What the heck was going on, I wondered, but not for long.
The fruit along the floor caught my attention as Baumb scooped me up and rushed to catch up with Ded, who was slowly creeping towards the hatch we’d discovered in our mad rush to find one of Shnikel’s hidey holes big enough to fit all of us.
Since the day this had all started, we’d found one hidey hole closest to the Baumbel caverns big enough to fit a Baumbel, his pet companion, a Krampus, and their Snowmaiden mate.
Today was The Big Day. The culling would occur any moment now.
We made it all the way to the hole’s trap door, well enough hidden away from the main cavern, a large half wall of frosty ice sticking up from the cave floor shielding us as we crept our way to it.
Ded led the way, with me following closely behind and Baumb, looming over me, bringing up the rear with Yule.
Stealing peeks through the cracks in the glacier looking ice wall, I wasn’t expecting to actually see anything. Stopping to urge Ded on when he slowed to a stop, eyeing a piece of juicy looking fruit, I heard the steps as they began to flood the caves from the main mountain entrance, the harder, heavier steps of a larger set of boots following.
Krampus started to fall. Elves flooded the room moments later, walking up with large curved, short handled scythes to walk to the fallen Krampus and begin decapitating some of the beasts but not all. Wondering why some were killed and not the others, bile rising in my throat at the massacre, I wanted to look away but couldn’t.
A nudge at my back had me jolting into motion as the Elves began collecting the heads into a large wicker basket and dragging the headless bodies so they were all in a nice, neat pile.
I froze once more as Ded went to open the trapdoor and it creaked, just a little. My heart began to pound a mile a minute as an Elf close to us paused and cocked its head. My hand slid over my mouth and I held my breath.
And that was when I saw him.
White hair, red suit, belled cap, big black boots, large framed, thick in the middle but not rotund of belly. Jolly ol’, this Claws they kept referring to, rolled his head on a thick neck. A name written in blue ink in a swirling script caught my eye but I couldn't make it out. This was Santa Claus? A long braid trailed down his back as he took off his cap and handed it to an Elf that had their back to me. As Saint Nick stripped down to his undershirt and suspendered pants, he began to grunt as if he was pained. It took me a moment to spy the horns budding, until Santa was sporting a rack. As soon as the horns had fully erupted, the rest of him melted into a morph. Soon the King of all Krampus stood in his place, his tall mass heavy with meat and muscle. One by one he picked up the lifeless bodies of the chosen Krampus and began to squeeze them, muttering words I didn’t understand. As he dropped one and moved on to the next, they began to quickly decay, then crumble to dust, leaving silvery dust in its place. The Elves rushed to collect the dust, stuffing it into small pouches.
When he’d finished with the last body, Claws grabbed the basket of heads up, slinging it over his shoulder, and turned to quit the room. A stampede of Elf feet followed.
Minutes ticked by after they’d left. They were the longest minutes of my life. Baumb had looked alarmed to see the fruit littering his den.
I’d just let out a deep breath when I heard that telltale crunch. My eyes bulged as Ded, sitting just inside the hidey hole, took a huge bite of a random piece of fruit he’d found.
“Ded, no!” I whispered on a hiss. Crawling towards him, I slapped the apple out of his hand.
When I heard an odd noise from the main cave, like steps hurrying this way, I panicked and shoved Ded into the trapdoor hole and hopped in after him. Baumb quickly followed, dragging Yule in after, and the door slammed shut with a jarring thud. The latch Baumb had added, made from bits of rubble we’d collected in our hide-a-hole-seeking adventures, was slid into place, but we’d been made.
The door creaked over our heads and Yule let out a horrific squawk. The door instantly began to rattle and then stop but I knew that couldn’t be it.
“We have to find the green X,” I said to no one in particular. My gut told me that was our best bet with someone on to us.
Baumb shouldered his way to the front of the line as Ded started to falter. “No, no,” I muttered, slapping at Ded’s pale cheeks. “You can eat crappy fruit and take a nap later. Not now, Krampy-buns. Now, you must wake!”
Ded mumbled my name and his head lolled. Damn it, he was not light.
Baumb had unleashed his claws and begun digging down the small tunnels that led who the hell knew where, opening them up for his big frame.
I was just starting to really lose my shit, panic setting in as adrenaline wore off, when the sound of earth shifting reached my ears. A creak sounded near Baumb, and a head popped out of one of the offshoot tunnels to the side of my busy Baumbel mate.
“There you are!” Shnikel breathed, frowning at my naked body, Ded slumped over me as I held him up, and the cramped beaked beast bristling at my back.
Baumb let out a noise and turned to assess the threat, but froze as he watched me gaping at Shnikel.
Shnik’s head swiveled and his eyes widened. “Collected quite the menagerie,” he said lightly, motioning for me to hand Ded over to him.
“I found Ded,” I mumbled finally.
“And lost your clothes,” he said with a grin, blue eyes bright.
“I have them,” I said defensively.
“Good. Then put them on. Be needing them,” he said, then disappeared to drag Ded through the passage he’d just popped through.
Redressing, grabbing the pelts up, I waited for Baumb to follow Ded’s hooves through. The tunnel this led to was huge. It looked like an old mine shaft. Stepping out into it with Baumb’s assistance, I looked to my Elkfen lover.
“They’re mine,” I felt the need to tell Shnick, so he knew what he was getting himself into.
“As am I, Lumi-love,” he swore, and hefted Ded over his shoulder to motion for us to follow him. “Not to be short, but we haven’t much time.” With Ded’s weight weighing him down, he began to jog. “There are probably about a hundred tunnels just like this, but only one leads to a portal.”
“A portal?” I muttered, wincing as rocks and other debris dug into my bare feet.
Baumb scooped me up, clicking for Yule to follow closely, and caught up to Shnikel to easily keep pace with him.
“Good man,” Shnikel said with a long look at the Baumbel carrying me princess style.
Baumb grunted and his lips twitched.
“There’s a small window to it, but it leads to another winter world.” Determination filled Shnikel’s expression. “We could go there, start over, all of us. Free from all of this.”
Baumbel spoke and Shnikel looked to my alien snow beast mate askance.
“I don’t know what he’s saying,” Shnik admitted.
“He said as long as we all go, and that includes Yule,” I said with a grin, hooking a thumb over my shoulder at Yule ti. Patting my mate’s chest, I told Shnik proudly, “This is Baumb, and,” my hand waved in Ded’s direction, “you obviously know Ded.” Rolling my eyes, I added, “He ate the fruit.”
Shnik eyes twinkled. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“And I you,” I said easily.