Started work on a special Christmas story this evening, and thought I would share a few opening paragraphs with you …
I had only planned one short story this Christmas, but I have notes for at least three. Hopefully I will have enough time to write them all before Christmas is well and truly upon us.
This first story features the long overdue return of “Liason to the Strange” Dr. Hershell Grey, last seen in the story “The God Trap” that I wrote for Insomnia’s “Choices” anthology.
So, without further ado … he’s the teaser …
The snow crunched satisfying underneath Dr. Hershell Grey’s feet as he trudged across the car park of the small country pub, lost somewhere in the heart of middle England. Around them, the village was silent save for the creaking of the trees as their boughs were bent by the gradual accumulation of snow and the distant sound of traffic. The pub had been closed for hours, and only the fairy lights that were slung across the windows and underneath the gabels were still on, defiantly burning in blues and reds and greens against the backgroup of endless white. The owners were no doubt asleep, blissfully unaware of the visitor in their car park.
The visitor the Dr. Grey had come to see.
Hershell could hear the steady trudge of the soldiers boots behind him. They kept their distance, respectful of his assumed rank if not the gravity of the situation that they found themselves in.
“Stay back,” he warned them. “I can see him.”
Slumped against a makeshift diorama of a nativity scene, a film of snow slowly enveloping him, was the unmistakable shape of Santa Claus.
“It’s just a guy in a suit,” grumbled a voice from behind Dr. Grey. It was the unmistakeable Northern English growl of Captain Jennings, Hershell’s liason to the British Army and a man of conveniently limited imagination.
“Keep thinking that,” replied Dr. Grey. “It’s important.”
Jennings did little more than grunt in reply, but acquiesed to Grey’s order to stay where he was, as did the men under his command. Grey meanwhile crept closer, his shoes squeeking against the snow underfoot. As he approached, the scarlet and black figure shifted, loosening some of the snow from its back and releasing its grip on a bottle of brown liquid. The bottled skidded towards Grey, carried on the slight incline of the car park.
“Rum,” muttered Grey, as the bottle passed him. “Hardly the most festive tipple. You might be right after all, Jennings.”
Without warning something shifted underfoot, a rumble that seemed to come from every point around them. Snow shifted on the room of the pub and dropped down in heavy sheets onto the ground below, scattering the beer garden furniture, as the silence of the village was pierced by the braying and screeching of car alarms. A window shattered as a crack appeared in one wall of the pub, snaking up from the ground in moments.
“Then again,” Grey thought to himself, cursing his earlier doubts. He had been the UN’s “Chief Liason” to the strange, unusual, mythic, and unexplained for over twelves years, and he had dealt with his fair share of “Christmas incidents” whilst overseeing dozens more at the same time each year. Mostly, that meant just sitting with a bemused and stupified Santa until the sun came up on Christmas morning. But sometimes, it meant the “Chief Liason” who was the one who signed off on the bullet that turned something strange and usual and mythic into something cold, and dead, and ready for an incinerator.
Tonight didn’t feel like either of those type of nights.
Tonight felt like one of those “save the whole world” nights.
