Post by Toz76 on Dec 3, 2017 2:19:58 GMT -5
(I tried to stay as close to the original text as possible. Some passages have been cut, others made into dick jokes)
Grammar Nazi was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of her burial was signed by the Horned One, the Cubii, the Bronze Mage, and the Blood Alchemist. Chessmaster signed it: and Chessmaster’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Grammar Nazi was as dead as a door-nail.
Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Grammar Nazi was as dead as a door-nail.
Chessmaster knew she was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Chessmaster and she were partners for I don’t know how many years. Chessmaster was her sole friend, her sole rival, her sole intellectual equal, and sole mourner. And only Chessmaster was so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but nonetheless he was an excellent man of strategy on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted victory against the hated Colorfolk.
The mention of Grammar Nazi's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Grammar Nazi was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet’s Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot—say Deszeld City Port for instance—literally to astonish his son’s weak mind.
Chessmaster never painted out Old Grammar Nazi's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the office door: Chessmaster and Grammar Nazi. The room was known as the strategy room. Sometimes people new to the Confederation called Grammar Nazi Grammar Nazi, and sometimes Orator, but she had answered to both names. It was all the same to her.
Oh! But he was a cheerful joy to be around, Chessmaster! a smiling, laughing, cheering, helping, giving, generous, old pal! Soft and sweet as caramel, open, and amicable, and social as a rabbit. The warmth within him envigorated his features, reddened his button nose, softened his cheek, loosened his gait; made his eyes blue his full lips red; and spoke out clearly in his sing-song voice. A suggestion of a recent shave was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own high spirits always about with him; he gave out warm vibes in the dog-days; and didn’t can it one iota at Christmas.
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, “My dear Chessmaster, how are you? When will you come to see me?” Of course they didn't. This was the Vile Evil Confederation. Everyone in Diablo City was mean to the core. They hated the Colorfolk, and they hated the other VECites, and they hated themselves most of all. Except for Chessmaster, for he was an unwanted ray of sunshine in this hovel of gloom and misery. They hated his kindness and enthusiasm, and many a man or woman found themselves at the temple praying fervently for deliverance and for Chessmaster to just up and fuck himself.
Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve—old Chessmaster sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already—it had not been light all day—and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale. To all but Chessmaster, it was lovely.
The door of Chessmaster’s office was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, Rodney, who in a pleasant little room beyond, was copying battle plans. Scrooge had a very large penis, but the clerk’s penis was so very much larger hat it looked like a garden snake. But he couldn’t enjoy it, for Chessmaster maintained a strict policy against sexual harassment; and so surely as the clerk pulled out his penis, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his clothes, and tried to warm himself with thoughts of his sexy wife Catherine, in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.
“A merry Christmas, Viv! God save you!” cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Chessmaster, calling out to a disgruntled Vivian Bloodsphere as she entered the building.
“Bah!” said Vivian, “Humbug!”
“Christmas a humbug, Viv?” said Chessmaster. “You don’t mean that, I am sure?”
“I do,” said Vivian. “Merry Christmas! We're not Christians. We worship the Horned One. I don't want to deal with this Christmas tomfoolery."
“Come, then,” returned Chessmaster gaily. “What about secularized Christmas then? It would be good for morale."
Viv having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, “Bah!” again; and followed it up with “Humbug.”
“Don’t be cross, Viv!” said Chessmaster.
“What else can I be,” returned Vivian, “when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time where fools put aside their responsibilities to celebrate the incorrect birthday of an Israeli guy they insist on making white; a time where consumerism and greed runs rampant; a time, therefore, for delivering a decisive strike against the Colorfolk while they're busy singing kumbaya around a fucking pine tree?"
“Viv!” pleaded Chessmaster.
“Chessmaster!” returned Vivian sternly, “keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.”
“Keep it!” repeated Chessmaster. “But you don’t keep it. No one in this city keeps it but me!"
“Let us leave it alone, then,” said Vivian. “Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!”
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned Chessmaster. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—ignoring the stupidity due to its fictional name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, Vivian, though it has never put the corpse of Man In Gold or Silver in the ground, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, Horned One bless it!”
You’re quite a powerful speaker, sir,” Vivian said patronizingly. “I wonder you don’t go into Parliament.”
“Don’t be angry, Viv! Come! Dine with me to-morrow.”
Vivian said that she would see him—yes, indeed she did. She went the whole length of the expression, and said that she would see him in that extremity first. She completed her very dignified cameo by flashing Rodney on her way out.
This lunatic, in letting herself out, had let two other people in. They were Darkstorm and Darkhart, and stood, with their hoods up, in Chessmaster's office. They had books and papers in their hands, and glared at him.
“At this demonic season of the year, Mr. Chessmaster” said the gentlemen in perfect unison, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision to increase the suffering of the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”
“Are there no bailouts?” asked Chessmaster.
“Plenty of bailouts,” said Darkstorm, laying down the pen again.
“And the government aid programs?” demanded Chessmaster. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned Darkhart. “I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Non-Profits and the Humanitarian Orginazations are in full vigour, then?” said Chessmaster.
“Both very busy, sir.”
“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Chessmaster. “I’m very glad to hear it.”
“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish exquisite pain of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentlemen, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some shock collars, and means of sexual torture. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when inequality is keenly felt, and unrealistic cheer rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”
“Nothing!” Chessmaster replied.
“You wish to be anonymous?”
“I wish to be left alone,” said Chessmaster. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I do make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make merry people suffer. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned—they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go thereat instead of a sex dungeon.
"Aww..." the couple said in disappointment.
"Here's a crazy idea! Instead of building a sex dungeon on Christmas, how about you two spend Christmas having consensual sex with each other! Be as kinky as you like! I won't judge!"
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Chessmaster resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.
Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of Fort Cayrn, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily up at Diablo Tower out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.
At length the hour of shutting up the office arrived. With a good-will Chessmaster dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.
“You’ll want to work all day to-morrow, I suppose?” said Chessmaster.
“If quite convenient, sir.”
“It’s not convenient,” said Chessmaster. “and it’s not fair. You should spend Christmas with Catherine and your family."
Rodney smiled faintly.
“And hey, go ahead and sleep in the next morning. I'm in a good mood."
Chessmaster took his dinner in his usual tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his Mac-book, went home to bed. He lived on an upper floor of Diablo Tower, so he never even went outside. Psyche!
Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on his door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Chessmaster had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that he had designed the knocker, the room, and the entire building personally; also that Chessmaster had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London, even including—which is a bold word—the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Chessmaster had not bestowed one thought on Grammar Nazi since her death, probably. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Chessmaster, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change—not a knocker, but Grammar Nazi’s face.
Grammar Nazi's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the hall were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Chessmaster as Grammar Nazi used to look: with ghostly eyes rolling up in its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. (There is zero contradiction here. Shut up.) That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression.
As Chessmaster looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.
To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.
He did pause, with a moment’s irresolution, before he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Grammar Nazi's pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said “That was some fuckin' good weed last night, I guess" and closed it with a bang.
The sound resounded through the apartment like thunder. Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant’s cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Chessmaster was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too: trimming his candle as he went.
You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six up a good old flight of stairs, or through TGC's well-used asshole, but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Chessmaster thought he saw a locomotive, or at least a Bachmann Model, going on before him in the gloom. Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn’t have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Chessmaster's dip.
Up Chessmaster went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap, and Chessmaster liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that.
Kitchenette, bedroom, sex dungeon. All as they should be. Nobody under the bed, nobody under the dildo table, a small fire in the grate; nipple clamps ready; and a line of coke (Chessmaster had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the oven; nobody in the closet; nobody in his fursuit, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Kitchenette as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fleshlights, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker.
Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his clothes (he slept naked) and sat down before the fire to snort his cocaine.
After several lines, he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the tower.
This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant’s cellar. Chessmaster then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.
The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.
“It’s humbug still!” said Chessmaster. “I won’t believe it.”
His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, “I know her; Grammar Nazi's Ghost!” and fell again.
The same face: the very same. Grammar Nazi in her pigtail, usual dress, tights and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like her pigtail, and her coat-skirts, and the hair upon her head. The chain she drew was clasped about her middle. It was long, and wound about her like a tail; and it was made (for Chessmaster observed it closely) of skulls, blood, souls, daggers, deeds, and words wrought in steel. Her body was transparent; so that Chessmaster observing him, and looking through her neckline, could see the two nipples on her breasts behind.
"My eyes are up here, creep." Grammar Nazi said, in a voice reminiscent of how she spoke in life.
"Let me guess, you're an illusion of Vivian's. Trying to scare me out of celebrating Christmas. Grammar Nazi was always the only one who celebrated with me."
“You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.
“I don’t,” said Chessmaster. "I just said that."
There was an awkward pause while flesh and spirit stared eagerly at the now-revealed genetalia of the other.
“You see this toothpick?” said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision’s stony gaze from his junk.
“I do,” replied the Ghost, meaning something else entirely. "If I'd known you were packing so much heat in life, I wouldn't have rejected you 473 times."
"You counted?"
"It was hilarious. You were so fucking desperate."
"Yeah, definitely Vivian." Chessmaster decided. "Nice try."
At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Chessmaster held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!
Chessmaster fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.
“Mercy!” he said. “Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?”
“Man of the worldly mind!” replied the Ghost, “do you believe in me or not?”
“I do,” said Chessmaster. “I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?”
“It is required of every man,” the Ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!”
"But you're a woman."
"What gave it away?" The Ghost snarked.
"I thought you said every man?"
Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.
“You are fettered,” said Chessmaster, trembling. “Tell me why?
“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you? All the souls that could have died had I not taken Christmas to relax and be kind!"
Chessmaster trembled more and more.
“Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!”
Chessmaster glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see nothing.
“Hear me!” cried the Ghost. “My time is nearly gone.”
“I will,” said Chessmaster. “But don’t be hard upon me! Don’t be flowery, Orator! Pray!”
“How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.”
It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow, thinking about all the wanking he'd done in this chair.
“That is no light part of my penance,” pursued the Ghost. “I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Chessmaster.”
“You were always a good friend to me,” said Chessmaster. “Thank’ee!”
“You will be haunted,” resumed the Ghost, “by Three Spirits."
Chessmaster chuckled. "Oh, I see how it is. This is like A Christmas Carol, but in reverse. Instead of showing me the true meaning of Christmas, they're trying to ruin the holiday for me. Very clever, Vivian. You do realize what it says about you, using a Christmas Classic to prove your point? I knew you loved this holiday! Don't deny it."
“Without their visits,” said the Ghost, “you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow, when the bell tolls One. Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!”
When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head, as before. Chessmaster knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.
"You're really set on this, aren't you?" Chessmaster chuckled. "Ah well. Do your worst, Vivian! This'll be fun."
The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.
It beckoned Chessmaster to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Grammar Nazi’s Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. He stopped, for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.
Chessmaster followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.
The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Grammar Nazi's Ghost; some few (they might be innocent governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a thick cloak, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to murder a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for evil, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.
Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and the night became as it had been before.
Chessmaster closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say "Someone spiked my coke!” but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without dressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.
UP NEXT: THE GHOST OF BLOODBATHS PAST, WHO IS VERY INCOMPETENT BUT ENDEARING FOR IT
Grammar Nazi was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of her burial was signed by the Horned One, the Cubii, the Bronze Mage, and the Blood Alchemist. Chessmaster signed it: and Chessmaster’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Grammar Nazi was as dead as a door-nail.
Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Grammar Nazi was as dead as a door-nail.
Chessmaster knew she was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Chessmaster and she were partners for I don’t know how many years. Chessmaster was her sole friend, her sole rival, her sole intellectual equal, and sole mourner. And only Chessmaster was so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but nonetheless he was an excellent man of strategy on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted victory against the hated Colorfolk.
The mention of Grammar Nazi's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Grammar Nazi was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet’s Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot—say Deszeld City Port for instance—literally to astonish his son’s weak mind.
Chessmaster never painted out Old Grammar Nazi's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the office door: Chessmaster and Grammar Nazi. The room was known as the strategy room. Sometimes people new to the Confederation called Grammar Nazi Grammar Nazi, and sometimes Orator, but she had answered to both names. It was all the same to her.
Oh! But he was a cheerful joy to be around, Chessmaster! a smiling, laughing, cheering, helping, giving, generous, old pal! Soft and sweet as caramel, open, and amicable, and social as a rabbit. The warmth within him envigorated his features, reddened his button nose, softened his cheek, loosened his gait; made his eyes blue his full lips red; and spoke out clearly in his sing-song voice. A suggestion of a recent shave was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own high spirits always about with him; he gave out warm vibes in the dog-days; and didn’t can it one iota at Christmas.
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, “My dear Chessmaster, how are you? When will you come to see me?” Of course they didn't. This was the Vile Evil Confederation. Everyone in Diablo City was mean to the core. They hated the Colorfolk, and they hated the other VECites, and they hated themselves most of all. Except for Chessmaster, for he was an unwanted ray of sunshine in this hovel of gloom and misery. They hated his kindness and enthusiasm, and many a man or woman found themselves at the temple praying fervently for deliverance and for Chessmaster to just up and fuck himself.
Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve—old Chessmaster sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already—it had not been light all day—and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale. To all but Chessmaster, it was lovely.
The door of Chessmaster’s office was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, Rodney, who in a pleasant little room beyond, was copying battle plans. Scrooge had a very large penis, but the clerk’s penis was so very much larger hat it looked like a garden snake. But he couldn’t enjoy it, for Chessmaster maintained a strict policy against sexual harassment; and so surely as the clerk pulled out his penis, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his clothes, and tried to warm himself with thoughts of his sexy wife Catherine, in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.
“A merry Christmas, Viv! God save you!” cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Chessmaster, calling out to a disgruntled Vivian Bloodsphere as she entered the building.
“Bah!” said Vivian, “Humbug!”
“Christmas a humbug, Viv?” said Chessmaster. “You don’t mean that, I am sure?”
“I do,” said Vivian. “Merry Christmas! We're not Christians. We worship the Horned One. I don't want to deal with this Christmas tomfoolery."
“Come, then,” returned Chessmaster gaily. “What about secularized Christmas then? It would be good for morale."
Viv having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, “Bah!” again; and followed it up with “Humbug.”
“Don’t be cross, Viv!” said Chessmaster.
“What else can I be,” returned Vivian, “when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time where fools put aside their responsibilities to celebrate the incorrect birthday of an Israeli guy they insist on making white; a time where consumerism and greed runs rampant; a time, therefore, for delivering a decisive strike against the Colorfolk while they're busy singing kumbaya around a fucking pine tree?"
“Viv!” pleaded Chessmaster.
“Chessmaster!” returned Vivian sternly, “keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.”
“Keep it!” repeated Chessmaster. “But you don’t keep it. No one in this city keeps it but me!"
“Let us leave it alone, then,” said Vivian. “Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!”
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned Chessmaster. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—ignoring the stupidity due to its fictional name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, Vivian, though it has never put the corpse of Man In Gold or Silver in the ground, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, Horned One bless it!”
You’re quite a powerful speaker, sir,” Vivian said patronizingly. “I wonder you don’t go into Parliament.”
“Don’t be angry, Viv! Come! Dine with me to-morrow.”
Vivian said that she would see him—yes, indeed she did. She went the whole length of the expression, and said that she would see him in that extremity first. She completed her very dignified cameo by flashing Rodney on her way out.
This lunatic, in letting herself out, had let two other people in. They were Darkstorm and Darkhart, and stood, with their hoods up, in Chessmaster's office. They had books and papers in their hands, and glared at him.
“At this demonic season of the year, Mr. Chessmaster” said the gentlemen in perfect unison, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision to increase the suffering of the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”
“Are there no bailouts?” asked Chessmaster.
“Plenty of bailouts,” said Darkstorm, laying down the pen again.
“And the government aid programs?” demanded Chessmaster. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned Darkhart. “I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Non-Profits and the Humanitarian Orginazations are in full vigour, then?” said Chessmaster.
“Both very busy, sir.”
“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Chessmaster. “I’m very glad to hear it.”
“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish exquisite pain of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentlemen, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some shock collars, and means of sexual torture. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when inequality is keenly felt, and unrealistic cheer rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”
“Nothing!” Chessmaster replied.
“You wish to be anonymous?”
“I wish to be left alone,” said Chessmaster. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I do make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make merry people suffer. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned—they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go thereat instead of a sex dungeon.
"Aww..." the couple said in disappointment.
"Here's a crazy idea! Instead of building a sex dungeon on Christmas, how about you two spend Christmas having consensual sex with each other! Be as kinky as you like! I won't judge!"
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Chessmaster resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.
Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of Fort Cayrn, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily up at Diablo Tower out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.
At length the hour of shutting up the office arrived. With a good-will Chessmaster dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.
“You’ll want to work all day to-morrow, I suppose?” said Chessmaster.
“If quite convenient, sir.”
“It’s not convenient,” said Chessmaster. “and it’s not fair. You should spend Christmas with Catherine and your family."
Rodney smiled faintly.
“And hey, go ahead and sleep in the next morning. I'm in a good mood."
Chessmaster took his dinner in his usual tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his Mac-book, went home to bed. He lived on an upper floor of Diablo Tower, so he never even went outside. Psyche!
Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on his door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Chessmaster had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that he had designed the knocker, the room, and the entire building personally; also that Chessmaster had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London, even including—which is a bold word—the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Chessmaster had not bestowed one thought on Grammar Nazi since her death, probably. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Chessmaster, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change—not a knocker, but Grammar Nazi’s face.
Grammar Nazi's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the hall were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Chessmaster as Grammar Nazi used to look: with ghostly eyes rolling up in its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. (There is zero contradiction here. Shut up.) That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression.
As Chessmaster looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.
To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.
He did pause, with a moment’s irresolution, before he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Grammar Nazi's pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said “That was some fuckin' good weed last night, I guess" and closed it with a bang.
The sound resounded through the apartment like thunder. Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant’s cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Chessmaster was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too: trimming his candle as he went.
You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six up a good old flight of stairs, or through TGC's well-used asshole, but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Chessmaster thought he saw a locomotive, or at least a Bachmann Model, going on before him in the gloom. Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn’t have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Chessmaster's dip.
Up Chessmaster went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap, and Chessmaster liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that.
Kitchenette, bedroom, sex dungeon. All as they should be. Nobody under the bed, nobody under the dildo table, a small fire in the grate; nipple clamps ready; and a line of coke (Chessmaster had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the oven; nobody in the closet; nobody in his fursuit, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Kitchenette as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fleshlights, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker.
Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his clothes (he slept naked) and sat down before the fire to snort his cocaine.
After several lines, he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the tower.
This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant’s cellar. Chessmaster then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.
The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.
“It’s humbug still!” said Chessmaster. “I won’t believe it.”
His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, “I know her; Grammar Nazi's Ghost!” and fell again.
The same face: the very same. Grammar Nazi in her pigtail, usual dress, tights and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like her pigtail, and her coat-skirts, and the hair upon her head. The chain she drew was clasped about her middle. It was long, and wound about her like a tail; and it was made (for Chessmaster observed it closely) of skulls, blood, souls, daggers, deeds, and words wrought in steel. Her body was transparent; so that Chessmaster observing him, and looking through her neckline, could see the two nipples on her breasts behind.
"My eyes are up here, creep." Grammar Nazi said, in a voice reminiscent of how she spoke in life.
"Let me guess, you're an illusion of Vivian's. Trying to scare me out of celebrating Christmas. Grammar Nazi was always the only one who celebrated with me."
“You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.
“I don’t,” said Chessmaster. "I just said that."
There was an awkward pause while flesh and spirit stared eagerly at the now-revealed genetalia of the other.
“You see this toothpick?” said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision’s stony gaze from his junk.
“I do,” replied the Ghost, meaning something else entirely. "If I'd known you were packing so much heat in life, I wouldn't have rejected you 473 times."
"You counted?"
"It was hilarious. You were so fucking desperate."
"Yeah, definitely Vivian." Chessmaster decided. "Nice try."
At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Chessmaster held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!
Chessmaster fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.
“Mercy!” he said. “Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?”
“Man of the worldly mind!” replied the Ghost, “do you believe in me or not?”
“I do,” said Chessmaster. “I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?”
“It is required of every man,” the Ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!”
"But you're a woman."
"What gave it away?" The Ghost snarked.
"I thought you said every man?"
Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.
“You are fettered,” said Chessmaster, trembling. “Tell me why?
“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you? All the souls that could have died had I not taken Christmas to relax and be kind!"
Chessmaster trembled more and more.
“Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!”
Chessmaster glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see nothing.
“Hear me!” cried the Ghost. “My time is nearly gone.”
“I will,” said Chessmaster. “But don’t be hard upon me! Don’t be flowery, Orator! Pray!”
“How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.”
It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow, thinking about all the wanking he'd done in this chair.
“That is no light part of my penance,” pursued the Ghost. “I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Chessmaster.”
“You were always a good friend to me,” said Chessmaster. “Thank’ee!”
“You will be haunted,” resumed the Ghost, “by Three Spirits."
Chessmaster chuckled. "Oh, I see how it is. This is like A Christmas Carol, but in reverse. Instead of showing me the true meaning of Christmas, they're trying to ruin the holiday for me. Very clever, Vivian. You do realize what it says about you, using a Christmas Classic to prove your point? I knew you loved this holiday! Don't deny it."
“Without their visits,” said the Ghost, “you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow, when the bell tolls One. Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!”
When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head, as before. Chessmaster knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.
"You're really set on this, aren't you?" Chessmaster chuckled. "Ah well. Do your worst, Vivian! This'll be fun."
The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.
It beckoned Chessmaster to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Grammar Nazi’s Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. He stopped, for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.
Chessmaster followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.
The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Grammar Nazi's Ghost; some few (they might be innocent governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a thick cloak, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to murder a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for evil, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.
Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and the night became as it had been before.
Chessmaster closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say "Someone spiked my coke!” but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without dressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.
UP NEXT: THE GHOST OF BLOODBATHS PAST, WHO IS VERY INCOMPETENT BUT ENDEARING FOR IT