Free Halloween and Other Seasons by Al., Alan M. Clark, Clark Sarrantonio

with the body and face of a miniature Sigmund Freud and a professorial manner to match, edged up to me. He leaned over unobtrusively and whispered into my ear.
    “I believe I know what is happening,” he said. “This has occurred before.”
    “What?” I said.
    He nodded slowly and scratched at his beard. “It was a long—”
    Just then, Santa came screaming down the line, waving his arms madly in the air. “Everybody to his station!” he shouted.
    Fritz opened his mouth to continue, but Santa came charging toward us. We quickly separated. Fritz shambled off toward the infirmary, and I scooted to my office.
    I sat drumming my fingers on my desk for a few minutes, and then decided I had to talk to Fritz again to find out what was going on. There was a lot of howling and yelling outside, but I climbed quietly out of my window and made my way to the infirmary, a small, neat cottage at the edge of the village.
    The door was locked and the windows dark. As I stepped off the porch I nearly bumped into Santa as he ran wildly around the corner of the building, a wine bottle in his hand. “Gustav!” he yelled. “Come with me!” And, dragging me along behind him, he went on a rampage.
    He drank two and a half bottles of wine, and stumbled from building to building, department to department, shouting and breaking things. He started in the maintenance shed, went through the dining room and kitchen, and eventually made his way to the Toy Shop. There he told one of the master craftsmen that he didn’t like the face on two thousand just-completed toy soldiers, lined them up in rows, and stomped them to sawdust.
    At that point, one of the apprentices tried to shoot him with a replica Winchester rifle. Santa snatched it, batting the apprentice aside. He stumbled out into the snow.
    “Where’s Rudolph!” he roared. “I want to see my Rudolph!” Barely able to stand, laughing drunkenly, he found his way to the stables and threw open the wooden doors. “Rudolph!” he shouted, swaying from side to side. The interior of the stable was illuminated by moonlight. Rudolph, still in his stall, looked up and blinked, his red nose flashing. “Red-nosed bastard,” Santa said, and as I watched in horror he raised the rifle, fumbling for the trigger.
    As I leapt for him, he pulled the trigger; but as he did so he fell over backwards, out through the doors. He lay laughing in the snow, kicking his feet and howling, and firing the rifle at the moon and the weather vane on top of the stable. Then suddenly he stopped shooting, gave one long wolf-like howl, and instantly fell asleep.
    The moment this happened, I gave a signal, and Shmitzy and a couple of other guys ran and got a long rope. We jumped on Santa and started to tie him up, but just as we got the rope around his waist, Momma Claus burst out of the Toy Shop and came running toward us, swinging a headless doll over her head and shouting, “Get away from him! Get away!” We scattered, and from a safe distance I watched as she dragged Santa’s snoring body across the courtyard and into the house. Apparently he woke up, because a few minutes later all the lights in the house went on and I heard them laughing and breaking things.
    I looked for Fritz but couldn’t find him anywhere, so for the next couple of hours I tried to organize clean-up crews and estimate the damage. For all intents and purposes, the North Pole lay in ruins. There wasn’t one building with its shingles and shutters intact, and the infirmary and elves’ quarters were burned to the ground (Momma and Santa had danced around them as they blazed). The only structures left reasonably unscathed were the sleigh shed and the Toy Shop. I had no idea what we were going to do. There didn’t seem to be any way to stop him, and I couldn’t possibly let him make his Christmas Eve ride in his condition. It was almost too late to start, anyway. It looked as if there wouldn’t be any visits from Santa this year.
    As I was