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- Herausgeber: Cora Buhlert
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Rebellion is brewing at Santa's compound at the North Pole. The elves and the reindeer both are overworked, underpaid and angry, so they unite to take down Santa. However, there's still Santa's most fearsome enforcer, the horned, clawed and fanged holiday monster known only as Krampus…
This is a short holiday horror story of 3900 words or approx. 14 print pages by Hugo finalist Cora Buhlert.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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Revolt at the North Pole
by Cora Buhlert
Bremen, Germany
Copyright © 2020 by Cora Buhlert
All rights reserved.
Cover image © Denis Zorin, Dreamstime
Cover design by Cora Buhlert
Pegasus Pulp Publications
Mittelstraße 12
28816 Stuhr
Germany
www.pegasus-pulp.com
Revolt at the North Pole
Discontent had been brewing in Santa’s workshop at the North Pole since September.
“The old man is working us to the bone,” Frosty Busynight, elf second class, whispered to his colleague Noel Happyglitter, as they stood on the assembly line, painting an endless succession of wooden toys.
“Sixteen to eighteen hour shifts, shitty pay, no overtime, no days off till January…”
“I know,” Noel Happyglitter whispered back, painting a red nose onto what had to be the thousandth nutcracker today, “But what can we do? Jobs ain’t exactly easy to come by, here at the North Pole.”
“Unionise,” an elderly elf named Yule Ciderspirit said, as he inserted glass eyes into an angel-haired baby doll, “If we’re all unite and threaten to strike, the old man has to hear our demands.”
“Are you crazy?” Noel Happyglitter hissed, “Don’t you remember what happened to the last elves who tried to unionise? They were kicked out into the cold and the snow to starve.”
Noel Happyglitter took off his cap in remembrance of those poor elven souls. Frosty Busynight and Yule Ciderspirit did likewise.
“What’s the matter, you lazy bums?”
The fore-elf Rusty Shelfelf cracked his jingle-bell studded whip, causing Jolly and Frosty to flinch. Only Yule, who’d seen it all, did not flinch, but glared icicles at Rusty.
“If you don’t finish your quota by shift end, I’ll make sure to have your pay docked.”
“What pay?” Frosty whispered, once Rusty was out of earshot, “We’re already working for a pittance.”
“Fucking class traitor,” Yule grumbled, still glaring icicles at Rusty, “Used to be that he only spied on the kids, not on his own.”
Noel shrugged. “You know Rusty. Always brownnosing Santa and always eager to rat out anybody for a pat on the head. I just hope he didn’t overhear us talking about...” He cast a glance over his shoulder. “…the u-word.”
“We shouldn’t bother with the u-word,” an elf named Cinnamon Firelog said, her fingers forming air quotes, “The u-word doesn’t work. What we need is the r-word?”
“R-word?” Frosty asked, “R as in reindeer?”
“No, R as in revolution,” Cinnamon replied.
“Be silent,” Yule hissed at her. Frosty clamped his hand over Cinnamon’s mouth and Noel all but fainted.
“You don’t say that word, not even in jest,” Yule continued, “Cause if the old man should hear…”
“Or Rusty Shelfelf,” Noel added ominously.
“Then what?” Cinnamon replied, shaking off Frosty, “He’ll dock our pay, increase our work hours and kick us out into the cold to starve? Wake up! He already does that. He does it all the time.”
“Exactly,” Noel hissed, “And if you keep talking like that, you’ll be next.”
“And we’ll get kicked out into the cold, too, just because we happened to be nearby, when you said the… the…” Frosty couldn’t even say the word out loud.
“Yes, maybe the old man will kick us out,” Cinnamon said, “But our lives are already miserable, brutish and short. Every week, at least one of us succumbs to a workplace injury. And the old man doesn’t care. He never cared and he never will. That’s why we need a r…”
“Shush,” Noel and Yule hissed as one, while Frosty clamped his hand over Cinnamon’s mouth again.
“Get back to work, you lazy bums, and keep the heavy petting to your off-hours,” Rusty Shelfelf called in the distance.
But once the r-word has been said, it could not be taken back. The genie was out of the bottle and nothing and nobody could stuff it back in.
And so whispers of revolution could be heard in the elf barracks by night, when Rusty Shelfelf and his ilk were fast asleep.
“But how can we pull it off?” Frosty wanted to know.
“By the sheer weight of numbers,” Yule replied, “If we all work together, even Santa Claus himself can’t stand against us.”
“We’re still too weak,” Noel said, “Remember what happened the last time there was an elf uprising? Santa sicced the reindeer and even…” Noel shuddered in horror. “…the Krampus onto the rebels until the snow ran red with their blood.”
“It was a massacre for the ages,” Yule added and took off his cap in remembrance of the dead.
“That’s because they did it wrong,” Cinnamon declared, “Cause Yule is right. We all have to work together. Not just us elves. We have to involve the reindeer, too.”
“The reindeer?” Noel exclaimed in horror, “But they’re fanatically loyal to the old man.”
“Maybe once upon a time,” Cinnamon said, “But not anymore. They’re suffering just as we are. Too little pay, too little food, too much work. Just look at how thin they’re grown.”
“Plus the old man is playing them against each other…” Yule said, “…pitting Dasher against Dancer, Prancer against Vixen, Comet against Cupid and Donder against Blitzen and everybody against Rudolph. Why do you think they’re constantly locking horns?”
Frosty nodded. “It’s murder in the reindeer pens.”
“So we all agree?” Cinnamon asked, “We ally with the reindeer?”
All hands went up in agreement.
