Free Home for the Holidays: A Short Story by James A. Moore

 
    HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 
     
     
    ’Twas the season. 
    The roads leading into town were nearly cleaned of the thick sheath of snow that had blanketed the area for the last week and there were Christmas lights in the windows of most of the houses and all of the shops. One elemental truth stood against any and all religious differences during the holiday season: Christmas decorations meant more customers. Even the very Scroogiest shop owners knew that simple fact, and all of them did their best to take advantage of it. 
    They’d have had the damnedest time when it came to Jonathan Crowley. He’d been known to celebrate the season on behalf of others a few times, but not in longer than most of the stores on Main Street had been around. 
    Black Stone Bay was a beautiful town and half deserted for the holidays. Two universities took up a good portion of the area and with school out of session most of the students had gone home, leaving the campuses oddly silent despite the festive decorations. It leant the town a haunted air, though he could easily sense there were other reasons for that sensation. No town of any age managed to stay free of dark spots, places where life had gone wrong or death had grown cancerous. Black Stone Bay was a town most places aspired to; the people were well off, the crime rate was light—with a few exceptions—and the town was postcard perfect. It had been years since he’d come through the town and remarkably little had changed since then. There were no new developments, no subdivisions that had grown into the area or overshadowed older neighborhoods. No matter who might want to bring change to the town, the people who lived there would never tolerate the idea. 
    There was little space for the nouveau riche in the place. The old money families saw to that. 
    The very notion set Crowley’s teeth on edge. He had no special love of the wealthy, or of the needy. He had no special love for people, if the truth must be known, but they called on him just the same, and with no consideration of what they asked when they made their requests. 
    “So, tell me about your friend.” He looked at the latest in an endless line of people who’d asked for help. The woman was not a stranger. He’d met her twenty years earlier when she was in college herself and living in Los Angeles. Back then Laura Natchez Montgomery had planned to be the next big thing as an actress. Two decades had removed that desire and replaced it with a fairly large family, including a husband, three children and two dogs. Dreams change. Jonathan Crowley could have told her that when they met, but knew she wouldn’t have listened. Most people don’t want to hear unpleasant or inconvenient truths when they’re young and still know everything.  
    Laura sighed and looked out the window while she composed herself and tried to figure out exactly what to say. 
    She was not a previous client. He had never been asked to help her out of a dilemma, but he’d come to her assistance just the same. They met while he was on the hunt and tracking down a killer. A flesh eater if he remembered correctly, one that killed its victims and then let them rot for a few days before it picked the bones clean. Laura had been unlucky enough to find one of the bodies and catch the damned thing’s attention. She was a striking girl as he recalled, and the thing that had run across her agreed. It was a matter of timing really, blind luck that kept her from being raped by the nightmare. It was just tearing her clothes away, cackling as she screamed and tried to fight it off. 
    For Crowley it had also been a perfect distraction to let him take the damned thing down once and for all. The seams on Laura’s jeans split open and she cried out at exactly the same time he was driving a ceremonial sword into the back of the demon’s skull. The impact had broken the blade, much to his disgust. He hadn’t been able to find a replacement and it wasn’t for