Wire Reindeer - short story

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 20:34:13 -0800

Wire Reindeer
By
Travis Stevens

The hardest part of the day was coming home. The long drive back from work was good, he even tried to drive a little slower when he was on the highway, to try and stretch it out some. Volunteering to work on Thanksgiving was his idea. Working security had it’s good and bad points, one downside was that someone always had to be onsite, no matter what holiday was happening. Tom figured since Jen had left him and taken little Timmy with her, that he might as well be the one that was there. Let the guys with families have their time off. No reason for everyone to get screwed. Besides, what did he care? It’s not like he would have had anything to do but mope around the empty house and watch football by himself. He didn’t even know how to cook a chicken or anything, Jen had always taken care of stuff like that.

The drive home didn’t take as long as he hoped, not much traffic. With the radio off in the car, the hum of the tires against the pavement provided background noise and left his brain open to feed on it’s own thoughts. Pinpoints from the headlights of other cars passed like idle thoughts in the lonely night.

Why did she leave me? Am I that bad of a person? He felt so victimized, the fights at the end had been so bad and she just didn’t understand him. He fought so hard, got so angry, because he cared so much. He didn’t like the fact that he always thought about her. Every morning when he woke up, every night before falling asleep, for the last six months, his mind was occupied by thoughts of her. She just didn’t care as much as he did, didn’t love as deeply. If she did, she never could have left. Right?

Tom made the right hand turn into his subdivision, then a quick left onto his street. Driving slowly through his neighborhood, he could see into the houses with their lights still on, see families resting together on couches; lethargic, in a turkey induced haze. He could imagine them sitting around the dining room tables, laughing while playing board games or maybe just talking happily the way good families do. They were all very content, sharing warmth here at the beginning of the holiday season.

He pulled into his driveway, shutting off his car and sitting for a long moment in the silence. Steeling himself for the even heavier silence of his house. He finally broke down and started sobbing, leaning heavily against the steering wheel. Crying didn’t make him feel any better. After about half an hour he was able to collect himself and make that long walk up the sidewalk to his front door. No lights were on, nobody was up waiting for him.

Keys make such a loud noise when dropped on an empty counter top in an empty house. The dull clack contrasted against the faint metallic jingle of the keys bumping together before they finally come to rest. All perfectly audible in the stillness of the house.
______________________________________________________________________________

Mike sat in his office waiting for Tom to come in. He called this little meeting so that he could give Tom a written warning about his declining work habits. It was tough for Mike to watch this guy fall apart. He liked Tom, but not enough to lose his job covering Tom’s ass. Sure they had a history together, their boys went to school and played tee-ball together. His Susie thought Tom’s wife wasn’t the best person in the world, but everybody had their problems. Now Tom was his problem and he didn’t know what to do with him.

There was a tentative knock at the door and Tom poked his head in. “You wanted to see me?” he asked.

“Yeah, sit down.” Mike was a big man with a gruff East-coast accent. “Listen, Tom, you know I like you as a person, and I realize that you’ve had a hard year. I feel a little bad about doing this only a week after Thanksgiving and with Christmas coming up and all, but I’ve made up a little written warning concerning your coming to work late and lack of discipline while you are here.”

Tom stared dumbly at Mike. An uncomfortable silence filled the room as Mike waited for some kind of response. None came so he continued on. “Look Tommy, you need to get here when you are supposed to. You have a solid history with the company, and I’ve let things slide since you’ve been a pretty good employee for ‘bout five years now. But you need to take care of business; take a shower; shave; eat something. You look like hell and to be honest,” he cleared his throat uncomfortably, “you smell bad.”

Tom shut the door behind him after he signed the write up sheet. He felt bad about letting Mike down and hoped that he wasn’t taking too much heat because of him. As Tom walked down the long stairs to the security office, he passed another security guard on the way.

Skinny and greasy, Bobby had an over-developed sense of self-worth and an under-developed sense of compassion. “Maybe if you work at it, you can fuck the rest of your life up too.”

Man, I hate that guy.
______________________________________________________________________________

It wasn’t too many days before Tom was called back into the office. He tried to tell his boss that he was having a hard time getting here because he wasn’t sleeping and he wasn’t sure why. Mike, with his usual compassion, told him he didn’t give a fuck why Tom wasn’t sleeping, only for him to fix it so that it wasn’t screwing him up on the job.

“It’s Friday. You go home this weekend and work out whatever is going on in that head of yours and come in on Monday a brand new you. If you don’t...” Mike let the word hang as a not-so- subtle threat.

The past few weeks had been miserable. He felt like a zombie, stumbling from home to car; from car to work; from work to car; from car to home. He seldom remembered any of the transitions, just becoming aware from time to time that he was in a new place, or when he was at work, that someone was talking to him.

Like now… Bobby, was droning on about the Eagles going to the Super Bowl this year. Tommy hadn’t watched a game since November, couldn’t even guess who would be in the playoffs. Didn’t really care.

I wonder what little Tim is doing right now. I wonder what he wants for Christmas.

He missed his boy. Jen wouldn’t let him see Timmy. Said it was too hard for her to have him around. He didn’t want to fight her about it because he was so sure that they would eventually reconcile. Eventually erase the stormy past and get it right.

Tom sat in the basement security office of the building that he worked in. Christmas lights had been hastily strung on the door and they put out a hazy light that made it hard for him to focus his eyes. Christmas tunes droned endlessly over the company intercom system, an infinite loop of canned cheer and “reindeer games.”

Tom was drinking so much coffee that he had the shakes. Dark circles were hanging heavily under his eyes giving him a slightly cadaverous look in the pale flourescent lights.

“...even listening to me right now are you?” Bobby was looking into Tom’s eyes with a mix of disdain and frustration.

“Sorry Bobby, I was lost there for a second. I was thinking about my wife.”

“She might be a wife, but she’s not yours, that’s for sure. You’re not married anymore, buddy,” said Bobby, talking around the cigarette hanging from his mouth.

“I’m sure we’ll spend Christmas together this year. There’s no way she’ll be able to stay away with the kid over the holidays.”

“So, you’ve talked to her?” Bobby sounded skeptical.

“No, but she knows how I feel. We are connected.”

Bobby snorted, an ugly sound that made him sound like a pig. “You’re cracked. You better start taking care of yourself or you’re going to get fired. It’s no wonder Jen left you, you can’t even take care of yourself, not to mention a wife or kid. You know she was even coming on to me there for a while, looking for some strange.” His toothy grin and leering eyes assaulted Tom’s vision.

Tom glazed over, not wanting to listen to what was being said. “She’s coming back.”

“Look Tom, I don’t want to sound like a dick or anything, but she ain’t coming back,” Bobby pressed on with all the tact of a sledgehammer. “She was cheating on you for a year with that bartender guy. Hell, your kid even calls the guy ‘daddy.’ Am I right?”

For not wanting to sound like a dick...

Tom never fully remembered lunging violently for Bobby, spilling coffee and sending his chair flying.
______________________________________________________________________________

Everything seemed crazily in focus on the drive home, yet he couldn’t remember getting in the car. His hands hurt. His knuckles were cut and already starting to swell...

...from what? When did I head home?

Flashes of memory ran through his head, having a snowball fight with his boy...

Blood? Why was Bobby screaming like that?

...shoveling the snow from the driveway. Jen loved it when he got up early to take care of stuff like that. He liked to make her happy.
______________________________________________________________________________

Idly winding his way through his dark neighborhood, tonight Tom noticed an odd theme to the decorations this year. Reindeer fashioned out of white wire with white Christmas lights outlining their figures were everywhere. Bright, eyeless creatures in the lawns of houses, standing silent sentry to the night. Watching.

Are they moving?

As he drove by a cheerily decorated yard, alive with a scene of the Nativity, Tom noticed the eerie presence of the hollow creature that turned it’s head as he drove slowly by.

It’s watching me.

Tom stopped his car, quietly idling in the cold, silent street. The reindeer stopped moving it’s head as well, as if focusing it’s absent eyes directly on Tom’s car, before turning it’s head away indifferently. Pretending not to be interested.

Can’t fool me. I saw you watching.

Tom sped the rest of the way home, speeding up a little each time he passed another wire reindeer. They seemed to pop out of nowhere, he had never noticed there were so many, in lawns and on rooftops. He was getting nervous, he could feel the malevolent presence of the deer pressing in on him as he ran into his house.
______________________________________________________________________________

Tom didn’t sleep at all again that weekend. The long winter nights made it easier for him to keep a steady surveillance of the lit reindeer. They were crafty, using their evil intelligence to keep him from seeing all of their movement patterns.

But Tom was smart. Peering out of a darkened window with binoculars, he could see them, see the turning of their heads, see them bending their necks down to eat nothing. That nothingness being swallowed down into hollow bellies.

He wondered why nobody else had noticed. He wondered how his neighbors could walk into their houses, walk right next to the creatures and be oblivious to the threat. The reindeer were everywhere now, watching all of them. Waiting. Planning something.

Tom noticed a wire reindeer on the roof of a house three doors down and across the street. He could tell it was the leader, in front of a small team of other deer, it’s bright red nose a beacon of evil. Tom couldn’t read the flashing pattern of the nose, but he could tell that it was being used to communicate with the other reindeer around the block. Blink, blink, it would send out it’s plan, getting a flashed response from other subordinate deer up and down the street.

Sunday night came around, and while Tom knew that he should be trying to sleep, getting ready for work tomorrow, he couldn’t stop watching the leader. After hours of staring at the blinking red nose Tom had it, he figured out the signal pattern.

Two flashes, followed by three short blinks then another long flash. With a burst of insight he figured out what these creatures wanted.

They want our children.
______________________________________________________________________________

Monday morning came and Tom rolled into work an hour late. Mike was waiting at the front door of the office building, his big arms folded across his chest. Tom was trying simultaneously tuck in his shirt while fixing his greasy hair by combing his fingers through it. Neither was working for him.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Mike asked angrily.

Tom was confused for a moment. Should I not be here? I could have sworn it was Monday.

“Look Tom, I was serious when I fired you on Friday. You beat Bobby’s ass pretty bad and the only reason you aren’t in jail right now is because I fired you and it made him feel a little better. Now do us all a favor and get the hell out of here before I have to call the cops and you have to spend Christmas in jail.”

Tom couldn’t remember seeing Mike so angry before. He wasn’t sure exactly what Mike was talking about, either.

He got a flash of memory, like from a forgotten dream ...I won’t let you talk about my wife that way... remembering how his arms felt like lead weights...I’ll KILL YOU!... Mike dragging him backwards off of Bobby’s unconscious body.
______________________________________________________________________________

Driving home in the daylight, he could clearly see what he needed to do as clear as he could see the city passing by the windows of his car. I’ll save the kids. I’ll make it safe for Tim to be home again. That way Jen will see that I am a good father, a HERO, and she’ll come back with my son. We’ll have Christmas together. It’s Monday, Christmas is on Wednesday, I’ll have to work quick.

He was working out a plan in his head as he reconnoitered his neighborhood. Like killing a snake, he would take off the head and the rest would wither away. Timing was crucial, it would have to be tonight. “Red-nose” was going to die.
______________________________________________________________________________

In his living room, Tom laid out all of the equipment that he was using for tonight’s mission. The rope and homemade grappling hook that he would need to get on the roof, a large hunting knife that he would use for dispatching the demon, and all of his clothes that he would wear - a mix of whites and blacks to help conceal him in both shadows and snow.

He ground up a charcoal briquette and mixed it with some lotion to put on his face. After he suited up with all of his gear, he checked himself in the mirror. A modern day warrior ready to go to war with these creatures of darkness.

After midnight, Tom stole quietly out of his backdoor. Alternately running and low-crawling through his neighbors yards to get into assault position. He worked his way into the shadow that was caused by the light of the street lamp hitting the chimney.

Unsure of how acute the eyesight of these monsters were, he waited there in the shadow for a long moment to see if he had been spotted. He took shallow breathes so that his exhalation wouldn’t give away his position.

All was quiet, so he moved into phase two. Throwing the grappling hook to the top of the chimney was harder than he imagined it would be. Still, after five minutes of trying, he finally got it hooked. Testing it with his weight before climbing up, Tom smiled to himself, satisfied that he had done a great job.

He climbed noiselessly to the roof, again stopping in the chimney’s shadow. A hunter stalking his prey, he had his target in clear sight. Red-nose’s snout lifted arrogantly into the air like a challenge to mankind. It didn’t know that it’s own beacon of evil was being used to mark it for it’s own doom.

There wasn’t any snow on the roof but Tom was still very careful as he crept quietly into striking distance. When he was satisfied that he was close enough he slid the hunting knife out of it’s sheath and held it tightly in his left hand.

Adrenalin was coursing through his body and Tom had never felt so alive.

Time to take this bastard down!

Tom sprung like a striking snake, his knife lashing out at his enemy. Too slow! Somehow Red-nose had anticipated his move and with incredible speed, shifted positions, moving out of the way of Tom’s deadly attack.

As Tom careened off balance to the edge of the roof, he reached back in desperation, clutching at the antlers of the beast. He barely grabbed hold of the deer before he went over the side, stabbing at the animal as he fell.

A snow covered bush broke their fall, Red-nose on top of Tom. In a panic Tom tore into the beast because, while the light in the nose had gone out, the creature was putting up a desperate battle for it’s life.

Finally, Tom knifed through the head of the wire reindeer, taking it clean off it’s crushed and mangled body. Howling in triumph, he lifting the head in one hand and the knife in the other and walked a slow victory circle around the yard, clearly showing the other deer that their leader was dead.
______________________________________________________________________________

Drunk on the blood of his vanquished foe, Tom lay sprawled across the couch in his living room. He had tried to call Jen to let her in on his great victory, but there must have been a bad wire somewhere down the line. The phone kept hanging up right after he said “hello.” I’ll go to her place tomorrow and tell her in person that it is safe to come back. He was smiling broadly, daydreaming about what a great Christmas it would be before finally drifting off to the first peaceful sleep he’d had in over a month.

Sweet dreams were interrupted by scratching and clawing sounds of wire against window glass. Tom lay very still as he listened to the sound of wire hooves work their way across the roof of his house. The malevolent presence that he felt coming from the reindeer was now coupled with a bloody rage.

He had made a mistake. Taking the leader out hadn’t disbanded them, it made them furious and now they had a new target. Tom rolled off the couch and commando crawled upstairs to his bedroom. Working his way through piles of dirty clothes and half-eaten food left on dirty dishes, he made it to his closet.

An old shotgun was on the top shelf. He checked to make sure it was loaded then put his back to the corner of the closet, holding the shotgun to his chest.

Damn reindeer won’t get me without a fight.

He watched the sky through his bedroom window grow from night-blue to the steel gray of dawn. Still the reindeer didn’t come.
______________________________________________________________________________

After sunrise Tom went out to look around his house. By the windows he could see markings in the snow. They didn’t look like real deer hoof-prints but they looked like something that might be made by wire hoofs. He didn’t bother climbing up to his roof. He already knew what he would find there too.

Tom scanned his street for other signs of the reindeer, but he didn’t see anything too out of the ordinary. He knew they were watching him, though. He could feel the lidless stare on his back without needing to turn around. Movement down the street caught his attention and he saw his neighbors, bundled in their bathrobes curiously studying the carnage from the night before.

He had let the body lie broken in the yard, but as a warning to the other deer he set the head on top of the mailbox for all to see. This was probably what set them off. Tom had acted too boldly and inadvertently drawn down their wrath. It was a good thing that he hadn’t gotten a hold of Jen and Timmy the night before. He wouldn’t want to have them in any more danger than necessary.

His neighbor was slowly making his way up the street, obviously looking for further signs of the struggle from the night before.

Finally catching on? Welcome to the party, pal. Tom gave him a knowing wink and with a nod of his head he said, “Keep your family safe. They’re after me now.”

His neighbor had a bewildered look on his face as he worked his way back into his house, shepherding the rest of is family in front of him.
______________________________________________________________________________

Night came quickly. A happy thing for children excited for a visit from a jolly old elf. A frightening thing for a man dreading a visit from a troop of murderous reindeer.

Tom barricaded himself into his house. There wasn’t any chance of those creatures getting in without him taking them out. He stood watch by the window and as the night grew colder and darker, he finally saw what he was looking for. At first it seemed is if the deer were merely switching positions. He’d glance away from one, and by the time he turned back it was ten meters closer. Then another. Then another.

Sometime after mid-night they stopped hiding their movement from him. Like stop-motion creatures animated by the spirit of the unholy they moved in on him.

They’re getting bolder, more daring.

He was surprised at first to see the reindeer moving openly through the streets. In groups of three’s and four’s they made their way into the front of his lawn.

They don’t care anymore. I’ll make them care! Everyone will care after tonight!

He wasn’t prepared for what came next. Instead of assaulting the house, they hurled insults and taunts at HIM.
You’re a bad father. Your wife and son hate you. Another man better than you has taken your place in their lives.

Another crew began jeering and laughing. You can’t even keep a minimum wage job. You’re no good.

Tom was maddened by the voices swirling through his head. NO! None of it is true.

Yes, it’s all true. All of it. You’re not a man.
The laughing was making him crazy. You’re not a man.

Crazy with anger Tom grabbed his knife and rushed out to the front yard, prepared to fight these demons to the death. He lunged and stabbed at them, his knife slashing the air. They circled him, lashing out with wire hooves and antlers. Taunting and jeering the whole time.

You’re no man.

Unable to hold off the assault any longer, Tom went down in a tangle of wire and lights. His last, desperate thought going back to his wife and son. Jen. Timmy.

“I love you both...” Tom collapsed, unconscious on the cold, frozen earth.
______________________________________________________________________________

Christmas morning. Tom’s next door neighbor went outside looking to see if it was a White Christmas. A thin layer of snow had fallen in the early morning hours, covering yards and trees with a light fluffy blanket of powder.

Curiously, he noticed that some neighborhood kids must have moved all of the wire reindeer from around the block and arranged them in his neighbor’s front yard. Only when he looked closely did he notice the body of Tom at the center of the circle, his arms and legs tangled in a mess of wire and white Christmas lights. He lay there, half covered in snow, a silent scream frozen in his mouth and a look of abject terror contorting his face.

Jan ‘03
Driving around my dad’s neighborhood around Christmas I noticed how creepy those little decorations could be. Plus, everyone knows how mean spirited reindeer can be, look at how they treated Rudolph.

Things to Read

Half Built Bridges - poem

Wire Reindeer - short story