Billy’s war against the monsters was not going as planned. The attic which he’d thought had been pacified had recently been overrun. Dust monsters had clogged all the vents and fun spaces between the floorboards, resisting his troops' best vacuum assault with their sneeze barriers. Ten of his men were still in the infirmary with gigantic noses. To make matters worse, the old trunks full of his grandfather’s old clothes had recently sprouted teeth and he had no toothbrush in his arsenal ornery enough to tackle them.
Billy fidgeted with his fork, scraping it across the plate through the barricades of leftover gravy and hardening potato. Let the monsters have their fun. He’d think of some way to pry them loose again. And soon. Whatever it took.
“William,” chided his mother, “sit up straight. I’ve been telling your aunt Sylvia what a good boy you’ve been, and how good you’ve been doing in school.”
Billy tried to give his aunt Sylvia the sort of grin a good civilian would like. Lots of teeth. No eyes. Like photos for the press corps, those useless sops.
Aunt Sylvia had an over-animated face. “Yes, your mother’s been telling me all about your shenanigans, Will. Sounds like you have quite the imagination.”
Damn this civilian fiddle faddle! Don’t these people know there’s a war on? I’ve got ten men in the infirmary and they sit here with their turkey and their wine and they prattle on as if the world was a good and righteous place! I’m the only one keeping it good and righteous! If only they understood the sacrifice... how close they were every day to being monster chow! Why, they’d....
Billy pulled himself together and sat up straighter in his chair like a good boy. Good public relations with the home front is important, he reminded himself. Can’t do it without their support.
“Yes. Aunt Sylvia,” said Billy, and his aunt Sylvia smiled as if Billy had said something relevant.
All these civilians want is to hear their own name, ruminated Billy.
Billy had never quite trusted his aunt Sylvia’s nose. She was older than his father by a few years, and twice as starchy. She wore a red scarf at all times around her neck, sometimes wrapping it up around her feathered hat like a strange shawl. The skin around her neck was starting to droop and she had a wrinkled mole on her nose, a tiny little hair in the center of it. That mole was monster material if he’d ever seen it. As monstrous as a dark closet with the door ajar. As monstrous as a clunk from the basement plumbing. A monster could take a mole like that in an instant and VOOM! There goes the neighbourhood. Monster infestation faster than you could say Please pass the cheesecake.
“Please pass the cheesecake,” said Billy. He tried his smile again. This time he added the eyes too, so that he looked extra happy, very placid. Extremely civilian.
Billy’s mother raised a finger. “No cheesecake tonight, William. Your aunt Sylvia has brought over some fruitcake for us.”
Fruitcake!
Billy came alert with the word. Good lord. No. This can’t be happening. Not fruitcake.
“It’s in the fridge,” said his aunt Sylvia. “Be a good boy, Will, and fetch it for us.”
Billy looked from his aunt Sylvia to his mother. Neither one of them seemed to understand. Fruitcake was the worst of all cakes. Worst of all fruits. This could be nothing but a terrible trap set by the enemy. Especially when there was perfectly good cheesecake already sitting on the table where he could almost reach it. Damn this war. Was nowhere safe anymore?
Billy looked to his mother and aunt, smiling, unsuspecting. It was a good thing they had him to look out for them. “Okay, mom,” he said.
Billy slid off his seat and rounded his mother’s chair at the far end of the table to his left. Goddamn monsters, he muttered under his breath. No respect. Try to fruitcake a man in his own home at Christmas. What has this war come to?
Billy’s father had been smart. He’d retreated to neutral territory for some R & R immediately after supper and hadn’t been compromised by all the non-essential information that was being bandied about the table. Billy could hear his snores over the sound of the television in the other room. Football. He could hear a football game. Deep in his heart, Billy wished that someday he’d be able to relax long enough to enjoy a simple treat like a football game on a Sunday afternoon. But for that the world would need to be free from imminent monster threat.
It would be a long time yet before Billy would be watching any football.
The refrigerator was hidden by a half-wall from the kitchen table. Billy raised his wrist and spoke into the radio in his sleeve. “Alphie. Calling sub-commander Alphie. Come in, Alphie.”
Alphie was Billy’s trusted second in command: trustworthy, logical, incorruptible. Billy trusted him with his life.
Alphie’s robotic voice answered immediately, cold and nasally, though slow as each word was its own entity, alone. “Sub-commander Alphie here. How’s the civilian soiree, commander?”
“This is not the time to be snide, Alphie,” barked Billy into his wrist. “We have a situation here, designation alpha fruitcake nine.”
Alphie couldn’t hide the worry in his voice. “Did you say alpha fruitcake nine, commander?”
“That’s what I said, Alphie. Can’t relax for a minute can we?”
“No sir.”
“What are your recommendations, Alphie. I don’t have much time here.”
“Fruitcake sir?”
“Yes, dammit, fruitcake! Now what are your recommendations?”
“I recommend we nuke the site from space, sir.”
Billy nearly put the radio down. That was the problem with Alphie. He wasn’t human, and found it hard to think outside the confines of hard military logic. “Dammit, Alphie,” said Billy. “I will not use nuclear weapons against civilian targets.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“I mean, what are we be fighting for if we nuke all the civilians?”
“Yes, commander.”
“Take a note, Alphie.”
“Yes sir.”
“I want you to remember this for the future. It’s important.”
“Ready, sir.”
“Alphie, under no circumstances will you....”
“Yes....”
“Or anybody under my command for that matter..."
“Sir....”
“...use nuclear weapons against my mommy. Are we clear?”
“Yes sir. Very clear sir. What are your orders sir.”
“Alphie, relay Fightmaster Stormshadow to my current position.”
“Right away sir. Coordinates: kitchen. Correct, sir?”
“Correct, Alphie. Try not to nuke anybody while I’m gone.”
“As per orders, commander.”
Billy could sense the evil of the fruitcake through the refrigerator door, evil hard and cold like a brick. Only at this time of the year would anybody be stupid enough to fall for a fruitcaking. Damn those monsters, using the best holiday of the year against us. First they nearly wrecked Halloween with their apples. Now Christmas.... Just when Billy thought he’d reached the highest limit of his hate for his enemy, they proved themselves more despicable than he could ever imagine.
Fruitcake. Disgusting. Disguised as food, the evil would lump in his belly, being neither fruit nor cake, and his belly would be confused with what to do with it, whether to send it down the fruit tube, or the cake tube, and because his belly wouldn’t be able to decide the fruitcake would sit in his belly forever, confusing all the food that followed until he would never have a full and happy belly ever again. It was a dastardly trap the monsters had laid, more cunning than their usual attempts using teeth, claws, and making his head explode through his dad’s music. It would have been kinder simply to try to kill him.
Merry Christmas, you bastards.
Billy could hear his mother and aunt talking at the kitchen table, twittering like two birds. He knew he didn’t have much time. Any second now they’d realize he was breaking protocol, having been gone too long. Any fool could have returned with a dozen rations of deadly cake by now.
Dammit. Where was Fightmaster Stormshadow?
Billy turned around and nearly fell back a step. Clad head to toe in white, Fightmaster Stormshadow was already behind him in his white ninja jumpsuit. Billy resisted the urge to ask how long he’d been standing there. Stealth was Stormshadow’s job. He wouldn’t criticize him for it.
“Stormshadow, there you are. Good man. I assume sub-commander Alphie has apprised you of the situation?”
Fightmaster Stormshadow replied with a single nod. He was a formidable man. With his face covered, Billy could see only his eyes, but in there he saw enough fire and determination for ten men.
“Good man. Okay, my plan is this. I simply cannot allow the fruitcake to be eaten. In order to unravel this plot, it is my conclusion that I am forced to eat the cheesecake – I repeat, the cheesecake – which is already on the table. Do you understand? Good. It is only through eating the cheesecake that my belly can keep functioning in its succinct and proper manner, in order to keep me alive. Are we clear?”
Fightmaster Stormshadow nodded again. He was a man of few words, which Billy appreciated. He encouraged creativity amongst his men, but it was rare to actually come face to face with a soldier who was confident in his own ability without needing a pat on the back. That’s why Fightmaster Stormshadow was his first choice amongst all the Joes.
“Excellent,” said Billy. “For my plan to succeed I need a distraction. That’s where you come in. I don’t care how you do it, but see to it that the civilians are distracted when I make the switch. Are we clear? Good man. Now go, and remember that under no circumstances are the civilians to be harmed. Good? Godspeed.”
Without a word, Fightmaster Stormshadow sneaked around the half wall and ran in a crouch towards the kitchen table. As he went, Billy watched with admiration. If he had a hundred men of similar mettle, the war would have been over already.
Billy’s time was limited. He opened the fridge door, and being careful to keep his fingers away from the fruitcake itself in case the monsters had prepared another surprise for him, he pushed the plate the fruitcake was on to the back of the fridge, its proper place. In the back it would slowly defuse over time, losing its lustre as the holiday season dwindled away. Someone would find it late in the spring nestled back there and throw it out, no harm done.
The fruitcake taken care of, Billy poured two tall glasses of milk, and headed back into the dining room where his mother and aunt barely noticed him, so busy were they with their gabble.
“Here you go aunt Sylvia,” he said, putting one of the glasses in front of her, and the other in front of his mother.
“Oh, what a good boy you are.”
His mother agreed. “Yes. What are you up to, Billy?”
Billy didn’t reply. Here was the important part. He pulled the cheesecake pan towards himself. The pieces had already been cut. “Here, aunt Sylvia.”
He placed the plate too far away for Aunt Sylvia to reach and she lifted out of her seat to get it. “Thank you, dear. But what about the....”
Billy’s heart was racing. Time seemed to slow. Whatever Fightmaster Stormshadow was going to do, he had to do it now.
“What about the... ouch!” Aunt Sylvia jumped up from her chair as if she'd sat on a rattlesnake. She reached down and pulled up a small white figure. “Dearie, I think I sat on one of your little men.”
Fightmaster Stormshadow! Billy fought to hold back a quick grimace of regret.
Aunt Sylvia placed him on the table in front of Billy, his arms splayed awkwardly, no life in his eyes. Billy managed to say, “Sorry, aunt Sylvia.”
“No problem, dearie.”
“Mother, may I be excused.”
"Of course, dear. Please be good."
Billy quickly exited into the kitchen, though not before he cut himself an ample piece of cheesecake. It pained him to do it, but without the cheesecake, Fightmaster’s Stormshadow’s sacrifice would have been all for nothing.
In the kitchen he laid Fightmaster Stormshadow on the ground and looked at his twisted body helplessly. It's so unfair. Why is it always the brave who suffer most?
Before he could call for assistance he had a job to complete. He fetched a fork from the drawer and wolfed down his cheesecake in three big bites.
Into his wrist he screamed, “Medic!” But his command was muffled with cream cheese and chocolate frosting, and only confusion answered his cry for help.
War was hell.
