Beneath Evergreens

Young King and Chris walked along the sidewalk of the quaint, suburban neighborhood where the flashing glow of Christmas light cancelled out the pitch dark of night. A small buzzing jingle sliced the silence as it sang from Chris's wrist watch. Chris lifted his harm and pressed in the button on the side of the tiny machine ending the blinking of a blue light behind the face. He turned to his companion and smirked. "Well, my dear friend, King," he said, "as of now Christmas Eve was yesterday."

"It would seem that's true," King replied, "and being that, I suggest we rush home before we are accused of wrecking this joyous holiday by our families."

"Ah, brilliant plan," declared Chris in a mockingly heroic voice before returning to his normal jumpy self, "Ooh, I can't wait for the morning! What do you think you're going to get?"

"Definitely not what I want most," was King's answer.

Before thinking, Chris blurted out, "And what is that?" only to realize his error too late when seeing the sad-while-trying-to-be-comforting look on King's face. Chris hurriedly scurried around for an apology.

"I'm sorry man. Things just slip my mind sometime. I mean, if it was up to be, I'd totally be gay for you, but I can't help that I like women."

King turned his head away. "Please, don't try."

The two continued walking as the sidewalk ended below them and they moved onto walking along the side of the road, dreading the awkward silence surrounding them. Wishing it to end. Wishing with all of both of their hearts that it would end, and then it did.

A loud rush of wind, the roaring of an engine, the clanking of metal, and a load thud in the street signified that a car had just come jumping up over the hill and sped off.

"Did you see that jerk? He didn't even have his headlights on," King asked.

There was no reply.

"Chris? Hello? Are you hearing what I'm saying. Did you see the car with no headlights go speeding through here. Chris? Oh my God! Chris! That was a speeding car with no headlights. You're walking in the road!"

King soon turned around to find his best friend and crush bloody on the road. King knelt beside him and cried as he called 911, but it was useless. Chris died there less than a minute later.

****

By Christmas morning King was still in his room crying. His life was ruined and on Christmas day. His family tried to comfort him, but they were no use. They didn't even know he loved Chris, and if they had, they would still have little to offer him. After hours of putting up with it, King got up and left his house. He walked around the town watching the few others on the street filled with Christmas joy. He was so busy watching others that he stopped looking in front of him. King bumped into an elderly, yet fit, woman in a red hat and apron with some faded logo on it.

"You sure do look like you've had a bad Christmas, son," she said.

King didn't look up as he walked around her. "I don't have any change for your metal bucket."

The old lady walked after him. "Now, son, I have no intention of taking anything from you. Quite the contrary, I think I might be able to give you what you want."

"I doubt it," King replied.

"No, I mean it," insisted the woman, "Anything at all. Isn't there anything you want?"

King stopped walking. "Well…"

****

While this was going on, Chris had opened his eyes. He looked around and saw a floor of clouds with blue all around him slowly turning to black with stars as he looked up.

"Wow," he said, "I made it to Heaven? Seriously? Me? I guess I can't complain. I better go find that Peter fellow and those gates. Or maybe Jesus, or my grandma. Anyone who can help me around this place. You know, maybe Buddha, just whoever."

Chris got up and walked along the clouds. He walked for hours upon hours, finding he no longer tired from simple physical efforts. But after all this time, he still found no one. Discouraged he came upon a hole in the clouds and look through it. Below he could see Earth spinning around. Chris squinted, and the land masses became clearer, and as he squinted more, he found that he could soon zoom in on little cities, and buildings, and individual people even. Chris soon found King and looked down at him. King had been talking to an old lady when he had located him, but now he was walking away.

****

King followed the man in the lab coat into the morgue. He was a little embarrassed. He looked to the man in the lab coat.

"I know this is unusual, but I just really needed to see him."

The man turned around, "Don't worry, I understand." The man then led King over to a table with a cloth over it, and the obvious form of a body beneath the cloth.

"Well, there he is," the man said, "I'll give you some privacy."

After the man left, King turned to the body of his friend, "I know, this is silly, isn't it Chris? I just met a strange old lady, and she promised me anything, and I guess I just wanted to believe for a little while she could make it come true. Being here now, I realize you probably aren't coming back though."

Chris watched from his spot in the clouds. He wanted to reach out to King, he wanted to speak to him and comfort him, he wanted to crawl back into his beaten body and make everything right. Yet he could not. Still, he just kept reaching and hoping as he watched King pull the sheet from the face of the dead thing that had once been him. Suddenly, a sheeted body behind King jerked. King jumped and spun around.

"Did that really happen?" Chris said allowed to himself, "Only one way to find out I guess." So he reached and hoped again, and again the body jerked. He reached harder, and the body brought itself upward. It wasn't his body, but it was the next best thing. King watched in fear. Chris tried his hardest to make the body speak his words and comfort King, but all that came out was a muffled moaning. King ran out of the morgue.

"So," Chris said, "I totally just did that. I terrified my best friend, but I did something. Maybe I can do more." And with that Chris began searching the world, looking for the few who would meet his exact requirements.

****

King rushed home and locked himself in his room. Had he really just seen that. Had a dead man really just stood up behind him? Why would that happen? Was it a message? Or a warning? What did it mean? And who sent it? Chris? God? The Universe itself? As King sat thinking about it for an hour, he slowly started having a bad feeling. He didn't feel safe alone. He needed to be near people.

As King ran out of his room and through his house calling for his family members, he can upon a TV that had been left on. He was took little notice of it until he caught a few words from a news caster.

"Miracle or prank…men who died in Santa hats seemingly risen from death…widespread panic…experts skeptical…undead Santas looting malls…unknown if related to mysterious appearance of high valuable items on people's door steps."

"What -- on -- Earth?" escaped King's mouth before he fainted.

****

King woke up somewhere different from where he had passed out. There were people there with him. He was relieved. At least, he hoped he was relieved. He looked around and saw his father.

"What's happening?" he asked.

His father looked at him. "I'd really like to know myself. All I know is that I don't feel safe outside."

King realized he was in his basement and the windows were boarded up. There was also a small TV in the corner. He watched it, but he couldn't bring himself to understand any of the noise coming from its speakers. Suddenly, he did hearing something though. A pounding at his door. It wouldn't stop. He started panicking. A window upstairs broke. There was the thud of something crawling through it. Footsteps down the stairs. Another knocking, this time at the door to the room he was in. Slowly the objects in front of it forming a makeshift barricade began to tumble. He watched it as it walked in. An undead in a Santa Claus hat. The rest of his family ran to the other side of the room, and he sat there frozen. He had stood up, he was ready to run in his mind, but he couldn't. The zombie walked toward him, it reached its arms out. He still couldn't run. The arms wrapped around him, King prepared himself to die, and as the grip tightened he realized something. This living dead thing was hugging him.

King fell to his knees and looked directly up.

"I love you, Christopher," he cried, "I really do, but if this is you, you can't keep doing this. It simply will not work. You can't just command the undead to play Robin Hood for you. This won't do anyone any good. Things are just so much more complex than this. We need to go our separate ways. But, I really do love you."

And then the zombie fell to the ground, dead again.

Chris looked up from his hole in the clouds. King was right. No one would ever accept an army of walking dead Santas. That's not how things worked on living Earth, and he was no longer and part of the living. He stood up and whispered, "I love you too, King," and turned around to see the bright warm faces of millions of other spirits. Some looked at him, but most were just talking to each other and laughing with joy.

"I guess this is Christmas from now on," he said.