Chapter 62 — In Which Santa Claus Uses the Power of Satan to Conjure the Ghost of Christmas Future

“Where have you been?” Peter asked. “You should have been teaching me this shit the second I got to the North Pole!”

“I tried!” Yuzuru said. “You don’t answer any of my text messages!”

“Are you kidding?” Peter angrily took out his phone and held it out to her. “Look at this! My phone is completely useless!”

And Peter’s inbox was completely stuffed with thousands of messages. In fact, he was getting more messages right this very second. Who? Who was texting him now? What could be so important? What elf was in the room right now not paying attention to the discussion and trying to reserve a time slot with him for a date on the eve of the apocalypse?

“Oh, I just remembered,” Yuzuru said. “You said you got pulled out into space, right? Well what if I did this over the whole workshop?”

Yuzuru clapped some magic glitter between her hands, twisted together palm to palm, laced and wiggled her fingers while gobbling like a turkey, and a protective dome of light formed over the table. When she knocked on it, this transparent sphere solidified, and repelled her hand.

“You’re officially a master elf starting right now,” Peter said.

“Really?” Her eyes sparkled with joy at her sudden promotion, then blinked to a venomous rage. “Take that, everyone! Yuzuru’s a master elf! Think my books are dumb now? Think I’m crazy now? Huh? Do you? Do you?”

“Yeah, sort of,” an elf said.

“Okay,” Peter said. “We’ve got 5,000 elves armed with guns. We’ve got magic. We’ve got some defense now. Let’s talk allies. We’ve got a Snow Witch on our side, and we have the Spearmints on loan from Princess Peppermint.”

Yuika stepped forward and said, “The gingerbread dragon you requested is almost complete. We’re started decorating it with buttercream frosting a few hours ago.”

“Okay, good. Anyone else? Do we have any other friends in the North Pole who can help us? Anyone with magical powers? Or an army? Anyone at all?”

“We can ask Ded Moroz for help,” Santa said solemnly.

“That’s great,” Peter said. “Who the fudge is Ded Moroz?”

“Father Frost. He can create snowstorms.”

“Okay. How do we contact him?”

“It’s very simple,” Santa said. “All you have to do is go out into the wilderness alone. If you’ve been a good boy Ded Moroz will come save you before you freeze to death.”

“And what if you’re not a good boy?” Peter asked.

“Then you freeze to death.”

Peter looked silently at Santa. Usually Santa was difficult to read, but she couldn’t contain her smugness at how great this idea was. Then she wondered why Peter was looking at her, not saying anything, and not rejoicing. Then it clicked.

“I guess I’ll go contact Ded Moroz myself,” Santa said. “You wait here, Peter.”

“Good idea,” Peter said. “Anyone else?”

Yuko came forward from the crowd, hugging herself and averting her eyes from Peter.

“Well, I have an idea, but I don’t know if it’s a good one. We can summon the Ghost of Christmas Future.”

The crowd of elves erupted in debate, but the debate was mostly one sided and firmly against summoning him. “No! Not him!” “Anyone but him!” “That guy gives me the heebie jeebies!” “Only black people can say the H-J word, Yukiko!”

Peter turned to Yuzuka and said, “I thought you said the Ghost of Christmas Future wasn’t real.”

“No, no. The Ghost of Christmas Past and Present aren’t real. Christmas Future exists.”

“So what can he do?”

Yuko thought hard about it and said, “Well, he can see the future, travel through time, and assist people in achieving deep emotional catharsis.”

Thousands of girls murmured and shook their heads. A doubtful voice could be picked out from the crowd, “No, no, no. I don’t like this idea.”

“If we can see the future we can see our mistakes before they happen!” Peter said. “We’d be stupid not to ask for his help! How do we call him?”

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Buckle up, children, and make sure your parents aren’t reading over your shoulder, because shit’s about to get real spooky. Way spookier than you would ever expect a Christmas themed story to get! Like the scene in that one kids movie that traumatized you for years— our story descends from the happy, musical setting of the workshop and plunges down into a dark basement— Santa’s dungeon— where boxes of unused tinsel and broken string lights slumber eternally. Every forgotten, unloved thing winds up in this dismal place eventually— including Santa’s street wear when she went through that breakdance phase in the 80s.

Oh, and who’s that? Within a giant bird cage sat a bored looking girl in a big poofy dress. It was none other than the Ghost of Christmas Past, or a sugar plum fairy who claimed to be the Ghost of Christmas Past, depending on whether or not Yuzuka’s accusations were correct. The pretty prisoner gripped the bars of her inhumane cell, it was barely large enough to stand up in, and watched Santa and Peter and the other elves walk by.

“Hey,” Peter said.

“Hey, you guys didn’t forget about me did you?” the sugar plum imposter asked.

“Sorry, we’re kind of busy now,” Peter said.

They didn’t stop to chat, and kept walking.

“It’s been weeks!” she shouted.

Here among the unused furniture, decrepit mannequins, and roller skates, where even the bravest elf shivers fearfully at the terrible shadows, rests a door to the sacrificial chamber.

Hear those death knells dirge-a-ling, toll-roll-woe-a-ling too. Air thick with the sighs and lamentation of Christmas elves, the floor writhed with females drunk on horror. A heinous purple smoke sweetly poisoned the senses until these toy tinkerers ripped at their clothes, buttons launching away— eyes rolling to white— in horrible occult seizures. A high priestess in an antique gas mask circled round the room with a mop-sized calligraphy brush, painting an icosagram and ancient runes on the floor in blood. Whose blood was the source of this 20-pointed star? Was it penguin blood? Elf blood? It’s a closely guarded secret, the source of witch blood, and some secrets are best kept secretly in their secret vault of secrets.

The icosagram— like a pentagram but four times pointier and therefore four times more powerful! At least, that’s what SuccubusSummoner666 wrote in the Wiccapedia before it was deleted by a mod— some things mortals ought not know! Whenever an elf in the throes of a seizure interrupted the high priestess’ sigil she merely painted over them and continued. Did the gas truly disconnect their brains from their twitching, stiff, and oh-so-slender bodies? Or was it an interpretive Satanic dance? What deranged Harry Potter was bullshit going on in this candlelit chamber of Comet Ping Pong secrets?

Santa and Peter stood by and watched, horrific gas masks zipped up and protecting them from huffing the purple demon musk.

“This is fucked up.” Peter’s voice was muffled. Understatement of the year, Peter! If a dagger came out he was going to launch himself into the figurative orgy before anyone got sacrificed.

“This process is such a pain in the ass.” Santa rested her cap atop her gas mask. “I really wish he would just get a cell phone.”

A hypnotic heartbeat of drums crescendoed. The hollow deep of hell resounded with a choir of chaotic voices. The song lifted, and the girls resurrected off the floor, defying gravity, possessed. The Christmas black mass lifted towards the beat drop! Santa instinctively squeezed Peter’s hand in fear of the ghastly ghost soon duein this temple of doom, this synagogue of Satan, this cathedral of horrors. The elves wailed in occult agony! One final cry! The demonic ritual was complete. The girls tumbled flat and and panted in a sweat.

The candles died. All was dark. All was silent.

Peter cracked a flare open and cast a violent light in the smokey den. A lone elf cried out, “Death!” Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed from all her caves, and back resounded “Death!” In the shadows sulked a tattered figure rich in darkness. It stepped forth through the pile of exhausted elven bodies. Its scythe supported his thunderous steps. The girls scrambled and clawed away from the towering black spirit. Even stoic Santa, who showed no fear in the face of the Biblically accurate angels, clutched at Peter’s shoulder and trembled as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come approached, drawn to Peter’s light.