So, there was that time in a shabby little tavern, in some nameless little village that I was passing through, when Santa Claus came to get me.

Can you believe it? I nearly couldn’t! It was my first real interaction with a celebrity. Had I ever met anyone as cool as the jolly old elf himself? Never! I just didn’t know to react! Also, I had never before realized that Christmas was an interdimensional affair celebrated across the multiverse, but I guess that was just the magic of holiday season!

“Oh, Mr. Nameless axe,” Klaus said, sadly. “Don’t you see, this whole thing puts a kink into my naughty or nice list? I can’t weigh the evidence of your good or evil and render an appropriate judgement without a name to place in either section! Can’t you just dig deep down, and try a little harder? For me? For good ‘ol Santa?”

“Sorry, big guy,” I said in reply. “In all honesty, I can’t remember my real name. I just go by Max these days because it’s easier.” I reached for another cookie from the tray that Santa had brought with him but it was slapped out of my hand before I could even take a bite.

“Ouch, Santa! What the heck?” I said plaintively. I had a right to feel upset. Those were damn good cookies!

“Ouch, ” hissed the old man in a mocking tone of voice. “What the I hope you realize that you just sounded like a little do you know that?”

“Jeeze, Santa. That’s not a very nice thing to say!”

What was with this guy?

“Well, maybe ‘ol Santa’s not in such a nice mood, hmmm? I just asked for one little favor and you couldn’t even do that! After everything done for over the years, too! You ungrateful little soiled You know something, Max? I ought to push your shit in with a penknife, I really should!”

“Jesus, calm down,” I told him. “You can’t tell if you’ve ever done anything for me, old man! You just admitted you don’t even know my real name!”

“Don’t you fucking talk back to me, you little shit! Don’t you talk back to Santa!” the jolly old elf barked back.

“Well, okay. I guess we’re done here, and I’m out,” I said, as I hopped off my stool to take off. Klaus stood with me and as I tried to pass him, the old man lashed out with a whistling haymaker that crunched right into my nose!

“Fuuuuck!” I screamed in surprise, as I grabbed at my spurting nose. The toymaker stood there and laughed at my pain.

“Oh nose! Did that hurt? Did that hurt, little Max?” he asked me.

“Of course, it hurts, you fat asshole!” I yelled in reply.

“Good. Because we’re just getting started here, flatliner.”

Klaus stripped off his robe, revealing a surprisingly muscular form beneath his supposedly flabby exterior. Yes, his belly was as round a bowl filled with jelly, but his pectorals, arms, and shoulders looked like they’d been forged on an anvil.“I was you’d do this the hard way! Do you hear me, you effete little spunk miner?” Santa cheerfully asked. “Ho! Ho! Ho! I’ve broken naughty little bastards like you for nearly six hundred years. An endless wave of hoodlums and tough guys! I’m going to punch a hole through your spine and let my reindeer use you as a prophylactic. You hear me, Santa working up a sweat putting shits like you in their place. You better be ready for this.”

My god. It was really happening. Santa was coming for me, and I’d been caught unprepared.

Fuck him. I wouldn’t go down easy!

Instead of responding to his taunts, I quickly snatched the tray of cookies off the bartop. Holding the tray at an angle, I brought it down in a vicious swipe across Klaus’ face that split the skin open across it diagonally, leaving a bloody red furrow from his eyebrow to his chin. Klaus didn’t even flinch. Instead, he attacked with a blindingly fast left-right combo that took me off my feet and put me hard on the floor. When I desperately tried to climb to my feet, the heavy boot of the toymaker collided with my ribs, knocking the air out of me in an agonizing hiss.

“I like it when you bad boys fight back,” smirked Klaus. “ I do. You love to throw hands, hmmm? And I throw them right back, don’t I? I pound repentance into those firm young bodies, and sculpt you back into good little lads with these strong arms, don’t I?"

He pulled me to my feet by my hair and tossed me into a nearby chair. Then he leaned forward, his bushy beard twitching madly under the lamplight, and held out his arm, flexing it until a massive bicep bulged before me.

“That’s right, that’s right, you little Feel this arm, You feel that? You feel that, fucker? That’s That’s a man’s arm. You get it from doing real work! Feel it. screamed Santa. He then mashed his arm into my face, rubbing it against me as hard as he could, staining his skin with blood from my nose but not seeming to care in the least.

“Real muscle! Real man! Real muscle!

He then slapped me and threw me back onto the floor. Before I could even move, he had his arm clamped tightly around my windpipe, cutting off all my oxygen. Then he pulled back and squeezed, and slowly turning my face purple and leaving black spots dancing across my vision as the capillaries in my eyes began to hemorrhage and burst.

“Bet you’re sorry now, huh?” moaned Klaus into my ear. “Bet you’re sorry now! But don’t think this is the end, you coal sucking son of a whore! We’re getting started!”

__

When I awoke, I was bound to a chair by tightly corded sparkling Christmas tree lights.

It seemed I was now in the darkened basement of Santa’s workshop. He must have carried me all the way to the North Pole while I was unconscious! Taken me away to where there’d be no witnesses for whatever he had planned. I was in serious trouble here!Wasn’t it almost New Year’s Eve? What was all this extra diligence?

Maybe Santa was just an extremely dedicated psycho? I could believe it.

“Heeeeey, fucker!” said an unwelcome voice.

Before me stood Klaus, the toymaker.

He’d exchanged his pants for a pale leather apron. Judging by the expressions of the silent screaming faces meticulously stitched into the loathsome material, it was made of Elf Skin. Horror gradually dawned in my eyes, and the toymaker laughed in amusement at my terror.

“That’s , fucker. When Santa wants something done, it gets DONE. These little bastards couldn’t keep time on the assembly line. We had a The happiness of all the little boys and girls in the world depends on us! I kept asking them to get their work completed faster, and they kept mewling that they were so Selfish little fucks! Selfish!”

Klaus took a quick swig of milk before continuing. “Lazy as hell, that’s what they were. Unmotivated! So now Santa’s wearing these fuckers right across his balls to remind the others to Pretty inspirational, right? Ho ho ho!”

Pain from my injuries blurred my vision as I tried to make sense of what was happening. To bring things out of this irresolute insanity and restore normality.

“Santa…,” I said pleadingly. “This can’t be how you want to live your life, man. Can’t you see it? You’ve cracked! You need help! The pain of existence has clearly gotten to you! You’ve got to end this nightmare before it’s too late! Kill yourself, man! It’s the only way! It’s the best way!”

“Ho ho ho!” Santa said sarcastically as he offered me a meager little clap. “You silly little bastard! You’re not the first one to ever try to talk ‘ol Santa into ending it all! But it was a good attempt!”

“It was?” I asked him.

“It was! And for making the effort, I’ll be sure to strip the flesh from your back with a good candy cane caning!”

“Well, shit.”

“Shit is right, fucker! Now it’s time for Saint Nick to break your will, quick!”

“B-but wait—” I tried to say, but it was far too late. The toymaker took a seat on my lap and began going to work on my face with his thin razor wires and his flat rusty blades.

All things considered; it wasn’t the way I’d ever spent an idle evening.

__magic

When I awoke, I was laying on the floor of the tavern we’d been in before.

Good, golly! Had it all been a terrible nightmare? Had it all been an awful dream? What was going on with me? More importantly, did I have a hidden masochistic fetish combined with undiagnosed daddy issues?

Man, I hoped not. I was complicated enough.

And then I looked around and saw I was surrounded by dozens of mutilated dead bodies. I was also covered in blood and gore and was obviously the person who had killed everyone here.

Huh.

What could you say except happy New Years?

I went back to sleep.