Holiday Shorts Read online

  “Are you sure that thing will work the way you say?” Davenport hissed from behind Jimmy.

  Jimmy nodded without looking back.

  The waiting harness swung back and forth slowly several feet above the street as the zeppelin held its position.

  “You best get to shootin’, son,” Tate said quietly. “That thing is almost on top of us.”

  Jimmy stopped several paces past the courthouse steps and turned to William.

  “Turn it to eleven and flip all three switches,” he said a bit nervously.

  William nodded and licked his lips. He turned the dial, his hand shaking, and flipped the first switch. What had originally been a buzz from Jimmy’s powerpack issued forth as an ear-splitting whine like a band saw. William flipped the second switch, and a drone pressed in upon them all like deep water. William flipped the third and felt his bones rattling inside his skin.

  “You should all go back inside,” Jimmy said nervously over his shoulder. He turned just in time to see William already backed up against the building and Sheriff Tate disappearing through the courthouse doors.

  Judge Davenport, to his credit and quality of character, stood only three steps behind Jimmy, his hands over his ears. “Go ahead, son,” he declared over the din, “I have no intention of letting you do this alone.”

  Jimmy smiled and nodded, his respect for Judge Davenport soaring.

  Jimmy raised the apparatus and took aim at the airship above them, its nose just short of where he stood. He held his breath and pulled the lever.

  CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

  A cool green beam erupted from the weapon and splashed against the nose of the zeppelin. Energy enveloped the entire craft in a bright, green glow. The temperature at street level dropped twenty degrees in the blink of an eye as wisps of frozen air and crystalized water swirled around the coherent beam.

  The slowly spinning rotors of the zeppelin froze in place. Ice formed where the beam contacted the envelope and spread, flash freezing across the entire surface of the aircraft. And then the ice around the envelope shattered as the whole thing expanded.

  Jimmy released the lever, and the beam ceased. He watched in scientific fascination as some unexpected chemical reaction caused the envelope to bulge more and more with each passing moment.

  “Holy shit,” Davenport said, his eyes locked on the doomed airship.

  The expanding dirigible ruptured with an explosive WHOOF! as the top split apart. A tremendous gout of white swirled into the air and expanded. What remained of the upper frame as well as the gondola slipped from the sky, plummeting towards terra firma.

  Davenport made a quick estimation and realized that the zeppelin would not hit them upon impact. He grabbed Jimmy and spun the boy towards another zeppelin, this one turning as its guns swiveled towards them.

  “SHOOT!” Davenport shouted as he pointed to the vessel.

  Jimmy fired just as the first zeppelin crashed down into Town Square and collapsed in a heap of splintering timber and sagging canvas.

  Jimmy’s beam hit the second dirigible amidships, and seconds later it burst with a WHOOF, sending another white cloud into the air as the craft crashed to the ground.

  Jimmy spun and aimed his weapon at the third Confederate zeppelin, but the craft was already turning away, its rotors screaming as it headed away at flank speed.

  “Ease up, Mister Krinklepot,” Davenport said, placing a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Let them go.”

  “But—”

  Davenport nearly reprimanded the boy for using another “but,” but realized that they were no longer in his courtroom. Instead, he said, “Let them get home and tell the rest of those Rebels what happened here. They’ll not be coming back if they know we can drop them with one shot.” Davenport eyed Jimmy with newfound respect. The boy was more than a chip off the old block of his father.

  Jimmy lowered the weapon and stared at the wreckage filling Town Square. The gondola had shattered, sending wood—and its occupants—flying out to the left and right. The shapes of frosty-white, ice-covered Confederate airmen littered the street, each one frozen solid, a surprised look captured on his face precisely as it was when Jimmy’s beam hit.

  “Well,” Davenport observed, somewhat embarrassed by the presence of corpses littering the streets. “At least they’re not fricasseed.”

  William stepped up behind Jimmy and flipped the switches. The drone of the powerplant faded to silence as he dialed the device back to its lowest setting.

  The three stood there silently as large, moisture-laden snowflakes fell about them in what promised to be a short-lived blizzard at Confederate expense. A fine layer had already coated everything in sight, and a gentle smile spread across Jimmy’s face.

  Filled with pride, he victoriously raised the apparatus once again above his head. “I dub this … the Precipicrystalistivator.”

  Davenport and William turned confused faces towards Jimmy, astonished that so many syllables could come out someone’s mouth in so short a time.

  Finally, William said, “But I thought you called it the fricassee pistol.”

  “I did,” Jimmy intoned seriously, “but this is something else entirely.”

  “It’s the same thing,” William pointed out. “All you did was cross a couple of wires.”

  “Shhh …” Jimmy hissed, not wanting his moment of glory spoiled by trivialities like the facts.

  “Okay … fine.” William said, exasperated. “It’s a precip—a precipacry—what on Earth does that mean, Jimmy?” William finally asked, his mouth unable to stagger out the torrent of phonemes.

  “It’s quite simple, really,” Jimmy said loftily. “‘Precipi’ referring to precipitation, ‘crystali’ referring to the crystallization of said precipitation, and ‘tivator’ a derivative of motivation, referring to the complete and utter lack of motivation and therefore ambulation of the subject after being exposed to my device’s ray.”

  “You forgot the ‘list.’”

  “Shhh…” Jimmy blurted.

  The judge blinked his eyes in disbelief for several breaths, shaking his head. “You just came up with that off the top of your head,” he finally asked, stunned at the convolutions Jimmy Krinklepot’s brain was capable of.

  “Yes, sir,” Jimmy replied. “And look …” he added, pointing to the accumulating snow. “It looks like we’ll have a white Christmas after all.”

  “Indeed we will, Mister Krinklepot. I shall personally compose a Thank You letter to General Lee.”

  The judge and both boys laughed at the thought of the Confederate General getting such a correspondence.

  Jimmy turned his gaze to the window where the townsfolk cheered. His mother, who had apparently come around during the battle, stood in the middle of the crowd, beaming with pride.

  William, of course, could only shake his head, realizing full well that there would be little to stop Jimmy Krinklepot in the future. And Judge Davenport contemplated several of his friends in Washington, who would be very interested in working with such a remarkable young man. He then said a prayer to God in Heaven for anything unfortunate enough to get in the way of the boy’s not inconsiderable intellect.

  “Mister Krinklepot,” the judge said slowly, “in recognition of your service to the Union and in no small part for having saved the entire town of Hayberry, I do hereby commute your sentence. Don’t you dare stop going to that junkyard of yours and doing what you do.” Jimmy looked up at Davenport, a broad smile across his face. “Merry Christmas,” the judge added almost jovially, and then his voice grew firm. “But if I catch you near my chickens again, young man, I will personally lock you up and throw away the key. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.” Jimmy smiled. “And Merry Christmas.”

  About the Author

  Quincy J. Allen, a cross-genre author, has published a litany of short stories in multiple anthologies, magazines, eZines, and one omnibus since he started his writing career in 2009. His first short
story collection Out Through the Attic, came out in 2014 from 7DS Books, and he made his first short story pro-sale in 2014 with “Jimmy Krinklepot and the White Rebels of Hayberry,” included in WordFire’s A Fantastic Holiday Season: The Gift of Stories.

  Chemical Burn, his first novel, was a finalist in RMFW’s Colorado Gold Contest in 2011, and his latest novel Blood Curse, Book 2 in The Blood War Chronicles, is now available in Print and Digital editions on Amazon and digital formats on Kobo, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Smashwords. He is currently working on his first media tie-in novel for the Aradio brothers’ Colt the Outlander IP, and expects that book to release in early-to-mid 2017. He also has a short story appearing in an upcoming Monster Hunters, Inc. anthology from Larry Correia and Baen due out in 2017.

  He is the publisher and editor of Penny Dread Tales, a short story collection in its fifth volume that has become a labor of love. He also runs RuneWright, LLC, a small marketing and book design business out of his home in Colorado, and hopes to one day live in a place where it never, ever, ever snows.

  Photo credit: Zenfolio Jacobin Photography http://jacobinphotography.zenfolio.com.

  If You Liked …

  If you liked Holiday Shorts, you might also enjoy:

  Blood Ties

  Out Through the Attic

  Chemical Burn