Polterheist(15)

Coming to the end of my spiel about the multicultural exhibits here in Solsticeland, I turned back to my arboreal companion and suggested we give these nice people one last song.

The tree did not respond. It sat there, silent and inert. I wondered if I had unwittingly rushed through my speech and finished too early. I ad-libbed a little, to fill the silence. Still no response from the tree.

"Oh, dear," I said to the crowd. "My friend may have fallen asleep while I was talking!"

Some of them chuckled at that. I was wondering by now if the tree's complex mechanism had broken down. If the thing had stopped working, I'd have to wrap up the performance without it. I glanced around and saw that Twinkle was still within sight, the density of the crowd ensuring that his progress remained slow.

I gave the tree an admonishing poke as I said loudly, "If you won't sing another song with me, then I'll just ask my friend Twinkle to play something for me!"

And that was when all hell broke loose.

The tree came to sudden, menacing life. Its eyes glowed red, its knobbly face contorted into a snarl, and it growled at me. Startled, I gasped and fell back a step. I heard some of the crowd laughing, assuming that this was part of the show. The Enchanted Forest was, after all, a deliberately spooky setting where, as the tree had already said, anything could happen.

And that certainly seemed to be true as the tree's glowing eyes focused on me while it whispered in a harsh croak, "Kill . . . kill . . . kill you."
                       
       
           



       
6





I choked out a scream and staggered backward. We were way off script now.

A big, solid tree branch hit me hard from behind, knocking the wind out of me and sending me sprawling forward into the tree's face. The branch was one of the mechanical arms which were programmed to wave and bounce in time to the Christmas carols that the tree sang. It swiftly wrapped around me and held me pressed up against the horrifyingly animated trunk, which snickered at me as I was shoved against it.

The blow had stunned me, but I was so frightened that adrenaline flooded my system, working wonders. I quickly regained my senses, took a noisy gulp of air, and started screaming my head off.

This set off a chain reaction of gasping and shrieking among the gathered crowd, who by now realized something was wrong.

The tree's mouth, already stretched in a vicious snarl, sprouted long yellow fangs. I didn't want to find out if they were as sharp as they looked, so I struggled with all my might against the dense synthetic branch that was trying to force me closer to that mouth.

"No, no, noooo!" I was screaming.

"Dreidel!" Twinkle shouted. "Dreidel!"

I heard the mad, musical screech of his accordion as he wrestled his way through the crowd, hollering frantically for maintenance, for help, for security, for someone!

With my arms trapped by the encircling branch, I lifted my feet and braced them against the tree trunk, fighting the mechanical branch's effort to drag me closer to the snarling, fanged mouth. I was panting hard with fear and exertion, struggling for air as the thick, twining branch tightened around me like a python, bruising my arms and squeezing breath from my body.

Some shoppers grabbed frantically at the branch and tugged on it, trying to release me. Another animated branch swooped down and knocked them away, throwing them into the crowd with industrial strength and power. I heard more screaming and, out of the corner of my eye, could see people falling and tumbling.

"Nooo!" My voice was thin and shrill. I was starting to feel lightheaded.

More people approached the tree, trying to help me. Through the blur of my misting vision, as I fought my terrifying captor and gasped for air, I could see elf outfits, reindeer antlers, the bright red of a Santa suit . . . two Santa suits . . .

"Esther!" Jeff shouted, bounding toward me.

Pow! A long tree branch whipped through the air like a catapult, knocking Jeff off his feet. He flew backward into Satsy, and the two of them tumbled out of my fading vision.

"Cut the power!" a man shouted.

I heard the ear-piercing squeal of children screaming and the heavy thunder of feet stampeding.

"Cut the power!" the same voice repeated.

A huge man in a parka hurled himself at the tree, screaming, "Yaaaagggh!"

Two snakishly animated branches scooped him up, working in unison, and tossed him aside like a rag doll.

The tree's menacing mouth started drooling, and I recoiled from the foul odor that started to pour out that orifice.

"Help!" I croaked, dizzy and weak by now. My bells jangled as I kicked ineffectually at the trunk with my dainty boots.

"Dreidel! I'll save you!" Twinkle cried.

I kept kicking weakly as the encircling branch that was squeezing the life out of me forced me closer to that foul-smelling, drooling, snarling mouth.

"What are you doing?" a man shouted. It was the man who wanted the power cut-as if electricity were the problem here.

"I'm saving her!" Twinkle cried.

Through my swimming vision, I saw the elf wave an ax near my head, and I found the breath to shriek, "No!"

"Give me that!" the same man shouted, his voice starting to sound familiar through the haze of my suffocation and terror . . .

The tree's animated eyes glowed red while it growled softly to me, "Kill . . . kill . . . I want flesh! And blood."

I hoped I would faint before this thing took a bite out of me. I didn't want to be conscious for that.

There was a sudden, powerful reek of sulfur. Black smoke clouded the glowing red eyes; one of the orbs cracked, and pieces of plastic fell to the floor. The drool pouring from the fangs seemed to freeze in mid-motion. The whole tree went rigidly still. Sensing my opportunity, I tried again to free myself. But I was weak, and the python-like branch, though motionless now, wouldn't release me. It was frozen in position, as if it had mechanically seized-up.

Then I heard a loud whack! nearby, like an ax hitting wood-and the oppressive branch dropped me like a hot rock. Startled, I staggered away dizzily, tripped over the synthetic tree roots, and hit the floor with a thud.

As I lay there on my back, panting and staring up at the star-studded solstice sky, I heard footsteps. Then that familiar voice said: "Esther?"

I didn't answer. Just lay there. Breathing hard and savoring the feel of air in my lungs.

"Esther." Holding a big wood-handled ax, Detective Connor Lopez of the New York Police Department stood looking down at me. He was breathing fast. "Of course. I should have guessed. I mean, who else could it be?"

"Lopez?" I croaked, looking up at him in bewildered surprise.

"Are you all right?" he asked. "Do you need a medic?"

"Why are you holding an ax over my head?"

He looked at the ax as if surprised to see it in his hands. "Oh. I used it to sever the power cable to that . . . that thing. What is that thing?"

Still, breathing hard, I gaped at him in amazement. "Wow. The slogan is true. At Christmas, everyone comes to Fenster's."

"Actually-"

"Dreidel!" Twinkle was at my side, his accordion still strapped to his torso. It groaned noisily as he sank to his knees. "Are you all right?"

"I thought you were going to behead me," I panted, recalling the sight of Twinkle waving the ax near me.

"No, I was saving you! I was attacking the tree!"

"I didn't mean," I panted, "that I thought you'd behead me on purpose."

"I didn't think so, either," said Lopez, shifting the ax to one hand. "Either way, though, it seemed like a good idea to take it away from him."

"Fuck me," said Candycane. "Twinkle, you could have killed her with that thing!"

Still lying flat, my heart racing in reaction to the attack, I glanced around and saw numerous anxious elf and reindeer faces looking down at me.

"I think that thing could have killed her." Prancer pointed to the tree. (Or maybe it was Dancer. Or Comet. A big, fuzzy, brown sock-puppet with antlers, anyhow.) "What the hell happened?"

"I'd say it was the mother of all mechanical malfunctions," Lopez said in disgust. "Don't they do maintenance around here? Safety checks?"

"No," said several employees in unison.

"For chrissake." Lopez shook his head. "What do they think will happen if they neglect proper maintenance on a thing like that-that . . . What is that thing, anyhow?"

Jingle's face hovered directly above me. He must have clocked in recently, since I hadn't seen him before.

"Dreidel! Are you okay?" Without waiting for my reply, he turned around and made the general announcement, in a loud voice, "Dreidel is all right!"

I heard a faint-very faint-cheer sweep through the Enchanted Forest in response to this news.

"You're sure you're okay?" Twinkle asked me.

"I'll live." I was profoundly grateful to be able to say those words.

"That was scary," said Jingle. "We nearly lost a good trainee!"

Lopez said, "Okay, everyone please take a step back and give Esther-uh, Dreidel-some room to breathe. Come on-back, everyone."

My co-workers complied. People often complied when Lopez gave orders. Not me, really, but lots of other people.