Crash!
Slam!
"HO-HO-HO!"
Bang!
"Carter, DUCK!" Whoosh!
"Oh, for the love of…."
"Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the…."
BOOM!
Finally, blessedly, the only sounds echoing in the large, warehouse like workroom was the harsh sound of Sheriff Jack Carter and Deputy Jo Lupo's breathing. Jo lay sprawled in a large pile of fake snow that smelled weirdly of fake pine while Jack had red, green and silver ribbons tangled around his arms and legs. Both were bruised, singed and really annoyed.
After a moment to regroup, Jack rolled his head to the side to regard his partner. "Next time someone around here decides it'd be a good idea to build robotic Santa's Elves, I say we let them deal with the carnage," he groaned, then shifted his weight and pulled a wooden mallet out from under his back.
"If we did that, the town would be rubble in less than a day," she replied, heaving herself up onto her elbows to look around at the wreckage of the building. They had chased the seemingly possessed trio of Robo-Elves across half the town before cornering them and if this was an indication of what their trail was going to look like, there were going to be a lot of pissed of folks.
Jack was still staring at her. "You have candy canes in your hair," he informed her, causing Jo to touch the sticky candy that was tangled in her hair.
"Eww," she commented, trying to remover her hand from her head without tearing at ay hair. "How're those hot cocoa burns?"
One of the Robo-Elves had sprayed Jack's torso with steaming hot chocolate and he knew the skin was scalded underneath his uniform shirt. "Not very comfortable," he mumbled, marshalling his strength and levering himself upright. Gingerly, he opened a few buttons and peeped at the reddened flesh of his stomach. "Oh, that's gonna feel nice in the morning."
Jo was about to offer an opinion, when one of the Robo-Elves surged up and croaked, "HO-HO-…"
The last HO was cut off by two bullets, one from each of the officer's side arms.
Before the echo of the twin discharges even had a chance to fade, Allison Blake's voice sounded from the radio clipped to Jack's uniform. "Carter, if you're finished with those elves, Fargo says there's a slight issue out at Twelliger's farm."
"Twelliger," Jack said, then looked over at Jo, "isn't he the guy…"
"Trying to genetically engineer rapid growth evergreens," Jo moaned, rubbing her face wearily, then muttering, "Damn."
Heaving a tired sigh, Jack said, "Bah Humbug."