A Tale of Two Clauses (Feedback appreciated!)

Gather round, dear children, and I shall tell you a Christmas tale unlike the ones you’ve heard before. You’ve heard the tale of Krampus, but I can certainly top it like a star on a tree. This is a tale of horror. A tale of revenge. A tale of two Clauses.

As everyone knows, there’s a jolly old man with a beard as white as snow and a nose as red as his suit, who lives in the North Pole and delivers wonderful presents to the good people of the world. You may have heard of him. His name is Santa Claus.

Now, what they don’t tell you is that Santa Claus isn’t the one who leaves coal in the stockings of the naughty. No, he’s a gruesome demon with a long scraggly off-white beard streaked with red, wearing a long wine-red hooded robe splattered with the same red streaking his beard. The hood obscures most of his face, but some say they see two glowing embers glaring into their very soul. This demonic figure not only gives bad people coal, but those who commit grave offenses, or are just insufferable bastards, get an even worse present. Yes, Satan Claus comes to their homes, leaves them a stocking full of coal and brutally kills them.

Well, one Christmas, back in 2015, an entire family was celebrating with a feast. Actually, there was one relative that wasn’t invited, and for good reason. The black sheep of the family was a textbook narcissist, an unabashed bigot and he cared only about himself and money. In short, he was fit to be an extreme right-wing politician at only 24 years old. This lovely gentleman was named Richard Weiss.

Richard was five and a half feet tall, of average build and the poster child for the Aryan Brotherhood. He had alabaster skin, eyes as blue as sapphires and short well-kept golden hair. His wardrobe contained all white clothing, for reasons unknown to most.

When Richard showed up uninvited to this year’s feast, he didn’t know that his sister Charlotte had gotten herself a darker-complected husband. He was spitting mad, spewing his vitriolic venom and throwing around the hard-r “N word” as if he were at a Neo-Nazi rally.

Now, his brother-in-law obviously didn’t take too kindly to the harassment, but he stood up from his chair, approached the fuming racist and repeatedly asked him to leave in the most level headed tone. Richard, not one to take orders from one of “his kind”, pushed him out into the street and into the path of an oncoming truck.

Needless to say, the Weiss family all looked just in time to see the poor man splatter all over the truck and the road. The driver, panicking, slammed on his brakes and got out to see what he had hit. The front of his vehicle was covered in blood and bits of brain, while the road around the truck and the nearby snow was painted crimson and littered with human body parts. In his panic, he ran up to the house full of horrified people and profusely apologized, swearing up and down that he thought he’d hit a deer or a large pet.

Charlotte was in tears, shrieking hysterically and cursing her brother as their uncle desperately tried to keep her from killing him where he stood. Richard simply rolled his eyes, gave the infamous salute and left without a word. He had single-handedly ruined Christmas for the entire family, shattered his own sister’s psyche and committed a hate crime, all in one night. And he was proud of it. “Serves the bitch right for being a race-traitor,” he muttered under his breath as he finally stepped through his own front door.

He grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and prepared to watch the news, only to be stopped by a tall figure in a bloodstained robe holding a stocking full of coal. The racist scoffed and huffed, “Out of my way.” The figure dropped the stocking and grabbed him by the neck, hoisting him into the air and growling, “You’ve been a very naughty boy, Richard…” As Richard struggled, he continued, “I am Satan Claus… punisher of the naughty… and exterminator of life unworthy of life…” He flexed his free hand and lunged forward, his talons digging through Richard’s shirt and chest. Pulling his hand from the hapless bigot, Satan Claus threw him to the floor and proceeded to slowly pry open his chest.

In his agony, Richard could hear everything. He could hear the raspy laughter as he was opened up, the sickening crunch of his ribs breaking under this demon’s gorilla strength, the beating of his own heart as it was ripped out of his chest. The last thing he saw were two glowing embers and a set of razor sharp teeth surrounded by hair that was caked with blood. The last thing he heard was his killer tauntingly purr, “Merry Christmas, you heartless bastard.” Then Richard was gone.

But the story isn’t over just yet. You see, Richard’s uncle, a bodybuilder in his 40s, hadn’t exactly gotten over his nephew’s atrocious behavior, and had drunkenly stormed over to confront him. He pounded violently on the door. “RICHARD!” he slurred angrily. “OPEN THIS DOOR, YOU SON OF A BITCH!” After about five minutes without a reply, he grew even more agitated and turned around, only to let out a terrified scream.

He hadn’t noticed it before, but his nephew’s bloody corpse had been hanged using Christmas lights, and it swung in the frigid December air. Against his better judgment, the frightened man decided to take a closer look, and he saw that Richard’s chest had been pried open with such force that some of his ribs were missing. And then he heard the jingling of sleigh bells, accompanied by God awful raspy laughter…