A Yuletide Universe

by Brian M. Thomsen

Genres: Anthologies; Science Fiction

Synopsis

Get yourself into the Christmas spirit with this powerhouse collection of Christmas stories from some of the world's greatest writers. The contributors to this Christmas anthology include well-known writers with strong fan followings such as Bram Stoker; Hugo Award-winning author of American Gods, Neil Gaiman; Hugo Award winner, Connie Willis; Anne McCaffrey; Harlan Ellison; Clive Barker; and many others. Curl up in front of a fireplace with this memorable anthology of 16 short stories. Hot cocoa is also recommended.

Release date: June 27, 2009

Publisher: Aspect

Print pages: 274

Sample

William Gibson

* * *

In the night of 12/24/07, though sensors woven through the very fabric of the house had thus far registered a complete absence
of sentient bio-activity, I found myself abruptly summoned from a rare, genuine, and very expensively induced example of that
most priceless of states, sleep.


Even as I hurriedly dressed, I knew that dozens of telepresent armed-response drones would already be sweeping in from the
District, skimming mere inches above the chill surface of the Potomac. Vicious tri-lobed aeroforms that they were, they resembled
nothing more than the Martian war machines of George Pal’s 1953 epic, The War of the Worlds.

And while, from somewhere far above, now, came that sound, that persistent clatter, as though gunships disgorged whole platoons of iron-shod mercenaries, I could only wonder: who? Was it my estranged wife,
the Lady Betsy-Jayne Motel-6 Hyatt, Chief Eco-trustee of the Free Duchy of Wyoming? Or was it Cleatus “Mainframe” Sinyard
himself, president of the United States and perpetual co-chairman of the Concerned Smart People’s Northern Hemisphere Co-prosperity
Sphere?


“You’re mumbling again, big guy,” said Memory, shivering into hallucinatorily clear focus on the rumpled sheets, her thighs
warm and golden against the Royal Stewart flannel. She adjusted the nosecones of her chrome bustier. “Also, you’re on the
verge of a major fashion crime.”


I froze, the starched white tails of an Elmore of Shinjuku evening shirt, half-tucked into the waistband of a favorite pair
of lovingly mended calfskin jodhpurs. She was right. Pearl buttons scattered like a flock of minuscule flying saucers as I
tore myself out of the offending Elmore. I swiftly chose a classic Gap T-shirt and a Ralph Lauren overshirt in shotgun-distressed
ochre corduroy. The Gap T’s double-knit liquid crystal began to cycle sluggishly in response to body-heat, displaying crudely
animated loops of once-famous televangelists of the previous century, their pallid flanks streaked with the sweat of illicit
sexual exertion. Now that literally everything was digital, History and Image were no more than Silly Putty in the hands of anyone with a BFA and a backer in Singapore.
But that was just the nature of Postmodernity, and, frankly, it suited me right down to the ground.


“Visitors upstairs, chief,” she reminded me pointlessly, causing me to regret not having invested in that last chip-upgrade.
“Like on the roof.”


“How many?” And this was Samsung-Sears’s idea of an expert system?


“Seventeen, assuming we’re talking bipeds.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That Nintendo-Dow micropore sensor-skin you had ’em stretch over the RealistiSlate? After those Colombian bush ninjas from
the Slunk Cartel tried to get in through the toilet-ventilators? Well, that stuff’s registering, like, hooves. Tiny ones. Unless this is some kinda major Jersey Devil infestation, I make it eight quadrupeds—plus one definite biped.”


“It can’t be Sinyard then.” I holstered a 3mm Honda and pocketed half a dozen spare ampules of gel. “He’d never come alone.”

“So maybe that’s the good news, but I gotta tell you, this guy weighs in at close to one-forty kilos. And wears size eleven-and-a-half
boots. As an expert system, I’d advise you to use the Mossad & Wesson bullpup, the one with the subsonic witness-protection
nozzles—” She broke off, as if listening to something only she could hear. “Uh-oh,” she said, “I think he’s coming down the
chimney . . .”

Richard Christian Matheson

* * *

It was sunset. The inn was settling into night and vacationers wandered up from the beach, tired and sunburned. It was very
hot in Bermuda—like a desert with an azure sea seeping from one side.


The waiter brought my drink and I rested my feet on the patio wall overlooking the ocean. As the sea churned easily, wearily
from its day, a man sat down next to me. His hair was white and there wasn’t much of it. His skin was fair, almost pink, cheeks
sunburned and high. About sixty to seventy, I figured.


“Mind?” he asked, half-finished drink in hand.

“I could use the company.” He seemed harmless enough.

He settled down into the chaise, and together we watched the waves spreading over the sand and retreating. Birds with long,
thin legs sprinted awkwardly over the sand and eventually lifted skyward.


“Flyin’s a hell of a thing,” he observed, after a long sip.

“I can’t do it,” I agreed, and he smiled.

“Where you from?” he asked, eyes sizing me.

“Los Angeles. Just down for some sun and free time.” A waiter in penguin-proper sidled over and the man ordered us another
round.


“My treat,” he offered. “Makes me feel good.”

I nodded thanks as he winked paternally.

“What’s your name?” he asked, taking another swallow.

“Karl,” I answered, ready for trouble. The way I saw it, paternal winkers always made trouble for you one way or another.

“Pretty nice,” he appraised its sound. “Karl . . . yeah, pretty damn nice.”

“Thanks,” I said, growing less than fascinated with the exchange. I decided not to ask his name. Why wave the red cape.

“Say, Karl, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

No objection, so he went ahead.

“What did you get for Christmas last year?”

I swallowed a mouthful of ice after crushing it to bits.

“What?” I was starting to feel the liquor.

“For Christmas . . . what did you get?”

“You serious?” He was looking a bit sloshy himself, wiping his mouth with one hand, thoughtfully, drunkenly.

He gestured away my stinginess and I nodded unenthusiastically.

“Power saw from the wife, shirts and a record from the kids, binoculars from the folks, and a wine-making kit from the people
in my department.” I tinkled the ice around in my glass. “Oh, and this magazine I subscribe to, Realtors Life, sent me a barometer with an escrow chart. Helps you figure percentages.”


The other round arrived and he paid the waiter. Tipped him good.

He sighed as he mumbled through my recitation of gifts. “What was the record?” he asked.

“Music from Hatari. Horrible stuff. Oboes imitating rhinos, you know?”


He nodded and swallowed half his new drink with a liquidy gobble. We didn’t say anything else for a few minutes. Some of the
inn workers came by, and lit the tiki torches and we watched them. Bugs were flying around, drawn to the glow. We swatted
one or two.


“I love it down here,” he said, voice blurry. “Just wish the hell I had the time to get away more often.”

He looked at me with bloodshot eyes. “But in distribution . . . who has time to vacation?”

How the hell did I know? I sold condos and houses and made deals for closing costs and termite inspections. Dullest stuff
in the world. Distribution was for pamphlets dropped from helicopters, as far as I could tell.


“Yeah,” I answered, being polite. Why get a paternal winker mad if it could be avoided?

The sea was glowing from a butter-colored moon, and the man shifted in the chaise.

“How’d you like the power saw?” he asked.

“Not bad. Blades were pot metal, though. Break like icicles.” Nosy guy.

“Yeah, I know the one.” He reached a hand out to mine. We were both woozy. “I like you,” he said. Drunks always said that,
in my experience.


“I like you, too,” I said. “But I didn’t catch the name.” When they stick their hands out, you have to ask.

He winked at me as our hands met, under that butter-moon.

“Santa,” he whispered, leaning in close, breath like a scythe.

I looked at him with a half-smile.

“Beg your pardon?”

“Santa,” he repeated, nodding happily.

“As in Claus?”

“Well, of course. What else?”

I tried to not look any different. Why upset him?

“Sorry,” I said.

He pulled back and yawned.

“Yeah, well . . . anyhow, I’ll be leaving first thing in the morning. Have to get back to my place up north. Me and the wife
have tons of work.” He laughed a little; a tiny, drunken, aren’t-things-ironic laugh. “Christ, it’s already bloody May. Practically
no time to do anything. Glad we had a chance to shoot the breeze, though.”


He stretched and yawned again, spilling some of his drink onto the patio where just he and I sat, the warm breezes blowing.

“Oh,” I said, watching him from the corner of my eye. The insane look different, my father once told me. Just look closely and you can see it.

“Anyhow, you have a nice trip back to . . .”

“Los Angeles,” I reminded him, finishing off my drink.

“Right,” he nodded. “Say, care for another drink? I can have the waiter get you another . . . just say the word.”

I declined the offer. Don’t get indebted to nuts. Another piece of advice. That one from my mother.

He turned to go.

“Hey, by the way, Karl . . .”

Yes, Santa? I couldn’t bring the words to my mouth.


“Yes?” I said.

“Sorry about all that junk you got. I just can’t seem to get those little bastards of mine to turn out any decent work. But
I’ll try and drop off something this year you’ll like.”


I must have smirked.

“Need an address?” I asked. I was smirking for sure.

He stopped dead in his tracks, looking hurt.

“Address? You putting me on?” His eyes were still twinkling, but they looked a little miffed. “I’m Santa Claus. I know where
you live.”


He stared at me and I stared back. Hard to know what to say at a moment like that.

“Tell me something,” I said. “How come when I was eight, you didn’t bring me that autographed picture of Joe DiMaggio I asked
for? I wrote to you and everything.”


He looked uncomfortable. “Well, sometimes it doesn’t go the way I’d like,” he managed, looking away in what seemed like troubled
thought.


“Oh,” I said, “sorry. Didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”

He nodded, seeming to accept the apology, though obviously put off. I suddenly felt awful.

“Forget it,” he said quietly. “It’s not your fault. I probably shouldn’t be so candid about things.”

His voice sounded vulnerable and a little sad.

“The wife keeps telling me to keep my big mouth closed. People just don’t like to hear about what I do for a living.” He shrugged.
“Scares them or something . . . I don’t completely understand it myself.”


I looked into his moist, open eyes.

“How come no beard?” I asked.

He rubbed at his cheeks with a rough hand.

“Shave it off when I come down here. Only way to get any decent sun. But I get a burn every damn time.”

As I watched him from the corner of my eye, he sighed and grabbed at his fat stomach, tucking his shirt in. “Gotta lose some
weight . . . you don’t know any good diets do you? But no fad things . . . something that’ll work.”


I shook my head no, feeling kind of sorry for him. Nuts, but sweet, I figured.

“Hey, sure you don’t want to stay for another round?” I asked. No harm in my asking, I thought.


He smiled, glad we were getting along again.

“Nah . . . I should get back and get some sleep. Leaving in the morning, Karl.”

I stood up to see him off.

“Well, nice meeting you, Santa.”

That time it felt good.

“Same here, Karl,” he said. “And like I said before, don’t worry about this year.” He winked at me, “I’ll see to it you get
something really nice; something you’ll like.”


I looked at him and smiled. “Thanks.”

“Don’t stay out too late, Karl,” he said, and in a couple of seconds he was gone, tottering back to his room.

Well, I sat out there until midnight and thought a lot about Santa. His twinkling eyes and his fat stomach and his thin silver
hair.


He sure did look like Santa Claus.

But, I mean really, truthfully, honestly, what was I supposed to think?

The man was clearly on a permanent holiday upstairs. No dial tone.

So, for another twenty minutes or so I watched the black Caribbean hissing over coral and finished off another drink.

Somehow, I finally made it back to my bungalow and thought for a little while in the dark. Sure, Santa Claus had looked like
Santa Claus. But if looks were all it took, a lot of people could be a lot of people they weren’t. The world would be crazy.
Out of control.


And thinking sleepy thoughts along that line, I fell deeper into my pillow and nodded off.

The following morning, as I checked out, I peered at the desk clerk, going about his prissy duties. I lifted my voice slightly
as I observed him tabulating my bill.


“I was chatting with a gentleman last night. A Mr. Claus.” Why explain the whole thing? Only be setting myself up, I figured.

But in a surprise turn, the clerk lit up, his mouth turning into a silly-looking O.

“Oh,” he cooed, “I’m so glad you reminded me, sir. Mr. Claus left this morning . . .” He turned and grabbed something from
the mail slots as he continued chattering. “Flying north I believe he said.”


Now there’s a surprise, I thought.

Then he handed me something as he spun back, smiling all the while.

A manila envelope.

And so the plot thickened, I thought. I thanked him, paid the bill, and found myself a fat couch to sink into.

A few feet away, a wedding cake fountain dribbled as I unsealed the envelope. Maybe an apology, I thought. Although a wanted
poster would have been more appropriate.


But as I slid what was inside all the way out, my heart smoked to a stop.

It was a picture of smiling Joe with a fat-ended slugger raised over one confident shoulder. And it was made out to me.

Clipped to it was a handwritten note:

Dear Karl,

Was up late last night and couldn’t sleep. Really sorry about that Christmas. ’39 was a bad year for me. The war was starting up, and my helpers’ hearts just weren’t in their work. The world wasn’t in very
good shape then, Karl, and I had my hands full. Hope this makes up for it. Have a Merry Christmas.

Your drinking pal, Santa

P.S. Maybe I’ll see you around the 25th.

I’ll be looking for you, I thought, as I read the note, trembling like some delighted kid.

I’ll be looking for you.

Donald E. Westlake

* * *

Did God create men, or does Man create gods? I don’t know, and if it hadn’t been for my rotten brother-in-law the question
would never have come up. My late brother-in-law? Nackles knows.


It all depends, you see, like the chicken and the egg, on which came first. Did God exist before Man first thought of Him,
or didn’t He? If not, if Man creates his gods, then it follows that Man must create the devils, too.


Nearly every god, you know, has his corresponding devil. Good and Evil. The polytheistic ancients, prolific in the creation (?) of gods and goddesses, always worked up nearly enough Evil
ones to cancel out the Good, but not quite. The Greeks, those incredible supermen, combined Good and Evil in each of their gods. In Zoroaster, Ahura Mazda, being Good, is ranged forever against the Evil one, Ahriman. And we ourselves know
God and Satan.


But of course it’s entirely possible I have nothing to worry about. It all depends on whether Santa Clause is or is not a
god. He certainly seems like a god. Consider: He is omniscient; he knows every action of every child, for good or evil. At least on Christmas Eve
he is omnipresent, everywhere at once. He administers justice tempered with mercy. He is superhuman, or at least non-human,
though conceived of as having a human shape. He is aided by a corps of assistants who do not have completely human shapes. He rewards Good and punishes Evil. And, most important, he is believed in utterly by several
million people, most of them under the age of ten. Is there any qualification for godhood that Santa Claus does not possess?


And even the non-believers give him lip-service. He has surely taken over Christmas; his effigy is everywhere, but where are
the manger and the Christ child? Retired rather forlornly to the nave. (Santa’s power is growing, too. Slowly but surely he
is usurping Chanukah as well.)


Santa Claus is a god. He’s no less a god than Ahura Mazda, or Odin, or Zeus. Think of the white beard, the chariot pulled through the air
by a breed of animal which doesn’t ordinarily fly, the prayers (requests for gifts) which are annually mailed to him and which
so baffle the Post Office, the specially-garbed priests in all the department stores. And don’t gods reflect their creators’
(?) society? The Greeks had a huntress goddess, and gods of agriculture and war and love. What else would we have but a god
of giving, of merchandising, and of consumption? Secondary gods of earlier times have been stout, but surely Santa Claus is
the first fat primary god.


And wherever there is a god, mustn’t there sooner or later be a devil?

Which brings me back to my brother-in-law, who’s to blame for whatever happens now. My brother-in-law Frank is—or was—a very
mean and nasty man. Why I ever let him marry my sister I’ll never know. Why Susie wanted to marry him is an even greater mystery. I could just shrug and say Love Is Blind, I suppose, but that wouldn’t explain how
she fell in love with him in the first place.


Frank is—Frank was—I just don’t know what tense to use. The present, hopefully. Frank is a very handsome man in his way, big
and brawny, full of vitality. A football player; hero in college and defensive line-backer for three years in pro ball, till
he did some sort of irreparable damage to his left knee, which gave him a limp and forced him to find some other way to make
a living.


Ex-football players tend to become insurance salesmen, I don’t know why. Frank followed the form, and became an insurance
salesman. Because Susie was then a secretary for the same company, they soon became acquainted.


Was Susie dazzled by the ex-hero, so big and handsome? She’s never been the type to dazzle easily, but we can never fully
know what goes on inside the mind of another human being. For whatever reason, she decided she was in love with him.


So they were married, and five weeks later he gave her her first black eye. And the last, though it mightn’t have been, since
Susie tried to keep me from finding out. I was to go over for dinner that night, but at eleven in the morning she called the
auto showroom where I work, to tell me she had a headache and we’d have to postpone the dinner. But she sounded so upset that
I knew immediately something was wrong, so I took a demonstration car and drove over, and when she opened the front door there
was the shiner.


I got the story out of her slowly, in fits and starts. Frank, it seemed, had a terrible temper. She wanted to excuse him because
he was forced to be an insurance salesman when he really wanted to be out there on the gridiron again, but I want to be president
and I’m an automobile salesman and I don’t go around giving women black eyes. So I decided it was up to me to let Frank know he wasn’t to vent his pique on my
sister any more.


Unfortunately, I am five feet seven inches tall and weigh 134 pounds, with the Sunday Times under my arm. Were I just to give Frank a piece of my mind, he’d surely give me a black eye to go with my sister’s. Therefore,
that afternoon I bought a regulation baseball bat, and carried it with me when I went to see Frank that night.


He opened the door himself and snarled, “What do you want?”


In answer, I poked him with the end of the bat, just above the belt, to knock the wind out of him. Then, having unethically
gained the upper hand, I clouted him five or six times more, and then stood over him to say, “The next time you hit my sister
I won’t let you off so easy.” After which I took Susie home to my place for dinner.


And after which I was Frank’s best friend.

People like that are so impossible to understand. Until the baseball bat episode, Frank had nothing for me but undisguised
contempt. But once I’d knocked the stuffings out of him, he was my comrade for life. And I’m sure it was sincere; he would
have given me the shirt off his back, had I wanted it, which I didn’t.


(Also, by the way, he never hit Susie again. He still had the bad temper, but he took it out in throwing furniture out windows
or punching dents in walls or going downtown to start a brawl in some bar. I offered to train him out of maltreating the house
and furniture as I had trained him out of maltreating his wife, but Susie said no, that Frank had to let off steam and it
would be worse if he was forced to bottle it all up inside him, so the baseball bat remained in retirement.)


Then came the children, three of them in as many years. Frank Junior came first, and then Linda Joyce, and finally Stewart.
Susie had held the forlorn hope that fatherhood would settle Frank to some extent, but quite the reverse was true. Shrieking
babies, smelly diapers, disrupted sleep, and distracted wives are trials and tribulations to any man, but to Frank they were—like
everything else in his life—the last straw.


He became, in a word, worse. Susie restrained him I don’t know how often from doing some severe damage to a squalling infant,
and as the children grew toward the age of reason Frank’s expressed attitude toward them was that their best move would be
to find a way to become invisible. The children, of course, didn’t like him very much, but then who did?


Last Christmas was when it started. Junior was six then, and Linda Joyce five, and Stewart four, so all were old enough to have heard of Santa Claus
and still young enough to believe in him. Along around October, when the Christmas season was beginning, Frank began to use
Santa Claus’s displeasure as a weapon to keep the children “in line,” his phrase for keeping them mute and immobile and terrified.
Many parents, of course, try to enforce obedience the same way: “If you’re bad, Santa Claus won’t bring you any presents.”
Which, all things considered, is a negative and passive sort of punishment, wishy-washy in comparison with fire and brimstone
and such. In the old days, Santa Claus would treat bad children a bit more scornfully, leaving a lump of coal in their stockings
in lieu of presents, but I suppose the Depression helped to change that. There are times and situations when a lump of coal
is nothing to sneer at.


In any case, an absence of presents was too weak a punishment for Frank’s purposes, so last Christmastime he invented Nackles.

Who is Nackles? Nackles is to Santa Claus what Satan is to God, what Ahriman is to Ahura Mazda, what the North Wind is to
the South Wind. Nackles is the new Evil.


I think Frank really enjoyed creating Nackles; he gave so much thought to the details of him. According to Frank, and as I remember it, this is Nackles:
Very very tall and very very thin. Dressed all in black, with a gaunt gray face and deep black eyes. He travels through an
intricate series of tunnels under the earth, in a black chariot on rails, pulled by an octet of dead-white goats.


And what does Nackles do? Nackles lives on the flesh of little boys and girls. (This is what Frank was telling his children;
can you believe it?) Nackles roams back and forth under the earth, in his dark tunnels, pulled by the eight dead-white go. . .