “If I’m not a total jackass, you couldn’t prove it by my clothes. Or this place.” This place was Santa’s Workshop, the center of hell on earth. Also the scene of my greatest embarrassment, and that bar’s set pretty high. There was a line of screaming, snot-nosed brats about two hundred deep waiting to sit on Santa’s lap. My lap. The line snaked its way through mountains of fake snow populated with giant candy canes, inflatable reindeer, cheesy snowman decorations and in the ultimate mixing of metaphors, about two-thirds of a nativity scene. I looked around, but couldn’t see any sheep, just three wise men, Mary, Joseph, a manger with a baby doll in it and two four-foot tall plastic camels standing in a knee-deep pile of fake snow. There was even a Star of Bethlehem that size of a camel hanging over the manger on a bent coat hanger.

  I looked up to heaven, which was really the ceiling of the mall with giant colored balls hanging down at varying heights, and said “God, if you’re listening, I apologize for all my redneck brethren. They really know not what they do. Or in our vernacular, bless their hearts.”

  “Damn, Bubba,” Skeeter let out a low whistle. “I didn’t know you knew what a vernacular was, much less how to use it in a sentence.” He actually sounded impressed.

  “Kiss my ass, Skeeter. It was on that Word of the Day calendar you gave me for Christmas last year.” I followed Collette around the mob of kids screaming for Santa, and we ducked into Santa’s house where I stopped cold as the afternoon Santa was standing there with no pants on.

  “Little bastard pissed on me.” The old man grumbled, pulling on a pair of red sweatpants and tossing his soiled costume pants into a laundry hamper in the corner of Santa’s shack. Obviously this had happened before. “I hope you brought a spare pair of pants, rookie. These little shits have all had their afternoon snack. I bet you don’t get through eight of them before one lets flow on your leg.”

  “I got that covered, gramps.” I said, slipping my beard into place and shouldering past him and out onto my throne. Collette followed me, grabbing a belt full of candy canes from the afternoon elf as she passed. I stood at the door of my hut and looked out at the line of children. They all stared back up at Super-Sized Santa, all six-five, three hundred forty pounds of me. I slapped my belly like a sumo wrestler and let out a thunderous “Ho, Ho, Ho! Who wants to be the first good little boy or girl to sit on Santa’s lap?”

  I leaned into the first mother’s face, a twenty-something soccer mom with store-bought boobs and five-hundred dollar shoes and grinned. “Have you been a good girl this year?” I leered at her.

  To my surprise, she didn’t run screaming into the mall, just pushed me back into my chair, hopped onto my knee and purred into my beard “No, I haven’t, but if Santa behaves himself, maybe I’ll think about being very naughty.” She gave me a laugh and plopped a toddler onto my other knee. “Tell Santa what you want for Christmas this year, Avery.”

  Little Avery might have weight thirty pounds soaking wet and looked up at me like I was either the scariest thing she’d ever seen, or the strangest. I was probably both. She sat there staring up at me for a good thirty seconds before she screwed her face up into a scowl and started to screech at me. Her mother gave me a quick hug and a kiss, whispering “I’ll be back alone tomorrow night right before the mall closes” into my beard before taking the squalling Avery off into the night, leaving a giggling elf and a confused Santa watching her walk away.

  I made it through the first three hours without anyone peeing on me, barfing on me or pulling my beard off, but I did have one close call with a six-year-old boy who got a lollipop stuck in my beard and ripped about half the fake hairs out before he popped the sucker back in his mouth, recycled fake hair and all. I made promises of ponies, Barbies, Playstations and a couple of brothers and sisters for pregnant mommies. I was just about to wave Collette over to hang up our break sign when one more woman came walking up slowly. She had a dirty-faced kid with her and I swear I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. But when she sat down on my lap and gave me a big hug, she was all little girl. Even as dirty as she was, she still smelled like innocence, the way only little girls can.

  “And what’s your name, little princess?” I asked in my jolliest Santa voice.

  “Amanda.” She said into my chest, never looking me in the eye. She might have been eight or nine, just old enough to start not believing, but still young enough to want to believe.

  “And what would you like Santa to bring you for Christmas this year?”

  Nothing. She didn’t say a word. I looked over at Collette, but she just shrugged. The mother wouldn’t meet my
eyes either, so there was no help coming from that corner.

  “Would you like Santa to bring you a new dollie?” I faked a laugh as I said it, making my belly shake more like a pitcher of beer than a bowlful of jelly, but hopefully she wouldn’t know the difference.

  The little girl just shook her head into my beard.

  “How about a bicycle?” She shook her head again.

  “A pony?” I was really running out of ideas now. All the girls I associated with were a lot older, and most of them were more interested in gold and platinum, preferably in the shape of credit cards. She just shook her head.

  “Then what can Santa bring you for Christmas this year?” I gently pried the little girl off my chest and looked her in the eye.

  She stared at me for a long time, then said “Are you really Santa?”

  “Well, of course I’m really Santa Claus! Don’t I have a red coat?”

  She nodded.

  “Don’t I have a white beard?”

  Another nod.

  “Doesn’t he have a big belly?” Collette chimed in.

  Another nod.

  “Don’t help, elf Collette.” I grumbled. “But since I’m obviously Santa Claus, what do you want for Christmas?” I was really needing to take a leak myself by this point, and I wanted nothing more than to get this kid off my lap, disinfect the pants, and stand up for about five minutes.

  She stared at me for a long time, then I saw her lips move. I couldn’t hear her, so I leaned forward, waving for her to repeat herself.

  “I want a place to live, Santa.”

  I sat back in my chair, staring at the little girl on my lap. I looked at her mismatched clothes, threadbare coat and gloves, and then looked closer at her mother. She was wearing the kind of stuff the thrift store throws away, and she had the drawn look about her face that said she was used to missing a few meals here and there.

  “Where do you live now, sweetheart?” I asked as gently as I could, leaning back down to the girl so no one, not even Collette, could hear her response.