Mr. Christmas

No one knew the actual name of Mr. Christmas.

Whenever someone bothered to ask, the disheveled homeless man answered with religious jargon or unintelligible mumbles. So, when a little girl walked by and saw the colorful bobbles and leaves weaved through his snow-white dreadlocks, she branded him Mr. Christmas, and though thousands of people flooded the Hollendell station daily, none were as strange as him.

Mr. Christmas sat atop the station stairs, wrapped in a bundle of mismatched blankets and discarded clothes. And as citizens went about their daily commute, his right eye, lazy and opaque, scanned every passerby on its lonesome journey while his left eye stared forward, unblinking. Finally, after minutes of searching, his wandering eye would lock on someone. Those unlucky enough to be chosen and all those surrounding them were subject to a prophecy. But these never predicted cataclysm or the end of the world. Instead, they were gibberish—odd statements about ‘the divine’ and their influence on everyday activities. He would scream to the masses that God drove the trains or that a demon had possessed the cashier at a nearby store. No one believed him nor really understood what he was saying, and sometimes it seemed like even he felt just as confused about what was coming out of his mouth.

Though disruptive and frequently loitering, no one reported him. On the rare chance they did, security would brush it off. For whatever reason, his ramblings made things whole, bringing a sense of comfort to Hollendell station, like a grandpa who spewed endless stories from his wartime past.

Some folks would stop and listen to Mr. Christmas, gifting him food or clothes whenever they could. To humor him, they would play along with his sayings, corroborating whatever strange theories he brewed up. It wasn’t much, but it made the old man happy.

Jamie was one such person. The monotony of being stuck in a cubicle, answering walls of text polluting his inbox, and trying to dodge office gossip grated on him. Like any day, the last of his creativity and wit would trickle away, leaving him a thoughtless, corporate zombie. But luckily, Mr. Christmas was there every morning before he got on his train-the perfect remedy to his boring life.

On this particular day, Jamie watched Mr. Christmas' eye, lovingly dubbed the Crystal Ball, lock onto him as he pushed his way through the crowd flooding into the station. Their chatter and the distant babbling of the station intercom faded into a murmur as Mr. Christmas spoke.

"The Devil is coming real soon. I can smell him!" The tiny beads tangled in the salt-and-pepper mess that was his beard jangled as he shouted.

"Woah, Mr. Christmas, that's quite a serious scent you’ve caught. The Devil himself?" Jamie asked with a chuckle, fishing through his wallet to grab some spare change.

"Indeed, boy," he said, both eyes shifting about as if the Devil was already among them. "The lord of fire and brimstone is nearing. And if not him, then his many Arms will fight for him, enacting his terrible wrath on this world!"

Jamie cocked an eyebrow and smirked. He didn't have a clue what the ‘Arms of The Devil’ meant, and he hoped to keep it that way. Asking would have only led him down a rabbit hole of conspiracies, and though he would have much rather indulged Mr. Christmas, he had a job to do, and he couldn't be late.

"That's some scary stuff," Jamie said, checking his watch. He had five minutes until his train departed—more than enough time to end their conversation. "But I think we'll be alright. What can the Devil do, anyway?"

Mr. Christmas went silent, probably lost in the millions of thoughts floating through his head.

Jamie set a few dollars next to the man and made his way to the stairs.

"Take heed, Jamie Graham."

Jamie stopped, his foot edging over the first step, and turned around. Mr. Christmas' eyebrows had furrowed so much they nearly touched, and the wrinkles around his eyes carved canyons of shadow through his dark face. The Crystal Ball had stopped wandering and, for once, was completely still as it bore into Jamie.

The silence seemed to grow louder than the din of the bustling station.

"He is a ruthless behemoth, thirsting for blood, and I can only do so much to stop him. I only hope he spares you."

Jamie didn't ponder what was said. Instead, he chuckled, sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, then turned around and quickly descended the steps.

At the bottom of the stairs, he realized he was out of breath. His heart pounded in his ears, and his eyes darted from passerby to passerby with suspicion. Mr. Christmas had given hundreds of prophecies before, all being complete gibberish. And that’s all they were: nothing more than the crazed thoughts of a homeless man - after all, it was utter nonsense that the engineer driving Jamie’s train had even an ounce of divinity in him or that the clerk across the street from his stop needed an exorcism. Right?

Jamie returned to his senses and realized he had spent three minutes at the foot of the stairs, spacing out and looking like a weirdo. A few people side-eyed him with concerned glances and took a wide berth as they passed. For that moment, it was almost like he was Mr. Christmas, though it must have been much stranger to see a desk jockey acting the same way.

Jamie cleared his throat, composing himself, then jogged over to his train and slid on board just before the doors closed behind him. The purely mortal engineer rambled off the train's next stop over the speakers as it lurched forward, grinding against the tracks, before speeding off.

Now free of Mr. Christmas, Jamie took a sigh of relief, though he still couldn’t relax. A twinge of uncertainty tugged at the back of his mind, straining against Mr. Christmas’s proclamation. Jamie tried to suppress it, but the one anomaly still pierced through; he had never told Mr. Christmas his full name.

The following day at work was trying. Jamie's body moved on autopilot as the conversation with Mr. Christmas sat like a rock in his conscience. He couldn't shake it—the paranoia prickling down his spine like needles.

His coworker, a desk over, shifted in his chair, causing Jamie to flinch and grab for the nearest weapon: a ballpoint pen. His hands were white-knuckled as he breathed, the adrenaline slowly subsiding once the "danger" passed. Jamie looked at his hand, holding a pen like a knight would his sword, and chuckled; if the Devil really had come for him, he couldn't do much more than stain him with painful squiggles.

His mind stayed off work for the rest of the day. But he couldn't complain—anything was more palatable than wrestling with spreadsheets.

That night, Jamie, though rattled, fell fast asleep as he hit the mattress. It felt like the built-up tension in his body released, wracking his every muscle and lulling him into hibernation faster than any sedative could. But as his eyes closed and his mind began to pass into the world of dreams, Jamie could feel his conscience sunder. A part of himself was asleep, while the other remained aware, shackled to his lifeless body. He couldn't move or speak, only watch as dozens of pearly white eyes blinked open across his bedroom.

He silently screamed for help, but his lips only quivered, leaving him alone with his nightmare. An eye on his dresser blinked and oozed apart, creating two more that did the same until soon, they overtook his walls and ceiling. They all revolved around Jamie, their locations changing rapidly but always focused on him.

Finally, after minutes of being paralyzed, Jamie watched as the eyes flashed in unison, assembling into a massive glass ball gleaming in the moonlight peeking through his curtains. He watched in horror as the ball, suspended above his bed, cracked and hurtled towards him.

He woke with a jolt. The night had passed in an instant, but the nightmare was fresh in his mind. Sweat dripped down his forehead as he clutched at his chest, trying to stop the hyperventilating that attacked his lungs. He could move again, but even an errant twitch sent a searing pain through his abdomen as if an immense pressure had jammed into his stomach.

Nothing that just happened made sense. Jamie wasn't overly anxious, and work, though annoying, hardly kept him stressed, let alone supplied him with nightmare fuel. There was something he was missing. Maybe he ate a rotten lunch the day before or experienced the first kindlings of mental illness.

Then, it hit him - quite literally, in his case. At his vision's end, staring into the glittering orb, it felt like a part of him - well-versed in every aspect of his soul. Like a puzzle, each eye came together, offering a small piece of Jamie to the greater picture. They were watching him. Why and for what he didn't know, but the culprit, he sure as hell did. He only knew one man with a glass eye who could inconspicuously watch him every single day, baiting him in with garnered sympathy and feigned insanity.

Mr. Christmas was watching him every time he walked into that station. The only question now was why. Jamie knew that the only evidence he had on Mr. Christmas was conjecture, but that would have to do. A confrontation was imminent. What the crazy old man said the day before had freaked Jamie out, but the eyes were the final straw.

A short series of beeps knocked him from his concentration. He snapped his head to look at his phone. He had woken up late, with only fifteen minutes to catch his train. He threw open the covers and stumbled out of bed with a wince. The next few minutes were a blur as Jamie frantically freshened up. He sprinted to the station in a frenzy, arriving only five minutes before his train would depart.

Half the city seemed to descend upon the station when Jamie arrived. They flooded down the stairs in hoards, leaving those outside, eager to get in, packed together like sardines. Jamie forcefully pushed through the crowd with a minute to spare, using his briefcase as a shield from stray shoulder checks. Folks cursed, yelled, and spat at him, but he didn't care - he had to get on that train.

Through it all, he hadn't forgotten his objective. The answers behind Mr. Christmas were at the forefront of his mind, but he couldn't risk receiving another reprimand for tardiness on the basis of quelling his suspicion. Despite that, his ears were open, waiting for a crazed shout to break through the murmur of conversation that engulfed him. But, for the first time, there was nothing. Jamie strained his neck and peered over the crowd. Mr. Christmas was gone.

In the heat of the moment, Jamie didn't question it, tossing his absence up to sickness or a rare interference from the law. But, despite Jamie’s grievances, Mr. Christmas’ absence was palpable.

Finally, the stampede of people reached the entrance, scattering as they rushed to catch their various trains. Jamie did the same, hightailing it through the station, weaving through walls of wanderers, and dodging all the seedy vendors. A crackling voice came over the intercom, announcing that Jamie's train was about to depart. He knew that was the last call, the final attempt to rein in any stragglers, and he made the final push. The sight of his train, dotted with various faded hues of black—a result of the multiple paint jobs done to cover up graffiti—carved a smile across his face. He had made it in time.

A crash and a pained moan to Jaime's right ripped him from his state of bliss. His attention should have stayed on the train, on getting to work on time, but Jaime looked towards the noise out of instinct. There he saw Mr. Christmas slumped against a vending machine, his already ragged clothing torn to shreds and stained with blood.

"Mr. Christmas!" Jamie cried, a mixture of surprise and confusion.

His call went seemingly unheard by both Mr. Christmas and the civilians around them. People walked around the injured man as if he wasn't there. Someone even used the adjacent vending machine, stepping over his body like he was trash.

Two sharp dings resonated from Jamie's train, signaling that the doors were about to close.

After what he had experienced the night before and the subsequent panic to get to the station on time, a part of him wanted to leave Mr. Christmas behind, forcing the man to fend for himself. He probably should have, too. The man stank of paranoia and insanity. Jamie couldn't be sure he wasn't a drug addict who used what was donated to him to up his supply, further fueling his conspiratorial nature. But that's what made him integral to the lifeblood of Hollendell station. Leaving him beaten and bloodied would have severed the only blip of joy among the sea of monotony that swallowed Jamie each morning. He looked back to the train, its doors sliding shut, and cursed before running and kneeling before Mr. Christmas.

"Are you alright, Mr. Christmas?"

The old man let out a pained wheeze but didn't respond. Fearing for the man, Jamie set down his briefcase and inspected his wounds. His dreadlocks, now smeared with streaks of blood, covered most of the carnage as they draped over his face. Blood streamed down from his crooked nose, and gnarly purple-black bruises swelled his right eye until only a sliver of the Crystal Ball remained visible.

"Who did this to you?"

As the words whispered from Jamie's mouth, Mr. Christmas wrapped his boney fingers around his arm with a sudden jolt. Jamie watched as the man chanted in a low, guttural tongue that he couldn't understand. Yet, with each word, the wounds around his face healed, stitching themselves up and scabbing over in seconds, leaving Jaime feeling drained as if he hadn't slept in weeks.

He groaned and wavered for a moment, leaning on his briefcase for support. Then, Mr. Christmas grabbed his chin and yanked it up, forcing Jamie to look directly into the Crystal Ball.

"The Devil," he whispered.

Jamie collapsed, the old man's grip the only thing preventing him from hitting the floor. His vision blurred until all he could see was the Crystal Ball, its cloudy surface gleaming in the light. With a final groan, Jamie fell unconscious.

Pain surged through Jamie's face, abruptly yanking him back into consciousness. His eyes fluttered open, and his hand flew to his cheek, soothing the already sore wound. He looked to see a man who, in his groggy state, Jaime believed to be Mr. Christmas, rudely awakening him from his slumber. But at a second glance, this man was a stranger, his eyes a flurry of concern and rage. But that wasn't all.

Jamie's hand now grasped empty air instead of a briefcase, and his train pass had vanished from his pocket. Moreover, he sat in a worn-down chair instead of being slumped over Mr. Christmas, though it wasn't much of an upgrade.

He wasn't in the station anymore. Instead, he was on a train careening through some dark tunnel. The confusion over the last few minutes and the gnawing fear of how long he had been unconscious hurt more than the slap to his face. He scrambled to answer the thousands of questions that addled his mind but came up with nothing. He needed time to collect his thoughts. So, for now, he focused on ascertaining wherever the hell he was.

His attacker, clocking that Jaime was awake, stepped back and chuckled, seemingly reveling in his confusion.

"Good morning, Sunshine. Welcome to your death!" The man, who couldn't have been older than twenty, spread his arms wide, showcasing the train car like a realtor would a home.

Jamie shuddered. His rampant confusion already clogged his thoughts, and the young man's sick sense of humor didn't help. It only fast-tracked him to the role of the first suspect.

"Oh, hush! No one here is going to die." An older woman's voice piped up from across the car. Luckily, Jamie knew the voice—he had heard it chastise him for not eating breakfast every morning. It was Mrs. Ristretto, owner of the station's bakery. Though he felt terrible to see her there, Jamie couldn't deny that her presence helped to soothe his anxiety.

"And how can you be sure?" The young man bit back.

Mrs. Ristretto didn't respond, choosing to move from her seat across the car to the one on Jamie's left. "Don't bother with him, Jamie, dear. Scott is as much in the dark as we are," she said, glaring at the man in question.

Scott chuckled, a laugh laced with hostility for the baker.

"Why are you so adamant that I'm wrong?" he asked. "As you can see, things aren't cupcakes and rainbows - unless waking up on a speeding train is your version of ‘paradise.’"

"Because we can't afford to be cynics in a situation like this!" Their argument faded into murmurs as the walls of the train car caught Jamie's eye. Across the metal frame were replicas of famous paintings depicting pivotal world events—things as old as the Creation of Adam up until the events of 9/11. Only one aspect prevented them from being perfect copies. A white eye watched over every scene. In some, it appeared on the sidelines as an onlooker. But in others, the eye replaced that of the titular character depicted in the painting.

They wouldn't have been anything more than a strange artist's flair to anyone else. But it wasn't hard for Jaime to spot the correlation between them and the previous night's vision. It felt like he was peeking behind the curtain, privy to knowledge not meant for him to understand. Were those people really legends immortalized in art, or were they victims painted as examples of the eyes’ influence over someone they chose to observe?

"Who did this?" he asked absentmindedly. But, in the back of his mind, he knew the answer.

Scott disengaged from his argument and grimaced at the walls.

"That crazy fucking homeless man, that's who."

Mrs. Ristretto tried to horn in with a rebuttal, but Scott stopped her.

“You know I'm right!" he yelled, jamming a finger in her direction. "When he was getting his ass kicked, I tried to protect that geezer, but he stopped me and stared into my soul with that damn eye. And now, I'm on this train with no clue how I got here. That isn't a coincidence!”

Regardless of his demeanor, Jamie could tell Scott struck a nerve in Mrs. Ristretto. She held the same fondness for Mr. Christmas that Jamie did and couldn't believe that he would do something so radical without warning. But the pieces weren't adding up.

As the trio shared their respective experiences, all blurring the line between reality and the supernatural, they learned that Mr. Christmas was at the center of them all—the culprit behind the chaos. Additionally, they could cobble their stories into a loose timeline of events.

Mrs. Ristretto was the first, her memory of the past few hours erased after refusing Mr. Christmas' demands to shut down her bakery under the preposterous claim that "The Devil has come." Shortly after her disappearance, Scott witnessed four strangers masked in black beat Mr. Christmas half to death. However, the Crystal Ball met his gaze upon his attempt to intervene, lulling him unconscious. The bloodied man got Jamie a few minutes later, using him as a glorified medkit.

"That's great information," Scott noted, his tone caked in sarcasm. "But we still have no idea where the hell he is taking us!"

The intercom came to life with a melodic jingle followed by a drawn-out, scratchy silence. The trio's attention whipped to the speaker as a man on the other end grunted and began to speak.

"Do not fret, my chosen."

Jamie didn't need to hear another word. He knew the one speaking was Mr. Christmas.

"I am watching over you, and I promise this train leads to your salvation—a haven far away from The Devil's embrace."

The intercom cut out, and silence overtook the trio once again. With just a few short words, Mr. Christmas solidified the horrifying reality of the situation. He no longer spoke in prophecies, shedding the only layer of deniability he had and revealing the insanity underneath. Jamie's suspicions had proven true, but there was no victory in that. It only confirmed that he was kidnapped by a dangerous man, even after all he had done to help him. Murmurs permeated from the adjacent car, its passengers seemingly sharing his unease.

Jamie took a shaky breath, his heart so far up his throat he thought he might choke. It may have been his nerves, but he swore the tainted eye of Napoleon, depicted riding upon the back of his ivory horse, shifted in his direction once the announcement concluded.

Mrs. Ristretto seemed to emulate his anguish, but Scott sat in his seat, chuckling while sucking at his gums.

"Just how far is he willing to go?" The young man stood up and glared at the speaker as if it were Mr. Christmas himself. "Did you hear me? Just how far will you go to prove your insane ramblings, you fucking maniac?"

Silence.

"Dammit!" Scott looked frantically around the train car for a few moments before finally locking his sights on the automatic door to the engineer’s car. Unfortunately, any movement failed to trigger the electronics, so Scott resorted to the old-fashioned way. He marched to the door and began punching the small window repeatedly, muttering curses as he did so. But the glass held firm, curdling his profanity into pained grunts as blood began trickling down his hands.

"Relax, Scott!" Mrs. Ristretto cried, fed up with his self-destruction. She moved and put a hand on his shoulder. "Anger won't help-"

The man whipped around, batting away her hand, and grabbed her by the collar, his blood staining her apron.

"Why do you keep getting in the way!" Scott screamed. He eyed her and Jamie with burning disdain. "Is it ‘cause you two are on his side? Huh? Leading me to my death so you can taste precious freedom?"

Jamie didn't know what to do. He wanted to stand up and try to save Mrs. Ristretto from Scott's rage, but his body was frozen. He tried to scream and give all the reasons why they were innocent, but the words got caught in his throat. He couldn't do anything but fumble with the phone in his pocket in a desperate attempt to call 911, but even at that, he failed, the lack of a signal making his phone no more than a useless bundle of circuits and wires.

He felt like he couldn't breathe, like the fear and shame roiling through his body had clogged his lungs with thick smog. Deep down, he wanted to kick and scream as Scott had, but his body wouldn't allow it, locking the feelings away behind a cage forged by panic. Tears welled up in his eyes, his will to stay strong a moment away from leaking out.

With Scott confirming they were trapped, the tension in the train was reaching its apex as their racing prison showed no signs of stopping, leaving any sense of hope far back on the tracks.

"Everyone…please calm down!"

Silence overtook the train car as Mrs. Ristretto's choked voice reverberated throughout.

"I know we're in a bad situation, and believe me, I am just as scared and confused as you are." Only then did Jamie notice her hands violently shaking and her voice cracking whenever she spoke. "But panicking and lashing out won't solve anything. We don't know what will happen if and when this train stops, but we must remain calm. I know it's hard, but the best thing we can do is wait."

Scott's grip on her collar loosened, allowing her to squirm free, and her words interrupted Jamie's meltdown, if just for the moment. Then, in silence, the three sat next to each other and followed Mrs. Ristretto's advice: to wait for whatever fate Mr. Christmas decided for them.

There wasn't a scrap of friendship between the trio, and even a sense of trust was hazy. What brought them together was more primal than that: the sheer urge to survive. It trumped all prejudice and, just for a moment, forged a bond between the three stronger than anything they had ever felt before.

But their respite was a fleeting fantasy, dispelled when a devastating explosion roared from behind the train. It tore through the tunnels, carving cracks through the stone and sending a tremor that shook the train around like a toy in a toddler's hand. Jamie nearly collided with one of the many steel poles as the train car buckled, sending him flying from his seat.

"The fuck was that?" Scott asked, his fists white-knuckled on a pole to keep his balance. The force of the blast crumbled the rock above them, sending meteors of rubble crashing down on the metal frame. It caved with a hideous, metallic shriek, popping bolts loose and frying parts of the electrical system. Mrs. Ristretto gasped as the lights began to blink in sporadic bursts, forcing the trio in and out of darkness every few seconds.

Not one to lie down and die, Scott cursed and stumbled his way to a window before repeating his previous plan of brute force—though fueled by desperation instead of anger. He slammed into the window with both fists, ignoring the pain that surged through his hands, but it amounted to nothing but smudging the glass with his blood.

The ceiling further succumbed to the debris, inviting black smoke through shears in the metal and obstructing the trio's remaining light. The ash-ridden smoke burned their eyes and repurposed their lungs into a raging furnace. Mrs. Ristretto's voice pierced through the darkness and the dissonant screams from the adjoining car. She stammered over her words, trying to reassure the two men, but soon crumbled. Pain-filled sobs overpowered her, molding her attempted pep talk into a cry for help.

Jamie should have given up; every part of him wanted to. But he didn't, for he could still feel the eyes on the walls. Sure, he couldn't see them, but he knew they were there—watching from afar. Nothing had changed since the morning. They still loomed over him, picking through his every thought. He could almost feel their judgment— observing the broken man he was, failing over and over again. So if anything, his pride and desperate need to prove them wrong motivated him.

Jamie clambered to his feet and listened for Scott's grunts as he continued his attacks. Then, using the poles as a guide, he slowly shuffled through the smoke until he bumped into the young man. He was a mess. Soot plastered his face, tears streamed from his bloodshot eyes, and his hands were bruised and bloody. He looked to Jaime, who motioned towards the window and mimed a shoulder check. Scott, though in agony, couldn't help but grin.

One

Jamie's strength didn't add much to the equation, but the morale boost was more than enough to sustain the combined effort.

Two

The glass shook in its frame but refused to shatter.

Three

Jamie's shoulder hurt like hell, but it paid off when a small crack carved through the window like a spider's web.

Before they could get off a fourth, the train suddenly braked, tossing the two gladiators to the floor. It ground against the tracks, sending sparks flying around the train car. Then, finally, after several meters of coasting, it lurched to a stop, and everything was quiet. A pre-recorded announcement came over the intercom and proclaimed their trip was over, while the automatic door opened with a little jingle.

Beams of light glared through the smoke, and once dissipated, the trio learned that they had exited the tunnels and arrived at an abandoned train stop on the surface. Mrs. Ristretto ran out and collapsed to the ground with a smile of relief. The two men followed suit, and soon, they were all on the ground, celebrating their survival. But the chaos wasn't over.

Plumes of smoke appeared on the horizon, and hundreds of screams echoed through the city. The trio got to their feet and, from their vantage point, saw the carnage before them. Holes in the ground scattered the city with fires burning within like they were portals to hell, and the fire trucks and ambulances racing through the streets lit up the skyline like a cursed Christmas.

A torrent of buzzes shot through Jaime's pocket—the notifications on his phone as he regained service. Along with missed calls from his parents and boss, an emergency alert warned the people of Hollendell that the station and all trains that had left that morning were subject to a bombing. Suicide bombers boarded the trains and pledged their allegiance to “The Devil” before pulling the trigger on their vests.

The trio stood in shocked silence while droves of survivors flooded from the other train cars and to their safety. Then, suddenly, the door to the engineer's car slid open, and Mr. Christmas climbed out. Tears streamed down his cheeks, but they accompanied a wide smile plastered on his face.

"The Dark Lord's many arms brought them down to his domain," he said, spreading his arms out to encompass the city. "But I couldn't let him take you, my chosen."