Robert Eckstein entered the small, smoky bar and his face immediately scrunched up in revulsion at the multitude of foul aromas assaulting his senses. With his eyes squinting in response to the thick blue curtain of smoke hanging in the air and his nostrils trying their hardest to cut off the supply of air through his nose, he took a good long look around the bar. The place was packed, too packed for his taste, but what could he do?

A wracking cough sputtered from between his quivering lips and he felt his heart begin to pick up the pace a bit. "Oh, God, no..." he moaned to himself as he felt another panic attack edging closer. "Please not now, not when I'm so close..." This was the place, all right, there was no doubt. The name flashing garishly through the icy darkness of night in bright pink neon over the grimy entrance outside confirmed that this was the correct location.

Suddenly, the front door flew open, the doorknob slamming into his back and a newly bruised kidney as a bitterly cold wind rushed into the small confines of the bar. He grimaced in pain and took one staggering step to the side as a man dressed in multi-layers stormed in, half dragging a long-legged blonde wrapped in not-quite-enough-to-be-warm behind him.

"Watch yourself, ass," the man grumbled as he walked by and the girl, catching a glimpse of him with the one eye not covered by blonde curls, winked and blew him a kiss.

"Sorry..." he mumbled and tried to will his numb left leg to take another step. The place was crammed tight with thugs, sailors, merchant marines, dock workers and many other types of unsavory characters. "What in the hell have I gotten myself into?" he asked out loud but no one gave him any attention.

There weren't many open tables, but those that were open had no chairs nearby. Another look around the close confines of the bar showed him just how ugly a species the human race could sometimes be. He removed his gloves, stuffing them into the pockets in his thick down coat, and unwrapped the brown wool scarf from his neck.

He gasped and froze in place as he felt a strong hand clamp tightly to his right butt cheek. "You new around here?" a fragile female voice called from behind his right shoulder.

Turning, he saw the blonde from the doorway in a slinky red dress showing a good amount of cleavage, her right hand clinging to his ass. When his eyes tore themselves away from the creamy mounds of her mostly exposed and ample breasts and met her eyes, she licked her lips seductively and moved her hand around to the front. He gasped again and she smiled.

Standing there speechless, she pressed herself close and leaned in to nibble at his left ear.

"Um, ma'am..." he started but then her hand began to move and he took a stumbling step backward. "Thank you for...whatever it is you're offering, you are offering something, aren't you?" he stammered and the blonde giggled. He actually enjoyed that because, when she giggled, various parts of her anatomy jiggled too.

"Hey, ass!" A rough voice barked from behind and he turned to face the nasty looking fellow who had slammed the doorknob into his kidney a few minutes ago.

"Oh, my God," he muttered and stumbled in the other direction. Unfortunately, this put him back in the grasp of the blonde who, by the smell of her breath, was more than a little drunk, and her right hand once again clamped to his butt.

"Sir, I don't...please, lady, your hand," he said, trying to disengage himself from the blonde's firm grip. "Sir, I don't know what...it's not what you think, I..."

"Are you trying to steal my girl away, ass?" The large man snarled and took a step closer.

"I think I'm in love, Rocco," the blonde squeaked and latched her teeth on to his ear again.

"Yikes!" he yelped but the girl hung on tight with both hand and teeth. "Listen, Rocco, is it? I don't have a clue what is..."

"That's it, ass," the large man who had decided that his name must be ‘ass' said, made a huge fist with the burly fingers of his right hand and brought the arm back in a classic ‘there's going to be a fight' stance that made him think of some old Bugs Bunny Cartoons.

Wincing at the blow that he knew would certainly land any second, most likely crushing his nose and ruining what little bit of looks he'd been born with, he was ruing the day that he'd made this particular appointment when a loud shout cut through the silence that had overtaken the bar. "Leave ziss man be!"

Nothing happened...

No punch landed, no sound stirred, there was simply nothing.

He chanced to open one eye and saw the large Rocco, eyes cast down with a sour expression, standing peaceably by as a much smaller man approached from across the bar. The little guy was pale white, incredibly round in the middle, had a long white and fluffy beard and was all of four feet tall. He was dressed in a long generic black raincoat, the kind you find in those enormous discount stores for about $16.99, although how it managed to look long on a guy less than a yard and a half tall was beyond him.

The blonde still had his ass in a grip and she was licking the back of his neck but he was too engrossed in the confrontation before him to pay that any mind.

"Vhat vere you going to do, Rocco?" the little man said in a horrible accent that screamed of German or Austrian or some Slavic-type language and seemed to pierce the large ruffian with a steely glare despite the large wraparound sunglasses that covered most of his face. "Vere you going to hurt ziss young gentleman?"

"No, sir, I was just gonna have some fun, that's all," Rocco muttered in a little child's voice. A voice very different from that which had called him ‘ass' not too long ago.

"Some fun, eh? Just some fun?" from the little man.

"Yes, sir, uh...that was all, just some fun."

"Get out of here and take ziss slut vizz you, Rocco," the man said and Rocco nodded once.

"Come on, Patsy," Rocco said and turned toward the door without looking at the girl who was still grabbing a fistful of his butt-cheek.

"Aw, too bad, sugar," the blonde said and planted a big wet kiss on his cheek as she removed her hand hastily from his posterior and headed out after Rocco. Once again, a blast of cold arctic air swept into the bar while the door opened and closed and he felt his bones begin to shiver.

The door closed with a loud clang in the silence still ruling the bar but, at that very instant, all was back to normal—the music started playing again, the conversations resumed where they had left off, the drinks began pouring, the card-playing continued and the small weirdo turned to face him.

"Excuse ze deplorable actions of my friend," the small man said and extended his hand in welcome.

What the hell, he thought and reached out toward the hand. He was immediately sorry that he did so as soon as his flesh made contact with the white hand of the stranger. A feeling of immense dread, even more powerful than the one that had descended upon him once he stepped foot through the door of this place, engulfed him and he was quite thinking of dying just as the man broke the clasp.

"You must be ziss Robert Eckstein?" the man said again in that ridiculous accent, speech that brought vivid images of Bela Lugosi to mind, and he found himself gasping for the third time since entering this wretched place.

"You know me...?" he said without willing himself to speak and a slight smile played upon the small man's lips.

"I know so very much about you, Robert," his new host said and turned toward an even darker section of the bar. Not believing that there could really be a darker section didn't help him at all since his feet began carrying him toward that impossibly darker corner.

The chill of the severe cold still permeated his entire being but, funny, he'd gotten much, much colder ever since shaking the stranger's hand. The long trek here to Eureka, a small port town on the Nansen Sound side of Ellesmere Island, just short of the Arctic Ocean, had been more than treacherous, to be sure. All of it for the story, the thrill of the story, an addiction that he couldn't quit no matter how hard he tried.

Now that he was here, though, about to meet with his mysterious contact so far north that he was sure a ‘North Pole—1 kilometer' sign must certainly be posted outside this very establishment, he found himself wishing to go home and go home quick.

RUN, RUN NOW, DO IT! was screaming at the back of his mind but he felt his legs continue to follow the funny dwarf-like man into the deeper and darker recesses of this place.

"You vill not be running to anyvhere, Robert," the small one said and he heard a snicker, an evil sound, a sound like a snake would make if it was planning to have you for dinner. It was a sound that he didn't like in the least, a sound that made him want to lose his bladder right here in this bar but for some damn reason, the idiotic FLEE screaming in his head not withstanding, his legs amazingly continued to propel him forward.

"Um, I'm supposed to meet someone...he should be here somewhere, I just haven't located him yet, oh yes, that must be him across the way, I'll just shuffle off to the other..." he began but the little man turned to face him and his body stopped dead in its tracks.

"Sit," the tiny fellow said with another snake-like disgusting vomit-inducing hiss and he found his butt settling into a hard cushion-less wooden chair next to a small table that, until just a few short moments ago, he'd been sure had been occupied.

The silence of their table raged against the cacophony of sounds emanating throughout the bar for several seconds before the little guy sat back in his seat, took out a small pipe, filled it with tobacco, snapped a match that lit seemingly by magic and began to add more smoke to the thick veil already stuffing the room.

"You can feel free to breaze now, Robert," once again in that Godawful Lugosi accent. "Ziss man you are here to meet is sitting before you."

"Uh, ok, I guess, if you say so but..." he stuttered and looked frantically around the room. His contact was supposed to be a regular Joe, another big burly longshoreman- type, like the tonnage that was already filling the bar...or so he'd thought by the voice on the other end of the phone that night...but not this tiny bit of a scary sucker.

"So, I guess you know the password then?" he tried and the slight figure sat forward, the dark plastic of the sunglasses masking the eyes, doing him a major favor he knew in his gut. Don't want to see those peepers, no way, uh uh, keep those things hidden from me, pal...

"Ziss password is zat zere is no password, so stop wiz zese games," the stranger said and he felt a tightening around his heart, a pressure in his throat, a feeling as if his life were being squeezed out of him. Damn these panic attacks!

"Ok, so maybe you are the guy I'm supposed to meet," he finally conceded. "So, what am I doing here in this armpit of the Arctic? What is so important that you had to bring me halfway across the world? Why couldn't we do this someplace sunny and warm like Miami Beach or someplace a little less filthy, say, like Cleveland or Pittsburgh?"

"Vhat I have to tell you vill shock you and make you cringe in zose boots, my boy!" that incessant revolting hissing again.

"Yeah, yeah, I've been cringing in my boots ever since I got to this Godforsaken place, your trick better be a little better than that," how he found the strength to rebel against the steely glare that he just knew, deep down inside, was coming at him from behind those bulky sunglasses was beyond him.

An interesting look of fury overcame the small and white fur-covered face for an instant before the midget once again leaned back in his chair. "I have been following your progress in ziss investigation of yours, Robert."

"What the hell are you talking about?" he said, a little flustered now. No one had known about his investigation, not even his editor back at The Global Revealer.

"Do not dare to lie to me, imbecile," his companion spat. A few droplets of spittle flew from the white, hair-ringed mouth and he could've sworn that it burned where they landed on his skin.

"Ok, ouch, I don't know why your spit is burning me but I think that this interview is definitely over," he said and tried to rise to his feet. The funny thing that wasn't actually very funny was that his body failed to respond.

"Do you know vho I am? Vhat I am?" the little creature asked.

"Listen, Tiny Tim, I don't give a leaping crap who or what you are," he started. "I'm outta here just as soon as I can figure out how to get my frigging legs to move."

"Ziss von't happen until I vill it to happen," his new found freak-of-a-friend said, still sounding like Lugosi in one of those black and white Dracula movies, and a chill crept down his spine. Glancing over to the door as it slammed closed again, he wondered how the frozen Arctic blast could have reached his back from way over there.

"If you are the guy who contacted me in Manitoba last week then just what in the hell do you know about my so-called investigation?"

The little guy slowly made a show of removing his sunglasses. It was so dark in this corner of the bar but the glaring paleness of the man sitting across from him seemed to act as his own source of light. Like a beacon shining on a dark and lonely ocean, the whiteness of the face nearly hurt his eyes. The man's eyelids were still down and, secretly, he longed for them to remain that way. Something was warning him about what might lie behind those white and crusty eyelids.

"I know ziss much," the broken voice croaked and the brittle sound of the white-haired midget rattled around inside his head for what seemed like an hour. "You are researching a rash of killings in ze upper reaches of Canada, Greenland, Iceland and ze small islands of ze Arctic. Zese are mysterious murders, no apparent pattern is to be found, no apparent motive for zese killings, spread far and wide across many zousands of miles. Zhey seem to happen too far apart to be connected in any vay, zhey seem to happen sporadically, in very isolated places. So isolated, in fact, no one knows how many more of zese murders are taking place and going unreported. How am I doing zo far, Robert?"

He sat there, jaw agape, a new horror spreading across his features. "There's a leak at the Revealer..." he muttered.

"No! You fool!" the small guy said and opened his eyes. The glowing yellow orbs set deep within the withered white head, with irises slit up and down like a cat, leaped out of the dark to assault his brain.

"Jesus Christ..." he swore, something that he could do in good conscience since his Jewish upbringing didn't count that as a sin.

"Not hardly, Robert," the demonic little creature spat, more burning on his hands, and a wicked little smile crept across the little set of pale white lips.

"How did you know all that?" he asked in wonder, trying to ignore those inhuman yellow orbs and wondering what kind of a freakish inbreeding disaster could have caused such a bad case of cat-eyes.

"Ziss is ze interesting part, Robert..." the little guy began and was about to launch into what would no doubt be a long and drawn out account of just how his line of communications at The Global Revealer had been infiltrated.

Before that could happen, he blurted out against all good sense, "For Chris'sakes, is that accent even real?"

That took the small one aback, the pale white lips parting to expose a disgusting set of razor-sharp gray little teeth, the fangs being the most prominent.

Holy cow, do you need a good dentist...he thought and the small man immediately closed his mouth with a glare of disdain thrown in for good measure.

"Alright, you saw through the accent," the little guy said, now sounding more like the voice on the other end of the phone that night, like a guy who'd grown up somewhere in Brooklyn. "It works to throw off the locals and the peasants in the fields but I guess you big-city types don't enjoy it as much as they do."

"You got that right," he snorted. "And close those eyes, for crying out loud, are those like Halloween contacts or something?"

"Unfortunately, no," his companion hissed once more, a sound he was pretty damn sure he never wanted to hear again if that was at all possible.

"Dude, those can't be your real eyes," he said, laughing, and the demure old codger reared back his head, exposed those hideous teeth again and let loose with another spittle-spraying hiss.

"You know what, I'm tired of this," he said and struggled in the small chair to will his legs to move. "I seem to be stuck to this frigging chair and your Goddamn acid spit is burning right into my hands and face and, like I said before, this interview is over."

"I don't think so, hotshot," that hissing came from behind him this time and he whipped his head around to find the old man standing less than an inch from his left ear. Jumping in his seat as much as a man who can't move his legs can jump, he shook his head to clear it and stole a glance at the now empty chair sitting across from him.

"What? How? Wait a minute..." he started but a dreadfully cold little hand settled on his shoulder and he felt all of the fight go out of him.

"Listen to me, Bobby-Boy," that raspy voice whispered in his ear. "You're gonna sit right there and hear me out. Then you're going to forget about your little investigation and all about ever meeting me here tonight. Then, for some strange reason that even I don't understand, I will let you go back to your miserable little hovel of a home in Bayonne, New Jersey, and live out the rest of your sorry life writing for that stupid underground newspaper that you so idiotically worship."

"How in the hell did you get behind me, you little freak?" he rasped and, as a wisp of wind swept past his ear, the old man was once again sitting in the chair across the table.

"Hot damn," he muttered and peered intently into the face of the ancient creature. He looked at every single gnarly wrinkle lining that pale face, every single little white hair on the chin and cheeks. He stared into the nasty yellow eyes and grimaced again at the sight of those sharp gray and decaying teeth. "You slipped me something, didn't you?"

"Damn you!" the old man roared and silence returned to the crowded confines of the bar. "You haven't had anything to drink yet, fool!"

"I know that, but, maybe it's something in that pipe you're smoking?"

"It is not something in my pipe, it is not anything that I slipped you, it is simply what I am!"

"So, what are you then?" he asked. "And this better be good."

Those cruel looking slitted yellow eyes narrowed and the way-too-large nostrils flared on that tiny face but, somehow, the old buzzard managed to keep his obvious rage in check. "What I am may be hard for you to accept but it is true nonetheless..."

"Listen, cut all the small talk and the far too dramatic intro and just cut to the chase," he said. "I'm freezing my cajones off in here."

This time the white lips peeled all the way back to expose some pretty nasty gray and lifeless gums to go along with the rotted teeth and he could have sworn that an actual glow began to emanate from the yellow eyes on the midget-freak. "Alright then, have it your way. My name is Santo Klaus, I am more than 1,200 years old, I hunt at night when the sun is down and take great pleasure in killing you miserable..."

"Wait, wait, hold up a minute, back up," he said and held back a laugh. "Did you say your name was Santo Klaus, like Santa Claus?"

"That's right, you wretched cretin, and I have lived for more than twelve..."

"Ok, stop, wait a second, hold on," he said, actually giggling now. He slapped a hand down on his right thigh to control himself, worrying momentarily at the fact that he felt nothing at all in the leg. "Santo Klaus, like the jolly old elf, living at the North Pole, the whole Christian Christmas toy-giving thing?"

"You got it, Bobby-Boy, and I..."

"No, no, please, stop," he managed just before he fell into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. "Santo Klaus, the big bad freakish elf...where's the red costume?"

"Actually, I only wear it one day a year..."

"Oh, yeah, that's right," he said through tears and giggles. "How ‘bout that sleigh, still get good mileage outta that thing? It must be, what, about twelve hundred years old or something like that?"

"Listen you dunce!" the old dwarf scream-hissed and he realized that the bar was still silently watching their lop-sided conversation. "This is what I am! You must accept it! Surely your eyes are not deceiving you?"

"No, my eyes are working just fine when your frigging fire-spit isn't spraying into them," he said, "I mean, just what is that anyway?"

"I don't really know," the old man rasped. "That's one thing that I never figured out..."

"Ok, never mind," he continued. "But, let me tell you, what I see sitting before me is a freak of nature. You're pale as a ghost, you have some crazy kind of yellow cat eyes, I think I see points on top of your ears, you're about four feet tall and you have teeth as sharp as fangs."

"Exactly, my boy!" the old man leaped up out of his seat, floated near the ceiling of the bar for a weird second or two and then slowly landed on his feet next to the table. "So, my true nature becomes obvious now, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, you're a frigging circus freak," he said and, in an instant, the ugly little face was less than an inch from his nose.

"I am much more than a freak, Bobby-Boy, although I've spent some good time in circuses," his companion rasped, the fetid breath washing over his nose and mouth. "I am an ancient evil, sent here to perform the work of Satan himself, preying upon the peoples of these lands for centuries, sucking out their life blood and growing my minions more and more as the years go by."

"Whatever, dude, all I know is that you're not only a freak but a delusional freak, too..."

"Can you deny what I am? Still, after all that I've shown you?"

"What, show? All I've seen is a twisted old geezer performing some silly parlor tricks..."

"Careful, Bobby," the figure said from the other side of the chair, how he got there so quickly, especially with all that fat, was anybody's guess. "More talk like that and I might invite you to join my legions of the undead."

"So, I don't get it? You're supposed to be some kind of vampire or something?"

"Of course, you idiot!" the old man screamed, more acid-burn spittle flying across his neck and face. "Can you not feel that I am among the non-living? Can you not see the eyes of a devil-spawn? Did you not see my teeth?"

"Yeah, believe me, I saw them," he said, feeling a bit more than uncomfortable now, still stuck to the chair and with that horrible stink-breath wafting over his face. Squirming didn't seem to work and now the numbness seemed to be spreading to his chest. "But I don't doubt whatever twisted mess of a demented gene-pool sprung out those Godawful yellow eyes is also responsible for those pitifully rotten teeth. Where were your parents while you were growing up? I mean, they had to see those disgusting teeth or were you always walking around with your mouth closed?"

An old and twisted hand gripped him tightly by the throat then and, with miraculous strength, lifted his body clear of the chair. Although, at the height of a very small midget, he found that his feet were still touching the ground. "I could crush you like a twig, Robert Eckstein. I could squeeze the life out of you and leave you here to die on the floor of this dreadful place. Is that what you want?"

"Chill out, for Chris'sakes," he mumbled and tried hard to breathe.

"Stop using those words, Robert, I implore you," the freak said, wincing, as it lowered him back into the chair and retook the seat across the table.

"What words?" he said as he rubbed his throat.

"Those words! You keep using them!"

"Hello, Santa Claus the Vampire, what frigging words are you talking about?"

"The words you keep using, referring to He and His Son."

He shook his head in confusion. "Still not getting you."

"The names of the Holy Ones!"

"Oh," he said with realization, "you mean God and Jesus Christ..."

"Yes, those are the ones..."

"...the Holy Ghost, Jehova," he continued.

"ENOUGH!" the old man roared and floated up to the ceiling again with arms and legs waving about in exasperation. He took the opportunity to glance around the bar and saw that most of the establishment's patrons had since vacated the dark and dreary place.

"Listen, old dude, you need to calm down a little, all right," he said, still rubbing the sore parts of his throat as the fat old guy settled once again into the chair. The tender skin where the old man had grabbed him was getting colder by the second and he still couldn't move his frigging legs. "First you tell me that you're a vampire, some thousand year old evil guy..."

"Twelve hundred," the old man corrected, those eyes still looking way out of the normal range even after several minutes of adjustment time.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he continued. "Then you tell me that your name is something so close to Santa Claus that I have to take pity on you for being so badly cursed by your parents. I mean, how bad was it growing up with that name?"

"You idiot! It didn't mean anything back when I was growing up, only after I became..."

"Right, whatever, and then you tell me to stop saying the words God and Jesus..."

At that, the old timer once more flew up out of his seat, sailed around the ceiling a few times, shrieked some Godawful sound and landed heavily on top of the table directly in front of him. It seemed like two little horns had suddenly sprouted from his head and that forehead looked just a little more crinkly and jutted-out than before.

"Next you'll be telling me that you really are Santa Claus..." he mumbled and the creature reared back and laughed whatever passed for a laugh in that tiny frame.

"Now you understand, finally!"

"Understand? Understand what? That you're one crazy-ass bastard? Yeah, I got that one about two seconds after laying eyes on you."

"Quiet, you wretched slug!" the old man hissed and, once again, the burning spit that he was getting more and more tired of landed on his face and hands.

"What?" he asked, the yellow eyes moving closer and closer to his face. "What?"

"I am Santa Claus you little fool..." the relic rasped. "How else do you think that I'm able to slip into houses unseen on Christmas Eve? Know who's been naughty and who's been nice?"

"Oh, give it a rest," he sighed and shook his head in even more pity. "Do you really believe this nonsense you're spouting? I mean, come on!"

"Fine then, I won't mention that little incident with your gerbils, oh around twelve years old or so..." the freak said and he gasped. "How you told your parents that they somehow got out of their cage. How they just disappeared? Hmm?"

"That's it! I'm really outta here now," he said and grimaced with the attempt to make his legs move. That leak at the Revealer was surely gonna pay for this.

"You see? I am who I say I am. You can not deny it," the fat old freak continued. "My minions and I live up here, in the vast cold of the Arctic. Building toys for the child masses and, just to mock He whose name you spout so freely, on that one day per year I deliver my gifts to the children of the world to show Him that I am much more revered down here on Earth than He will ever be."

"Toys?" he asked. "You build toys? Actually make them?"

"Yes," the old man hissed in exasperation. "Toys, we make toys."

"In some kind of factory at the North Pole I presume?"

"Of course at the North Pole!" the shriveled geezer shouted. "Where else?"

"What kind of toys can you make up there with all that cold weather..."

"We make them! That's all, damn you!"

"How do you keep the machinery running? Doesn't it freeze up?"

"No, actually, my plant has a fantastic HVAC system, you should see how warm it stays..."

"Who do you give these toys to?" he interrupted. "Are there that many people living up there? Does the North Pole have some kind of metropolitan area? I mean, how low are the rents?"

"Yes, the rents are low, my mortgage is unbelievable, but...forget that!" the old man roared. "I deliver my toys all around the world! I just said so, aren't you listening to a word I'm saying?"

"Wait a minute, you don't deliver them in the good ole U. S. of A.," he said with a smirk. "A freak-show like you would've been shot at your first stop in Philly or New York."

"Well, yes, I stopped that about forty years ago, once it simply got too dangerous and the major toy manufacturers started putting out better toys than we could make..."

"And who makes them for you? Oh wait, I know, the elves right?" he asked with a giggle.

"They have been called elves, yes, but they are simply those humans that I have deemed worthy enough to join my legion of the undead."

"To make toys?" he asked again.

"Confound it, yes, to make toys!"

"Elves?"

"No, not really elves, but they do shrink down a bit once I convert them to..."

"So they really are elves?"

"No! Yes! I mean...they are my minions, they help me to make the toys..."

"Ok, ok, don't get your panties all tied up in a knot," he said and finally got his legs to move. The old man noticed this and shook his head to clear the rage and frustration threatening to overtake his senses.

"So, do you believe me now?" the small man asked in a tired voice, no spittle following this time, thank the Good Lord above.

"Oh, yeah, sure, of course," he said as he rose from the table and pulled his gloves out of his pocket. "But not one word about any flying reindeer or your whole story goes down the toilet."

"No, not reindeer, really, they are more like hell-beasts..."

"No, stop it, what did I just say?"

The old man lowered his head, sighed, scrambled off the table and pierced him again with those yellow eyes. "You are a very frustrating and excruciating member of your species, Robert Eckstein."

"What else is new, my editor tells me that every day," he said and began to head toward the door. "Thanks for nothing, Santa," he said, giggling. "I can't believe I came all this way out here for nothing."

"Very well, then, go home to 115 Oak Street in Bayonne, New Jersey, Robert Eckstein," the old man called to his back. "Make your Chunky Soup, watch that beat up old Sanyo tv, write your stupid little stories and keep wishing for those Rock-Em-Sock-Em Robots that you always put on your forbidden Christmas List as a child! You know, the list that you kept well hidden because, as a good Jewish boy, your parents would have felt compelled to enroll you in one of those dreadful Hebrew classes that you always despised if they ever saw it! You'll never get your Rock-Em-Sock-Em Robots now, my friend! My minions stole the plans from the patent office a few years back and, so, we can make them now! I give them to the children in Romania and El Salvador and Australia every Christmas Eve! But not you, little Bobby Eckstein, not you!"

"Damn, his researchers are good," he mumbled to himself as he forced the door to the bar open against an icy stab of wind and slipped out into the dreadful cold, still feeling pins and needles in both thighs. Have to find that leak at the Revealer...

"Beware the darkness, Bobby Eckstein!" he heard called from behind the closed door of the bar. "Be careful, my boy, you have a very long and lonely distance to travel!"

Yeah, yeah, he thought as he trudged through the snow, trying to will the coldness from his neck, hand and shoulder and wondering what that fluttering sound was that was coming from the sky. Sounds like bats...

"A far walk in a strange place..." the old freak's voice continued in the distance. "And it promises to be a dark and cold night!"

Ok, right, you old mental case...a dark and cold night it is...but, up here, aren't they all?