The Equalizer: You Better Watch Out

Part 2 - the only game in town

Didn't take me long to realize that this was not my usual gig. I faded in by the dining room window. The room was lit up with a couple of battery operated lanterns that sat on either end of the dinner table. Several of the adults looked right at me as I appeared and they acted like they didn't notice at first. Typical.

Adults can see weird right in front of them and they make up all kinds of bullshit excuses to deny what they see. Or they try to play it off like nothing's wrong. I use that to my advantage. In two minutes tops the shock of seeing me zap in out of thin air would fade. Then things would most likely get pretty lively in that house.

Took me less than a minute to read everyone in the room. I knew their names, their stories. Typical family stuff. Problems with the job. Money worries. Frayed nerves. Dumbass relatives working everyone else's last nerve. Pretty tame compared to what I usually see in this line of work.

Lucky for them.

The penny finally dropped and the family finally realized something wasn't quite right. Who the hell was that green eyed dude over by the bay window? Three generations gathered together and everybody had that deer in the headlights look.

Well, everybody but the kid who called. He stood a few feet away staring at me like I was Saturday morning cartoons. "I knew it," he muttered. "I knew it! It worked! You came!" His grip on his mom's hand mirror was so tight his knuckles were white.

I winked at him. "Marty Harris, right?"

He nodded. A bright grin spread across his face. "Hey, Dean."

Marty wasn't abused. None of the kids here were. The adults weren't the problem here.

That was outside.

I cast my mojo out in a 360 sweep all around the house and the yards, front and back. Three story house. Lots of windows. Doors too. All the doors and windows were locked but that wouldn't mean jack against what was out there. The place was surrounded and it would be a total bitch to defend.

I turned and looked out the window into the back yard.

Four feet of snow in the back yard already and from the looks of things three or four more feet before this was all over. Up here in Maine they call a storm like this a nor'easter. Looked like a regular old blizzard to me. Visibility was near zero. This kind of wild weather wasn't natural. Typical fugly move: trap the humans in their homes and then move in for the kill. Easy pickings.

Shadows moved around underneath the snow. A flash of teeth here, red eyes there. I counted at least sixty of the sonsofbitches in the back yard alone. Snow flew up into the wind as they moved towards the house and then everything stopped.

"Yeah," I whispered to myself. I knew what this was.

The 'what' in question was called Krampus. His claim to fame? He's the Christmas devil. Santa Claus' shadow self. He punishes those he considers to be unworthy. The fuglies out in the snow were his minions. Not the cute cuddly yellow ones in the movies. These sonsobitches would rip you apart, play jump rope with your guts and laugh about it.

The movement toward the house stopped. They wouldn't rush in. Not yet. I was the one thing they didn't expect. That demon sight works both ways.

The power was off. Inside the house was still warmer than outside but it wouldn't be that way much longer. Didn't make any difference to me. I had on jeans and cowboy boots and a Hawaiian shirt that was so damn loud Stevie Wonder could've spotted me half a mile away. Not my usual style but I had to blend in back in Florida.