Welcome to Flash Fest December!
I have some author friends who have joined me in this challenge, and are contributing to the prize baskets!
This week’s prize basket:
- $10.00 Amazon gift card
- your choice of one of my ebooks
- swag bag
- handcrafted quality jewelry!
- ebook of Clockwork Nutcracker
This is how the prize giveaway will work:
Leave a comment throughout the week on any blog post, whether it’s the blog hop, flash, guest spot, or weekend writing warriors. I will select one of the commenters through Randompicker and post it on Monday’s post ( or rather Tuesday as it’s been lately, since my internet connection has been sketchy.) That person can contact me on Facebook or email me at: [email protected].
The challenge is to write a flash piece, 500 to 1000 words based on a Holiday tune as a prompt. The author was given the option to select their own or I would assign one. Trust me, my list of holiday tunage is anything but traditional!
Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer The Reindeer Game By Teel James GlennCopyright 2017 by Teel James Glenn
Cities near the arctic circle are usually quiet places even as the holidays approach, full of folks who’ve elected to leave the hustle and bustle of ‘down south’ cities or who work for Old Nick in one of the satellite shops that make toys for the ‘big day’, now only a week away. Most people, elves and wild life go about their business peacefully. When they don’t I get called; I’m a cop.
My name’s Khristmas, Joe Khristmas.
I was working the Serious Crimes Division out of Moosejaw when we got the call; grandma deceased; possible crime.
My partner was Kenny Krampus.
We piled into the police sled and headed off to the northern-most suburb of the town to a little trailer park near the river.
“Dead, alright, trampled,” Kenny hissed. His uniform cap slid off his head where he had jammed it between his horns as he leaned over to look at the corpse. He just picked it up and repositioned it between them as he spoke. “Looks like reindeer tracks.”
It was true, the hoof prints were marked in the mud in front of the trailer of old Mother Gyzander, and over her body, then up the side of the trailer. Straight up.
“Yup,” I said. “Flying reindeer, looks like.”
I interviewed the witness, a deliveryman from Jiavaro.com, that big online company, named Jones.
“I swear, it just jumped up and down on her, snorting and squawking,” Jones said. He was a thin guy in a brown uniform, with a little nervous tick in his left eye that made it seem like he was winking all the time.
“You say you saw the whole attack?” I asked. Kenny was sniffing around the body, literally, his Krampus senses on high as he searched for clues.
“Well, no, not really,” Jones said. “I was in my truck getting a package ready…we organize our routes, you know to make it easier to get all our deliveries in our area done on time, efficiently, you know?”
“Uh, huh,” I said, taking notes as he spoke. “The facts, sir, did you or did you not see the attack?”
“Uh, yes, well,” he continued, “I had pulled over there to sort my route and was in the middle of it when I heard…I heard this swishing noise and a scream and then this thumping and when I came out that horrible antlered thing with the red nose was just finishing stomping on her then ran up the side of the trailer with its bloody hooves…” His voice trailed off.
I waited while the deliveryman dealt with emotions. Civilians are like that, they don’t see what we see. Kenny caught my eye and I watched as he ambled over to the delivery truck, doing his best to seem casual about it, though there is not much chance of a furred and horned creature like Kenny ever looking causal.
At the truck he paused and sniffed, peering into the open back then waved me over.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said to the sobbing man and stepped over to my partner.
“Okay, Kenny,” I said. “Do we put a call in to the workshop to have Rudolph brought in?”
Kenny waggled his shaggy head at me and pointed into the back of the truck. Among the chaos of boxes I saw what he was looking at, one of those grabber things used to get things down from high shelves. We exchanged a look and I knew it was time to play good cop/Krampus cop with Mister Jones.
“You say you saw the killer, Mr. Jones?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“A reindeer?” Kenny growled.
“Yes.”
“With antlers?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Jones said.
“And you saw it trample granny?” Kenny drew himself up to his full height and let his fangs show in a half smile, half grimace.
“No,” Jones said. “I said I heard it and then I saw the damn thing skip up the side of the trailer and fly away.”
“An antlered reindeer?” I asked.
“Yes,” he practically yelled. “With a red nose, I told you.”
“Where you from, Mister Jones?” I said, changing tack. “Down south?”
“From New York,” the deliveryman said. “I came up this last summer. What does that have to do with anything? That damn flying menace killed that woman.”
“That clinches it,” I said to Kenny. “Cuff’em.”
“What?” Jones looked from my hairy partner to me with shock in his eyes that quickly went to anger. When Kenny moved to pull his cuffs the deliveryman dodged and avoided the grab. Kenny spun to get him, but I’m the sprinter in the team so I was through Kenny’s legs and hit Jones at knee height with my shoulder.
He went down like the price of beaver pelts. Kenny was on him in a minute and we got him wrapped for shipping.
“You’re under arrest for the murder of Grandma Gyzander,” I said. “Anything you say can and will be used against you.”
“How…” Jones stammered, “How did you…”
“How did we figure you killed her?” Kenny said with a Krampus snort. “You really are a city boy.”
“Simple,” I said as we walked Jones to the squad sled. “Kenny saw the grabber in your truck that you stuck a fake hoof on and used to club the woman to death and make the fake tracks.”
“You’re just guessing,” Jones insisted. “You ain’t got nothin’…I saw that red-nosed freak.”
“What was it,” I continued, “stress of competing with the big guy for gift delivery? Or the lack of sunlight up here…it drives lots of you southerners nuts.”
“Yeah, why else make a southerner mistake?” Kenny said with disgust.
“What do you mean?” Jones said.
“Simple,” I said as I helped Jones into the car. “Male reindeer lose their antlers in early December, everyone snow bred knows that.”
The End.
About the author: Teel James GlennTeel James Glenn was born in Brooklyn though he’s traveled the world for forty years as a stuntman, fight choreographer, swordmaster, jouster, book illustrator, storyteller, bodyguard, haunted house barker and actor. His stories and articles have been printed in scores of magazines from Mad to Black Belt, Sherlock Holmes Mystery, Weird Tales, Blazing Adventures. Works include Steampunk Tales as well as a number of books for many publishers, including The Clockwork Nutcracker, a steampunk fable for Pro Se Productions.
He is the winner of the 2012 Pulp Ark Award for Best Author.
His website is theurbanswashbuckler.com
His greatest achievement, however, is his awesome daughter Aislin Rose.
Leave a comment and let Teel know what you think!
Write on my friends, write on!
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