PART 1

Welcome back to Borne County, O Ye faithful readers, and Happy Holidays! Jim here, Sorry to be MIA for the past few weeks. Life can get hectic when you’re in my line of work. After all, people die every day right? Oh! Someone pointed out in my last post that I improperly labeled my job. I’m the medical examiner for Borne County, NOT a mortician.

Anyway, what’s kept me so busy you may ask? Fucking Santa Clauses (Is that the plural?). Ayup. See, this time of year, for some reason, every day of the month, up until Christmas day, there is inexplicably a violent incident involving a Santa. Sometimes, they murder someone. Sometimes, they get murdered. Hell, one year there was a 10 car pile up, and every single fucking car had a Santa in it. This year, We’ve had five people found stuffed in chimneys, four stabbings, three deer attacks, two deaths via spontaneous combustion (as best I can tell), and a partridge in a pear tree. Okay, that last thing was a joke but you get the point.

And then there's the other not-so-festive thing that’s kept me busy. The local cult. The Temple of the Approaching Dawn, or as we call em, the TADs. or we did, anyway. The crazy fucks burned down their temple with everyone inside. There were only a handful of survivors, and that’s only because the fire department saved them. They’re all in the ICU. Anyway, yeah that’s where I’ve been,

Oh boy, the cops just wheeled in another Santa. Yippee.

Okay, so the Dead Saint Nick has no DNA or dental records on file. Fan-friggin-tastic. No clear sign of what killed him (besides maybe a poor diet. Even for a Santa he’s on the larger side, about 343 pounds, and around 6 '4.) Examination of his teeth shows signs of decay. Two of his front teeth are elongated and sharp. (Think less Vampire, more Rodent.)

Police report said they found him hanging from a lamppost, strung up with Christmas lights. Strong fuckin Christmas lights. Interestingly, no signs of asphyxiation. I grabbed a scalpel to perform the autopsy, and as I made the first cut, instead of the expected blood, out came….snow?

A Sloshy Red Snow slowly oozed out of the incision. Not deterred by more Borne County bullshit, I began the autopsy proper, making an incision on his chest and opening him up. And here's where it gets extra weird. Before I go on though, I should note all the other Kringles, besides the way they died, were relatively normal in anatomy. Not this guy though.

Where intestines should have been, there was tinsel, like off of a Christmas tree. His lungs were still there, but were icy blue, and solid as a rock. His digestive tract, minus the intestines of course, seemed normal enough, but he had nothing in his stomach but chocolate chip cookies. Whole chocolate chip cookies. Pancreas and liver weren't there at all. Neither was the appendix but that is actually easily explainable. And finally, in place of kidneys, he had two Christmas tree ornaments, with the hooks of them digging into his insides.

Well, Deck my Halls, even for this place, this was an unusual stiff. And oddly festive. As I was examining the body, the lights began to flicker. The expected supernatural shenanigans. Then they went out entirely. I sat there for a moment, clutching my scalpel, preparing for an attack. Then it got cold.

Ok, so morgues aren't exactly the warmest places but it got REALLY cold, really fast. As my teeth began to chatter, and my body began to shake, the blade slipped from my fingers. So there I was, fumbling around in a dark, probably haunted, morgue, looking for a razor sharp scalpel on the floor. Then I heard it. And smelled it.

Jingle Bells? And, I sniffed the air, Gingerbread? The lights shot back on, and as I looked around, I saw the room was covered in snow and ice. The radio turned on behind me.

"Up on the housetop, reindeer pause. Out jumps good ol' Santa Claus"

I have never been so scared to hear Christmas Music. There was a clatter behind me, as something moved about the room. I heard giggling, and quickly grabbed the scalpel off the floor

"I don't have time for this Christmas creep bullshit!" I yelled at the intruder.

I heard whispers from around me in the room.

"Oooo you said a naughty word" "Naughty" "So Naughty."

Then I felt something sharp scratch my back, and shove me over. I hit the cold floor with a thud, and trying to gain my composure, I looked up. Before me was…. something.

It was about 2-3 feet tall if I had to guess. Its skin was wrinkled, and white as December snow. Its face, while vaguely human, was deformed and bulbous in places. Its ears were shaped to a point, sort of like Spock from Star Trek. It had 3 fingers and a thumb on each hand, each finger adorned with shiny claws. Ever seen the movie Leprechaun? Just picture that with skin as white as paper.

"A fucking elf?" I managed to say, before it kicked me in the face, and I lost consciousness.

I woke up a few hours later (I think) and found the fatman was missing from the slab. In his place was a small box, adorned with a ribbon. A tag on the box read "To Jim, From Santa."

Inside was a lump of coal.

Fuck you, Santa.

I shook the last few cobwebs from my brain, and got to my feet. I needed a drink. Or a trip to the doctor. Probably both.

My office was a mess, with papers strewn everywhere, and the word Naughty scratched into my desk. "Ho" was written all over the wall, and I assume it's supposed to be "Ho Ho Ho" but it could also be calling me a whore a lot, who the fuck knows.

Just then, another body was rolled into my place of business by another morgue worker. Mike I think is his name? I signed, walked over, lifted the sheet and found a hairy, green face looking back at me, and he (it?) was in a Santa suit.

Mike didn't seem phased by the odd sight, simply handing me a clipboard of the police report. Apparently this…thing had been breaking into people's homes all over the county. I won't go into details on the autopsy, honestly I'm exhausted. But I will tell you the cause of the death. It appeared to have been a heart attack, as a result of an enlarged heart. In fact, it was three times as big as it should have been.

Wait. Oh for fuck sake.