Do you think it was really him?” The man referred to as Mr. Ed said, resting on his shovel for a moment.
The man referred to as Mr. Benn stopped digging and looked over at the body in the red suit again, then over at his partner. “How old are yous? Course it’s not fucken Santa Claus.”
“But what was he doing there, dressed like that?” The man referred to as Mr. Ed said, reticent to get digging again until he’d gotten to the bottom of this. Something quite unusual for him. The man referred to as Mr. Ed loved digging. Burying people, whether alive or dead, was his favourite part of the job. Good honest, salt of the earth work that. Something you could be proud of.
“It’s Christmas Eve. Maybe he was going to a party,” the man referred to as Mr. Benn said, slamming his shovel back into the cold earth and prising out another half-frozen clod. He had a short fuse at the best of times, but he was now starting to get pretty narked.
“You see I’d thought of that,” the man referred to as Mr. Ed said, prodding the limp Santa with his foot. “But he shouldn’t have been there, should he. We cased that place for months. The only two people who lived in that big old house are the pair of crooked accountants tied up over there, and I don’t think they even know him.”
Mr and Mrs Johnson gave a panicked look and began inching away as the man referred to as Mr. Ed came close. His rancid breath made their eyes water as he leered at them. A mix of burnt tobacco and stale pork pies pouring over their panicked faces, making them want to scream.
The man referred to as Mr. Ed grabbed their heads with his big ham-like hands and forced them to look at the body. “Do either of you know that big fat fucker over there?”
“Mmmph,” they both said in unison, shaking their heads as best they could.
“There, you see.” The man referred to as Mr. Ed said, sounding almost pleased with himself.
“It’s hardly conclusive though, is it?” The man referred to as Mr. Benn said, flicking another frozen clump of soil onto the pile. “They’d tell you your shit don’t stink if they thought it would prevent them from going in this hole.”
“Nah,” the man referred to as Mr. Ed said, smiling. “I know these sorts. They’d sell out their own nan if they thought it would make them a few bob, that’s why someone hired us to do this to them in the first place, but they was telling the truth. Theys was just as surprised as us when he showed up.
“Maybe he was breaking in as well.” The man referred to as Mr. Benn said, shrugging his shoulders.
“What, dressed like that?”
“Well, I don’t know, maybe he thought it was a good disguise. Or maybe he is a nonce! Ever think of that? There was this one fella, over on D-wing, used to try and get everyone to sit on his lap all the time.”
“Seems a bit farfetched.”
“What, and him being the real Santa isn’t. He’s wearing a fake beard for fuck’s sake.”
“Yeah, but he’s got a real one underneath. Just not as full,” the man referred to as Mr. Ed said, pulling on the fake beard and then letting it snap back down against those rosy cheeks.
“Why does it matter now anyways?” He’s not going to be putting you or anyone else on any naughty lists from now on, so who cares?”
“That’s easy for you to say, you’re not the one who might have killed the actual Father Christmas.”
The man referred to as Mr. Benn looked down at the hole and then over at the three people supposed to go in it. Two live, one dead. He was no genius, didn’t really need to be in his line if work, but it didn’t take him long to calculate that he was going to be here all night at this rate. If it was anyone else, he’d have thought they were taking the piss. But he had been working with the man referred to as Mr. Ed for long enough to know that he wasn’t. He threw his spade down and grabbed his vast partner by the shoulders, hoping to shake some sense into him. “Perhaps if you hadn’t twatted him in the face with a fire iron, you could’ve asked him a few of these questions, instead of wasting my time with it. Now stop fucking around, and help me dig this fucken hole.”
The man referred to as Mr. Ed was already feeling vulnerable, and wasn’t about to let himself be pushed around by the likes of him. He did what any self-respecting thug would do. He braced himself and nutted his partner right on the chin.
Any normal person would have been floored by a blow like that. But the man referred to as Mr. Benn just shook it off and tutted. He feinted a right, and then kicked the man referred to as Mr. Ed between the legs, dropping him to the ground. He followed it up with a kick to the guts, making the man referred to as Mr. Ed heave.
Not to be out done, the man referred to as Mr. Ed grabbed his partner’s ankles, somehow managing to hook his own legs around his body and brought his hefty girth down to the ground with him.
The man referred to as Mr. Benn caught him with a vicious elbow to the back of the neck. The man referred to as Mr. Ed was just about to retaliate when he stopped.
“Wait, where’s those two married crooks gone?”
The man referred to as Mr. Benn stopped hitting and looked at where he had left them tied up. There was nothing except some cut rope and soggy footprints heading off into the forest. The wily fuckers had somehow managed to cut themselves free on the spade he’d carelessly flung nearby.
“Oh, for fuck sake,” the man referred to as Mr. Benn said, getting himself up and dusting himself off. He reached out a powerful arm and helped his friend up onto his feet. “This is going to take us the best part of the night to catch up with those idiots in this gloom.”
“Let’s just hope they trip in a rabbit hole or something and break their legs.” The man referred to as Mr. Ed said. He was just about to fetch the flashlights and the two homemade coshes from the back of their van when he realised someone else was missing too. “What happened to the fat man?”
The man referred to as Mr. Benn looked to where they’d left the corpse and sure enough, it too was gone.
“I thought you said he was dead?”
“I thought he was. He wasn’t breathing.”
“Well, he’s breathing now, ain’t he. No way that pair of accountants could or would have carried him with them.”
The man referred to as Mr. Ed smiled. His first proper smile since earlier that night, when he started to suspect that he might have just murdered a being of mythological significance. “Thank fuck for that!” he said, looking up towards the sky as if literal prayers had just been answered.
“Can I remind you that this is a material witness to some serious crimes,” the man referred to as Mr. Benn said, taking his gun out from the glove box and checking it was loaded. “We need to catch and kill all of them before the sun comes up, or we’re fucked.”
The fat man moved surprisingly fast despite his age, and previous injuries. He’d somehow managed to sneak up behind them, grab the shovel, and hit the man referred to as Mr. Benn on the back of the head, knocking him to the ground.
The man referred to as Mr. Ed stepped back, trying to defend himself. The man in the Santa suit smashed his arms away with the shovel, then hit him on the head too.
The man referred to as Mr. Ed dropped to the muddy ground like a sack of Christmas presents that all happened to be shit, landing in the hole. He looked up and could just make out the silhouette of jolly old Santa peering down at him. He heard him laugh as things started to fade to a grey haze. Then there was another thud and the man referred to as Mr. Benn landed in the hole next to him, unconscious.
The man referred to as Mr. Ed struggled to get up, but he was too woozy and slumped back down. Just before everything went black, the man referred to as Mr. Ed heard more laughter, and the faint sound of sleigh bells in the distance. A classic sign of a concussion.
Bio:
Art Stanton is a complete square. He grew up and lives in the UK in a town notable only for making shoes. He has worked a whole host of shitty jobs over the years and used to drink to forget. Through no fault of his own, he is now in middle-management hell at a large construction company where he spends his days sitting in endless meetings, drawing pictures of pigeons, and wondering what’s for lunch. His novella, Sex Robots Must Die, was published in 2022.
@AJStanton6
Urban Pigs Press 
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