Repairman Jack [02]-Legacies

"Don't bother trying again, sonny! You can't kill Santa Claus!"

The Nail levered himself up and reached across, trying to grab the gun with his free hand, but Santa clocked him again with a brain-jarring right, rocking his head back against the pavement.

Santa had a punch like a fucking mule kick.

The Nail felt the gun ripped from his hand, heard it skitter across the asphalt. After that, things got fuzzy.

And painful.

The Nail remembered getting flipped over onto his belly, grabbed by his collar and his waistband, and hauled off the ground.

"I checked my list," Santa said. "Checked it twice, in fact. It says you've been naughty, sonny. Very naughty!"

Then Santa started using him like a battering ram.

Slam! Headfirst against the bumper of the truck.

"Know what happens when you steal from Santa Claus? This!"

Slam! Headfirst into a bunch of trash cans lining the alley.

"If I decide to let you live, spread the word: Don't mess with Santa Claus!"

The Nail was spun around and flung face-first against one of the alley's brick walls.

He let out a puny groan of agony as he slid down the wall, feeling like a splattered egg oozing toward the ground.

But it wasn't over. Not by a long shot. The Nail felt his consciousness fading over the next ten minutes as Santa used him like some sort of rag to wipe up the alley.

Finally Santa released him. The Nail dropped to the ground, a puddle of agony on the broken pavement. He felt his breath bubbling through his bloody mouth. He was sure his jaw was broken. And his ribs—every breath was a dozen stab wounds. Was it over? He hoped so. He prayed it was over.

Just leave me be, he thought. Just take the toys, take the whole damn truck and go. Hitch your fucking reindeer to the bumper and you and Rudolph take off. Just don't mess me up anymore. Please.

But just as he finished the thought, he felt hands go under his armpits and lift him.

"No," he managed to groan past his shattered teeth. "Please… no more."

"Should have thought of that before, sonny. Stealing from defenseless little sick kids puts you on Santa's ultra-naughty list."

"I'm sorry." It came out a faint whine. Totally wimpy.

"Well, good. I'm glad to hear it. And I'll take that into consideration next Christmas. But you complicated things by trying to kill Santa. That's very naughty. Santa doesn't like to be shot. It makes him cranky. Very cranky."

"Oh, no…"

Something rough and long slithered past The Nail's cheek, and true panic set in. Rope! Oh, fuck no. Santa was going to string him up!

But then he felt the rope snake under his arms instead of around his neck. That was a relief. Of sorts. It still hurt like all hell when the rope tightened around his shattered ribs. He was lifted and seated on the truck's rickety bumper, then tied there.

"Wha—?"

"Quiet, sonny," Santa said in a low voice that had lost all its heartiness. "Don't say another word."

The Nail looked up. Everything—Santa, the alley, the whole fucking world—was mostly a blur… except for Santa's eyes. He'd always thought Santa had blue eyes, but these were brown, and The Nail shriveled up inside when he saw the rage bubbling behind them.

Santa wasn't just pissed. Santa was bugfuck nuts.

The Nail closed his eyes while Santa taped something to his head. By the time it squeezed through to his battered brain that he shouldn't let Santa—even this homicidal psycho Santa—tie him to the front of a truck, it was too late. He tried to wriggle free but the rope that lashed him to the grille crisscrossed his body around the shoulders and between the legs. His legs and his arms were free, but all the knots were somewhere behind him.

With a cold sick certainty, The Nail realized he wasn't going nowhere. Not under his own steam, anyway.

He stiffened as he heard the old engine rumble and shudder to life against his back. He began to blubber as the truck lurched into motion.

Santa was going to run him into the wall!

But no. The truck bounced out of the alley onto the street. After that it was a nightmare ride through the Lower East Side with people staring, pointing, some even laughing, then crosstown on Fourteenth with the truck swerving from lane to lane, running lights, screeching to a halt, inches—inches!—from rear bumpers and fenders, then roaring into motion again.

All that was bad enough, man, but when the westbound lanes weren't moving fast enough, the truck swerved into the oncoming traffic and played chicken with a banged-up yellow cab. The Nail knew fuck sure ol' Santa wasn't going to back down, and for the few screaming, terror-filled heartbeats that it looked like the cab wasn't going to either, The Nail lost it. Literally. Warm liquid spilled down his left leg.

But the cab lunged out of the way at the last second and the truck got back on the right side of the street and began accelerating.