Deck The Halls With Brand New Stories: Ho Ho Holiday Anthology

Christmas Booty Call

This story was contributed by RodneyVSmith

Ka-chunk!

That was the universally recognized sound of a shotgun loading, and it was enough to make the man dressed in an ill-fitting Santa Claus outfit, freeze in his tracks.

"Who the hell are you?" Rebecca asked in her best Clint Eastwood expression. She was behind the business end of a shotgun and had it aimed directly at the intruder coming through her window, so the gruff voice had felt appropriate, especially since she was terrified out of her mind. She had cocked the shotgun as she aimed and now felt like a total badass.

All of a sudden Rebecca really, really needed to pee.

The definitely-fake-Santa still had one leg out the window and was awkwardly balanced, almost to the point of falling over. He teetered uncertainly and looked up at Rebecca for the first time, his fake Santa-beard swaying and then ultimately falling to the ground. The face underneath the hat was way too young, the features too chiselled and perfect to be anywhere in the vicinity of a Santa Claus suit. The dark stubble on his face framed lips that, in any other circumstance, would have been immensely kissable.

"Please don't shoot!" he pleaded.

"Don't move!" Rebecca snarled, startled beyond belief, and why the hell was her heart thumping away in her chest like that? It had to be fear, right? After all, this man was breaking into her house! In the middle of the night! Rebecca shook it off, whatever it was and steeled herself.

"Make one move, and I'll shoot," she said, but her heart really wasn't into it anymore. Weren't burglars supposed to be all mean-looking and criminal types, whatever that meant? They weren't supposed to look like they had just stepped off the cover of a magazine. And they definitely weren't supposed to be wearing Santa Claus outfits! Rebecca found herself wondering what the man looked like under the Santa outfit.

"I'm about to fall over!" Fake-Santa warned, wobbling even more uncertainly, his hands wavering in the air as he fought for balance.

"Fall over, and I shoot!"

"Shoot me and you're definitely going on the naughty list—" Fake Santa said, except the last word was cut off as he lost the fight with gravity.

Fake Santa fell over.

It was like watching a tree fall, except it was a tree with slowly moving and then rapidly flailing arms. He collapsed next to the half-decorated actual tree in the room. The tree that was way too tall for the room.

The last foot of the tree was bent against the ceiling since Rebecca's dad had first insisted that the tree wasn't too big, and then when he had been proven wrong, he had refused to cut off any part of the tree. She and her dad had spent half the day looking for the damned thing, and the "adventure" that had started off so jauntily had just gotten more frustrating as they had driven from one lot to the next looking for the perfect one to cut down. By the time they had settled on a pre-cut tree and manhandled it onto the top of the car, Rebecca had been threatened with being grounded for Christmas although she was eighteen, just for suggesting that they put up the fake tree instead. But no: this tree was a symbol of stubborn honour for her dad, and they were getting a real tree so they could have a proper Christmas, dammit.

Rebecca had fallen asleep on the couch while decorating it to be ready for Christmas morning. She had no idea where her dad was.

That symbol of honour trembled as Fake Santa collapsed against it before hitting the floor. Then with a sense of inevitability and a big middle-finger for not having a ceiling high enough to contain it, the tree wobbled and fell over onto the Fake Santa. The cheap ornamental balls from Ikea shook loose and bounced all over the room, just to drive home the point.