SOS HOTEL: Ho, Ho, No

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

The Winter Wonderland section sparkled and twinkled. Knee-high gnomes with murder grins all glared in our direction. Even the ones who were fishing looked as though they’d escaped a gnome asylum.

“The chance of that miniature army of ankle biters coming alive is one hundred fuckin’ percent. Right?” Zee said, clutching his spork while his tail swished.

“Can Santa do that? Make things come alive?” I asked Victor, who was standing to my left and glaring at the winter doom tunnel.

“I cannot say for certain either way. We should expect the worst.”

“At least they’re not frogs.” Zee shuddered.

Okay. We were here. And this needed to be done. “I’ll go in first?—”

“No, what?!” Zee blocked my path.

And of course Victor added, “I do not approve.”

“Look, I’m the most human out of the three of us—” They both gave me disbelieving looks, so I quickly rushed on. “I’m the one who looks like bait. Zee, you’re seven feet of demon badass. And Victor, honestly, your murder-daddy vibes are off the charts, which is great, but if we’re going to lure Santa out of his grotto, we need something cute—like me.” I shrugged. It was true. I’d made it true by being small and squishy and harmless looking. We all knew I wasn’t small, or squishy, or harmless, but that wasn’t the point.

Zee was shaking his head. “I think we should wait and call Agent L’Oréal.”

“You mean Agent Leomaris?” Victor corrected.

“That’s what I said.”

“No, Leomaris is just as likely to arrest us as help us. We’ve got this. We’re badasses, right?”

“I mean...” Zee shrugged a shoulder and begrudgingly mumbled, “I’m a badass. Lord Fang-Banger is okay if he stays awake.”

“It’s just some fake snow and weird chubby gnomes that can’t be any worse than gremlins, and we’ve dealt with lots of those. And that’s even if they come alive. Maybe they won’t?”

Zee snorted a laugh. “Have you met us, Kitten? This is classic SOS Hotel night-out happenings. It starts off fine, then wham, some fucker screws it all up, we get kidnapped, Fancy Daddy falls asleep, and I have to save everyone.”

“I was tranquilized during the incident you are referring to,” Victor quickly clarified.

“Still asleep.”

It didn’t always happen like that.

I pulled the table knife from my pocket and faced the glistening wintery tunnel mouth. “I’m going in.”

As they didn’t immediately stop me, I started forward, one foot in front of the other. Maybe they would stop me? I had argued for them not to stop me, but... A glance behind revealed Zee with his thumbs up and Victor looking grumpy. Okay. They’d listened and were hanging back, waiting for Santa to make an appearance.

And... why had I been so adamant I’d go first?

I flexed my grip on the table knife and entered gnome alley. Too many lights twinkled, shifting shadows around and distorting the gnomes’ smiles. Whoever had made this display clearly hadn’t considered what it would look like at night while being hunted by a child-eater.

“Do you hear what I hear . . .”

The creepy music was back.

But that was fine.

Music never hurt anyone.

I swallowed the sharp lump in my throat and pushed on.

Had the gnomes always faced toward me? I thought they’d been watching the entrance?

No, nope, the creepy gnomes hadn’t moved, it was just my own mind playing tricks. They were not coming alive.

“Do you know what I know . . .”

Yeah, probably not.

The blunt table knife in my grip shimmered.

Strings of white fairy lights strobed.

“Come out, Santa,” I crooned. “I’ve been a good boy.” Mostly. Lately. Not so much before that, but those were extenuating circumstances.

The song ended, a crackly record clicked over, and the opening plink-plings of a Mariah Carey track Zee assured me was popular at this time of year began to play . “I don’t want a lot for Christmas...”

“Fuck yeah!” Zee announced.

I turned back to see him flick his hair, crack his knuckles, and strut forward. He raised his spork like a microphone, sashayed to the beat, and sang at the top of his voice. And since he had a generous pair of lungs, he belted out the lyrics in a voice made for theater.

When he reached me, he sang, “All I waaaant for Christmaaas iiiiiiiiiiiis yooooooooou...” And took my hand, yanking me into his embrace. “Go with it.” He winked and we were off, strutting down the snowy tunnel, lit by flashing lights. Zee grabbed a fluffy red pointed hat off a gnome and popped it on my head.

I mean, I’m not going to lie, Zee’s energy was infectious. And within a few steps I was jiving along, scary gnomes forgotten, murder-Santa shoved to the back of my mind while Zee and I danced and he belted out Mariah Carey’s money-making hit.

Were the lights getting brighter?

It didn’t matter—Zee and I were killing it. I could dance, and this was just like when Victor had taken me to the swing club. My heart soared, my grin ached. So what if something mean was out there that likely wanted us dead. Zee lived for the moment, and right now, so did I.

There was no way Santa could ignore Zee, even if he wanted to.

We approached the end of the tunnel as Mariah reached her climax. Zee pranced ahead, struck a pose, and belted out that final high-pitched “yoooooouuuuuu” into his spork microphone.

The music faded. I clapped, thrilled, and Zee cut off, grinning. Soaking up my praise, he took an exaggerated bow and said into his spork, “Thank you, thank you. I’m here all week.”

“Ho, ho, ho...” A deep, thunderous voice rumbled from all around.

I stopped clapping.

Zee jolted upright, and spun to face a sparkly shed adorned with fake gingerbread panels, that looked like either something a witch baked to lure human babies inside, or Santa’s grotto—it was all sort of the same. Human fairy tales are real dark.

The gingerbread door flung open, and a jolly overweight bearded man wearing red felt weebled out. He looked harmless. But if you were a child-eating mass murderer, what better disguise than a jolly old man who gave out gifts? I should know, one carnivore-in-disguise to another.

“Ho, ho, ho!”

Zee side-eyed me. “The fuck?”

I wasn’t sure whether this was our murderer or someone’s grandpa in a suit either.

“Have you both been good?” He plodded closer.

Yeah, okay... I was beginning to get the ick now.

“Santa knows all your wishes and desires. Sit on my knee and I’ll give you all you could ever wish for.”

“Yeah...” Zee grimaced and took a step back. “I’m good. Adam? You good?”

“I’m good.”

“Ho, ho, ho! I like good boys!”

“Yup, Kitten.” Zee spoke from the corner of his mouth. “I be gettin’ serious predator vibes off Mr. Happy Pedo, and not just the weird kind.”

Santa opened his arms and kept on waddling forward, as though we’d just happily hug a random person in a scratchy felt suit. His grin stretched, and beneath those plump lips, jagged teeth began to fill his mouth.

“Oh-kay . . .” Zee recoiled.

Santa’s shoulders twitched, jolting at odd angles. His neck bent, and his large body began to ripple in ways human bodies did not ripple. Glamor. And it was unraveling fast. Beneath the melting Santa mask, a jagged, woody, skeletal figure emerged.

“Ho, ho, fuck no!” Zee stabbed his spork into Santa’s thigh and sprang back. We all stopped to stare at the spork sticking out of Santa’s flesh, and Santa looked down, as shocked as we were to see the spork there—in his leg.

I had a horrible feeling about this.

A creepy, about-to-be-murdered feeling.

Santa’s glamor collapsed, exposing his towering, skeletal figure. Murder-Santa flung out dagger-length claws and roared around a lashing forked tongue.

Zee grabbed my arm and we bolted back into the tunnel. Mariah started up again, but the music had slowed, warping it like Santa’s jolly glamor had melted, and turning Mariah’s iconic voice into a monstrously twisted, howling version.

We shot out the end of the tunnel like two rounds from a shotgun, and Victor tore out of the tunnel behind us, then quickly piled some of the Christmas gnomes on top of the snowy blanket to keep Santa from escaping.

Santa’s screeching roar echoed through the store, reaching every nook and aisle.

“Run!” Victor yelled.