I was dumbfounded. “Why didn’t I ever hear of any of this?”
“I’m coming to that. After the destruction, on Christmas Day, Santa went to sleep, and when he awoke it was as if nothing had happened. He could not believe what he and Momma had done. At that time, St. Nicholas was just a local phenomenon. He hadn’t made his Christmas Eve visits, but they were limited at that time to poor children in the area, so excuses were easily made and the local furor eventually died down. No one outside the village ever knew what had really happened. The following year, Santa moved to the North Pole. A solemn vow was taken among the elves that only the physician would ever be tainted with the knowledge of what had occurred. The story was passed down to me by my father. I thought it was just a nasty fairy tale; even my father told me he didn’t really believe it.”
“Did they ever figure out why it happened?”
Fritz sighed. “No. The only explanation my great-great-grandfather came up with was that Santa had been possessed by a demon, and that the demon had been driven out by Santa’s extreme goodness.” He paused. “Very backward of him, don’t you think? But now I have my own theory.”
I looked at him expectantly, and after some thoughtful beard-stroking he went on.
“I believe that after eight hundred years of extreme, selfless, total goodness, something happens within Santa’s subconscious mind. I think there is a kind of reaction against all this goodness which builds and builds, a kind of ego-force, and when it has built to a sufficiently high point it bursts through to the surface volcanically. A similar reaction occurs in Momma Claus, also. That reaction is what we are seeing now.” He paused, shook his head quickly, resolutely, and reached inside his coat. “But no matter what the cause,” he said, producing a syringe, “we must now do something. Santa’s actions have now taken an even wilder course than they did the first time this occurred. We have no idea what he will do, and we cannot allow him to continue. I decided today that if he tried to carry his violence beyond the North Pole he should be stopped at all costs. We must give him this strong sedative and turn the sleigh back.”
“Should we get the two apprentices to help?”
“They are obviously in no state to be of assistance. We must—”
“Having a nice chat, boys?” Santa’s demonically smiling face looked down at us over the little wall we had constructed. He reached over and pulled Fritz up by the collar, taking the syringe from his hand and throwing it overboard. I looked up front: the two apprentices were frantically trying to control the reindeer, and were being bounced all over the front seat by the reins.
For a terrible moment, I thought Santa was going to pitch Fritz over the side after the syringe, but after shaking him a few times he put him down. He held him with one hand while he reached up front between the bouncing apprentices and rummaged in his sack, producing a length of rope. He tied Fritz up and gagged him, then let him go and grabbed me by the collar. “And you, little Gustav, will be my special helper, just like always. Hold this,” he growled, thrusting the sack into my hands. “And if you make one wrong move I’ll toss you out like a sandbag.” I threw a helpless look at Fritz, who was wriggling in his ropes, trying to tell me something, and followed Santa up front.
He retrieved the reins from the two apprentices and frightened them into the back. We made a long, slow turn and came in over North America.
Santa turned and showed his teeth. “And now,” he said mockingly, “it’s time for our Christmas visits. Ho ho! Ha ha ha!” He snapped the reins, and we swooped down to a landing on a snowy rooftop.
He bounded out of the sleigh, and drove me and the two apprentices toward the red-brick chimney. I took a quick look in the bag I was struggling with; it was filled with all kinds of tools. I groaned silently. Santa hustled us down the chimney.
We found ourselves in a cozy living room. There was a lot of comfortable-looking furniture, and the fireplace was big. I brushed past four small stockings as I stepped into the room. A Christmas tree was decorated and lit in one corner.
Santa grabbed the sack from me and opened it, removing a set of fine jeweler’s tools, a heavy monkey wrench, a hammer, and a flashlight. He gathered them all into his arms, then turned to us. “Now let’s be quiet, boys,” he whispered, grinning. “We wouldn’t want anyone to disturb us, would we?”
Santa Claus, the gift-giver, then set about taking everything of value and stuffing it into the empty bag. Whatever was fastened or bolted down, he lifted with the wrench or the back end of the hammer. He dragged me along beside him, making me hold the sack open as he dumped in all sorts of stolen goods.
When he was through with the furniture and the other valuables in the room, he tiptoed through the rest of the house looking for money and jewelry. He found a wall safe in the den, and chuckled sardonically when it popped open under his sensitive fingers, revealing a small horde of gems and gold jewelry to his flashlight beam. When we came back to the living room he hoisted the stuffed sack and drove us to the fireplace. The room was completely bare. We’d even taken the lights and ornaments from the tree, which now stood naked and forlorn in the corner.
Before hustling us back up the chimney he turned to the living room, put his finger to the side of his nose, and said, in a grotesque parody of his normal self, “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night—ha ha.”
We loaded the sleigh, and with a slap of the reins we were off to the next rooftop. Santa took a fresh empty sack with him, and we went through the same routine.
We finished with the last house at about three in the morning. My arms ached from transporting stolen property. I dragged myself into the front seat, and we rose, the reindeer straining against the load, from the last snow-covered roof.
Santa kept an eye on me for a while, but as the sleigh turned up toward the North Pole he finally forgot about me. He sat with a bag filled with the biggest diamonds and silver pieces he’d taken, and after telling the reindeer he’d “roast them alive” if they didn’t find their own way home, he put the reins aside and sat with all the precious stuff in his lap, scooping big handfuls up and letting it run through his fingers.
I slipped silent as a shadow over the seat into the back. Fritz was wedged between a sack of paintings and a bag filled with patio furniture that Santa had spotted piled up on someone’s back lawn. The two apprentices were exhausted, snoring in odd positions on top of two bags filled with bar stools. I pulled the gag out of Fritz’s mouth and said in a low voice: “Is there anything we can do?”
He nodded. “There is in my left coat pocket another syringe which I brought for just such an emergency. If you could somehow give him an injection, we might still do something. But you must hurry.” I took the syringe from Fritz’s pocket and made my way back up front. Santa was still drooling over the jewels. I leaned over to push the needle into him, but as I did so my foot came down on a champagne glass that had rolled out of one of the bags.
He whipped around at the grinding noise. “More tricks!” he said, grabbing me and lifting me off the floor. I hid the syringe behind my back, but he saw it and his face went red with anger. He reached around me with his free hand, and I kept it away from him by squirming this way and that. He stood up to get a better hold on me, and the sudden movement panicked the reindeer. They started weaving crazy patterns in the air. Santa lost his balance for a moment, and I gave him a kick in the belly. He said “Ooof!” and dropped me. I ran into the rear of the sleigh and hid behind a sack.