Free The Man From U.N.D.E.A.D.'s Christmas Carol by Darren Humphries

The Man From U.N.D.E.A.D.’s
    Christmas Carol
     
    By Darren Humphries
    ( with apologies to Charles Dickens)

Also by Darren Humphries on Kindle
     
    Fiction
    The Man From U.N.D.E.A.D.: The Curious
    Case Of The Kidnapped Chemist
    The Man From U.N.D.E.A.D. – Zombie
    Apocalypse Now
    The Man From U.N.D.E.A.D. – Do Dragons
    Dream Of Burning Sheep
    One Small Step For The Man From U.N.D.E.A.D.
     
    The Man From U.N.D.E.A.D Trilogy
     
    New York City Legend
    The Sword In The Tree
    Stormwreck
    The Great Rock N Roll Doomsday Tour
    An Orc Not Like Others
    To Infinity (and maybe that’s far enough)
     
    Short Story Anthologies
    Sharing A Fence With The Twilight Zone
    A Goodreads Gallimaufrey (contributor)
    A Splendid Salmagundi (contributor)
     
    Non Fiction
    The Sci Fi Freak’s Guide To The Televisual Galaxy
    Goodnight Dear: The Unsentimental Diary Of A Bereaved Husband.

This book is copyright to Darren Humphries 2012
     
    This book is a work of fiction (which should be obvious to anyone reading it) and all characters, events, and names are fictitious. Any resemblance to real world places, companies, people or events is purely coincidental except where people may have been mentioned for comic effect. In these instances, no inference should be made about the real person from the contents of this book.
    There are some real world locations used, but these are used in a fictitious context and no inference should be made about the real place from this book.
     
    All the stunts in this book are carried out by specially trained fictional characters and should not be attempted at home (especially messing around with rocket jetpacks without even reading the manual).
     
    All rights reserved. Please don’t reproduce or distribute any part of this book without the express permission of the author.

Thanks to my Quality Quartet of Kath, Susan, Patti and Geoff without whom Charles Dickens would have turned in his grave a good few more times.

    The Man From U.N.D.E.A.D. ’ s Christmas Carol
     
    ‘Twas the night before Christmas and all over the house nothing was stirring ... except Veronika making eggnog in the kitchen. I had learned the hard way that t he Bevilacqua clan take their eggnog very , very seriously and Veronika had marked out the room as her personal territory until she had gotten this batch just right. I could see her through the window, her brows furrowed in concentration. It was endearing , really , that a woman who every day dealt with the most dangerous, vic ious, evil and downright mischie vous creatures on the planet got so stressed over something as mundane as the preparation of a party drink.
    Sometimes folk are just strange.
    I deposited the bag of rubbish into the wheelie bin located down by the garden wall and headed back to the house. Internat ional man of mystery and kicker of demon arse I might be, but I still have to take out the rubbish. As I approached the house , however , I couldn ’ t fail to notice the eerie orange glow that surrounded the door knocker above the holly wreath. It was a brass knocker shaped in the face of a lion with a rin g hanging from the jaws . I didn ’ t like the thing myself and had always made do with a doorbell , but my Brazilian girlfriend had thrown herself into the whole traditional British thing with a vengeance since coming to live with me.
    C urrently , that meant Christmas .
    Hence the holly wreath …
    …a nd the tree lights twinkling through the living room window.
    Now don ’ t get me wrong, I ’ m no Scrooge who believes the whole Christmas thing to be humbug of the most commercial kind (although there is certainly more than an element of truth in that). T his particular fes tival , however, is overlaid onto a whole bunch of older , pagan winter festival s and t hat means there are a few supernatural elements that are more than a little peed off at this time of year for being set aside to make way for a man in a red suit with a team of flying reindeer. These are