Bloody Christmas
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In the few days since Christmas, the family had picked up a damn dog.
Came as a complete surprise to Toby, tripping over the thing as it ran into his legs barking and yapping like a fluffy car alarm.
“Holy shit!” Toby yelped as he crashed head first into the kitchen table.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jeff hissed as he locked the kitchen door behind him. Upstairs he heard thumping, which moved across the ceiling and towards the stairs. “Shut that thing up!”
He tried to grab the puppy but it wriggled loose and attacked Toby’s face in an attempt to lick him to death. Jeff couldn’t kick it without maybe kicking Toby and right now that was a bad idea.
“Shit.”
Screw the plan, things had already gone to hell. Jeff abandoned Toby to his fate of puppy breath, and darted for the doorway. He met the homeowner at the foot of the stairs, looking tired and irritated after dealing with the new puppy all evening. That turned into shock on seeing an armed stranger in his home, but before he could start shouting Jeff stabbed him in the throat.
Pushing the man to the floor, Jeff grabbed his hands away to keep him from trying to stop the gushing of blood. Didn’t take long for him to bleed out, creating a large puddle across the floor that made Jeff grin. He stood up once the guy stopped struggling and stepped over the body. A high pitched yelp from the kitchen made him look back, but Toby could take care of a little mangy mutt.
Jeff could hear more footsteps upstairs.
Time to meet the wife.
Jeff tossed his knife up in the air and caught it with a grin. He ran up the stairs, not bothering to be quiet anymore.
--
“Stop feeding him that shit, he’ll get parasites and then Eyeless will beat your ass.”
“What? Yuck!”
Toby’s eyes crinkled over his mouth guard, giggling as Boy spat out the bit of raw meat mid-chew. “Aaaaand now he’ll become a vegetarian. Good job Jefferson.”
Jeff glared at him, and grabbed Boy by the shoulder to push him out of the kitchen. “Just cook the damn thing first! Fuck!”
“Grooooooss!”
“Then don’t eat raw meat!”
Boy scrubbed at his tongue with his hand, the five-year old wearing fuzzy brown mittens with paw prints stamped on the palm. They matched his hat and the fuzzy brown bear ears on top.
Boy hated them. If it hadn’t been so damn cold in the truck while waiting for his brothers to finish, he’d have chucked them hours ago.
Jeff bent down and hefted the child up onto his hip. Brat was getting too big to be carried, but Jeff only needed to get him past the pool of blood at the base of the stairs. The fewer footprints left behind the better, especially ones that belonged to a child. Their destination was a small room at the end of the hall, with a bright blue carpet and walls covered in colorful dinosaur posters. A blanket had been thrown over the small bed in the corner, the middle already soaked with blood.
“That’s for babies!”
“It’s better than the fucking teddy bear shit, so stop fucking complaining!”
Jeff crammed Boy inside the new coat. An adorable green with yellow felt triangles going down the spine and the hood. Boy glared down at the front of the coat and the dinosaur shaped buttons.
“Look, it’s only for a few months. Then it’ll be less fucking freezing out there and you can torch it for all I care.”
Boy wiggled his shoulders and pouted as he realized the coat fit him perfectly. The sleeves even had built in mittens and weren’t very fuzzy. “I hate it.”
Jeff rolled his eyes.
One shopping trip later, Boy pouted all the way back to the kitchen and Toby’s snacks. Meat fully cooked now and done up into sandwiches.
“All done? Awesome! They have a gas stove! We’re gunna have a merry time with this one, just you wait. Jeffers, go see if there’s any candles in the living room! Lzard-thing, come here and blow out the burners for me. Don’t breathe it in though or you’ll be a chipmunk. ...wait no, wrong gas. Eh.”
Toby chattered happily as he chucked a few more things into a paper bag to go with the puppy-sandwiches. Jeff left to find something flammable while Boy blew out the burners on the stove with spit-laden huffs.
“How come, how come we hafta get clothes here and not from the magazines?”
“ ‘cause you run through clothes like a weed whacker, and it’d cost a fortune to keep you clothed. Life tip - nudists have a LOT more money for fun things.”
Boy considered this.
“...but they’d be cold.”
“That’s the price we pay Hatchlet.”
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