Chapter Sixteen
The Crazed Grinch
Laughing as he checked off the names of three more families, he leaned back against the car’s leather seat and turned the heater up. An eerie stillness sheathed the world outside as the falling snow choked the land, covering trees, lawns, roofs, and cars. It was like he was in a cocoon, safe and protected, all the windows covered by white making his world inside the vehicle charcoal gray.
As he stared ahead, a small boy appeared in the theater of his mind. The image was in full color and the boy sat on the soft cushion of a brocade chair, the fire’s glow highlighting wet tracks on his face. His father, bent over, stuffed brightly wrapped presents into a large black bag. Standing in the corner of the room was his mother, her hands covering her mouth as she looked at the scene unfolding before her.
Gripping the steering wheel, memories from his younger days flooded his mind. He’d come from a wealthy family, lived in a mansion, took equestrian lessons, and had a lifestyle a lot of children would’ve killed for, but they didn’t know what was hidden behind the columned porch and hand-carved front door. Inside, a monster ruled them—all of them. The mother he’d clung to before he went to school had betrayed him and his sister. She’d stood by and watched as the puppet master yanked their silvery strings, manipulating, humiliating, and punishing them without mercy. And all she’d done afterward was offer them cookies and lemonade.
Scrubbing his face with his fist, he glanced at the illuminated blue numbers in the car—midnight. Darkness without a glow. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember when there was a life without misery, but he couldn’t. Blackness crept in when he hadn’t been looking, and it never left.
His father had been a cruel and controlling man. There’d never been any physical signs of abuse on his wife and children—his dad was too clever for that. All the scars he’d given them were internal, and they never healed.
“You’re a loser. You’ll never amount to anything, you stupid, worthless brat. The day you were born was the worst day of my life.” His father’s words resonated through him, making him wince and shudder even all these years later.
All the commercialism in the world couldn’t ruin Christmas the way his father had—he’d been an expert at it. From the age of four, he remembered the puppet master taking away their gifts to give to needy children. In the beginning, his mother had sneaked a gift to them, but somehow their father had always found out; the gift was taken away from them, and then he’d berate their mother for days. Then one year, she stopped trying: no secret gifts, no Christmas tree, no lights in the window, no cheer of any kind. The fight had seeped out of her, and she let the puppet master reinvent the holiday for their household.
After that, he’d outdone himself: forcing them to go to parties and give their toys away, taking them shopping for ornaments, lights, and a tree, then making them give it away, playing Santa Claus at all the parties, banning anything that hinted of holiday cheer in their home. But the fucking bastard didn’t give up his presents, the roast beef dinner he insisted Mom make, or his goddamn lectures on the spirit of giving.
The brown-eyed man breathed heavily as the snippets from his fucked-up childhood ran through his head like a B-rated movie. How could you have given him any presents, Mom? He treated you like shit. He treated all of us like we didn’t matter.
“I fucking hate you!” The pain from slamming the steering wheel shot up his arm as the car windows threw back the echoes of his voice. Resting his forehead on the steering wheel, he tried to sift through the decay of his life to find something salvageable. Nothing. His whole world was black.
“You fucking took in foster kids and lavished them with love and kindness, and you turned your back on your own flesh and blood, you bastard,” he said aloud. An image he tried to keep hidden burst through: his sister dangling at the end of a rope she’d tied to the ceiling fan in her room.
His nose ran and saliva trickled from his mouth. “She was only fourteen years old. You made her believe she was ugly, fat, and unlovable. You bastard!”
The chime of his cell phone sounded distant, like it was from a different place and time. It kept ringing, dragging him out of the past. Sweeping his palms over his eyes, he inhaled through his nose. The ringing stopped. Picking up his phone, he saw his wife’s name and threw the phone on the floor mat. The pictures from the past fled to the dark recesses of his mind. Spite resurfaced, pushing all other emotions into his soul’s dark hole.
Coughing, he straightened in his seat and grabbed the list beside him. Tomorrow night I’ll hit the Montoya and Duggan houses. Christmas was the one holiday he hated the most. All the yuletide and joyful feelings made him want to fucking puke. The look of anticipation on the children’s faces when they went to see Santa or looked at their wrapped gifts under the tree made his skin crawl and his blood boil.
“Fucking brats,” he muttered under his breath as he switched the defroster on high, grabbed the snow brush, and exited the car. Stretching gloves over his hands, he frowned at the multicolored lights twinkling through the white mist. Several inflatable angels and snowmen lay on their sides, having been blown over by the icy wind.
He’d come up with the idea to stamp out Christmas one inflatable at a time when he’d turned sixteen. With money earned from his part-time job at the hardware store, he’d bought a BB gun and snuck out of the house at night, canvassing the neighborhood and shooting inflated snowmen, penguins, snow globes, and nutcrackers. He’d hated them with a passion, and his mission was to rid his small Illinois town of all inflatables. On one of his nightly excursions, a policeman had caught him in the act, and he’d pled guilty to criminal mischief. Afterward, he’d made sure he was smarter and more alert the next time.
And there’d been years of next times as he moved around the country for his employment. He’d always been so meticulous with his hits, but the day at the outlaw biker’s house, he’d lost his cool. He’d let a pretty woman turn his head. He didn’t know what he was thinking by waiting in the house for her and Paisley. Not thinking he’d have the nerve to do it, he’d begun to leave when he heard the garage door open. If it’d been the Neanderthal, he’d have slipped out the first chance he had, but she and her daughter had come in and a rush of adrenaline shot through him.
In all the years he’d been stamping out Christmas, he’d never confronted the people in the houses he destroyed. He didn’t want to; there was no fun in it. The pretty woman made him stay, of course, but it was the rush of knowing the house belonged to an Insurgent. He couldn’t stand how they walked around town acting like they owned it, like they were hot stuff. In his opinion, they were nothing more than criminals and hoodlums, yet women flocked to them and the town tolerated them.
The bikers tried to act like they were good guys, putting on stupid toy drives, but in his eyes, they were a bunch of nobodies. So he’d enjoyed the rush of adrenaline as he destroyed property that belonged to one of them, and scared the shit out of the biker’s wife.
Slipping back into the car, he banged the snow brush on the chrome door frame and then closed the door. Inside, it was toasty and the defroster had melted all the ice on the windshield. He shook his head; he hadn’t planned on the pretty blonde to be a fighter. I underestimated her. I should’ve figured the lowlifes would teach their women to defend themselves. But I bet their children can’t fight me. An evil smile began to slowly spread across his face. What better way to ruin Christmas than to have your child snatched?
A streak of excitement rode up his spine. If he could pull it off, it would be the best holiday season ever, but he couldn’t rush into it. Making a mistake would be deadly, he was sure of that. He’d have to plan out all the details, though he didn’t have much time. Christmas was only two weeks away.
Humming and tapping his fingers on the dashboard, he pulled away from the curb and drove down the quiet streets.
The phone rang again and he stopped abruptly, the back tires sliding. Looking down at the phone on the floor mat, his wife’s name flashed on the screen. He pounded his fist on the dashboard. “What does that fucking cow want?” he yelled out. He knew it wasn’t him. They’d stopped caring about each other years back. Probably wants me to pick up something sweet for her at the convenience store. Well, fuck you, bitch. You can forget that.
As he drove home, his wife’s face filled his mind. How did I ever think she was right for me? The truth was, he’d never loved her; she was just there when he reached the decision to marry. They had similar backgrounds and they both liked traveling, but as the years rolled by, she’d become nothing but a nuisance in his life. She was like a gnat that just wouldn’t go away, always buzzing around.
His fucking father had always called him a coward. If the bastard were still living, he wouldn’t call him that if he knew what he was planning to do for his Christmas finale. Once he proved he could brazenly go after the Insurgents’ kids, his next project would be getting rid of his wife. He was sick of her insults and sarcasm.
It’s time to shut you up once and for all, you stupid cow.
The garage door closed and he went into the house.