SNATCHING SANTA
The age old battle of good vs evil played out at Christmas
SNATCHING SANTA
Editor’s Note: I wrote this short story a couple years ago and have reprinted it on my website every year since. If you haven’t read it, I hope you enjoy it. If you have read it; read it a again. Happy Holidays.
By D. S. Mitchell
It was a small noise that woke Santa. Something out of place in the middle of the night. He lay in the dark, wondering if he’d imagined, or possibly dreamt the sound. Mary Claus slept by his side, her steady breathing the only sound in their darkened bedroom.
“There it was again,” he said under his breath.
This time it seemed to be at the back of the house. It was the sound of feet on gravel, a noise that wouldn’t be noticed during daylight hours, but seemed magnified by the darkness. It was close to 3:00 am. He worried that a sneak thief might be trying to break into his toy shop.
The suddenness of the event shocked him. The front and back door were simultaneously kicked in, and several men rushed through the battered doors into the house. The sound of polished boots on hardwood floors echoed down the halls. Mrs. Claus gasped as they both sat upright. Santa started to get out of bed, but the light came on before his foot hit the floor.
Two men armed with automatic weapons stood in the doorway, blocking any possible escape. The taller of the two men took in the room in a glance before lowering his eyes to the bed. He narrowed his eyes and pointed his weapon directly at Santa.
“What do you want?” Santa demanded.
“Shut up,” was his answer.
The weapon remained on its target and the tall man warmed the trigger with an agitated finger before saying, “Get dressed old man, you’re coming with us.”
Santa could see the shadows of several men moving about the house, the intruders opening closets, drawers, and doors. Mrs. Claus screamed. Santa hushed her with a hug and whispered reassurances.
“I said get your ass out of bed, Chubby.”
Santa sat paralyzed, taking several seconds before convincing his limbs into action. Mrs. Claus stifled a sob, covering her eyes from the bright light while her husband pulled his overalls on, followed by his heavy black boots and bulky red jacket. He started to put on his thick black belt but changed his mind and dropped it back on to the chair.
Santa had lived longer than most and had never thought about death until this minute. Through countless centuries of war, famine, and pestilence Santa had fulfilled his mission to deliver a little bit of happiness one day every year.
The tall man was blessed with handsome features and a cultured voice. He appeared to be in charge. He had a rigid erect posture and steely black eyes. Santa noticed a crisp white shirt under his leather navigator jacket and long manicured fingers. He directed Santa down the hall with the barrel of his semi-automatic rifle.
Santa came face to face with four more thugs with weapons when he reached the living room. One after another each man stepped over the smashed front door and emerged onto the porch, weapon ready.
Santa hadn’t heard the van come up the driveway, but there it was, waiting. A driver in camouflage blackface behind the wheel. Two of the crew jogged ahead and opened the side door and waited for the remainder of the group to catch up.
No one spoke, but the tall one gestured with his weapon and made it perfectly clear that Santa was expected to climb in. The door of the vehicle was slammed shut.
Once seated, a black cotton hood was slipped over Santa’s head and his wrists were secured with zip ties. His heart was thumping loudly against his chest wall. He wondered if his captors could hear its erratic beat.
The motor started and the van roared into the night. It was all over in less than five minutes.
A dozen elves were at the Claus house at the break of dawn, with more on the way. While Mrs. Claus bustled about the kitchen making hot cocoa and cinnamon rolls for the crew, the boys got busy and had the front door repaired and back in place in a jiffy. They moved on to fixing the back door, making quick work of it as well. A house missing two doors wasn’t really much shelter in the dead of winter.
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph had slowly and independently gathered in the front yard, somehow knowing that there was a great disturbance in the elements and they each understood that Santa was in great danger. They expected instructions would be forth coming. For now, they would wait.
Mary Claus had known each of the elves since they were newborns. She had watched them mature into strong and honest men, whose primary function in life was to ensure that Santa had all the toys he needed ready, wrapped, and loaded in the sleigh Christmas Eve.
Truthfully, the toy thing was their second mission in life. Their first mission was above all else to protect Santa Claus.
For 48 hours, beginning at 12:01 am December 24th and ending at 11:59 pm December 25th Santa Claus was given incredible powers of speed, strength, invisibility, and shapeshifting. The remaining 363 days of the year Santa was an ordinary man.
Mrs. Claus pulled a key from around her neck and handed it to Rolf Kinder the most senior Santa Guardian and the weapon’s cabinet was thrown open.
Their equipment, and weaponry, was equal to the most generously funded para-military groups. The weapon’s closet was intended only for the most serious and potentially deadly confrontations.
The elf leader began passing out weapons to each of his men as they stepped forward. The M16’s went first. Next, he gave out three M203 grenade launchers with both anti-personnel and smoke grenades. He had saved two SAW medium machine guns for Sam and Georgie Smith. The brothers were the backbone of his strategic strike force.
Rolf strapped on two holsters, one on each hip and filled each holster with a 9 mm pistol. This wasn’t his first rodeo. In fact, at least every fifty years or so somebody or a group of somebodies tried to snuff Santa. Over his last nearly five hundred years as Chief Guardian he had faced nine other serious attempts on Santa’s life. This would be number ten.
He looked toward Mrs. Claus and smiled. He had two LAW and knew that her sharp eye and deadly aim could take out heavy vehicles with LAWS precision. The LAW rockets with there anti-tank shoulder mounted single man bazooka like tubes would be a great supplement to her M16. She acknowledged his smile with a nod of her head.
Rolf added a machine gun to his two holstered 9 mm arsenal. He gave himself, each elf, and Mrs. Claus, 2 frag grenades. Each of his team would get an Alice pack, a canteen, tent, a week’s rations, an entrenching tool, and a K-BAR.
“The rest of the guns we’ll distribute to any volunteers,” Kinder told several subordinates.
“Rolf will you speak to the reindeer and the other friends of the season that have gathered? They have been waiting patiently for instructions and some reassurance about Santa’s well-being.”
“Of course. I would like to have you with me when I address them.”
“Yes. Let me know when you are ready to speak to them.”
“Might as well do it now,” he confirmed.
Rolf pulled his Ram’s horn from his belt and trumpeted it three times to announce the meeting. Rolf in the prime of his life was trim and athletic. He swung his feet up onto the porch rail and pulled himself to a standing position and watched as the elves, reindeer, and all manner of flying bird and wildlife that had gathered in Santa’s front yard looked in his direction.
“For any of you that may not know me, I am Rolf Kinder. I am a Guardian. My sole responsibility is ensuring the security and safety of Santa Claus. There are more like me on assignment around the world protecting the most iconic of our traditions.”
Rolf paused and looked into the eyes of his audience and sighed before continuing, “At this moment it seems I have failed in that responsibility. I am here to announce that Santa Claus, sometimes known as Kris Kringle to those closest to him, has been abducted at gun point from his bed in the early morning hours. We can only conclude his life is in great jeopardy.”
The audience was riveted on Santa’s Guardian.
When he’d finished, Rolf Kinder motioned to Mrs. Claus to step up and speak to the gathered crowd.
Mary Claus stepped forward; two bandoliers crisscrossed her camo covered chest.
She looked to the group, gave a small awkward wave and said, “I am so thankful to see you all. Kris loves each, and everyone, of you. I must tell you the last few hours have been about as bad as they can get. We are assuming Kris is alive. If he were dead, I believe, we would feel a greater displacement of the elements than we do at this time. As most of you know, Kris will die if he is unable to fulfill his mission to provide one night of happiness every year. We have less than 72 hours to bring him home. Save Santa! Save Christmas! Save the Yule!”
A riotous cheer went up from the accumulated crowd.
“I’m going to turn it back over to the Commander who has a little bit more information for you.”
“My crew is ready to take on the challenge of this age-old enemy. Believe me we are dealing with a force of evil that’s beyond the concept of good men. I am convinced the central goal of this group is to steal the joy of the season from the world. A darkened world made even darker by their presence in it. If any of you has information that will help us recover Santa from these terrorists, please step forward and tell us what you know of this abomination.”
There was an intense chatter amongst the gathered friends of the season. Finally, a Blue Jay hopped across the back of Vixen and screeched loudly demanding attention.
When he obtained quiet, he announced, “I may have seen these men. I did not see Santa, but he could have been hidden in the house.”
“When did you see these men?” Kinder asked.
“Early this morning. I was flying west of my usual territory. The sun was just breaking the mountain tops. I spotted a dark blue van pulled deep into a grove of evergreens. Obviously, they were trying to hide the rig. There is a large cabin on the property. It has been abandoned for years and is in a terminal state of disrepair. But this morning, I saw several men in full camo, unloading supplies into the house. Each of them was heavily armed. Since their arrival there is a coldness that has engulfed the house, a painful cold, something that I’ve never experienced before.”
“Thank you, Blue Jay. Are you willing to lead us there?”
“Yes of course, anything to save Kris Kringle from these demons.”
“Anyone who wants to join the mission to save Santa is welcome,” emphasized Rolf Kinder. We’ll find a job for you,” he said with a laugh.
“We must take on the forces of darkness head on. Make no mistake, some of us will die. We are going to be coming face to face with some really bad dudes,” Rolf said, unconsciously allowing his head to nod up and down.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Mrs. Claus register a visible amount of distress. A cloud passed across her face just before she bolted back into the house.
“I’ve piled a variety of weaponry there in the yard. Anyone wanting to join us, grab a gun. When we are out of weapons, we can take no more volunteers. If you don’t have a weapon, stay home. Keep the home fires burning for those headed to the front.”
His team was fueled and ready. He hesitated for a minute waiting for Mrs. Claus to reappear. He was not disappointed.
She ran on to the porch, a bit breathless, from some unseen activity, but he could see Santa Claus’s large black belt in her hand.
He switched to the sub-vocal microphone that would limit his communication to only those participating in the raid. With a single forward motion of his hand Rolf Kinder launched his armada. Mary Claus, himself, and four of his most elite elfin fighters would launch a sneak commando style attack on the house and extricate Santa while the rest of the team distracted the kidnappers with a full-frontal attack.
He expected things to get ugly. In a swish of explosive light, the fleet was airborne. The reindeer bore the weight of the weapon laden sleighs with ease. Blue Jay maintained a place of authority flying between Mrs. Claus and Commander Kinder, leading them to a dilapidated house deep in the woods approximately 50 clicks from the Claus home.
With quiet caution the elf army chose a grassy knoll about a mile up and northwest of the house for a Command Center. Quickly and quietly the Guardian force took possession of the perimeter and secured a large space for the reindeer to bring in equipment and weaponry. Kinder and Mrs. Claus directed the operation with calm efficiency.
Once an assault platform was established Mary Claus conferenced with Blue Jay and sent him on a mission to estimate enemy strength, discover vulnerable areas in the defense fortification and most importantly pinpoint Santa’s location. Nothing would happen until Santa’s exact location was identified.
Blue Jay was back in half an hour.
Blue Jay prefaced his report with, “The stench of evil emanating from that place has sickened me,” he said with a fluff of his feathers displaying an attempt to rid himself of the memory.”
“Your valor, Blue Jay will be memorialized in song and story for all the remaining days,” confirmed Mrs. Claus.
“Mrs. Claus. Kinder. My news is not good.”
Mrs. Claus directed a worried glance to Kinder.
Rolf returned the look, “Continue, Blue Jay.”
“They’ve covered the windows with aluminum foil, so it was tough getting a look inside of the house. But they weren’t expecting a bird recon team, so there were places around the wood framing where in their hurry they were careless, and left gaps.”
“Anybody got paper and pencil?” Blue Jay asked with a scan of the group.
Kinder who was sitting at a makeshift desk of cardboard boxes in the small tent held up a pen and paper. Blue Jay took flight and landed on Kinder’s shoulder. From there he gave precise details of the recon.
“I counted two dozen heavily armed and camo’d bad guys.
“There are two snipers in trees out front of the house and one in back. There are machine gun nests on both the front and back porches. There’s a shifting number of characters wandering around the main floor. Five to six rotating in and out of the space. The attic looks like it is being used as a sleeping dorm. In fact, there were three guys catching some shut eye while I was checking things out. There were two men in the basement. One was a heavily armed thug. The second man was bound and laying on a cot. It was Santa. He is alive.”
“Thank the stars,” Mrs. Claus whispered.
Mary and Kinder continued their confab with Blue Jay while the remainder of the squad gathered their weapons and psyched themselves for the coming fight.
The group covered the mile between their encampment and the house in a manner of minutes, never drawing attention to themselves. Sam silently took out the sniper in the tree in the back yard. Blue Jay took on the task of distracting the machine gunner at the back porch while George moved in and slit his throat.
The outside entrance to the basement was now unprotected. Kinder issued the order and the all-out frontal assault on the renegade’s hideout began with an explosion. That first explosion was followed by an eardrum rupturing series of explosive detonations. The elfin attack force swarmed forward shielded by a tsunami of artillery fire, but they were quickly halted by fierce fire from the old house.
Mary Claus pushed forward into the darkened basement flanked by Kinder and Sam. George, Dale and Corky covered their backs as the penetration deepened, her mission clear.
The sound of heavy gunfire from outside was becoming more intense with each passing moment.
The tall man with fine features memorable from the early morning abduction, hit the basement light switch with his palm, illuminating the interior stairwell and half of the basement. He moved cautiously a single stair at a time until he reached the dirt floor.
He was surrounded by no less than six men with knit watch caps pulled low nearly to the eyes and camouflage paint covering any visible flesh.
“I know you’re here Kinder. Show yourself. I wanna’ talk.”
He stood in the shadows of the basement and looked in each direction, seemingly disoriented.
“Kinder! Come forward!”
Mary Claus, Rolf Kinder and the other members of the extraction team moved out of the shadows to face the adversary.
“Mary,” Ry’gor said softly.
There was a notable pause before he continued, “I had hoped you would stay home baking cookies and leave this battle to the soldiers.”
“I wish I could say it was a pleasure to see you again, Ry’gor.”
“Don’t hurt me anymore than you already have. Your rejection has made me a dangerous man.”
Kinder shot a quizzical glance toward Mrs. Claus, but said nothing.
Mary seeing the look, said, “Ry’gor has a perverted sense of humor.”
Turning her attention back to Ry’gor she said, “We were children, Ry’gor. The promises of children die with childhood.”
“For some of us,” he said, a tinge of anger just barely concealed by his elegant tone and proud manner.
“This has nothing to do with us. Or, our history,” Mary stated flatly, before demanding, “Who are you working for? What do you want?”
“It seems you doubt my devotion.”
“You have shown devotion to nothing in your life but your own well-being.”
“Your words are like a spear to my heart,” Ry’gor said, grabbing his chest with his hand, in a dramatic visual appeal.
“Stop your games!”
“What could you possibly see in that fat, foolish, bearded, old man?”
“Kris Kringle is at war with your dark world, Ry’gor. He spends every waking hour, all year, every year, working to guarantee that all people of kind and good heart have one day of hope and happiness out of 365 days of perpetual darkness and evil. That is the man I love. That is the man I have come here to rescue.”
“Enough!…. Kill them!” Ry’gor screamed, simultaneously jerking a previously unseen UZI from under his jacket, sending deadly missiles flying in the direction of Mary and the elfin assault team.
The team dropped to the dirt and returned fire.
Ry’gor took blast after blast to his chest, but his armor repelled each potential deadly round. While he remained standing, his crew had hit the ground and was searching for cover from the incoming fire.
From behind Ry’gor’s team, a “Ho, Ho, Ho”, was suddenly heard.
“Move it! We’re out of here,” Ry’gor yelled mobilizing his men, covering them as they broke for the stairs. Each of them made it up the stairs under the cover of Ry’gor’s steady stream of bullets.
Under an umbrella of bullets Ry’gor followed his men up the stairs.
The battle outside the house had come to a stand-off and a silence had settled on the battlefield.
At the top of the stairs Ry’gor stopped and hollered back into the basement. “This is not the end of it. I will be back. The forces backing me will not give up. We intend to put an end this ridiculous effort at perpetual happy days. See you next year!” his voice ragged, having lost all of its former cool detachment.
“We’ll be waiting for you,” Kris Kringle hollered back.
“My Lord, Kris how did you get free? Blue Jay said they had you tied up with an armed guard watching you,” Kinder said.
Mary, threw her arms around his neck and hugged him for an especially long while.
“The guard turned out to be a darn nice guy. We started talking and he asked me if I played cards. Well, when I told him, “Hell, yeah,” he cut the zip ties and we have been playing rummy for the last couple hours.”
“Where is the guard? Any chance that he’ll show up and try to blow all of us away?” asked Kinder.
“Not a chance. I mean he got rooked into this gig ‘cause he needed money. They didn’t tell him they would be kidnapping Santa. When he figured out who I was he told me that he had a plan to get me out of here.”
“I love you, Kris Kringle. I’ve been crazy with worry.”
He bent over and surrounded her in a full-armed embrace.
The silence from outside was broken by the sound of helicopter blades. The rotary wing aircraft was hovering without artillery response from the elf army. The heavily armored gunship was brandishing machine guns, rockets, auto cannons, and missiles. The gun platform had taken the steam out of the elf assault. In fact, the arrival of the big guns had caused the elves supported by the reindeer to break their forward line and retreat a quarter mile back from the house.
The gunship dropped slowly until it settled on to the overgrown front yard. With its blades still in motion, the gunship waited for her cargo.
Ry’gor was willing to cut his losses and wait for another day, he had an eternity after all. Let the miserable fat man have one, or two more years of spreading his pitiful brand of happiness. Ry’gor believed whether it was ten years from now, or a hundred, a thousand, what did it matter, he would put an end to this foolish holiday, and darkness and pain would once again rule the world. No matter how long it took he had sworn to put Santa out of business, once and for all.
