Lefty shook his head. “You’re serious. You really believe this crap?”
“Look, Bohach, it doesn’t matter what I believe. Yeah, there have been a lot of people who’ve seen this jake at one time or another. Upright citizens I have no reason to doubt. But it’s up to you to weigh what I told you and decide for yourself.”
Lefty shook his head. “Sounds like a buncha townies scarin’ one another. What do they call it...mass hysteria?”
Strecker’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Could be, but are you willing to take that chance?” He shoved the Danish through, but since Lefty didn’t reach for it, it fell to the cell floor. “Do what you like. Leastways I’ll be able to sleep now that I done my good deed.”
With exaggerated purpose, Lefty picked up the pastry, walked to the wastebasket, and dropped it in.
“Suit yourself,” Strecker said. He checked his watch. “Ten-thirty-five. Guess that gives you just shy of an hour and a half to repent or leave out some food. But I don’t reckon you’ll do, either. Headin’ out now. The sergeant’ll look in on you from time to time. Been nice knowin’ you, Bohach.”
He gave Lefty a final cigarette and one match to light it—one last smoke for the condemned man.
The fire door slammed shut and the overhead lights winked out.
* * * *
In the darkness of his cell, Lefty listened to the wind howl outside. The furnace vents weren’t kicking out heat like they should, so he pulled the second blanket up to his chin. And he mulled over all that Strecker had told him about Carbon Hill’s seasonal bogeyman.
Crazy stuff, sure, but he couldn’t help thinking it wouldn’t hurt to leave out a little food and honor the local tradition. It wouldn’t mean he bought into it or anything like that. It would be more like knocking on wood or sidestepping a ladder. When in Hicksville, why not do as the hicks?
In spite of his previous brave front, Lefty felt around in the darkness, then took the Danish out of the wastebasket. He also fumbled around for the greasy paper plate he’d eaten his dinner off of. He popped open the cellophane of the pastry, laid it on the paper plate, and arranged everything beyond the cell bars. Then he licked the icing from his fingers and lay back on the cot.
It was only through the thin beginnings of sleep that he later heard the courthouse clock strike eleven.
* * * *
“Whazzat?”
Lefty awakened with the sensation that someone was close by. It was as though the someone was staring at him.
He would have shrugged it off if not for the thick, nasally breathing coming from beyond the cell bars. The fog of sleep lifted as Lefty thought, It’s that desk sergeant come for a bed check. That’s all.
But no flashlight swept over his cell, and after a moment or two, there came a clicking sound.
As of hooves clomping on the linoleum.
The Christmas Bane? Lefty thought. No friggin’ way....
And yet whoever was standing beyond the cell door squatted down, groping at the Danish. Lefty’s pulse elevated slightly at the idea of what might be in the darkness with only a few metal bars separating them.
Then came the sound of the Danish being slurped down.
Lefty drew away from the bars. He could almost sense the stranger’s head swiveling at the rustle of blankets.
But he knew there was no such thing as the Christmas Bane. No how. No way. Had to be that Strecker’s idea of a joke. Get the prisoner riled with some outlandish tale then scare the cheese out of him later. Well, Lefty Bohach wasn’t a guy to be played. He searched his pocket for the match Strecker had left him. It didn’t light right off. Not on the first or second try. But on the third, the flame threw a small glow within the cell.
And beyond the rungs was a face, which looked as though it hadn’t seen the light of day for years. It also had curving horns and a head-full of picket teeth.
Its mouth split into a grin when its feral saucer eyes locked onto Lefty’s.
“Ah! Someone left Krampus a Christmas goose.” The words came in a thick, phlegmy wheeze. “How thoughtful!”
And as the devil-thing’s body pressed impossibly through the cell bars like putty and reformed on the other side, Lefty realized he’d been had. The Danish hadn’t been to appease the Christmas Bane; it had been the bait to draw him in all along. An appetizer to the main course of Lefty’s own soul.
* * * *
Chief Dalton Strecker leaned against the fire door listening. The screams had stopped, and now came a sound like an ear of corn being shucked as Lefty Bohach’s spirit was stripped from his body.
At first light, they’d take Lefty’s car to the junkyard and reduce it to a solid block of scrap metal. Strecker shoved the Bohach file into the office shredder, erasing the only other shred of proof he’d ever been here. Hell, Bohach hadn’t even been able to call a lawyer yet because of the holiday. If Carbon Hill could be so lucky every year, Strecker pondered, they’d never lose another citizen.
The Courthouse clock rounded out twelve o’clock. It was officially Christmas, and Krampus would soon rest another year.
THE CHRISTMAS EVE GHOST, by Ernest Dudley
Sophie Forrest was blue-eyed and pretty, like a china doll and her face was about as hard. Craig let his gaze run down to her very shapely legs advantageously displayed in sheerest stockings.
She didn’t look the type to scare easily and yet here she was leaning across his deck, saying:
“I’m scared and I’m admitting it. I just didn’t know who to turn to for help then I thought of you.”
Craig was accustomed to this angle but it never ceased to flatter him slightly.
“Have a cigarette,” he offered. “Now,” he added as they lit up. “You don’t really believe in this spook, do you?”
“Seeing is believing, isn’t it? I’ve seen it all right—two nights running.”
“The ghost of a Burmese Dancing Girl,” murmured Craig thoughtfully to himself. He was beginning to be interested, especially as he hadn’t expected anything out of ordinary to come his way on Christmas Eve. He had resigned himself to a series of phone calls asking him to go and guard the family silver at Christmas house-parties.
Sophie Forrest pulled raggedly at her cigarette and managed to smile.
“I know it sounds quite ridiculous to you, Mr. Craig,” she said m the voice of one who didn’t see anything ridiculous m it at all, “but it does tie up with the old story.”
Craig told her:
“Better get the whole thing off your chest. Up to date all I know is that the house is supposed to be haunted by a Burmese dancer and you’ve seen her. What more?” She flicked a golden flake of tobacco off her lip with a red-tipped finger before she answered him.
“Years ago, it seems, the house was owned by some eastern prince who kept this dancing girl there and then eventually killed her in a fit of jealous rage. The general idea now, is that she appears every year at Christmas time.”
“And how long have you been in the house, Mrs. Forrest?”
She smiled wryly.
“This is my first Christmas—and my last, I’m beginning to think! When my husband and I took the house last summer to convert into an hotel we merely thought it was silly nonsense.”
Craig asked:
“And your husband?