Page 4 of Christmas Eve with Krampus

All along, old snow crunches under my foot, snagging the heel of my shoe; I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve had to yank one out of a particularly thick patch, nearly sleeping when I pulled too hard. The second I catch the faint, tinkling sound, I dig my heels into the ground, whipping my head around in search of it.

My heart’s suddenly pounding so loudly in my chest, it drowns it out. And then?—

Jingle bells,

Jingle bells,

Jingle all the way…

It’s “Jingle Bells”. Someone is playing “Jingle Bells” with, well, actual bells.

I might have arrived in Blackmoor two weeks ago, but Christmas starts the day after Thanksgiving in my family. Even if we’re mostly estranged now, old traditions die hard, and the old radio in my beater of a car has been turned to the holiday station since the end of November.

I know “Jingle Bells”. And, yeah, it’s almost Christmas… but after hours where the slight whistle of the wind and my own muttered curses were all I could make out in the eerily quiet forest, why the hell do I hear “Jingle Bells”?

I’m not sure, but I can’t imagine a monster playing the old-timey Christmas song. Is there another human in here? One of the council members walking around the forest, entertaining themselves with the music?

I don’t know, and I’m not about to find out.

Sorry. I’m not going to be that naive idiot who’s like, ‘what’s that noise?’, follows it, and gets killed for it. Nope. Not me. I hear the creepy—because it’s totally creepy—Christmas music on the breeze and decide it’s a much smarter idea to head in the opposite direction.

I usually know exactly where I’m going. Even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t take much to find the tracks the points of my annoying heels left and follow them back. I’m lucky enough that my hip’s holding out and the growing breeze isn’t making my normal level of pain any worse, but right now? I put a little extra oomph into my fast-paced walk away from the music.

Maybe I didn’t walk all that fast. Maybe—after hours of traipsing through the woods in thirty-degree weather—my body was given out a bit.

Or maybe the monsters in the woods found a way to surround me before I even knew they were there… because, holy shit, more than a few somethings are currently blocking my path forward.

I swallow roughly, ready to rub my eyes. I mean, I have to be seeing things. It’s dark, gloomy, and though I’ve gotten used to it, my eyes must be playing tricks on me because why am I suddenly staring down a crew of lawn gnomes?

That’s what they look like. They would barely come up to my knee if they were standing in front of me, and each one has a blood-red pointed cap covering their heads. Large, pointed ears peek out over the sides of the caps, and when one points at me with an unusually long and slender finger, the tinkle of Christmas bells follow his gesture.

These little men look like freaking gnomes—and they’re alive.

Staring at them instead of clutching my hip in one hand, the heft of my skirt in the other, and high-tailing it in a new direction is my biggest mistake. Because those little gnome things? They’re fucking fast. I heard one utter a single word reverentially—“Toymaker”—before they’re pouncing right at me.

“What the fuck?” One has my left hand. Another lands on my bare shoulder with his curly-toes shoes, grabbing a fistful of hair. Two fight over my skirt, while another ducks under it, trying to buckle my knees. I kick out, but miss as I shriek, “Let go of me!”

“Toymaker!”

“Bring her to the Toymaker!”

“The master needs a bride!”

What?

After Colin dumped me, a broken-hearted Josie decided marriage was off the table for a long, long time. Maybe when I was thirty-five, my hip was miraculously better, and I’d got my shit together, I might entertain the idea. Until then, I had a couple of flings, one or two long-term boyfriends that I dumped before it got that serious, and more than a few one-night-stands.

But ‘bride’? What the fuck is going on here? I just needed to survive three days… nowhere did I sign up to be any monster’s bride?

I fling my arm, sending one of those gnome things flying. A well-timed kick has the one under my skirt going down, and I only hope that he’s not getting up again anytime soon. Grabbing the one whose clutching my hair is a little more tricky since he pulls every time I do, but I’m not being taking out by… by…

Fucking elves!

“Get. Off.”

“Toymaker—”

Fuck this Toymaker. “I said, get off!”

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