Scourge's Note: Thanks for keeping up with us this far, readers and reviewers. You're rather awesome and whatnot.
Mistletoe Makes Everything Better
The Tree of Knowledge—11/27/09
Meet the Pumpkin King
"Mr. Kushiel, is it? Will you partake of our fruit?" asked Takada, leaning across her desk to get a better look at the Pumpkin King and laying a hand on his arm.
"Call me Light. My father would not appreciate being tagged onto my last name like a puppy." Thin and refined, he did not remind anyone in the audience of a pumpkin. His light brown hair and his golden eyes reminded one of golden wine and candle-light, of a romantic dinner and the more sensual events afterwards. His pale skin and his dark clothing had the female audience, and some of the males, drooling.
"Yes, of course, Light." The groping hand moved up a bit. He sneered and swatted it off. "Er. So did you truly kidnap L Lawliet, the heir of Christmas?" She could think of nothing better to say while trapped by his eyes. Her face had turned bright red, a fact that was hardly concealed by her make-up.
"Of course. I'm the king of Halloween—I cause chaos and destruction. I am your Hades, your Lucifer, your angel of Death; I do what I can and destroy what I must. Christmas seemed like an ample opportunity, one far too brilliant for me to pass up."
"King of Destruction, surely there is a better position for you to take in life—something more akin to the feeling of Christmas that we humans hold dear."
"Have you listened to a word I said? I pretty well told you I'm the Devil—and you just told me to be nicer?"
"Even the Devil has a soul."
"Yes, I'll be sure to remember that next time when I come after yours. "
Takada paused. She watched as Light glared at her, daring her to speak.
"When do you believe you will return Mr. Lawliet to the North Pole?"
"Soon enough. He's a whiner—doesn't like the rack too much. One can hear his screams throughout all of Halloween Town, wailing and cursing… it's very irritating."
Somehow, all the female listeners managed a sigh, imagining that tone of voice across the candle-lit dinner table rather than listening to the actual words.
"That's so generous of you."
"I know."
Next year I could be oh so good
Naomi's Autobiography—memory from early November
Chapter One: Regarding My Initial Acquaintance With the Infamous Pumpkin King
Born a poor half-breed child in the sixteen hundreds, absolutely nothing happened to me until two thousand nine.
I was working in the North Pole when I first saw him. I was looking outside a stained glass window, watching the snow fall outside—how it was lit by the colored lights outside. And then he was there, running about like a chicken with his head cut off. He looked as if he had died and gone to heaven, although no one I know would ever consider the North Pole heaven.
He was smiling, laughing—he was dancing through the snow, his face alight with a joy only seen in a place that wasn't filled with Christmas. He looked genuinely happy, for which I would call him completely mad. He also ran into a light pole and knocked himself out.
I decided that since nothing interesting happened in my life anyway, I should rescue him from the snow. He was like no one I had ever seen; dressed in a black pinstriped suit, he was tall as a human and paler than the moon—even the red in his hair looked ominous. Red was such an odd color, joyous in Christmas Town… and yet this man, in one sighting, changed the color in my mind forever.
I put him in my apartment, laying him down on my bed while I waited for him to wake up on his own and hoped to God he didn't get a fever. The last thing I needed was Near to come snooping about, assuming I'd taken a lover. That would certainly get me thrown out, even if the toys did not.
It took half the night before he finally was coherent and able to talk—he called himself the Pumpkin King, despite the fact that he looked absolutely nothing like a pumpkin. He looked rather like some fallen angel, some dark and powerful god of death; surrounded by the colorless walls of my room, he looked even more ominous.
"What brings you to Christmas Town?" I asked him, genuinely curious to know what had brought him to the glittering bliss that had been my home town for centuries.
"Boredom, sheer boredom that is eating me alive slowly and surely, driving me mad. Insanity has brought me to your town and I am sick of it. Christmas…" He stood. Shaking with effort, he began to pace back and forth in my cramped quarters, a puzzled frown on his face as he lost himself in thought (and it was far from any expression I had seen on an Elf's features—he was far darker than any creature I had ever seen).
"Who rules this Christmas Town?" he asked suddenly, halting in front of the decorated mirror that reflected his golden eyes.
"Saint Nicholas." I shrugged, ignoring the way his eyes seemed to light at the information, how the smile stretched across his face. It wasn't until later that I would realize what kind of information I had given him.
It wasn't coincidence that Santa Claus died of a heart attack only weeks later. I couldn't help but think of the stranger and his cruel eyes, the way he seemed so grateful that I pulled him feverish and freezing out of the snowfall.
Perhaps that was what prompted me to begin sending information to the outside world. Perhaps I decided then and there that it was high time I left Christmas Land.
If you'd check off my Christmas list
Files of Doctor Lawrence G. Philmore—memory from sixth day of captivity
L Lawliet: Meeting Seven
"They called him the Boogey Man; or rather, the citizens of Halloween Town did. Light preferred to call him Ryuk. They took me in a walking bath tub down into his lair—in a trash bag, I might add." The former heir took a swallow of water before continuing his retelling. "He looked like a demon. Dark ragged wings, yellow marble eyes with red pupils… I can hardly describe his clown smile and his hyena's laugh."
He stopped speaking to eat another cookie.
"Ryuk was very good at torture. It wasn't what he did to you physically, which was very painful, but what he did psychologically. And again, he was very good at this. After all, the only limit Light left the monster was that he couldn't kill me. Quite a lot of room for creativity."
He shuddered and ate another cookie.
"And Light would come in every once in a while, a smile plastered to his pasty face. He would ask how my day was going. The bastard, complete bastard, I hate him so much. Of course, there was something about him…"
He ate another cookie; they were rapidly disappearing.
"Were you sexually attracted to Mr. Light Kushiel?" asked the therapist, watching as the former detective choked on the cookie he was eating.
"Dear Lord, no, he was a complete narcissistic bastard who left me to die at the hands of a god of death who found entertainment out of my physical pain. He was a complete and utter bastard, and I hope you remember that next time your daughter sets cookies out by the fire place—think about what kind of man she is inviting down her chimney!"
The last cookie disappeared and the therapist attempted not to show his distaste at the idea of his daughter setting out Christmas cookies.
Boo doo bee doo
The Underground Messenger—11/28/09
TREE OF KNOWLEDGE DOES NOT ACKNOWLEDGE
[…the fruit tasted like sweet monkey love on a table… with a necrophilic old man]
How dare you ignore us, you whore. That's right. I, Mello, pursuer of all truth concerning Saint Nicholas, called you a whore. Not just any whore, I might add—dumb one who can't even perfect the art of gold digging. Take your fruit elsewhere; no one wants to eat a rotting apple. Bitch.
When a press war is called, it cannot be ignored. YOU CAN'T IGNORE A PRESS WAR! Your tree will be burned, your studio will be pillaged, and your staff will be raped. You will not, however, as you might actually enjoy it. And really, where's the fun in that.
By the way, no one enjoys your low cut tops, NO ONE. The plastic surgery is blatantly obvious; we can see the scars. Besides, they're sagging below your knees anyway.
Mello out,
Post Script
(As always, this edition seems to be dedicated more to pornography than actual stories. Check out the front cover—a lovely picture of Takada being raped by a series of elves. I enjoyed it, at least. Page 1D, however, is filled with BDSM drawings of Persephone. Drawn by our fans, I might add….
Get a life….)
Santa honey, I wanna yacht and really that's
The Underground Messenger—11/30/09
EVEN SANTA HAS PICKETERS
[…their signs are just as boring as everyone else's]
Walking outside the gates of Halloween Town, one might notice the mass of protesters gathered outside the blackened gates. A sea of colorful signs proclaiming the joy of Christmas wait beyond the walls of the city, howling for the freedom of the poor Mr. Claus from captivity. Several curious citizens watch, slightly amused.
I, Mello, decided to see what all the hub-bub was about. Like my journaling self, I burrowed to the heart of the matter. "Free the Sandy Claws," I was informed by the Halloween Town resident Misa Amane, a blonde rag doll created by the Pumpkin King (or so she claimed).
"Yeah, they want Light to free the Sandy Claws. I don't know why they want him back, though—he didn't look much like a lobster."
Very beautiful and with better stitching than half the dolls in the North Pole, Misa made up for this with her lack of brains.
"So what do you think of the protests? Do you think he should be released back to the North Pole?"
"I'm sure Light knows what he's doing; he always does. He's a genius, you know."
Genius, yes, well when you call yourself Pumpkin King with a straight face, I find it difficult to call you a genius.
"He's got some bigger plot in mind, and even if it's a bit out of his way, I'm sure he has a plan that we just can't see yet—like an unfinished ginger bread cookie where the ingredients are spread all across the table. See, there's the brown sugar, the gum drop buttons, those cute icing eyes…."
I was so disgusted I refuse to report the details of what the rest of this conversation entailed (mainly me being horrified by the idea that oozing monsters can be referred to as gum drop buttons). My eyes, I think they're bleeding. I don't know if I can write anymore. Then I'll have to get a real job. DEAR LORD.
"Light made me, you know—stitched me up himself, although I think he said he forgot something…"
Her brain perhaps?
"Oh, my virginity! I REMEMBER NOW!"
Too much information, perhaps? Well, not for this newspaper. Good Lord, we have everything in this newspaper. I refuse to write anymore—I am scarred for life. Do not visit Halloween Town unless you wish to feel empty inside, like a stocking abandoned in the soot by a neglectful fat bastard.
Post script
On the bottom of this page you may note a drawing of Misa…. Sadly, that's what she actually looked like. Stare all you like—the dress doesn't get any longer. I've tried.
Not a lot