Aw, thank you!
Yeah, even in a Christmas fic I couldn’t bring myself to have Jay and Trudy get back together. He should have stayed with her in the first place!
A Tribal Christmas Carol
Written: 2011
Synopsis: Amber resolves to change Lex’s attitude to Christmas, with the help of the rest of the tribe.
**
‘It’s a bad idea,’ Lex said for the fourth time, slowly, as if by emphasising each word he could drill it into everybody’s heads. He stood at one end of the meeting table the tribe had put together in the café, gazing around the room at the assembled Mallrats gathered around it. At the opposite end, Amber also stood, her arms folded in stubborn defiance at his words.
‘Well, I think it’s a great idea,’ Trudy enthused, getting up to stand next to Amber. ‘Think about it,’ she said, addressing the rest of the group. ‘We could use a good celebration around here; why not Christmas? It’s been years since the last one, and it was always such a happy time. We need more of those around here, especially now that Mega’s in power.’ Her lips wrinkled in distaste at the mention of the tyrant.
‘Exactly,’ Amber agreed. ‘We might have no choice but to go along with his plans at the moment, but this will show him, and the rest of the city, that he can’t break our spirits.’ As City President, Amber was no more than a figurehead appointed by Mega, a scapegoat to take the blame for all his unpopular actions. It galled her that, because of his threats against her baby, backed up by the numbers and weaponry of his Techno forces, she was powerless to stop him. ‘Shall we have a vote?’ she continued. ‘Who wants to have Christmas again?’ She and Trudy both raised their hands, as did Sammy.
‘I remember at school,’ the youngster said eagerly, leaning forward in his seat to address everyone, his free arm resting on the table. ‘The teachers told us that, when the baby Jesus was born at Christmas, the angels sang that there would be peace on all the Earth.’
‘That sounds lovely,’ Lottie said longingly, having never experienced a great deal of peace in her lifetime, and raised her hand too.
‘That’s the message we want to send out, Sammy,’ Amber smiled. ‘Peace, and hope for the future.’
Lex scoffed. By now he was the only one without a hand in the air; in fact, he had deliberately stuck both of them in his pockets. ‘Cute,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Mega’s trembling in his Techno boots as we speak. Even if we ignore the fact that it’s about as useful a way of fighting back against the Technos as using a confetti cannon, how are you even going to pull this off? You’ll be wanting a tree, I suppose? Are you going to brave the Zootists and all the other crazies outside the safe zone to go out to the country and chop one down? And what about food? Do you know how hard it is to get extra supplies these days? Not to mention that inviting other tribes in here is just going to be an excuse for them to trash the place. We’re hardly flavour of the month after Amber’s little CityNet broadcast about the extra work parties yesterday. Well, you know what? If you guys want to have yourselves a merry little Christmas, that’s fine, but don’t expect any help from me!’
‘You’re just a Scrooge, Lex!’ Salene accused. ‘A little hard work never hurt anyone.’
‘Well I think old Ebenezer had the right idea, personally,’ Lex grinned back at her. ‘Christmas? Humbug!’ And with that, he stormed off to his room. The rest of the tribe grumbled to themselves over his attitude, but Amber simply stood and smiled. Talk of Scrooge had reminded her of one of her favourite Dickens novels, A Christmas Carol, and she had come up with an idea to make Lex change his mind.
‘Darryl, do you still have that Zoot costume lying around?’ she asked her fellow tribe member.
Darryl nodded. ‘I think so,’ he answered.
‘Go fetch it,’ she said. 'And I’ll need help from the rest of you too. We’re going to bring Lex to his senses.
‘That’d be a Christmas miracle if ever there was one,’ May joked.
That night, Lex lay in his bed, sleeping peacefully. All of a sudden he was awoken by a chiming clock. His eyes shot open; where had that come from? There were no clocks in his room. Had he been dreaming? He was about to close his eyes and go back to sleep when the unseen clock chimed a second time, then a third, and it kept chiming. There was no denying the reality of it. At the twelfth, the whole room was illuminated by a bright light and he scrambled to a sitting position, shielding his eyes and wondering what was happening. A distinct chill filled the room and he slowly lowered his arm, gasping in shock as the unmistakeable figure of Zoot rose from the foot of the bed.
‘What’s going on?’ Lex called hoarsely. ‘This can’t be real. You’re…you’re dead!’
‘Yes,’ Zoot answered simply. ‘I am. And this is very real.’ He raised his arms, and Lex saw that there were chains around his wrists. ‘Do you like them?’ the spectre grinned. ‘I made them myself, by my actions in life. Every night I am tortured in the blackest depths of Hell!’ A blood-curdling scream filled the room, and the light surrounding Zoot turned blood red. Lex threw the bedcovers over his head to drown out the noise. When he finally plucked up the courage to emerge, Zoot was still there, but the light had reverted to its original colour. ‘But you can escape my fate, Lex,’ Zoot informed. ‘I’ve been sent to warn you.’
‘Warn me about what?’
‘About what will happen if you keep distancing yourself from your tribe,’ Zoot replied. ‘Come, let me show you.’ He beckoned for Lex to follow him.
‘Show me?’
‘Yes,’ Zoot grinned evilly. ‘Show you your future. And the doom of the Mallrats.’
Lex got out of bed, fearing what would happen if he didn’t follow. Zoot led him out into the darkness of the mall. As they approached the Phoenix statue, the ghost clicked his fingers and an eerie light lit up the grille area. Even from where he stood Lex could hear the howling of the wind outside, a wind that blew snowflakes into the entranceway.
‘This is Christmas Day,’ Zoot intoned. ‘Several years from now. It seems that the Mallrats have started something of a tradition.’
‘Wonderful,’ Lex muttered sarcastically.
‘Only, you didn’t help them that first Christmas,’ Zoot continued. ‘And they couldn’t do it on their own. They kicked you out and instead had to turn to Mega for help.’
Lex snorted. ‘They wouldn’t do that,’ he argued, then fell silent at the phantom’s accusing look.
‘They had no choice,’ Zoot explained. ‘By that point the city was expecting a party, and the Mallrats had to deliver. Mega provided everything – food, decorations; he even had a tree flown in over the barricades. Instead of the passive resistance to the Technos it was intended as, Mega made Christmas into a celebration of his rule.’
Lex spun on his heels at the sound of a scream behind him, and saw another pool of light illuminating Trudy, kneeling over a motionless Brady at the foot of the Phoenix fountain, a look of despair on her face.
‘Trudy!’ Lex called out to her. ‘What is it? What’s wrong with Brady?’ She didn’t respond, so he took a step towards her, then jumped in shock as he was restrained by Zoot’s hand grabbing his arm. He hadn’t expected the ghost to be so…solid.
‘She can’t hear you,’ Zoot explained. ‘Or see you. This is merely a window into the future. Without you to find food for them, the Mallrats came to rely on the gifts Mega provided. After all, with Amber as President, they could have whatever they wanted. But before long the people came to trust Mega and the Technos fully. He didn’t need the Mallrats as figureheads anymore, and the gifts stopped coming. The tribe found that they couldn’t compete with the other tribes for food anymore. They didn’t have the bargaining power they had once had, and they had lost the skills needed to find food outside of the city, too. Starvation set in. The little ones were the first to go.’
Lex watched in horror as Trudy placed a blanket over her daughter’s body, but had no time to think or speak before Salene and Amber rushed down the stairs to join her, closely followed by Sammy and Lottie.
‘They’re here,’ Salene said, sounding frightened.
Amber nodded. ‘This is it,’ she said determinedly. ‘Our last stand.’
No sooner had she spoken than a group of masked Technos burst in through the grille entrance, their weapons drawn. The surviving Mallrats charged into battle, but didn’t stand a chance. Lottie and Sammy were easily overpowered and carried away, while the older tribe members were no match for the Technos’ zappers. Before long only the Technos were left standing, and the fallen Mallrats were gathered up and carried away, leaving Lex and Zoot alone in the pool of light once more. Frozen by the fear of a dead man’s hand on his skin, Lex had only been able to watch in stunned silence as his friends were taken, and now his mouth worked soundlessly, unable to form words.
‘As the Technos grew stronger,’ Zoot said. ‘They needed more and more power, and that meant more slaves to work the power stations. Every so often there would be a raid on one of the weaker tribes, one that nobody would miss. This time it was the Mallrats’ turn.’
‘How did we come to this?’ Lex wailed, finally regaining the power of speech. ‘This can’t be the end of the Mallrats; there must be another way, a way to stop all this from happening!’
‘There is,’ Zoot said simply. ‘But only you can stop this, Lex. You have to make sure this first Christmas is remembered throughout the city, for all the right reasons. You have to keep the resistance alive.’
‘I will,’ Lex promised, falling to his knees. ‘Anything! Anything but this!’
Zoot laughed, and the laughter reverberated through the mall, booming louder and louder. Lex curled himself up in a ball with his hands over his ears, trying to escape the awful sound. Suddenly it stopped. Lex carefully uncovered his ears, then got to his feet when he realised that Zoot was gone and he was alone in the dark once more.
A throat cleared behind him and he spun around in fright, only to come face to face with Sammy.
‘Lex…are you alright?’ the boy asked, looking puzzled.
Lex ignored the question, instead running up to Sammy and grabbing him by the shoulders. ‘You’re still here!’ he exclaimed. ‘That must mean I’m back! Back in the present! Wait…what day is it?’ The intensity rose in his voice. ‘What day is it?’
Sammy wriggled free of his grasp and shrugged his shoulders. ‘How should I know?’ he replied. ‘Nobody’s known what day it is for years!’
‘I’m talking about Christmas, kid!’ Lex clarified anxiously. ‘Have I missed it?’
‘Are you kidding?’ Sammy asked incredulously. ‘We only just decided to have it!’
‘I’m not too late!’ Lex laughed, doing a little dance, before stopping abruptly and holding his head. ‘So much to do…Listen Sammy, I’ve got some food stored away at a place in the city. I was saving it for an emergency but…well, this is an emergency. Anyway, I’ll give you directions, can you fetch it? There’s something else I need to sort out.’
Amber smiled as she watched Lex and Sammy from the balcony overlooking the ground floor of the mall. She could hardly believe that her plan had worked! She was sure something would have gone wrong, from someone missing their cue, to Lex seeing through the whole thing, but they had actually managed to pull it off. As the two boys left the mall, she was joined by Gel, still clutching her hairdryer and a handful of paper snowflakes, and by Jay, Ruby and May, each wearing a Techno uniform. Everyone had played their roles well, especially Jack and Ellie, who had been in charge of the sound and lighting, and of course Zoot himself – Darryl.
‘Amber! Amber!’ Darryl cried while bounding across the landing towards the others, wringing his hands and looking very apologetic. ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve looked high and low but I can’t find it anywhere! I’ve ruined the whole plan.’
‘Darryl, what are you talking about?’ Amber asked, confused. ‘You were brilliant out there! The plan worked!’
‘But…but I couldn’t find the costume,’ Darryl explained, looking just as confused. ‘I didn’t do anything.’
Just then, the mall was bathed in a bright light and Gel screamed, throwing her paper snowflakes in the air and pointing wildly across to the other side of the balcony, where Zoot stood clutching the railings. Gel regained her senses long enough to turn tail and scarper, and she was soon followed by the rest of the assembled Mallrats.
Across the balcony, Ellie stepped out from behind the spotlight, switching it off as she did so.
‘That was really mean!’ she complained to Jack, dressed in Darryl’s Zoot costume, before giving him a kiss on the cheek. ‘But I still love you.’
Jack smiled. ‘What’s Christmas without a few practical jokes?’ he shrugged.
On the day of the Christmas party, Amber wound her way through the crowds of people packed into the mall, greeting people as she passed. She caught a glimpse of Jack and Ellie kissing under the mistletoe and smiled. She had just about forgiven Jack for his Zoot prank; after all, it had had such good results. Lex had completely thrown himself into the Christmas preparations, returning from his foray into the city after his ‘haunting’ dragging a real Christmas tree behind him – she still had no idea where he’d found it – and even helping the kids to decorate it, and the rest of the mall too.
‘Amber!’ the man himself called out, jostling his way past a couple of Gulls with a drink in his hand. ‘Great party!’
‘Thanks to you,’ she replied, and then, feeling a little mischievous, innocently added: ‘What made you change your mind anyway?’
Lex looked serious for a moment. ‘Let’s just say I saw some festive spirit,’ he said eventually. ‘Anyway,’ he added jovially, producing a sprig of mistletoe from his pocket. ‘How about it? It is Christmas after all!’ He held the mistletoe up in the air between them and puckered his lips.
Amber rolled her eyes and walked away, but couldn’t help smiling as she did so. Despite the Christmas miracle they had performed, there were some things about Lex that would never change, and she didn’t think any of them would have it any other way.
2 Likes
Again… Awwwwww! A Christmas Carol is my all time favourite Christmas story! How you used it as inspiration and pulled it off into a tribal version… Just great!
But poor Darryl when Jack has played Zoot so splendid 
And Lex was just Lex… “Mega is trembling in his techno boots…”
The end made me smile, just like Amber!
1 Like
Thanks!
I’ve never actually read A Christmas Carol, just seen the Muppets version. It used to terrify me. 
1 Like
Wells it’s supposed to be a bit of scray… Dickes usually comes of really “teaching lessons”
1 Like
Home For Christmas
Written: 2012
Synopsis: In the wake of Mega’s Virus, Tai San returns to the city in search of the Mallrats. Meanwhile, in a remote Techno facility, Jack and Cloe are also on the hunt for their missing friends. Written for Tribe Universe’s Secret Santa challenge 2012. AU - Jack didn’t return to the city in S5.
**
Original challenge:
Three - Five characters to appear in your story: Jack, Sasha, Cloe, Tai San
Couple/s you want in your story: Jack/Cloe; Sasha/Tai San
Three items you want to be in your story: santa hat, jewel pendant necklace, remote control
Two lines you want to appear in your story: “That’s the point, isn’t it? People see but don’t actually look; people hear but they don’t listen.”; “Please tell me you’re not spending christmas in your workroom.”
**
Tai San coughed as she left the mall, and pulled the dust mask back down over her mouth and nose, wincing as the strap tried to tangle itself in her braids and around the mouthpiece of the headset she wore hooked around one ear, in her haste to cover her face. Not that having the mask in place offered much protection either; the material around the filter was already grubby with the same ash that fell around her like snow, making a soft carpet on the street. The fire that had engulfed the hotel and at least two sectors of the city had burned itself out by now, but it took time for everything to settle.
She sighed. This had been a wasted journey. She should have known that the Mallrats wouldn’t be here. Even they must have seen that the city was a lost cause now. Still, she had had to know. The doubt would always have been there, otherwise, and doubts like that had a way of nibbling at a person’s soul until it was all you ever thought about. What if she had gone to the mall? What if her tribe were still there?
‘Are you there?’ she asked, adjusting the frequency of her communicator. Slender fingers with blue-painted nails moved delicately on controls she no longer needed to see to be able to work.
Crackling noise and the clumsy thud of fumbling fingers through her earpiece spoke of someone less well-versed in the radio’s use on the receiving end. ‘Tai San? Is that you?’ her companion asked, his soft voice hesitant. ‘Yes, I’m here. How did it go at the mall?’
‘It’s empty,’ she replied, surprised at how calmly she could say it. ‘Dead, just like the rest of the city.’ She thought she caught a faint sigh on the other end. Commiseration? Or could it have been relief? She hated having to use this device; communication was about far more than just words, in her book.
‘What now, then?’
She answered that question with silence. What could they do now? She had fled the city, what seemed like a lifetime ago now, for the good of her tribe, after feeling Mega’s trap for the Mallrats being woven around her and knowing she was powerless to stop it. Reprogramming, the Technos called it, and she shuddered even to remember the shell of herself she had become then, barely more than a puppet for the tyrant to guide and use as he chose. Somehow she had managed to summon up enough willpower to break free, just long enough to start running, and once she had started she realised just how close to the edge she had come, how close to betraying everything and everyone she cared for. She didn’t stop running then for a very long time, not until she was sure Mega’s hold over her was broken. Everything she had done since then had been to bring her here, to fight her way back and confront Mega, to rejoin her friends and her family. But now they were gone, and with them, hope.
A shrill piercing noise whistled through the speaker like the screech of some demonic eagle as her companion did…something. Fiddled! ‘Tai San? Are you there? Can you…read me?’ His tongue tripped over the terminology, his voice barely distinguishable then suddenly deafeningly loud as he pushed and pressed and twiddled at the controls.
‘I’m still here!’ she cried hastily, holding the speaker away from her ear until the volume returned to normal and the noise disappeared.
‘What do we do now?’ came the question once more, but this time she had an answer, or at least she hoped she did.
‘There might be a place,’ she said thoughtfully. She had been there once before, the last time everything had seemed lost, and in the midst of desperation, hope had blossomed, small and fragile. It was the one place she could think of where the spirit of the Mallrats might still be present; a link to her family, however small. It was a slim chance – she was afraid the place had already given up all its secrets – but it was a chance she had to take. She was tired of running, now. It was time to come home. Only, she wasn’t sure where home was anymore.
‘Are you willing to make another small journey?’ she asked hopefully. The jingle of horse harness answered her and she laughed in delight. Sometimes these communicators told you all you needed to know after all.
The radio on the table was not large, but it was hooked up to all the transmitting power the Technos had been able to offer; and here, in this former military base spread over the plateau of the tallest hill on a remote island – more recently a secluded Techno work camp, and now home to only a dozen or so former captives with nowhere else to go – that was a lot. Even with most of the satellites this place was linked to now redundant, the reception should have been huge! But as Jack slowly and methodically turned the tuning knob all the way in one direction, and then all the way back, all he picked up was a big fat nothing. Nothing at all! Nobody in the whole monumental radius he had worked so hard to make the machine cover was broadcasting a thing. Feeling that same wave of despondency he had in the early days back in the mall, when he had been desperately searching for a signal from the surviving adults he was sure were out there, he shoved the radio across the table sulkily. He instantly regretted it, of course, standing it back up again and giving it an apologetic pat. It wasn’t the radio’s fault after all; he was just a sore loser. He had never liked failure.
‘Please tell me you’re not spending Christmas in your workroom,’ a voice came from behind him, making him jump. Swivelling around in his chair to face its owner he gave an abashed grin when he saw that it was Cloe. She was trying very hard to give him a serious look, with her arms folded and one foot tapping on the floor, but the way her teeth chewed her bottom lip at one corner of her mouth spoke of suppressed mirth, and under those lowered brows he recognised the warm look in her eyes as fondness. He was no longer surprised by that; he was very fond of her, too. He hadn’t expected to be reunited with any of the Mallrats, much less Cloe, when the Technos had captured and brought him here, soon after their invasion of the city. Some months later, though, and suddenly there she was, being dragged into the compound kicking and screaming that she was supposed to be in the Game and calling for somebody named Ved. She had been very relieved to see him there, and he had done his best to help her adjust to a life in captivity. In turn, she had been a great support to him when the Technos found fault in everything he had been forced to make or program for them. She was the only person on the base who understood him, and she had said the same about him, the night they became more than friends.
He stopped gazing at her like an idiot and finally registered what she had said. ‘Wait, Christmas?’ he frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’
She shook her head and laughed softly. ‘How long have you been up here?’ she asked. ‘Have you even stopped to look outside?’ She gestured to the row of windows along one of the walls, and he stood, leaving his imprint in the back and seat of the leather desk chair he had been sitting on, and went to stand by the window. Outside a thick blanket of snow covered the facility and the surrounding hillside. Most of the other residents of the base were out there too, rolling around in the snow or throwing snowballs at each other, or even just standing there watching. One boy was even blasting off snowmen’s heads with an old Techno zapper.
‘I can’t remember the last time I saw snow,’ he murmured. He felt Cloe’s arm around his waist and realised she had joined him at the window.
‘Me neither,’ she agreed delightedly. ‘They’re saying it’s Christmas.’ He looked down at her and saw such an expression of joy on her face that he couldn’t help himself; he bent towards her and kissed her.
‘Well Merry Christmas, Cloe!’ he laughed as he raised his head again. She giggled and threw her arms around him, burying her head in his chest.
‘Merry Christmas, Jack,’ her muffled voice replied, and she sighed contentedly.
Jack studied the rest of their companions outside while he held her. They certainly looked to be having fun, but here a young woman stood shivering, stamping her feet in the snow, while there a child rubbed hands red from the snowballs he had been handling. This weather would provide its own problems if it continued.
Cloe felt him tensing and pulled away. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, looking concerned.
‘All this snow,’ he replied with a gesture. ‘We’ll have to make sure the heating systems are up to scratch.’ Distracted, he moved away from Cloe, making his way to a set of plan chests on the other side of the room, opening and closing drawers and shuffling through the plans and diagrams of the layout of the compound. ‘And we’ll have to find all the water shutoff valves,’ he continued. ‘What if a pipe bursts and floods the place?’
‘Then we’ll skate down the hallways!’ she laughed, twirling her way towards him as if gliding on ice. ‘You worry too much, Jack.’
‘I’m serious, Cloe!’ he chided. ‘A leak in the wrong place could frazzle the electrics, and we’d be even more cut off from the world than we are already! We’d never get in contact with the rest of the Mallrats!’
Cloe stopped, halfway towards him, folding her arms. There was no fondness in her eyes this time. ‘Sometimes I think that’s all you ever think about!’ she snapped. ‘You spend more time with that stupid radio than you do with me! Why are you in such a rush to go back? Is it really so bad here? Is my company that boring?’
Jack blinked, laughing nervously. ‘Don’t be silly, Cloe!’ he replied. ‘You know we can’t stay here forever. And you’d be coming too. Wouldn’t you?’ He realised he was sounding more and more unsure as he went on, and forced his mouth to close.
Cloe narrowed her eyes at him, the atmosphere in the room seeming suddenly chillier than it looked outside. ‘So I’m silly, am I?’ she said frostily. Without waiting for a reply, she turned and stormed out of the room.
Jack sighed heavily. Why did girls always take the least important part of what you said and find the gravest insult in it? He had thought it was just Ellie, but Cloe was the same! Frowning, his eyes fell to the plan in his hands. Fortunately, there were some problems he could fix. Muttering to himself and scribbling annotations on the plan, he soon became absorbed in his work, forgetting Cloe and their argument altogether.
Sasha pulled his hood tighter around his face and shivered in his saddle. His horse whickered and shook its head, jingling the bells tied to the harness straps. The only other sound was the crunch of hooves breaking through fresh snow. There was a lot of it, this high up in the mountains, all unbroken apart from their own trail behind them, and more fell the higher they rode, making visibility poor.
Tai San shifted against his back, and her arms around his waist were a comforting presence. ‘Not far now,’ she murmured in his ear, and he turned around to smile at her.
It had been a chance encounter that had brought the pair together. He hadn’t recognised her at first, not dressed as a Techno, but she had remembered him. They had both been travelling to the city; he had heard ever more terrible stories of what was happening there and, though he hadn’t really thought of the Mallrats for some time before the rumours, was hoping to find reports that they were well. She had been secretive of her reasons at first, not fully trusting him, but after a while travelling together, her story came out, and it was the most terrible he had heard so far. A cold-hearted despot ruling in the city. Kidnapping and slavery on a massive scale. Turning friends against each other using cruel brainwashing techniques. He didn’t think he would have believed it coming from anyone else, but Tai San had always had a calm about her, a self assurance and a way of grasping the important points of a matter in terms of people rather than politics that made him trust her absolutely; and those qualities were still there, but interwoven with a deep sense of weariness, loss and determination that rang so true with the incredible tale she was telling. He had become caught up in it all, caught up in her, and it was exhilarating. He thought he would do anything for this woman. He felt the drawstring bag hanging from his belt, checking it was still there, and smiled as its contents clinked metallically. They had spoken one night, camped beneath the stars at the side of the road, about fate, and whether a person’s life was already written out fully, or whether someone could write their own destiny, and to what extent. Watching her eyes sparkle in the firelight, he had thought that if ever two people had been brought together, it was them. Pulling his hand away from the bag, he clutched his reins tightly. If only he could find the right moment to tell her.
‘We’re here!’ Tai San exclaimed at last, sitting up straight and pointing ahead and to the left. He frowned, unable to see anything at first through the snow, then it appeared, a great white dome sitting atop the crest ahead of them like a giant snowball. They reached the foot of the building it thrust up from and dismounted, Tai San untying her small case of equipment from the saddle and slinging the strap across her shoulder as she trudged almost knee-deep in the snow towards the door.
‘Where exactly are we?’ he asked as he tied his horse to a rail nearby and caught up to her, dragging himself awkwardly through the freezing snow, teeth chattering. ‘And what are you hoping to find?’
‘Hope,’ she replied simply, smiling at him, before continuing as if to herself. ‘Eagle Mountain has always brought hope to the Mallrats, but can it give us what we need a third time?’
She pushed against the door with her shoulder but it was frozen stiff. He squeezed in beside her, her breath warming the back of his neck, and pushed alongside. After a few attempts, the door gave a groan and stuttered open in noisy stages. If anything it was colder in the dark hallway than it was outside, and a draught came from somewhere, making his wet trousers feel like ice against his shins. Tai San, determination strong on her face, appeared unaffected, pressing a button on her headset that shone a pale blue light ahead of them, partially illuminating the corridor, before striding out purposefully and taking the lead.
‘Let’s hurry,’ she said. 'I don’t have much battery power left in this thing.
Sasha hurried along in her wake, still unsure as to what she expected to find here. It certainly wasn’t the Mallrats; this place hadn’t been occupied in a long time, possibly since before the Virus, and some of the walls appeared to have suffered smoke damage, the worse the lower down she took him. Eventually she led him into a narrow room with a table in the centre filling most of the space. There were computers on that table, with wires leading off into power sockets or peripheral devices that Sasha couldn’t even begin to describe. Large monitors covered the walls, as well as maps, some of which he didn’t recognise. He tried flicking a light switch but nothing happened. He hadn’t really expected it to.
‘The fire gutted most of the basement, including the power generators,’ Tai San mused, still half to herself. ‘But the equipment in the observation rooms should still be in working order.’ She set her equipment case down on the desk and opened it, lifting out a large black oblong box, which she connected with clips and wires to one of the computer towers. Hesitantly she pressed the computer’s power button and gave a small sigh of relief when it lit up. He supposed the black box must be some kind of backup power supply. Tapping the power button on the monitor, however, Tai San made a frustrated noise. ‘It’s jammed,’ she explained, then started searching amongst the junk on the desk. ‘I thought I remembered…aha!’ She pulled out a remote control, but of course its batteries were long since dead. ‘Bear with me,’ she said, plunging them into darkness as she turned off her head torch. He heard her remove the batteries and replace them in the remote control, then the monitor sprang into life, bathing them both in its soft glow. As if she had expected no less, and perhaps she hadn’t, she began typing away on the keyboard, her fingers moving nimbly as screens appeared and disappeared on the monitor in rapid succession. Sasha was impressed, but slightly saddened. He didn’t think she had been so proficient with computers before the Technos had her.
Abruptly she turned to face him. ‘I’ve accessed the main communications link for the observatory,’ she told him excitedly. ‘And any satellites it’s still in contact with. If the Mallrats are out there somewhere, I can find them.’
He smiled at her and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘If anyone can do it,’ he said encouragingly. ‘It’s you.’
She beamed up at him and his heart melted. Neither of them noticed the tiny device on the side of the monitor, which had begun to emit a flashing red light.
Cloe sat on the bed in the room she shared with Jack, irritably kicking her legs. It was quite a comfortable room, having previously belonged to one of the Techno commanders in charge of the base, but right now she paid no attention to the furnishings. Her mind was occupied with the spat she had just had with Jack, but it wasn’t him she was irritated with; it was herself. She did want to find the rest of their tribe, more than anything. After all, who could want to stay somewhere that held such miserable memories? Not to mention where supplies were hard to come by. As much as she and Jack had formed a family of sorts with the other former Techno prisoners, it was the Mallrats who were their real family. But she was also afraid; afraid that if they managed to find their old friends – and they could be anywhere if rumours from the city were anything to go by – then she would lose Jack. Ellie would be with the Mallrats and the two had loved each other. Perhaps they still did. How could her own relationship with Jack, born amid the stresses and strains of captivity, possibly compare? She wasn’t sure that she was ready to find out.
Hopping off the bed, she gathered her courage. None of that was Jack’s fault; she would have to apologise. Leaving the room, she made her way back up to the communications tower where Jack spent most of his time. Her heeled boots echoed in the clinical corridors that hadn’t lost an inch of their military feel, and she was glad when she reached the bottom of the staircase. The walls there were no less stark, but at least the ringing of her footsteps took on a faster pace as she trotted up the stairs, lessening the oppressive feel.
When she opened the door, Jack had abandoned the plans of the compound and was once more fiddling with the radio. He didn’t even notice when she came to stand behind him at the desk, her footsteps masked by the sound of static from the speakers. Perhaps it was the snow, and all the talk of Christmas, but to her ears the faint sound of bells could be heard among the static.
‘Jack?’ she said, announcing her presence. He gave a jump and turned around.
‘Cloe!’ he spluttered. ‘Listen, I’m sorry, I don’t think you’re silly at all.’ He spoke in a rush, as if determined to get his apology in before she could say anything, but trailed off when she raised a hand gently to stop him.
‘No Jack,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I do want to find a way home, back to the Mallrats. I’m just…frightened.’
‘Frightened?’ he frowned. ‘Of the Mallrats?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘Not that. It’s just that, we’ve been here so long now. If we ever manage to find the others, how will we fit in? It’ll be so…different.’ There was no need to mention Ellie specifically, not yet.
Jack stood up and clasped her hands together in his. ‘I’ve worried about that too,’ he admitted. ‘But even if it is different, the two of us will still be the same. And whatever happens, there’ll always be one other person who understands what either one of us has been through.’
She hugged him. What he said had been reassuring, but she didn’t think he had fully understood her concerns. Or perhaps he had, and was just trying to let her down gently. Taken one way, he could have been saying that they would always be friends. She tried to work out the meaning of his words, but it was hard to concentrate with the noise of the static ringing in her ears. And it was ringing, she realised. She wasn’t mistaken; there were definitely bells among the buzzing, and she said as much.
Jack frowned, bending closer to the speaker to listen. She thought he was going to dismiss what she had heard as a fancy, but suddenly he grinned widely. ‘You’re right, Cloe!’ he said excitedly before becoming more serious. ‘You might just have found our way out of here’. Donning a large pair of headphones, he carefully tuned the radio until the ringing of the bells was as clear as he could make it, before tapping the end of a stalk microphone and clearing his voice.
‘Hello? Hello, is there anybody there?’ he spoke urgently into the microphone. He waited for a reply, but none came. ‘Is there anybody out there?’ he tried again. ‘If you can hear this message, please respond.’ Again he waited.
A crackling appeared on the airwaves and the pair squeezed each other’s hands tight in anticipation.
‘Hello Jacky boy,’ a familiar voice spoke at last. Cloe’s heart sank.
Sasha didn’t know exactly what Tai San was doing at the computer, but she was focussed intently on her work, barely looking up from the screen apart from to rub her eyes occasionally. He, on the other hand, found that he couldn’t stop pacing the short width of the room. He was impatient, though not for her to find a signal; no, he knew that the discovery of this place might just have spelled the beginning of the end of their journey alone together, and he was trying to work up the nerve to say what he needed to say to her before that end became a reality.
‘Sasha, you’re ruining my concentration,’ Tai San said, though not unkindly, turning around to address him. ‘Whatever is the matter?’
He stopped, swallowing to wet a throat that suddenly seemed dry, but perhaps fate was handing this moment to him. Perhaps now was the time. Crossing the floor to her chair, he unfastened the small bag from his belt. ‘I have something for you,’ he said, pulling the drawstring open. ‘A present, to show you how much I’ve valued this time we’ve spent together. I was looking for the right time to give it to you and, well, I think this is it.’ He lifted out a delicate chain that glinted in the light of the monitor, a necklace ending in a pendant studded with tiny jewels, all nestled around a polished oval stone, shining green and with something in its structure that reflected the light along a vertical band inside it, resembling the pupil of a cat’s eye. ‘Maybe it will help you find what you’re looking for,’ he told her. Inside, he hoped that would be him.
Tai San accepted the gift wordlessly, holding it gently in one hand while tracing that dark band inside the stone with a finger. Her lips moved as if on the verge of forming words but for a long while, or what seemed like a long while, she was silent.
‘This is a very powerful symbol,’ she said at last, looking up at him. ‘Thank you, Sasha. I think now is the perfect time.’ She turned around to let him put the necklace on her. He fumbled a little with the clasp in his nervousness but eventually it was done.
‘This means a lot to me, Sasha,’ she said, turning to face him again. ‘I won’t forget this.’ She kissed him then, a small peck on the cheek, and disappointment flared inside him. He had been hoping for so much more.
He opened his mouth to speak, to make clear his feelings for her, but at that moment the sound of a dialtone started ringing from the computer and a message box flashed red and green on the monitor.
‘How…how can anyone know we’re here?’ he asked, nervously.
Tai San touched the pendant hanging from her neck and smiled. ‘Perhaps it’s working already,’ she murmured, returning to her seat and accepting the transmission. He didn’t have a clue what to expect when the video feed filled the screen, but a Techno in a Santa hat had surely been at the bottom of the list.
‘Ho ho ho, neighbours!’ the face chuckled smarmily.
Tai San wrinkled her mouth in distaste. ‘Ram,’ she spat accusingly. ‘I should have guessed.’
‘Nobody ever does,’ he sighed, steepling his fingers. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me how I found you?’ The man was clearly eager to impress them with his genius but Tai San just stared back expressionlessly. Disappointed but undeterred, Ram told them anyway.
‘If I remember correctly,’ he boasted. ‘And I usually do. It should be just about…here.’ He pointed somewhere off to his right. Sasha frowned, but Tai San’s hand went immediately to the left of the computer screen, to touch a small black dome mounted on the monitor and flashing a tiny red light.
She turned to look at him apologetically. ‘It didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary,’ she explained.
Ram just laughed. ‘That’s the point, isn’t it? People see but don’t actually look; people hear but they don’t listen. The best place to hide something is in plain sight, and I’ve made sure to hide a little something everywhere I’ve been.’ Tai San whipped her head back to the screen angrily, braids flying, clearly unimpressed by his quasi-philosophy.
‘What do you want from us?’ she demanded.
‘Me?’ Ram exclaimed in surprise. ‘Absolutely nothing! But I’m with an ungrateful bunch called the Mallrats, and they’ve given me a great big list of people they expect me to find.’ It was his turn to look unimpressed. Tai San looked…excited.
‘Anyway,’ Ram continued. ‘This time you can do something for me. It seems not everyone I’ve spoken to believes my honest intentions.’
Tai San sniffed. ‘I can’t think why,’ she noted.
Ram grumbled under his breath, but didn’t reply. ‘Well,’ he conceded. ‘Perhaps they’re not without cause, but you can explain to them for me. They’ll believe you. Putting you through now.’
Nothing appeared to happen, but Ram waved his hand impatiently, motioning for her to start. ‘Hello?’ she said hesitantly.
‘Tai San?!’ a familiar voice replied. ‘Tai San, is that you?’
‘Jack!’ she cried. ‘Jack! Yes, it’s me!’
‘Tai San!’ another voice chimed in. ‘It’s Cloe too! Is there anyone else with you?’
‘No,’ Tai San replied. ‘None of the others, but I have Sasha here with me.’
‘Hello Cloe, hello Jack,’ he greeted, coming closer to stand behind Tai San’s shoulder. He smiled, but sadly. It was good to know they were well, but already he was starting to feel like a spare part.
On the screen, Ram opened and closed his hand as if operating a mouth. ‘Blah, blah, blah,’ he sighed. ‘Get on with it already!’
Greetings aside, it was time to get serious. ‘Is Ram really telling the truth?’ Cloe asked. ‘Does he know where the others are?’
‘Can we trust him?’ Jack added.
Tai San paused for a moment before speaking. ‘The last thing I heard from the city,’ she said eventually. ‘Was that Ram had helped the Mallrats to overthrow the rest of the Technos. As to whether he stayed with them afterwards, or if we can trust him, I don’t know.’
‘Hey!’ Ram complained.
‘Can I trust someone who made me into a Techno?’ she replied calmly. ‘Mega may have been worse but you started it all.’
Ram muttered something under his breath, then stood up – something Tai San seemed shocked by – and moved out of sight. ‘Fine!’ he grumbled. ‘If you won’t listen to me, maybe you’ll listen to someone else.’ The transmission fell silent, with only the view of Ram’s empty desk remaining.
‘I have to see this,’ Jack announced excitedly, and his microphone clicked off too. Sasha smiled and put his hand on Tai San’s shoulder. They were alone again.
‘We’re so close now,’ she smiled up at him, patting his hand. ‘I can feel it.’
Before long Ram returned, and with him came a stream of others. Some of them Sasha didn’t know, but some he did, and one face in particular he knew all too well.
‘Lex!’ Tai San cried, pulling away from his hand as she pressed herself closer to the screen. The cat’s eye pendant dangled in front of her. ‘It’s really you!’
‘Tai San!’ Lex replied. ‘I’ve found you at last!’
Sasha sighed and took a step back. He really could see the end of their time together now, if there had ever been any doubt before. Even so, he knew that Tai San would ask for his help again to reach her friends, and he knew what his answer would be. He would do anything for her.
Cloe bounced on her toes excitedly as Jack finished connecting wires from the radio to his computer. ‘Here we go!’ he told her, sitting back down in his chair. He took a deep breath then turned on the power. A fuzzy image gradually cleared into a view of Ram’s empty desk as Jack made some final adjustments, just in time to see a group of people gathering in front of it.
‘You did it, Jack!’ she gushed, giving his shoulder a squeeze.
‘And it’s them!’ he laughed in reply. ‘It’s really them!’
‘Do you believe me now?’ Ram asked bitterly as he twisted the camera to look down the line of smiling Mallrats.
Abruptly Cloe noticed Ellie and removed her hand from Jack’s shoulder, but just as quickly he grabbed it back, replacing it and holding it with his own. A burst of warmth rushed through her and she grinned, just as pleased to see him smiling back up at her.
‘We’re going home, Cloe!’ he declared happily. ‘Home for Christmas!’
‘Together,’ she added, placing her free hand on top of his and looking into his eyes.
2 Likes
Wooohoooo
Excellent, excellent, eeeeexceeeeellent!
Cloe and Jack could absolutely work! Never liked Sasha but I do feel sorry for him now… A little
Great to work EAGLE MOUNTAIN in!
1 Like
Thanks very much!
This was a really interesting one to write. I don’t have much experience writing any of these characters, and I had to think of creative ways to make the pairings believable. I think it has quite a different feel from the rest of these stories as a result, which I kind of like!
2 Likes
Christmas Island
Written: 2013
Synopsis: Lia and the Priestess observe their new friends as the Mallrats prepare to celebrate their first Christmas on the island. Follows on from the novel ‘The Tribe: A New World’ by A.J. Penn. Written for the Tribe Universe Secret Santa event 2013.
**
Original Challenge:
Season: “Season 6” / A New World book
Character(s): I have no preference
Pairing (only if you want a pairing): I’ll leave it up to the writer
3 lines or items you want to have in the story: 1. Palm tree leaf 2. Ring 3. “Why does it take the tears of a woman to see how men are?” [Aztec Camera]
**
Rubbing the sweat from around her eyes with a finger, Lia replaced her glasses on the bridge of her nose, bringing the huts and trees along the path in front of her back into focus. She still hadn’t fully adapted to summers here at the island camp. Right now it would be winter in her native Germany. Perhaps it was even snowing, though she found it hard to believe that anywhere could be cold enough for snow with the sun beating down enough heat to fry an egg. Not for the first time she tried to imagine what Germany would look like today, post-Virus, her town, her street, her home. Were any of her old friends still around? Did they still remember her?
‘Your ears are closed to me,’ her wandering mind translated from the melodic sound she was only just aware of outside her thoughts. Feeling her face flush, she bowed her head slightly by way of apology and turned to her walking companion. The Priestess, of course, was barely affected by the weather, looking radiant as ever with her long hair, kept out of her face by a carved bone comb, and tanned skin, the regalia signifying leadership of her tribe adding to the air of dignity and authority she naturally possessed.
‘I’m sorry,’ Lia said, choosing her words carefully. Neither German nor English translated particularly well into the Priestess’ language. ‘The celebration of my tribe often makes me think of home and remember times past.’ The Mallrats were her tribe now, though she had long since abandoned attempts to translate their name into something the Priestess’ tribe would understand. It had felt like a rejection at first, when the Priestess suggested she join the other tribe, but the older girl had recognised the need for Lia to spend more time with people whose customs were more like her own. The two tribes still interacted of course, and learned to understand each other better with every passing day. If anything, her friendship with the Priestess had become stronger since leaving the tribe. The two were much more free to act as companions, rather than as subject and tribe leader.
‘It is natural for you to feel these things when old customs are renewed,’ the Priestess said sympathetically as they continued their walk through camp. ‘This is why we have maintained our own ways ever since the Sickness. The past must be celebrated along with the present and the future. If we forget it, we forget all that has shaped us. We cannot understand our place in today, and so we are unable to prepare ourselves for tomorrow.’
Lia translated the words as best she could in her head, nodding in understanding as the meaning became clear. The custom the Priestess was referring to, the celebration the Mallrats were having, was Christmas. It had all come about after Salene told the younger tribe members how explorers in the old days had sailed far from home and discovered islands just like the one they now found themselves on. One such island was Christmas Island, which made the younger Mallrats – not to mention some of the older ones – nostalgic for family Christmases from days gone by. The tribe had decided that they needed something like that now, to come together as a family and give thanks for having found a new home and for being reunited with Bray, and to remember all they had been through together in the city. And so, since it was the right time of year, the Mallrats had decided to celebrate Christmas once again.
As Lia and the Priestess entered the Mallrat part of the camp, it became clear that preparations were well underway. Trudy and Salene had been out with the younger tribe members, collecting foliage to make into Christmas decorations. Despite the lack of holly and fir, the wreaths actually looked the part, adorned with ribbons of palm leaf and bunches of wild oranges. Lia couldn’t help but smile as she started to feel festive for the first time in a long time. Beside her, the Priestess looked on with interest. A little further along the row of newly-built Mallrat huts, Lia caught sight of Gel, flitting about like the Sugar Plum Fairy and dusting everything in sight from a bottle of what appeared to be talcum powder. Fearing the Priestess would be less impressed with Gel’s attempts to turn the camp into an artificial snow scene, she steered her friend in the opposite direction, towards the quieter end of the Mallrat camp.
The pair stopped again within sight of the hut where Amber and Jay lived. It was at the far edge of the camp, on a slight ridge that gave a good view of the sea over the treetops. Straight towards the city the Mallrats had travelled from, Lia suspected. Amber was the one person, other than Lia herself, who the Priestess showed a genuine warmth towards. ‘She has a love of the earth inside her,’ the older girl had said to her once. ‘Even though she fights against it.’ Amber herself sat out on her porch, wrapping a small Christmas gift in the leaf of a palm tree. The pair waved, and the Mallrat waved back, but did not engage them in conversation. She looked upset about something.
‘Why does it take the tears of a woman to see how men are?’ the Priestess mused softly.
‘I’m not sure I understand what you mean,’ Lia frowned, not sure if she had translated the Priestess’ words correctly. ‘Are you saying she’s upset because of Jay? He wouldn’t do anything to harm her.’
‘Jay is a good man,’ the other girl agreed. ‘But her thoughts are of another. The struggle is on her face; she thinks of the past. She will realise this soon.’
Lia remained silent. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Amber still harboured feelings for Bray, the father of her child who was taken from her and who had only recently found his way back to his tribe. But she didn’t think that she or anyone else should be interfering in that business, and the Priestess seemed particularly keen to coax the two back together.
Fortunately she was saved from having to come up with a reply by the arrival of Lex, jogging up the ridge towards them.
‘There you are!’ he said, panting slightly. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Hi Lia!’
Lia sighed softly. It was the Priestess he had come to see; she was only an afterthought. It wasn’t that she was jealous exactly…Or maybe she was a little jealous. She had quite enjoyed him flirting with her when they first met, even if he was a bit of a pain, but he seemed to only have eyes for the Priestess these days. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a leaf-wrapped package like the one Amber had been wrapping. ‘This is for you,’ he said, holding it out to the Priestess. Lia didn’t bother to translate; the meaning was obvious. The Priestess took the package and opened it, revealing a bone comb, similar to the one she currently wore in her hair, only cruder, with less decoration. It was clear that Lex had made it himself.
The Priestess turned the comb around in her hands for a few moments, studying it. ‘It is not pretty,’ she said as Lia translated. ‘But I appreciate the gesture, given your lack of skill in this area.’ She reached up and removed her own comb, deftly replacing it with Lex’s. The other, beautifully made with intricate spiral patterns decorating the head, she wrapped in the leaf and handed back to Lex. ‘Here is a gift for you. Perhaps you can study it so you will do better next time.’
Lex took the gift and removed it from the leaf wrapping. ‘Thanks…I think,’ he said as the two girls left him standing on the ridge looking befuddled.
‘Was that appropriate?’ the Priestess asked once he was out of earshot. ‘Or should I have put the comb in the leaf when he wasn’t looking, so it would be a surprise?’
‘Oh, that was very appropriate!’ Lia replied, allowing herself a small smile. The Priestess hadn’t meant to offend Lex, and it really was a touching gesture from somebody who didn’t celebrate Christmas, but the expression on his face had been priceless.
As the pair moved off the ridge they began to circle back on themselves, taking them through a quiet section of forest before returning to the other side of the camp. The sun was beginning to sink lower in the sky, and, since the Priestess had called both sections of the camp together for a celebration at sunset, a lot of the Mallrats were already here, opening the presents they had given each other. Lia left the Priestess to prepare herself for the ceremony ahead while she joined the others. Towards the centre of the camp, Darryl had thrown his arms around an embarrassed Salene, who had apparently made him a set of hand drums from a couple of gourds stretched over with animal skins fastened with coconut fibre. ‘This is the best present ever!’ he cried.
Lia chuckled as she took a seat on a log next to Bray. The Mallrat often sat by himself, lost in his own thoughts. She often wondered what he had been through to get back to his friends. He very rarely talked about where he had been, at least not to her. Today he was sitting studying some small object in his hands. The way he was hunched over it she couldn’t make out what it was.
‘What have you got there?’ she asked inquisitively. ‘Has somebody given you a present?’
Bray jumped, startled by her presence, and straightened enough for her to catch sight of a small gold-coloured ring sitting on the palm leaf in which it had been wrapped. There was a spiral pattern on the adornment, and it looked to her as though it had been made for a girl’s fingers. What an odd present.
‘She kept it all this time,’ Bray said softly with a smile. ‘Can you believe it?’ He stood up from the log and moved to join one of the groups of celebrating Mallrats. ‘Happy Christmas Lia!’ he said as he left.
Lia sighed. Happy Christmas indeed! All it had succeeded in doing so far was making her realise how much of an outsider she was in both camps. She wrapped her arms around her knees, feeling suddenly alone.
After a short while, she became aware of two figures lurking in the twilight. They bickered briefly before one poked the other towards her. Stepping forward into her field of vision, they resolved themselves into Jack and Ellie.
‘Hi Lia!’ Jack waved. ‘Um…Happy Christmas!’
‘Hi guys,’ Lia replied. ‘Same to you. What’s up?’
Jack looked at Ellie, who nodded impatiently. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘We were thinking about how Christmas would have looked a lot different where you come from so we thought, well, this is for you.’ He held out one of the now familiar-looking leaf parcels. ‘It was Ellie’s idea,’ he continued, after suffering another poke. ‘But I made it, so it’s from both of us.’
Lia held out her hands to accept the package. ‘A present, for me?’ she grinned, carefully unfolding the leaf. Inside was a strange-looking contraption of wire and smoky glass, though it only took her a moment to realise what it was. Removing her glasses, she clipped the device to the frame and put them back on, laughing in delight as she raised and lowered the tinted lenses that would shade her eyes from the Christmas sun. ‘Oh, these are wonderful!’ she exclaimed, leaping up and hugging each of them in turn. ‘Thank you, both of you! Happy Christmas!’
‘Hey, come on, I think Darryl’s about to sing,’ Ellie said, pointing to where the others were assembling around Darryl and his drums.
‘Can he sing?’ Jack asked worriedly.
‘I don’t know, but either way we can’t miss this!’ Ellie replied, leading them over.
Once everyone was settled on logs or on the ground, Darryl started beating out a rhythm on his new drums.
The sun is shining , he spoke along with the beat.
The grass is green
The orange and palm trees sway
There’s never been such a day in old LA
But it’s December 24th, and I’m longing to be up north
So I can have my very own
White Christmas
As he burst into a rendition of White Christmas, everyone began to join in, hesitantly at first as the long-forgotten words came back to them, but soon everyone was singing along heartily.
The island’s Christmas celebration continued long into the night, and the Priestess and her tribe found themselves enjoying the company of the Mallrats and sharing in their customs. Every now and then she found herself touching the comb in her hair that Lex had given her. There was something pleasing in its simplicity, its practicality reflecting the man himself. It ‘did what it said on the tin,’ as Lia might say. Looking over at the other girl, she was pleased to see her smiling. It was good for her to be celebrating something familiar to her. Lia noticed her watching and leaned over to say something.
‘You acted knowingly,’ the girl said, the odd phrasing of her translation to the Priestess’ language making it difficult to understand what she was referring to at first, then she noticed that Lia was nodding towards Bray and Amber, sitting together. Ah, of course. The Priestess smiled in satisfaction. She may have placed those two together on purpose during the ceremony, but there had been plenty of opportunities during the night’s festivities for them to move apart had they wished it. It just proved that some things were meant to be, even if they did need a little helping hand sometimes. She certainly wasn’t going to apologise for it.
Darryl started up another rendition of the song called White Christmas and she tried to listen for the words that Lia had translated for her earlier. She wanted to learn more of the Mallrats’ language if they were going to continue living together. The words puzzled her though. I’m dreaming of a White Christmas, just like the ones I used to know . Her tribe hadn’t been completely cut off from the outside world before the Sickness, so she had known about Christmas, and she had seen snow during the winter, but why would you wish for it during the summer? Perhaps something had been lost in Lia’s translation. White was the colour of snow, of course, but it could also symbolise purity. Perhaps what they were really wishing for was a pure Christmas, free from conflict and selfishness. That was something everyone could aspire to.
And may all your Christmases be white , the singers finished.
‘Yes,’ the Priestess said softly, nodding her head in understanding. ‘Yes, that is how it should be.’
2 Likes
Awww… I know that one! *hops excited *Serious… I read it before! But never was on Tribe Universe!
I remember so well for the glimpse of bramber finding together made me happy
Poor Lia… So unhappy before, good that Ellie had that idea (now I am proud of her 
)
Lex of course 
what can one say?!
Darryl at its best again
1 Like
Oh cool! Yes, it’s also on FanFiction so you might have seen it there.
I hope my portrayal of the Priestess and her tribe came off ok. I didn’t like how they were depicted in the book so I tried to tone down some of the more problematic bits.
Secret Christmas
Written: 2014
Synopsis: Frustrated by how the Chosen are driving him and Salene apart, Ryan tries to do something special for his family. Written for the Tribe Universe Secret Santa Fic Exchange 2014 (and my 10th annual Tribe Christmas fanfic, woo!).
**
No details of original challenge.
**
‘It’s not fair, and I’m sick of it!’ Ryan complained, shoving his spade into the claggy ground with extra force. Leaving it standing upright he wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of a dirty hand.
‘Yeah, well I’m sick of it too,’ Alice muttered beside him without breaking from her own work.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
Alice stood upright, leaning on her hoe while knuckling the small of her back. ‘No,’ she clarified. ‘I mean I’m sick of you whining about how Salene isn’t speaking to you. Growing food we’re never going to be allowed to eat is torture enough without you bleating on all the time.’
‘Well thanks for the support, Alice,’ Ryan said sarcastically, yanking the spade back out of the ground. ‘I’m just saying, it’s…’
‘That’s the problem,’ she interrupted. ‘You’re just saying.’ She cast a careful glance over her shoulder and lowered her voice. ‘You said that Salene only joined the Chosen because she was worried about the baby. If you want her back you need to show her she can get the same security from you.’
‘And how am I supposed to do that?’ he replied, shaking his head. Getting back to work with the spade, he began taking his frustration out on the ground.
‘Hey, I never said it was going to be easy,’ Alice said in a more kindly tone. ‘Just hang in there, okay?’
‘I just hate not being able to do anything,’ he said angrily. ‘If the whole city was behind us we’d maybe have a chance, but they’ve got everyone scared. They’re intimidating Salene, intimidating all of us, and I hate it! They’re nothing more than bullies!’ With a splintering of old, rotten wood, Ryan’s spade snapped at the neck. With a cry of rage he whirled the useless shaft around his head and hurled it into the field.
‘Hey!’ a blue-robed guard yelled as he and another ran awkwardly over to the plot where Ryan and Alice were working, their hems stained from the muddy ground. ‘That’s Chosen property you’ve destroyed there.’
‘Ryan…’ Alice said softly, a warning tone in her voice. He could still feel the anger bubbling up inside of him.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ the guard continued, roughly placing a hand on Ryan’s shoulder.
‘Take your hand off me,’ the Mall Rat said quietly. The guard whirled Ryan around to face him. ‘I said get off me!’ he yelled, landing a fist on the Chosen’s jaw. The guard’s expression darkened and he retaliated. Ryan felt a burst of pain as something cracked in his nose, before finding himself being wrestled to the ground by the two guards.
‘Hey, let go of him!’ Alice yelled, only to find herself restrained by more guards.
‘Leave her alone!’ Ryan shouted at them. Then he heard the buzz of something electrical as a stabbing pain shot up his back, and everything went black.
‘So. Here we are again.’
The Guardian tapped his chin thoughtfully as he reclined in his chair at the mall manager’s desk, observing Ryan. ‘Just what are we to do with you?’
Ryan stared defiantly at the Guardian but kept quiet. There was nothing he wanted to say that wouldn’t make his situation any worse.
‘You know,’ the Guardian continued. ‘I rather admire your persistence, but this really is getting tiresome. Your family have all found happiness and purpose in our ranks – Salene has found her role in our hospital has given her the sense of self-confidence she always lacked as a Mall Rat, and Patsy and Cloe are advancing in their studies every day, and making the right sort of friends away from the influence of certain previous associates. Yet you are still unfulfilled. Just look at all these outpourings of aggression. We could help you with that, put you to good use. Don’t you think you would be much happier if you just joined us?’
Ryan grimaced. Salene was becoming more and more indoctrinated every day, and Patsy and Cloe were in way over their heads trying to spy on the Chosen from the inside. He worried for them all the time. Sooner or later they would either be discovered or decide, like Salene, that they really did want to be Chosen. And here the Guardian was, bragging about it!
‘I’ll never join you, you demented old goat!’ he spat. He regretted it instantly, though only a little. The Praetorian Guard behind him forced him to his knees, pressing his face down onto the Guardian’s desk. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a small Newton’s cradle, its metallic spheres clicking together from the force of him hitting the table. There was also an astronomical chart that the Guardian had been using to track the movements of the stars. It was labelled December.
‘Take him to the cage,’ the Guardian said dismissively. ‘A few hours in solitary confinement should calm him down. He’ll make the right decision eventually, it’s only a matter of time.’
The Praetorian jerked him upright, brushing his already broken nose against the desk in the process. Ryan winced but refused to cry out. Maybe the Guardian was right; maybe he should give up now and put an end to all this hurt and pain. The guard escorted him out of the Guardian’s office, just as Salene was crossing the corridor in the other direction, dressed in a cream-coloured robe and carrying a small book, heading to some class or sermon or something with her fellow initiates.
‘Salene!’ he called out to her as they passed. She looked up, full of concern at his appearance, but at the sight of the elite guard by his side she lowered her eyes and hurried on her way. He hung his head in dismay, but in a funny way the encounter had strengthened his resolve. There was no way he was going to give in and join the Chosen, not if it was going to distance him from the rest of his Mall Rat family. But time was running out. Alice was right, he was going to have to do something, and soon. He knew he couldn’t rely on his physical strength to make Salene feel safe, not against the numbers the Chosen had, but there were different forms of security. The Guardian himself had said that Ryan was Salene’s family, hers and Patsy’s and Cloe’s too. Not the Chosen. Never the Chosen. That was what he had to focus on, to convince Salene of, now. And the Guardian’s star chart had given him an idea of how he could do just that.
Before long he was back in the familiar confines of the caged lift shaft, for the third time this month. Although he hated being away from the others, it gave him time to think through his idea properly, and to plan the details.
‘Ryan, I wish you wouldn’t do this,’ a small voice chimed in the darkness. ‘They could really hurt you.’
‘Cloe!’ Ryan beamed, pleased to hear her, though he couldn’t quite make out her form properly.
‘I can’t stay long,’ Cloe said nervously. ‘I’m due in class in five minutes. I just came to give you this.’ A small wrapped bundle was pushed through the mesh of the cage and Ryan opened it to reveal the heel of a loaf of bread and a few wizened grapes. ‘Trudy didn’t want them,’ she continued. ‘Not good enough for the Supreme Mother I guess.’
‘Thank you,’ Ryan said, only now realising how hungry he really was.
‘It’s ok,’ Cloe replied. ‘Now I really have to go.’
‘Wait!’ he pleaded. ‘Cloe, I need your help.’
Cloe sighed, sounding tired. ‘Ryan, I’m telling the Mall Rats all I can. If I pry too much they’ll start getting suspicious. You haven’t seen them, not properly, not in all their weird little rituals. It’s really scary!’
‘Hey, it’s ok. You’re doing more than we could have hoped for,’ he assured her. ‘But what I want…it’s a little more practical.’
As he told her what he needed, Cloe began to laugh gleefully.
Those hours in the cage were some of the longest he had ever spent in there, but eventually a couple of regular guards released him, with an order to ‘make yourself useful’. He had to force himself to walk slowly, so as not to arouse suspicion, but once he was out of sight he practically ran to the loading bay area, hoping that Cloe had managed to do as he had asked.
When he got there the place was empty, and disappointment started to flood over him, but soon he heard the patter of footsteps and turned to see Cloe and Patsy leading Salene into the loading bay.
‘Ryan?’ she said, looking confused. ‘What’s going on? What’s happening? Are you leaving? Are they taking you away?’ She ran to him, clinging to his arms.
‘No,’ he answered her. ‘I’m not going anywhere. Is everything ready?’
Cloe nodded excitedly and Ryan led a hesitant Salene to the door of the small foreman’s office, opening it and gesturing for her to follow him inside. He wasn’t sure if it was him or Salene who gasped at Cloe’s handiwork inside.
‘Patsy helped!’ Cloe giggled as they took it all in. The small heater had been started, making the room warm and toasty, and paper snowflakes dangled from the pipes that ran across the ceiling. On the wall hung two crossed walking sticks from the hospital, wrapped in striped red and white hazard tape to look like candy canes.
‘What is all this?’ Salene asked, an astonished smile on her face.
‘Happy Christmas Salene!’ Ryan greeted.
‘Is it Christmas?’ she asked.
‘Why not?’ he shrugged. ‘It was the Guardian who gave me the idea. I wanted to do something for my family.’ Salene unconsciously placed her hands on her small bump. ‘I wanted to show you that I’m still thinking about you, even though we can’t see much of each other at the moment. I still love you, Salene.’
There was a small cough from the door. ‘We’ll just let you guys have some peace,’ Patsy said, ushering Cloe out of the room.
‘No, wait,’ Ryan stopped them. ‘You guys are my family too, and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten. This is for all of us. Besides, I couldn’t have done any of this without you two.’
‘We were hoping you’d say that!’ Cloe smiled, rushing over to the corner of the room and producing a bag. ‘Merry Christmas everybody!’ Out of the bag she pulled out a red and white bobble hat that looked like something Father Christmas might have worn, which she gave to Salene to put on, and a couple of bare branches tied to a hair band to resemble antlers, which she handed to Ryan.
‘Now you’re Ryan the red-nosed reindeer!’ Patsy quipped.
‘Here, let me have a look at that,’ Salene said, producing a pot of ointment from her nurse’s bag which, at a nod from Ryan, she applied lightly to his nose. It stung a little at first, but did take away most of the pain.
‘Wait, there’s more!’ Cloe said as she produced a flask from the bag. ‘It’s only Tai San’s herbal tea, but it’s hot!’ She began to pour it out, then the door burst open and Lieutenant Luke strode inside, his robes swaying as he came to a stop.
‘I knew you were up to something,’ he said sternly as he surveyed the scene in the office. ‘But this is the last thing I suspected.’
Salene put her hands together in supplication. ‘Please Luke,’ she begged. ‘It’s just a bit of fun. We hardly ever see each other. He’s my husband! My baby’s father! Please don’t tell the Guardian!’
Luke passed his gaze over each of them in turn, as if trying to look into their souls. His eyes lingered longest on him, Ryan thought. Was this all a huge mistake? Had he put his family in danger just to make a point?
‘Just this once,’ Luke finally answered, his expression full of disapproval. ‘And I want to see those walking sticks back in the hospital first thing in the morning!’
As Luke closed the door behind him, Patsy and Cloe cheered and clicked their mugs of tea together. Salene threw her arms around Ryan in relief. It was good to feel her close to him again.
‘I wish it could always be like this,’ Salene admitted when they had a moment to themselves, Patsy and Cloe occupied with playing a game at the other end of the room. ‘But I’m afraid that if they see how much you mean to me, they’ll try and keep us apart.’
‘Let them try,’ he replied simply. ‘No matter how far apart we are, you and the little one, and Cloe and Patsy, you’re all in here.’ He pulled Salene’s hand to his chest and covered it with his own. ‘That’s what family is all about, and the Chosen can’t take that from us, no matter what they do.’
Salene nestled her head next to Ryan’s and sighed contentedly. ‘Merry Christmas Ryan,’ she said.
‘Merry Christmas Salene,’ he replied.
2 Likes
Gah! I missed quite a bit, sorry!
A Tribal Christmas Carol was great, it would definitely work as a filler/one-off episode. Plus Jack spooking everyone as Zoot is definitely Jack, and also his actor Michael as well I hear.
While I have warmed up a little to Jay in my adult years, A Winter’s Tale reminded me why I enjoyed seeing guys like Jay get what was coming to them (guys being Bray and Slade). Still, this is how I envisioned Trudy dealing with a situation like this that did not involve her crying her heart out like the show writers seemed to love her doing.
Home For Christmas - Cloe with Jack is a pairing I’ve noticed getting some ground back in the early forum days, especially after Series 3. I could see them working if Cloe retained her character from S3, but not so sure in S4, but this one made showed me how they could definitely work! Plus, Ram! I love your writing and how you write the characters, especially Ram!
Christmas Island - Ah, Lia and the Priestess. Characters with such potential, then gone like half the cast in Series 4. Honestly, you wrote them much better than AJ Penn did.
Christmas Blend - Not a Salene/Ryan fan like I used to be. If anything, I would ship him more with Cami from Revolution, if only because the idea of those two seems sweet, since they had no scenes alone together. Nevertheless, this was really though, reminding me of simpler times.
Like I said, I really love your writing and hope to read more!
Awww…
The Guardian… Good I am to well raised to really say what I want to do with him!
Ryan is so sweet here… (but Ellie, Alice, Tai-San? Doesn’t he consider them part of family too?!)
I loved that you used the “Ohana” of Stitch and Lilo… Family means nobody gets left behind!
This is a hearth warming one!
Actually…I read that with the isle here…lol…it is on htis very board too…only I didn’t know then it is yours!
1 Like
Thanks @Timberwolf!
I agree with you about Trudy and Jay. I wanted this to be more of a closure story, acknowledging Trudy’s feelings without making it a full reunion, but not having her be devastated about it. Also, it’s Christmas! I don’t mind a bit of angst but there needs to be a silver lining somewhere!
I love getting the chance to write Ram. I didn’t know how to deal with him back when I started Light of Day but I had a lot of fun writing him in Home For Christmas.
I still need to read the third book so will have to see what happens with Ryan!
@Zwenja, Ryan definitely considers the rest of the Mallrats as family, but sees Salene and the girls as his immediate family.
The line from Lilo and Stitch is definitely from the original challenge as I haven’t seen the film. 
I missed yesterday’s post so will add both of the remaining stories now.
3 Likes
Marshmallow World
Written: 2015
Synopsis: A lift home from winter camp from Bray and Ebony turns sinister for Lex. Pretribe Christmas one-shot written for the Tribe Universe Secret Santa Fic Exchange 2015.
**
Original challenge:
Season, if you have preference: pretribe
Character(s): Bray, Ebony, Lex, Tai San (and feel free to add any characters you see suitable)
Pairing (If you want a pairing):
3 lines or items that you would like in your story:
- “If this goes on any longer, I’m gonna hunt something.”
- gingerbread house
- "Who we are and who we have to be to survive are two very different things.”
Also a picture prompt of the four characters in a car from an old promo shot.
**
‘Have a good Christmas, Lex,’ Ryan said cheerfully, slinging his pack over one shoulder as he made his way to the bus. ‘See you in a couple of weeks,’ he called back, turning briefly to wave to his friend. Lex raised a hand half-heartedly in return before turning his back on the rest of the chattering students making their way onto the bus or into cars.
‘No, mom, camp’s finished now. Where’s dad?’ He looked over his shoulder once more, scanning all the adults present in search of his father, to no avail, while his mother, on the other end of the telephone, replied.
‘Today is Friday,’ he sighed, sending a stone skittering across the tarmac with the tip of his boot. ‘Look, is dad coming or not?’
The sound of the bus’ engine and the crunch of gravel under its wheels as it made its exit muffled the reply.
‘He’s where? In jail? What’s he done this time? Actually, you know what, I don’t care. Can’t you come and get me?’ He paused, listening. ‘The car’s been towed. For evidence. Great. No I can’t get the bus, it just left. Yeah I could get the next one, in two hours . Well thanks for nothing, mom.’ He shook his head as he hung up and shoved the phone back in his pocket. Something cold and wet touched his nose and he looked up to see snowflakes starting to fall. ‘Oh come on!’ he shouted to the heavens. ‘Seriously?’
The revving of a car engine caught his attention and he waved his arms in the air. ‘Hey, wait up!’ he yelled, running towards the vehicle, a garish yellow convertible. His heart sank as the passenger side window rolled down to reveal a smug-looking Ebony. They hadn’t exactly crossed paths before, but everybody knew Ebony. Few liked her, past her obvious charms at least.
‘Going somewhere?’ she smirked. It was obvious that he wasn’t.
‘You heading back to the city?’ he asked, ignoring the dig.
‘Maybe,’ Ebony replied. ‘Eventually. We were going to drive out into the countryside. Have a bit of…alone time.’
Lex narrowed his eyes angrily, then a voice called from the driver’s side of the vehicle. ‘Yes, we’re going to the city,’ the driver said. ‘Hop in.’ With a triumphant grin, Lex did just that, opening the door and throwing in his rucksack before following himself.
‘What’s your name?’ Ebony’s latest squeeze asked, brushing his mane of dark hair out of his eyes as he swivelled in his seat. Lex vaguely recognised him from the basketball team. Figured.
‘Lex,’ he answered.
‘I’m Bray,’ the other guy replied, offering his hand. ‘Nice to meet you Lex.’
‘Um, thanks for the lift,’ Lex said, shaking Bray’s hand awkwardly, at the same time catching Ebony’s eyes in the mirror. He smirked slightly and fire flashed across her gaze.
Ignorant of what was going on, Bray cleared the snow that had started to settle on the windscreen with the wipers and pulled out of the car park.
‘So Lex,’ Ebony purred as they joined the small country road that would eventually lead back to the city. ‘How come nobody was here to pick you up?’
‘Ebony!’ Bray exclaimed as Lex clenched his fists.
‘What? I’m just making conversation,’ she replied in a way that implied that she wouldn’t have had to if Bray hadn’t invited Lex in.
‘How did you find camp, Lex?’ Bray asked, changing the subject.
‘It was alright,’ Lex shrugged. ‘Better than being in school.’ In truth, this three day excursion to a forest cabin out of the city had also been a welcome break from his family, but that was nobody’s business but his.
The awkward smalltalk came to an end and silence filled the vehicle, except for the swish of the wipers as the snow began to get heavier. Lex was glad he wasn’t still at the cabin, waiting for the next local bus to the city.
As the evening quickly drew on, Bray turned his headlights on, which was how Lex saw her. Up ahead, trudging through the mounting snow on the grass verge alongside the road was a girl in a long winter coat and carrying a backpack. He didn’t recognise her but the girl’s headscarf identified her as being from the same school as the rest of them.
‘What kind of fruitcake walks all the way back to the city from winter camp?’ Lex scoffed.
‘Maybe one whose parents didn’t want to pick them up,’ Ebony joked. Lex scowled.
‘Hey, I know her,’ Bray said as they drove past. ‘She’s in some of my classes.’
Ebony twisted in her seat to look back the way they had come. ‘Oh, not that freak who tried to set all the animals in the science labs free and won’t eat anything in the canteen?’
‘They shouldn’t be caged like that,’ Bray argued. ‘We can learn all we need to know without them.’
‘Look, whatever, she’s still…wait, what are you doing? Don’t stop the car. Bray, do not stop this car.’ The wheels crunched through fresh, powdery snow as they pulled onto the verge and the car came to a halt. Ebony sighed. ‘We’ll never get back to the city if you keep stopping to pick up every waif and stray on the way,’ she complained. There was no reply. ‘Java says she’s a witch, you know,’ she added sulkily, folding her arms.
Bray barked a laugh. ‘Well that’s the pot calling the kettle black right there!’
‘Hey, that’s my sister you’re talking about!’
‘You’ve called her worse yourself!’
‘That’s different, I…’
‘Tai San! You want a lift back to the city?’ Bray called as the girl caught up to where they had parked.
‘Oh no, thank you,’ the girl declined. ‘The walk will do me good.’
‘In this weather?’ Bray questioned. ‘Come on, get in. Please? I’ll worry about you otherwise.’
Ebony scoffed as Bray turned on the charm. Tai San bent slightly to look inside the vehicle, then nodded. ‘Ok,’ she said, smiling. ‘Thank you.’ The door opened and Lex grabbed his bag off the seat, stuffing it carelessly by his feet as she got in beside him. They hit the road again and Lex watched as Tai San removed her wet headscarf and spread it out carefully over her knees before folding it into ever smaller triangles and placing it in her coat pocket.
‘What did you think of camp, Tai San?’ Bray asked. Ebony tutted. Lex rolled his eyes; not this again!
‘It was a little disappointing,’ Tai San answered. ‘For a retreat, I thought there would be more opportunities for personal reflection.’
‘It’s winter camp,’ Ebony said. ‘It’s supposed to be about having fun.’
‘Fun is important,’ Tai San agreed. ‘But so is meditation. And fasting. They help us to appreciate Christmas time and balance out the overindulgence.’
‘Is that why you were walking all the way back to the city?’ Bray asked, interested.
‘Yes.’
‘Aren’t you cheating sitting in here with us then?’ Lex pointed out.
‘Perhaps it is my fate to be here with the three of you tonight,’ Tai San smiled enigmatically. ‘Perhaps it was yours to be here with me.’ Her eyes twinkled and Lex sunk lower in his seat, turning up his collar so that it hid most of his face. They were starting to see more cars on the road now, and he didn’t want to risk any of his friends who were also coming back from camp seeing him in a car with the school loser. Tai San smiled knowingly and he shivered. Maybe she really was a witch.
‘Hey, Bray,’ he called out. ‘Pull over a second will you? I need to pee.’ That wiped the smile off Tai San’s face.
‘You should have gone before you left,’ Ebony said, as Bray pulled over onto the verge once more. ‘But of course Bray’s going to stop the car. Again.’
Lex hopped out of the car and on to the verge, trudging with difficulty through the deepening snow and into the trees out of view of the road. He needed to get away from the car and its crazy occupants for a minute. And he really did need to pee.
After he had done his business he started making his way back out to the road, and that was when the idea hit him. Instead of coming out where he had entered, he walked a short distance back the way they had come, emerging about a hundred metres behind the car. He crept towards it, trying to keep low and out of sight, then when he was finally up against the vehicle he smacked his hand against the window where Tai San was sitting and screamed. ‘Help! It’s got me! It’s got me!’ he cried, dragging his hand down the window pane. He sank to the ground laughing as he was rewarded with a shriek from inside.
Bray stuck his head out of the window. ‘Cut it out Lex,’ he said, looking unimpressed. ‘Get back in the car.’
He got up, wiping a laughter tear from the corner of his eye, and hopped back in. Tai San glared at him. Ebony remained silent – any comment on his prank would force her to sympathise with either him or Tai San, and she was clearly saving up all her sympathy for Christmas. Bray put his foot down and the party wagon rumbled on into the night once more. Lex chuckled at the miserable faces around him.
If they hoped the rest of their journey would pass more smoothly, they were in for a disappointment. The number of vehicles on the road as they got closer to the city continued to increase, and with the worsening weather they soon found themselves in a traffic jam. If he closed his eyes, Lex could see a perfect copy of the roadsign outside his window burned onto his retina, that’s how long he’d been staring at it. Sticking his head out of the window for a change of scenery, he found a trail of brakelights stretching ahead as far as the eye could see. Some of the drivers were sounding their horns to show their frustration, but it wasn’t getting them anywhere any faster.
He pulled his head inside with a sigh, and his stomach complained loudly. ‘If this goes on any longer, I’m gonna hunt something,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘I mean, there must be something out in those woods, right? Rabbit? Deer? Hey, anyone fancy Rudolph burgers?’
Bray snorted. ‘You got a shotgun on you then, Lex?’ he teased.
Ebony turned around to look Lex up and down. ‘If he’s packing anything,’ she said. ‘Then it must be very, very small.’ She turned back with a self-satisfied smirk and Lex’s eyes narrowed.
‘I don’t need no gun,’ he said, holding has hands up, palms facing himself. ‘Just these. You don’t need a weapon to strangle something, to squeeze its life out with your bare hands.’ He mimicked doing just that, twisting his hands around an imaginary foe’s neck. It was just a coincidence that Ebony was sitting right in front of him. ‘To feel the heat of their blood pumping beneath your fingers,’ he continued. ‘To hear the snap of their neck…’
‘What’s everybody doing for Christmas?’ Tai San interrupted, looking decidedly pale. Lex settled back into his seat contentedly. He’d made his point.
Bray was happy enough to change the subject. ‘Nothing special,’ he answered. ‘Just spending it with family.’
‘Isn’t your dad overseas at the minute?’ Ebony asked. There was an ominous silence.
‘You’ve been talking to Martin, haven’t you?’ Bray said quietly. ‘I thought you said you were going to stay away from my brother?’
‘I…I have,’ she replied sounding flustered. ‘I just overheard him telling somebody as I passed by. You’ve got to believe me, Bray!’
Lex was quite enjoying seeing Ebony on the back foot. That is until he caught her gaze in the rear view mirror again and realised she was completely in control. No doubt she was deliberately trying to wind Bray up, to make him jealous, for whatever reason. Maybe she was getting her own back after Bray’s charm offensive with Tai San earlier. Lex didn’t know, or care. As she and Bray continued to bicker, he dug out his earphones, drowning them out with the new Rancid Phlegm album. Bliss!
Some time later his peace was disturbed by the jolting of the car. ‘Where are we?’ he asked, realising that the lights of the cars in front had been replaced by the darkness of a dirt road that was most definitely not the road to the city.
‘We finally managed to take a turning off the main road,’ Bray explained. ‘Tai San knows a shortcut.’
‘A shortcut?’ he said with scepticism.
‘When the path around the mountain is blocked,’ Tai San murmured. ‘The high passes seem inviting.’
‘Eh?’
‘In other words,’ Ebony translated. ‘This might be the long way round but at least we’re moving.’
The undisturbed snow on this road was thick and, though they initially made good progress, it wasn’t long before they started to slow down, eventually coming to a stop altogether as the car refused to budge. Bray tried reversing back the way they had come and was met with the same resistance. They were well and truly stuck.
‘This might be the long way round but at least we’re moving,’ Lex mocked.
‘Can it, will you!’ Ebony snapped. ‘Bray, we have to do something. We can’t sit here and freeze.’
‘We’re going to have to get out and walk,’ Bray decided. ‘Either find somewhere to shelter or someone we can borrow equipment from to dig ourselves out.’ With a sigh, he opened the door and stepped out into the snow. The others followed. Ebony was right, they couldn’t just sit there.
For what seemed like forever they trudged through the snow, hoods up and coats held tightly against themselves. Lights finally started to appear in the distance and they moved towards them like moths to a flame. As they drew closer, they couldn’t believe their eyes.
‘What the hell?’ Lex exclaimed as a building came into view.
‘Is that…’ Ebony began, but was unable to finish.
‘A gingerbread house,’ Bray confirmed. ‘An actual gingerbread house.’
As unbelievable as it seemed, they couldn’t deny their own eyes. There it stood, tall and golden brown, with crafted sugar windows and candy canes lining the path to the door.
‘How has this been here all the time without anybody knowing about it?’ Lex asked incredulously.
‘Maybe it’s a temporary thing,’ Tai San mused. ‘We haven’t seen a paper or news report for three days, remember. Perhaps it’s something that’s been set up for Christmas.’
‘Whatever it is, the lights are on,’ Bray pointed out. ‘And this could be the only place for miles around.’ He started off down the path and the others followed him. Lex pulled up one of the candy canes along the way and started licking it. It tasted real enough.
‘Lex!’ Tai San gave a scandalised whisper at his wanton destruction.
As they reached the door, Bray knocked tentatively. It sounded pleasingly crisp and was obviously baked to perfection, but nobody answered. They waited a while, then Ebony tried the pink marshmallow doorknob. It turned and the door opened.
‘Hello?’ Tai San called out. There was no reply.
‘There’s nobody in,’ Lex said confidently, and stepped through. Inside it was like a perfect little cottage, if cottages were made out of biscuit. One large room with gingerbread walls and gingerbread furniture, with details picked out in marshmallows and other sweet delights. The only normal thing about it was the log fire at one end of the room, making it deliciously warm, quite literally. Tai San held her hands in front of it while the others were drawn to the gingerbread table, where four mugs of hot chocolate stood on cookie coasters.
‘Hey! It’s still warm!’ Lex cried, noticing the steam rising from the cups.
‘Maybe we should be careful,’ Bray warned. ‘Whoever made these could be back any second.’
‘I don’t care, I’m freezing!’ Ebony retorted, draining the mug and then, for good measure, eating that as well, leaving only crumbs. Lex waited to make sure she suffered no ill effects before doing the same.
‘Mm, this is good,’ Bray announced. ‘Why don’t you join us Tai San?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she replied, coming over to the table and eyeing the fourth mug with disdain. ‘I only drink herbal tea.’
‘What a surprise,’ Ebony muttered under her breath. Now that the fireplace was free she went over to it, taking her jacket off and hanging it on a chair nearby to dry. ‘Ah, that’s better,’ she sighed contentedly.
Lex lifted his nose to the air as the smell of Christmas spices wafted through the room. ‘Oh man, is something baking?’ he asked excitedly. His parents weren’t much into Christmas baking, or indeed any kind of baking, and his mouth began to water at the thought.
Bray got up stiffly, rubbing his neck. ‘Wow, I must have really tensed up after all that driving,’ he said, moving awkwardly to the oven. ‘Better not let it burn, whatever it is. I wonder what’s happened to whoever lives here.’ His hand stopped abruptly halfway to the temperature knob.
‘What’s up?’ Lex asked.
‘The oven isn’t switched on,’ Bray replied, bending painfully to open the door. ‘And…it’s empty.’
‘Then where’s the smell coming from?’
‘I think…’ Tai San said softly. ‘I think it’s Ebony.’
The boys turned towards the fireplace, Bray with some difficulty, and paused. Ebony stood with her arms outstretched by the fire, steam rising from her hands, which were turning golden brown. In fact her whole body seemed to be…flattening, her features losing their detail as the colour spread from her arms to her chest and down to her legs. Her face was the last to go, a grimace of useless struggle turning into a fixed, wide smile, and then there she stood, a full-sized gingerbread person with her clothing marked out in red and black icing.
Wide-eyed and mouth agape, Lex found himself gripping onto the candy cane he had taken from outside in terror. Realising this, he loosened his grip, or tried to. He couldn’t let go. Looking down at his hand he found that the candy cane was stuck there by some sort of doughy substance.
‘Bray!’ he yelled across the table. ‘What’s going on?!’ But Bray wore a vacant expression, his features starting to become more elongated and angular as he went through his own transformation.
Lex jumped out of his seat, making a squelching noise as more dough came off him and stuck to the furniture, while each step left doughy footprints on the floor. ‘Tai San! Do something!’ he pleaded.
‘I am doing something,’ she replied calmly. ‘I’m turning you into a gingerbread man.’ She crossed over to Ebony and, to Lex’s horror, took a bite out of her neck. ‘Ugh, far too bitter,’ she complained, tearing off Ebony’s head and casually throwing it into the fire. ‘But you look much tastier, Lex.’
‘You?!’ Lex cried as panic well and truly set in. ‘But why, Tai San?’ He turned to run but was caught by the wooden arms of a giant toy soldier, wearing Bray’s face.
‘Why? Well, I’m a witch, Lex,’ Tai San replied. ‘Or hadn’t you heard? I’m glad you like my house, though I’m very cross about my fencepost.’
Lex struggled against Bray’s hold, but his doughy body was stuck fast. ‘Come on Bray, snap out of it!’ he begged, but it was no use. Soldier Bray marched him over to the fire, where he started to bake. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said to Tai San. ‘You’re supposed to be all “save the animals”, peace and love and all that!’
‘Who we are and who we have to be to survive are two very different things,’ she said simply. ‘Now come on Lex, give me a hand will you?’ And she snapped off his left arm. Lex screamed…
…And woke with a start in the back of the car, Rancid Phlegm still playing through his earphones. Ebony snorted with laughter, and even Bray chuckled.
He removed his earphones, looking around with wide, confused eyes. It was still snowing, but they had reached the city, somewhere in Sector 5 if he wasn’t mistaken.
‘Bad dream, Lex?’ Tai San asked, again with that knowing smile. He shivered.
‘Here you go, Tai San,’ Bray said, pulling up outside a house that, Lex was pleased to note, was not made of gingerbread.
‘Thank you Bray,’ she said, opening the door and stepping out. ‘Happy Christmas!’
‘Happy Christmas!’ Bray echoed. Ebony murmured something non-committal.
Lex sighed with relief, then a knock on the window had him practically leaping out of his skin.
‘Have a good Christmas, Lex!’ Tai San’s muffled voice called through the glass. He watched as she walked down the path and into the house.
‘Bit jumpy tonight, aren’t we?’ Ebony teased as they pulled away from the kerb.
‘Don’t worry Lex, she doesn’t bite,’ Bray added.
Lex gulped.
2 Likes
The Christmas Angel
Written: 2016
Synopsis: Rejected by Salene, May flees the mall and drowns her sorrows in Reality Space. But is the virtual world any better? Written for the Tribe Revival Secret Santa Fic Exchange 2016. Very loosely based on It’s A Wonderful Life.
**
Original challenge:
Season, if you have preference: 3,5,7 (the second book)
Character(s): MR main characters
Pairing (If you want a pairing): canon ones
3 lines or items that you would like in your story:
- “If something helps you survive, it’s always the right thing - you do what it takes.”
- SNOW
- “It’s refreshing to be around people who understand technology.”
**
May ran through the city streets, not caring where she was going or who saw her. All she wanted was to put as much distance between herself and the mall as possible. It wasn’t the first time she’d left the tribe; since the Virus it had been the way of the world that if you didn’t look after number one then you wouldn’t last long, so it paid to keep a certain level of detachment from the others. Joining the Chosen. Being kicked out of the Mallrats after spying on them for Mega. She knew she would never win any prizes for being a good person, but she’d been forced to live by the rule that if something helps you survive, it’s always the right thing – you do what it takes. Only this time it was different. What she needed to survive was back at the mall, but she couldn’t have it. Salene didn’t want her, at least not in the way that she wanted Salene. She had opened up to her in a way that she never had for anyone else, and in return she had been rejected. Humiliated and heartbroken, she now found herself in the only other place she felt at home, out on the streets.
Pausing to wipe the moisture from her cheeks, she took a look at her surroundings. Empty buildings rose up around her, just as you’d find in most areas of the city. There were a few signs of life if you looked hard enough – a discarded scarf here, a Techno propaganda poster there – but for the most part the area was deserted. She had used to like it that way; there was less danger, and it was easier to see yourself as top dog when there was nobody else around. The sole survivor. But being a Mallrat had made her soft. All she felt now was cold and lonely. What she needed was a bar or a casino, preferably where nobody knew her, where she could drown her sorrows alone but in company. It took a little more wandering before she found what she was looking for. Almost hidden away down a side street, a small round sign sticking out from one of the buildings proclaimed Angel’s Paradise Café. The sign showed a figure in a white robe wearing a Paradise headset. She’d never heard of the place before. Given how fresh the paint on the sign was, it was probably new. Small chance of finding somebody she knew in there. It was perfect. There were no bouncers outside, so she opened the door and walked in.
Once inside, she knew she wouldn’t be disturbed by anybody – there was nobody there. The only other person in the room was a boy she took to be the owner, tinkering with a Paradise headset at one of the tables.
‘Oh, hello,’ the boy said, looking up in surprise. He put the headset down and rose to greet her. ‘I’m Angel,’ he said, offering a hand. She shook it.
‘May,’ she replied, casting her eyes around the room and taking in the technology, Angel’s stiff posture and the formal way in which he had greeted her. ‘Ex-Techno?’ she guessed.
He nodded, somewhat self-consciously. ‘Didn’t really work out,’ he explained. ‘I felt like a career change.’
‘I’m not sure that this is working out either,’ she pointed out, gesturing at the empty tables.
Angel shrugged. ‘I’m still just getting set up really. But hey, as my very first customer can I interest you in a taste of Paradise? On the house.’
May pulled a face. The bar would have been more her thing but that didn’t look like it was stocked up yet. ‘I’m not really into all that Paradise stuff.’
‘Hey, your dreams are as real as you make them,’ Angel replied seriously.
May snorted and rolled her eyes but Angel was still looking at her expectantly, and the only alternative was to go back outside into the cold. ‘Oh alright then,’ she sighed.
‘Excellent!’ Angel smiled, picking up a headset. ‘Well, I guess I’d better explain how it works first.’
‘I know how it all works,’ she said, giving a dismissive wave. ‘Just stick that headset on before I change my mind.’
Angel chuckled. ‘It’s refreshing to be around people who understand technology,’ he said. ‘I haven’t really had that since I left the Technos. What tribe are you with?’
‘Good question,’ May answered.
‘Ah.’ Angel turned the headset around in his hands awkwardly for a moment before regaining his composure. ‘Well. One new feature to point out,’ he said, indicating a dial on the outside of the device. ‘With this you have full control over how close to reality your experience is.’ He handed the headset to her and she took it, looking at the dial.
‘How close to reality?’ She knew what she wanted most in the world and, after Salene’s rejection earlier, knew just how unlikely that was. ‘Not very,’ she snorted, turning the dial as far as it would go in the other direction. She put the headset on.
‘Ok, here goes,’ Angel said as he turned on the machine. ‘Enjoy!’
Almost immediately the room was filled with people. Music filled the air and there was a relaxed, happy atmosphere. She looked to the bar, where Angel stood wiping a glass with a cloth. He raised it to her in greeting and gestured to the door. She smiled, knowing where she had to go. Outside a thick layer of snow had fallen, unmarked by footprints despite the crowd inside the café. She remembered how cold it had been when she entered, but here in the simulation she didn’t feel it. Everything flickered for a moment as she became aware of reality, but she ignored it, wanting to get to the mall. She turned a corner and there it was, suddenly appearing before her. Outside, Sammy and Gel were busy building snowmen by the entrance. They must have made at least a dozen already. Laughing at the two younger Mallrats having fun, she made her way inside.
When she made it through the grille she stared in wonder – the mall was decked out with Christmas decorations from floor to ceiling. Tinsel was wrapped all the way along the railings of the stairs and the upper balcony, and a huge tree with twinkling lights stood in the central court, topped with a Mallrat amulet.
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ a voice said.
‘We found it all in the attic,’ said another.
May gave a start when she realised who it was. ‘Patsy? Cloe? What are you two doing here?’
‘We came back!’ Patsy exclaimed, as if that explained everything.
‘And we’re not the only ones either. Come on!’ Cloe took May’s hand and led her further into the mall. Over by the fountain she saw Jack and Ellie hugging Alice, and Amber was walking down the stairs holding hands with Bray.
‘With the snow outside and all the Mallrats back, we just had to celebrate,’ Amber explained. ‘It’s a Christmas miracle!’
‘Ho ho ho!’ Lex called from the top of the stairs, dressed as Father Christmas and with one arm around Tai San. May’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. Everything flickered again.
‘May!’
She felt butterflies in her stomach and turned to see Salene entering the mall.
‘Salene?’
‘It’s so good to see you!’ Salene smiled, running up to her and planting a kiss on her lips. May jerked back in shock, looking at the rest of the Mallrats, but they all just smiled or waved, happy for the two of them, even Lex.
‘What’s wrong?’ Salene asked as May held her at arm’s length.
May shook her head, confused. ‘You. Us. All this.’
‘Isn’t this what you wanted?’ Salene asked. ‘A home? A family? Me?’ She tried to embrace her once again but May pushed her away.
‘It’s too much,’ she cried, fleeing the mall for the second time that day. Outside she was confronted by dozens of Sammy and Gel’s jolly-looking snowmen, as far as the eye could see.
‘It’s all too much!’ she yelled, grabbing a nearby shovel and swinging it at the nearest snowman, beheading it. Rather than giving her what she wanted, the simulation seemed to be teasing her with everything she couldn’t have. As reality closed in, the Paradise vision flickered and died. Everything went black. She reached up to remove the headset but met with resistance. It was Angel.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, panicking.
‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘Let’s just try something a little more real.’ As she struggled, she heard the reality dial click as it turned back the other way, then everything seemed to lurch to one side, like she was falling.
Her fingers were cold. She was on her hands and knees in the snow. Slowly she stood, drying her hands on her leggings above the wet patches where she had been kneeling, and rubbing her fingers to bring back the warmth.
‘You alright May?’ Sammy asked hesitantly. He and Gel were in front of the mall, building a snowman that was looking a little lopsided.
‘I’m fine,’ she replied, though she wasn’t really sure.
‘You should go inside and warm up,’ Gel added. ‘Trudy’s made hot chocolate.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. That did sound good. She entered the mall, wondering what she would find inside.
In the courtyard, Jack was slinging lights around the phoenix statue, and Ellie was busy decorating the place with branches of holly from the bush outside the mall.
‘May! Come in and get warm,’ Amber called as she came down the stairs. ‘What do you think? With the change in the weather we thought we’d celebrate old school style.’
‘Ho ho freaking ho,’ Lex muttered as he followed behind her wearing a Santa hat.
‘Trudy’s promised to try and mull some wine if he keeps it on all night,’ Amber explained. May laughed in spite of herself.
‘May!’
She felt butterflies in her stomach and turned to see Salene entering the mall.
Everything went black as she took the headset off.
‘Wait, what’s wrong?’ Angel asked, sounding alarmed. ‘Was it really that bad?’ He looked at her as though he could see his whole business failing before his eyes. He couldn’t even satisfy one customer.
‘No, it was better,’ she said. ‘I just didn’t want to spoil the moment. Dreams are all well and good but sometimes you have to face reality. It’s less disappointing that way.’
‘Hey, what did I tell you? Dreams are…’
‘As real as you make them, yeah yeah…’ she finished. ‘Seriously though, this has helped.’ She tapped the headset and Angel smiled, feeling better.
‘Good luck with it all, eh?’ she said, bidding Angel farewell.
‘Same to you,’ he waved as she left the café.
It was still bitterly cold as she made her way back to the mall. In fact halfway there it did indeed start to snow. By the time she reached the grille it had begun to settle lightly on the ground.
Outside the mall, Gel was standing open-mouthed, looking at the sky. It had been a long time since it had last snowed in the city. She probably couldn’t remember seeing it.
Just as she was about to say something to the younger Mallrat, a tiny snowball flew out from behind a bush and hit Gel on the back of the neck. She shrieked and turned around. A mop of flame-coloured hair ducked behind the bush.
‘Sammy, you rat!’ Gel screamed. 'You wait ‘til I get my hands on you!’
Sammy fled round the side of the building with Gel in pursuit. May smiled, shaking her head, and walked inside.
‘May, there you are!’ Ellie exclaimed as she entered. She came to greet her, pulling Jack along with her. ‘Have you seen the weather?’
‘Yeah,’ she replied. And then, because she couldn’t resist. ‘Just like Christmas.’
‘Now that’s not actually a bad idea,’ Amber chimed in as she came down the stairs. Lex and Trudy followed her.
‘Christmas? Humbug!’ Lex muttered.
‘Oh come on Lex, why not after the year we’ve had?’ Trudy chided.
‘Throw in some mulled wine and maybe I’ll think about it.’
Trudy’s eyes sparkled with determination. ‘Challenge accepted!’ she replied. Lex blinked, unsure as to what he had just gotten himself into.
‘You know, I’m sure there must be an old box of decorations somewhere,’ Jack said. ‘Come on Ellie, let’s go have a look.’
‘Great idea May,’ Amber said, squeezing her shoulder. ‘This is just what we need to bring the tribe together.’
‘It’s probably something Tai San would have done,’ Lex agreed reluctantly.
‘May!’
She felt butterflies in her stomach and turned to see Salene entering the mall. She wished she was still wearing the headset so she could take it off. But this was real.
‘I was worried about you!’ Salene continued, hurrying over to give her a hug. ‘You ran off and were gone so long, and it was so cold outside…are you alright?’
‘I’m fine Salene,’ she said, smiling.
‘Really?’ Salene asked again, more quietly. This time she wasn’t talking about the weather.
‘Really,’ she replied, looking her in the eye. Salene blushed, but was saved from having to say anything further by the return of Jack and Ellie.
‘There was a box of decorations!’ Ellie announced, bringing it over and blowing the dust off. Inside were some faded paper chains, tinsel, and a few dented baubles.
‘And we don’t have a tree, but I did find this magnificent branch,’ Jack added, holding up what could be better described as a large twig. It was enough though. The decorations, such as they were, and the twig.
‘It’s enough,’ May murmured, stealing a glance at Salene while she was joking with Jack about the twig. Maybe one day Salene would return her feelings. Maybe she wouldn’t. Even reality space couldn’t predict the future. But she had a home, and she had a family, and – for now at least – that was enough.
She rummaged around in the box of decorations and found a little cardboard angel at the bottom. She straightened out the wings a bit and stuck it on top of the Christmas twig.
‘Thanks,’ she said, smiling contentedly.
1 Like
Read Marshmallow World before too!
I’ve read many “old” secret santa stuff that is posted here. But if course there isn’t the name of the writer posted along there.
It’s a funny little story. Lex definitely having a comical air here. Though his background story with his parents is sad.
Ebony in her best bitch mode makes me shake my head and think if this Bray is kind of dumb (being with her)
I like that it is a mix of Christmas and “horror” story.
I will read the other one tomorrow while having breakfast 
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I think Marshmallow World is one of my favourites. It was fun to do something a bit wacky.
You’ve probably read The Christmas Angel before too. That’s definitely on here.