““LIEUTENANT GENERAL!!”
The voice ricocheted across the battlefield, thumping every ear drum on its way.
“ORDER YOUR UNIT TO AIM THEIR FIRE DOWN THE LEFT!! WE’RE BEING FLANKED THROUGH THE FOREST!!”
Silhouettes were moving through the trees. If they were granted opportunity to advance it would distract the cavalry slogging their guts out in the mud and the blood which the General couldn’t allow to happen.
“LIEUTENANT GENERAL I WANT THOSE TREES TURNED INTO FUCKING SPLINTERS BY THE NEXT TIME I LOOK TO MY LEFT, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”
“Yes, General” the lieutenant replied confidently before darting down the hill to guide his unit toward the enemy.
It was General Wobblepoop’s final tour of duty before handing the honour down to the Lieutenant General Cuddlebug. Wobblepoop had been grooming Cuddlebug for the past thirteen years in everything from troop management to tactical deployments and it was almost time for the baton to be handed over. He was a battle hardened General with the kind of voice you could strike a match on.
Every Christmas Eve it was the same ugly scene. For 24 hours the Flumpkins of Burpia would descend on Santa’s workshop with the ferocity of possessed demons and it was the job of Santa’s own team of Flumpkins, led by the General, to exorcize those Burpian scum for another year, lest Christmas be ruined for all the children of the world.
Flumpkins looked like marshmallows. They are as round as they are tall and as fierce as they are cuddly. They have two chubby legs and walk upright like humans but they have 4 chubby little arms and two tails behind them, each tail with another hand at the end. The only difference between the Burpian Flumpkins and Santa’s Flumpkins was their hair. Santa’s Flumpkins had blue hair styled according to rank. Burpians had no hair and this year, for the first time, the Burpians were winning.
General Wobblepoop caught sight of a bedraggled soldier limping toward him. His face was covered in dirt and marshmallow gloop, presumably from exploded Burpians.
“General the supply lines to the centre have been cut off”.
As sure as kittens love milk, the supply lines had been attacked and the troops in the thick of it were running dangerously low on ammunition, things were beginning to look even more desperate. It was time for the general to bring out the big guns.
“Corporal, tell your men to fall back to checkpoint Bravo.”
“But General we need cover”.
“Corporal I won’t tell you again, you have your orders NOW FOLLOW THEM!”
The General tied his blue hair up into a bun and positioned his telescopic goggles over his eyes. Everything went all slow motion like, the General pushed a button on his wristwatch and looked behind him to reveal a hidden bunker. The force of wind from the bunker doors opening pushed across the General’s hair, and don’t forget this is all in slow motion, so the bun held strong but the individual hairs not trapped by the bun were left to dance in the breeze which was all happening in slow motion remember. Out of the bunker appeared a blade shaped drone. The sun, now low in the sky, reflected off every sleek curve as it crept toward the General’s position. The General climbed into the cockpit and leant forward to lock the telescopic goggles into the heads-up display.
The drone’s power was supplied by collective intelligence. For the last five years, Santa’s Flumpkins had harnessed the power from a troop of chimpanzees who were able to supply twenty full minutes of power every year. This year the chimpanzees were unavailable so the General harnessed the power from the world’s governments. He checked the power gauge on the heads-up display.
Ninety seconds.
“SHIT!”
Looking over the battlefield the General needed to think quick. With only ninety seconds of flight time and the Corporal’s unit a long way from checkpoint Bravo there was only two options. Clear the area for as long as possible to save as many Flumpkins as possible before flying back to Bravo or set the drone down behind enemy lines and using manual override, attack from behind forcing the invading scum to turn around but leaving him stranded.
Setting down behind enemy lines was almost a suicide mission but many more lives would be saved. It was the General’s last tour of duty, he thought about his family, about how he might not see them again. But then he thought about all the soldiers he would save, their families and saving Christmas and realised there was no option. With the drone primed for battle the General thought to himself, it wasn’t a choice to become a hero, it was his duty and with an explosion of force the drone entered the arena of death.
Over by the forest the Lieutenant General was clearing out the remaining fighters after fulfilling the General’s orders when he heard the drone shoot past on its way to support the troops in the centre. He called back to base to check the drone’s battleplans. Base quickly replied and Cuddlebug saw Wobblepoops mission objectives.
“Ninety seconds!?”
He read on until he realised the Flumpkin who had taught him everything he knew had signed up for a suicide mission.
“Shit! FLUMPKINS ON ME!”
The Lieutenant’s unit quickly fell into position.
“New objective, we are moving double speed to checkpoint Bravo to help with the extraction of the cavalry. The General has taken the drone behind enemy lines and will be left isolated from the battle.”
The soldiers looked at each other.
“But lieutenant that’s a suicide mission.”
“It’s only a suicide mission if we allow it. Get your shit together Flumpkins, we have a battle to win.”
The Lieutenant looked at his watch. 23:00. They just needed to hold out another hour.
Above the retreating cavalry, General Wobblepoop’s drone was laying waste to as many Burpians as there were bullets flying but for every corpse created, five more charged toward his Flumpkins. The drone was almost out of time so the General started to look for a tactically superior landing spot with an elevated position behind the advancing hordes. Off came the goggles, now drenched with sweat. The General’s eyes scanned the edge of the battlefield. Just beyond the edge of the forest on the left there was an elevated position with slight cover where the land was uneven and formed a bottleneck. The General, ready to call the lambs to slaughter, set the drone down, flicked the artillery to manual and unleashed complete fury.
Hundreds of Burpians came flooding into the corridor of death, as quickly as they arrived, they fell. Before long, a mountain of dead lay across the General’s horizon and yet more Burpians attacked. The guns of the drone, now glowing white, were almost depleted of ammunition. Once they ran empty, the General was on his own.
Back at checkpoint Bravo the Lieutenant was holding strong as the Flumpkin cavalry retreated behind the safety of the walls and immediately fell into position. At least half the Flumpkins had returned with the General’s drone helping to lighten the load. With the Burpian army now split in two the lieutenant had enough time to reset the supply lines giving Santa’s Flumpkins the upper hand but there was still a lot of work to be done. The time was 23:20 and Bravo was the last point of resistance still standing with Checkpoints Charlie and Delta falling earlier in the day. The lieutenant called over to a nearby Captain to ask for his telescopic sight. He had seen the General bring the drone down near the backend of the forest and from his training he had a hunch the General would land by the bottleneck. Scanning the area, he managed to locate the drone and it was empty. Not only was the drone empty but the Burpians who broke off to attack the General were now bearing down on the lieutenant’s position. Cuddlebug had less than five minutes until the full force of the enemy were smashing at the doors of Bravo like a pissed off bull with its nuts in a vice.
The last of Santa’s Flumpkins had managed to get behind the lines of Bravo just as the first wave of Burpian scum hit. It was a miracle that supply lines had been restored but there was no time to stand around sucking each other off. The General was missing, presumed dead. At least half of Santa’s Flumpkins had perished in the battle, their lifeless marshmallow-like bodies forever entombed in hostile remembrance and the Lieutenant had no clue how much ammunition was left, he could only pray it was enough to last until midnight.
With 30 minutes left until allied extraction the guns whirred hot and the nerves ran cold. Every heart beat in rhythm as Checkpoint Bravo was hit with the second wave of venom. The Burpians who had broken off to attack the General had finally joined the party.
“HOLD THE FUCKING LINE!!!!” the Lieutenant screamed from the turret as he reloaded his plasma cannon, “GET THE SENTRY GUNS RELOADED AND AIMED AT THE HORIZON, WE NEED TO THIN THE NUMBERS OR THE WALLS WON’T LAST!”
Three desperate Flumpkins, dragging as much firepower as they could carry toward the giant sentries got hit by a grenade thrown from the crowd of limbs clawing at the other side of the wall. One heroic Flumpkin grabbed the grenade and swallowed it before detonation. The explosion was catastrophic and there was nothing left but a meringue so fluffy it could pass for one of your Nan’s desserts. The two remaining Flumpkins, unable to pay respect to the fallen, quickly reloaded the first sentry turret and triggered auto-fire. Before the second sentry could be reloaded the Burpians managed to create a hole in the wall and breach Bravo. The Lieutenant looked over and vomited. Bravo was the last stronghold before Santa’s grotto and there was still twenty minutes left until extraction. Christmas was fucked.
Behind all the noise and carnage, the Lieutenant could make out a small figure in the background. It was hard to see through the smoke of the battlefield but it looked like a rider on a horse. The closer it came the sharper the image got until the Lieutenant could finally make out what it was. A shiver shot down his spine sending a jolt to his feet. His heartbeat started to thump through his ribcage as the adrenaline turned his blood to acid. He turned to his men and shouted, “HOLD STRONG!”
The horse leapt over the Burpians like Pegasus and off jumped the General armed with a flamethrower. The moment his feet touched terraferma his finger squeezed the trigger. The flames licked around the screaming mouths of dying Burpians as they came rushing through the hole in Bravo’s wall. The melted lump of dead sealed the hole shut but it was only a matter of time until the next breach. With ten minutes left until midnight it was anyone’s guess if Bravo would hold or fall but they had their General back.
“General!? How did you escape? Th-that was a suicide mission” Cuddlebug stammered, “I thought you were gone for sure”.
“When the gun was almost out of ammo I aimed at the dry ground in front of the drone which kicked up enough dirt to give me cover into the forest. I was able to lock the drone door behind me so the Burpians thought I was still inside. Coming across the horse was just dumb luck and here I am. Now let’s finish the job.”
The sight of their General’s miraculous return boosted the remaining Flumpkin’s moral and they fought harder than they’d ever fought before. Like a well-oiled machine they emptied clips almost as quickly as they were replacing them. With five minutes until midnight, Bravo holding strong and the General and Lieutenant’s impressive tactical display things were looking good but it was one of those days where anything that could go wrong, would go wrong. With adrenaline running short the Burpians breached through the middle and there was no flamethrower to seal the hole this time. The heavens opened up and thick rain cascaded onto the muddy battlefield. It was every Flumpkin for themselves and with Santa’s grotto only a stone’s throw away the scramble was going to be desperate.
In the pouring rain the General and Lieutenant, both expertly trained with the samurai sword, dived into the middle of the battle. Cutting clean and true they laid waste to any Burpian suicidal enough to attack. With the tiny pieces of marshmallow flying and getting saturated in the mud on the ground the battlefield soon looked like a marshmallow filled cup of hot chocolate. But instead of being saturated in yummy hot chocolate, they were saturated in an agonising sense of hopelessness.
Some Burpians managed to break free of the battle and made a run for the wall of Santa’s grotto. The Flumpkins were too bogged down in fighting to stop them.
“THEY’RE MAKING FOR THE WALL!!”
The General’s voice boomed but it was too late. With each new second moving the unstoppable inevitability of time toward Christmas day, the grip of the Burpians tightened moving them closer to the apex of the climb. At the cusp of victory, the leading Burpian reached out to the top of the wall only to be met with the unmistakable chime of Christmas’s bells.
Midnight was here and Santa’s Flumpkins had won.
Like a meteorite, Santa’s sleigh shot into the night’s sky leaving entropy behind. The walls of the grotto shook so violently that the Burpians who had scaled it, now gripped by gravity’s embrace, fell toward the terminal velocity of the moment. The large wooden doors flung open and out stepped the statuesque figure of Mrs Claus holding a Browning .50 Caliber Machine Gun in each hand and ho ho holy shit, was she about to have a merry old Christmas.
Doof doof doof doof the machine guns thumped as bullets the size of arms ripped through the remaining Burpian army until the guns fell silent. Smoke gently danced from the barrels into the night sky to join the cold breath from the mouths of those left triumphant. Those remaining few would be back to do it all over again next year.
The end”
“Jesus Christ Dad what the hell was that!?”
“What?”
“We only asked what it was like to leave all your Christmas shopping to the day before Christmas. There was no need to turn it into a short story”
This link will take you to my master blog where previous entries have been split into genres for your viewing pleasure!
https://coil.com/p/Mikey_Ashman/MASTER-BLOG/YNg8pAwFn
Be excellent to each other and vote for tomorrow!
Poem: The rage of love
