Note: Publishing this post retrospectively, because I forgot to actually make this post in May 2020.
Over the past year, I’ve been working with the rest of the SAS AT Writing and Publication cohort to publish Up to No Good, an anthology of stories about villains. If you buy it, you’ll find that the first one of those short stories was written by yours truly. My story is about Krampus, a Christmastime villain (which is maybe fitting for me because my birthday is on Christmas).
You can buy the book from Barnes and Noble, and read my short story below:
The Antelope's Claws
Zhirou Gao
Please, feel free to ask me anything—why I’m crawling behind a garishly-dressed old man; why my claws are bent out of shape; why I look so bitter with all this snow on my fur. And what’s that sack thrown over my shoulder? To be honest, I know about as much as any outsider looking in: that the sack I carry is for the naughty children to fill, and the old man’s is for the good ones to empty.
I don’t really care for the mistletoe, the cold moonlight above the clouds, or the smell of roast turkey effusing through the town; the waves of routine makes everything seem like background noise. House after house, it’s all the same: go down the chimney after Santa, take the kid and shove him (trust me, it’s usually a “him”) inside the sack, then move on.
Kidnapping the kids is always the worst part about the job. It’s not like either of us actually know which kids are good and which kids are naughty. Usually, Santa writes the names of the kids he likes onto wrapped presents and places these presents under a Christmas tree or something—so in a way, he makes the call. After that, I know what I have to do but I don’t like doing it. I grab the remaining children by the ankles (sometimes they wake up and thrash about, which only makes my job harder) and cram their bodies in my bag. We try to keep the ratio to around eight nice kids and two naughty ones, because we want the parents to think that most kids are nice.
Look, Santa’s climbing up another brick chimney now. He’s astonishingly fast for his physique.
***
When I first met Santa, I found him smoking a pipe by a campfire. It must’ve been over a century ago. He seemed, to me, unremarkable in all respects. His face was an expanse of wrinkled skin, on which perched a pair of beady, glasses-covered eyes. And that rotund figure of his—it graciously bestowed on him a sense of next-door mediocrity. Nothing about Santa struck me as anything more than aggressively pedestrian. But his fondness for that garish color red… that left an impression. I've never seen that much red on a person. It appalled me. How sick do you have to be to have the gall—the gall to assault the eyes of everyone with the misfortune to come across you?
He took another puff, lifted his glasses, then squinted at me. I felt dirty under his scrutiny, covered in mud and sleet, from all the walking I did to find him.
“Look at you,” he chuckled. “You are Krampus, aren’t you?”
“Santa.”
“Ah! Santa Claus, or St. Nicholas, or Christmastime Kris Kringle. Whichever pleases you most.” He laughed again, heartily. Out of everything that night, I remember that laugh the most. I hate to compliment Santa, but his Ho-Ho-Ho held a strangely intoxicating quality. Like the sound of waves crashing onto shore, somehow luring you to drown in its current.
“Our myths…” I was doubtful to broach the topic so soon, and I stopped. My centuries of age didn’t make me good at making conversation. Maybe we ought to have introduced ourselves more formally first?
“They are being merged, yes?” He said, as if it was an afterthought. “Let's discuss it over dinner. Do you enjoy stuffed turkey?”
The thing about being a folk entity—one like me and Santa—is that we're all subject to human whims. If the turbid ebb and flow of human misery changes our myth, we must evolve with the change; if we don't, we become forgotten and as good as dead. If humans merge the myths of Santa and I—begin to say that Krampus was Santa's evil sidekick, kidnapping children on Christmas Eve—I had to do the job.
I didn't like changing. I don’t think anyone does. But Santa's lighthearted insouciance that night had consoled me. As we made our stroll back to his cottage, my liking for him continued to grow. I became more comfortable in his presence. His mundanity was dangerous, that way. It masks him in a veil of familiarity, which is more deceiving than authentic. But this was lost on me then.
Santa's cottage evoked a sense of belonging, a rare feeling for me. As we approached the cottage, it glowed increasingly orange, inside out, from crackling fireplaces in its modest rooms. The layer of snow on its roofs coated it in a white, inexplicable splendor. I’ve seen castles and palaces, but this had filled my eyes with unexplained wonder.
I heard the voice of Mrs. Claus for the first time when Santa opened the cottage doors. Her voice was strong, ringing out from the inside.
“I told you to get out of my sight.” Her hostility surprised me.
“We have a guest,” he replied. This was the first time I noticed that peculiar, alien thing about Santa—I'd never seen it in anyone else. Why was it that, no matter what he saw or how big his smile was, his eyes were always cold under his glasses? “This is Krampus.”
“Krampus!” Mrs. Claus rushed out and cried, her apron flung carelessly and her hair wild. She, too, was dressed in blinding red. She seemed to compose herself, and smoothed her hair with her fingers. Only then did she continue to address me, “Forgive me. I am Mrs. Claus. We have been expecting you.”
Santa laughed an easy laugh, wrapping his arms around Mrs. Claus and my own scruffy shoulders. Mrs. Claus flinched slightly under his touch, but the tight smile she was giving me didn’t budge. He addressed us. “Shall we have dinner? And speak to me, Krampus—I've been wondering for a while, and forgive me if this is rude... Why do you have hooves for feet but claws for hands? Shouldn't it be one or the other?”
***
I used to be more than a child kidnapper. In my earliest days, they called me the “Dieu cornu”—horned god—in a little French cave called the Trois-Frères. They painted me on the walls with two antlers, a human form contained in the chimeric body of antelope, reindeer, and buffalo.
After that, my myth underwent its first permutation in the whispered words of witches. I became the god of fertility. My worshippers congregated in crazed, midnight sabbaths, and through these I lived. I can only describe those days as glorious—the torches, the dancing, the sacrifices. The trees would glow orange under the fires. They scavenged and minced nightshade, jimsonweed, and ergot so they could see me in hazed hallucinations. And they danced with me, each of them, until they collapsed at dawn and found themselves drenched in the honeydew of sunlight.
The tower of my past has collapsed into a cheap Christmas carol, seeping into the pages of Central European board books rather than magnificent hallucinations. My name changed from the “Dieu cornu,” a horned god, to “Krampus,” a clawed creature. I didn’t even know I had claws.
***
The morning after my initial encounter with Santa, I met his Christmas elves. In unforgiving sunlight, the elves congregated outside of Santa's cottage. They seemed middle-aged and haggard, stalking about with short statures and wearing red-and-green uniforms—thank God for the green. They were uglier than I had expected, but who was I to judge?
One elf was slightly taller than the rest, and had the most facial hair. He also wore the biggest hat. Because of this, I assumed he was the leader of their group of fifty-or-so. He saw Santa and, without sparing me a glance, spoke.
“We think the townsfolk are noticing. What do we do? How do we stay safe? We are overworked as is. Speak, Santa. What will become of us if the townsfolk catch on?”
“Elves,” Santa smiled, “Nothing will happen. I will keep you safe. I treat all of you as my children.”
“Do you promise?” There was a slight quiver in his voice. The rest of the elves, too, seemed reluctant to believe Santa’s words. But their eyes remained hopeful nonetheless.
“I promise. Now, would you all go back to work? Christmas Eve will be here before we know it.”
When the elves left, I turned to Santa. “What are the townsfolk catching onto?”
He shrugged, and gave me a straight look. “Where do you suppose the presents came from? Do you think we can make them ourselves?”
“You mean they're thieves?” I couldn't suspend my disbelief. “Well… How will you keep them safe, then, as you promised?”
He smiled again. "Ah, this and that, and promises... I'm a forgetful person."
***
The morning of Christmas Day approaches as the sun moves up the sky. As the years went on, my initial fondness for Santa dissipated into disdain. It's clear, from his actions, that he's not the person the stories say he is. But, again, neither am I.
Now, we're almost strangers. This Christmas morning, though, Santa invites me to sit with him on a rooftop as he smokes a cigarette.
“Would you hold my jacket for me?” Even after all these years, the excessive red still bothers me. But I hold it for him.
We sit in silence. I break it first. “Do you feel guilty for the bad things we’ve done?”
"Bad things?" he asks, flinging his cigarette carelessly between his fingers.
“Leading the elves on, damning random children to hell…” I would continue, but a breezy wind makes my teeth chatter. I put his red jacket around my shoulders, wearing it.
“It is what it is.” He paused, then looked at me. “Do you want a cigarette?”