The stupidest angel: a heartwarming tale of Christmas terror

of her M D. that gave it eloquence, but without a word, it said: You have got to be out of your fucking mind.

    "Or not," Gabe said.

    Theo crossed the room and made a grab for Skinner's collar, but at the last second the Lab grabbed the arm, threw a head fake, then ducked out of Theo's reach. The three men started to give chase, and Skinner frisked back and forth across the pine floor, his head high and proud as a Lippizaner stallion, pausing occasionally to shake a spray of mud onto the horrified onlookers.

    "Tell me it's not moving," shouted Tuck, trying to cut Skinner off at the buffet table. "That hand is not moving."

    "Just the kinetic energy of the dog moving through the arm," said Gabe, having gone into a sort of wrestling stance. He was used to catching animals in the wild and knew that you had to be nimble and keep your center of gravity low and use a lot of profanity. "Goddammit, Skinner, come here. Bad dog, bad dog!"

    Well, there it was. Tragedy. A thousand trips to the vet, a grass-eating nausea, a flea you will never, ever reach. Bad dog. For the love of Dog! He was a bad dog. Skinner dropped his prize and assumed the tail-tucked posture of absolute humility, shame, remorse, and overt sadness He whimpered and ventured a look at the Food Guy, a sideways glance, pained but ready, should another BD come his way. But the Food Guy wasn't even looking at him. No one was even looking at him. Everything was fine. He was good. Were those sausages he smelled over by that table? Sausages are good.

    "That thing is moving," Tuck said.

    "No, it's not. Oh, yes it is," said Gabe.

    There was another series of screams, this time a couple of man-screams among the women and children. The hand was trying to crawl away, dragging the arm along behind it.

    "How fresh does that have to be to do that?" Tuck asked.

    "That's not fresh," said Joshua Barker, one of the few kids in the room.

    "Hi, Josh," said Theo Crowe. "I didn't see you come in."

    "You were out in your car hitting a bong when we got here," Josh said cheerfully. "Merry Christmas, Constable Crowe."

    " 'Kay," Theo said. Thinking fast, or what seemed like it was fast, Theo took off his Gore-Tex cop coat and threw it over the twitching arm. "Folks, it's okay. I have a little confession to make. I should have told you all before, but I couldn't believe my own observations. It's time I was honest with you all." Theo had gotten very good at telling embarrassing things about himself at Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and confession seemed to be coming even easier since he was a little baked. "A few days ago I ran into a man, or what I thought was a man, but was actually some kind of indestructible cybernetic robot. I hit him doing about fifty in my Volvo, and he didn't even seem to notice."

    "The Terminator?" asked Mavis Sand. "I'd fuck him."

    "Don't ask me how he got here, or what he really is. I think we've all learned over the years that the sooner we accept the simple explanation for the unexplained, the better chance we have of surviving a crisis. Anyway, I think that this arm may be part of that machine."

    "Bullshit!" came a shout from outside the front doors.

    Just then the doors flew open, the wind whipped into the room carrying with it a horrid stench. Standing there, framed in the cathedral doorway, stood Santa Claus, holding Brian Henderson in his red Star Trek shirt, by the throat. A group of dark figures were moving behind them, moaning something about IKEA, as Santa pressed a.38 snub-nose revolver to Brian's temple and pulled the trigger. Blood splattered across the front wall and Santa threw the body back to Marty in the Morning, who began to suck the brains out of dead Brian's exit wound.

    "Merry Christmas, you doomed sons a' bitches!" said Santa.
    Chapter 16 – SO
    So that sucked.
    Chapter 17 – HE KNOWS IF YOU'VE
    BEEN BAD OR GOOD…
    While she was horrified by what was going on in the doorway of the chapel, with the gunfire and brain-sucking and the threats, Lena Marquez couldn't help but think: Oh, this is so awkward – both my exes are here. Dale was standing there in a Santa suit, mud and gore dripping onto the floor while he roared with anger, and Tucker Case had immediately headed to the back of the room and dived under one of the folding buffet tables.
    There was screaming and a lot of running, but mostly people stood there, paralyzed by the shock. And Tucker Case, of course, was acting the consummate coward. She was so