The jangling of keys against a metal door echoed down the long hallway, stirring a string of sighs and moans from behind locked doors.  Antiseptic fumes hung heavily, burning de-sensitized nostrils, undiluted by the daytime smell of pressing bodies wandering aimlessly.  Nighttime in the sanitarium was a time when only the security guard and the ghosts of resident terrors stalked the halls.  Claire was neither, but then she wasn't supposed to be there.

Claire eased the heavy door open just enough to slip her frail frame inside, then eased it shut.  The room fell into darkness again.  She skipped over to the bed, looking like a wispy fairy with her filmy chemise fluttering gaily.  The figure on the bed hadn't moved except for the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest that accompanied the slightly too rapid breathing.  A loud thud disrupted the silence as she let drop a heavy club-like object from her hand.  Still no movement from the bed.

Despite the darkness of the cell-like room, the shape on the bed was clearly malformed.  The body was too long for the twin bed, feet and arms hung over the edges.  Although the shoulders and chest were broad, the head was unexpectedly wide and swollen, disproportionately so, like an onion… complete with a tuft of hair protruding from the top.  His bumpy facial features were scrunched down on the lower half of his head, giving him a spacious forehead for worrying.

"Surprise!" cried Claire, as she launched herself across the body on the bed. 

Struggling against the wrist and ankle restraints that pinned him flat on his back in the bed, Onion Head grunted in protest.  Claire slid across him to the wall side of the bed and wrapped her arms and legs around him until he stopped thrashing.

"Do you know what tomorrow is?" she asked in a teasing little girl voice.

Onion Head groaned and turned his big face away from her.

"Tomorrow is Christmas day.  And do you know what happens tonight?"  Claire stroked Onion Head's forehead gently.  "Santa arrives from the North Pole with presents for goodie-goodie rugrats and coal for rotten little buggers."

Onion Head moaned and sniffed, but refused to turn his head back towards her.

Claire ignored the subtle rejection and continued stroking his forehead.  "I got coal most years.  I don't suppose Santa is very nice.  But I do like that red coat and hat with the fuzzy white stuff on it."

Onion Head grunted and banged his big head against the pillow.

"What?  You're hiding something under your pillow?"  Claire thrust one hand under the pillow and felt around.  "Woohoo!  You sure are!"

She pulled a crumpled piece of paper out from under the pillow, scrambled over Onion Head and dropped to the floor beside the bed. 

"Let's see what it says." She retrieved the heavy flashlight from under the bed where it had rolled when she dropped it earlier.  Sitting on the floor and leaning her back against the bed, she aimed the flashlight at the letter and flicked it on.  The bright light lit up the whole room, blinding them both and causing Onion Head to grunt and thrash wildly against his restraints.  A clump of hair dropped from the flashlight onto the letter.

"It's okay."  Claire patted a flailing wrist, noting that it was still securely fastened. "Has anyone read this to you?"

Onion Head stopped thrashing and grunting and shook his head.  Claire brushed the sticky hair-clump off the letter and wiped the flashlight on the sheets before aiming it back at the letter.

"It says, 'Hiya Brother.  Happy Christmas.  Sorry you are there and all, but I am here taking care of things for you, like always.  I am having Christmas dinner with that little runt that put you in that place and her family.  They feel real sorry about you.  Maybe you should join us and wait for Santa.  Ha ha.'"

Onion Head moaned loudly.  He poked Claire in the back, hard, with the hand strapped beside her.  She scooted just out of reach and smiled back at him.

"There's an address here; so like if you really wanted, you could go there and wait for Santa with the runt and," she studied the letter, "with the runt and C."  She twisted around to face, kneeling beside the bed.  "I could drive you there and we could both tell Santa not to bother with the coal any more."

Claire held up a 3" metal ring of keys and rattled them.  "I'm betting the key to the Mr. Goodtimes Man's car is on here.  He won't be needing his car tonight."  She chortled and kissed Onion Head on the forehead.  "That guard had way more fun than he expected tonight … he wouldn't even notice if every locked door in this place suddenly sprang open.  Wouldn't that be fun?"

The glare of the powerful flashlight reflected gleefully in Onion Head's blood-rimmed eyes and he watched carefully as Claire undid his restraints.

"Wonder if the Mall Santa's are out tonight …" Claire giggled.

***

Nelly gave the metal ring a calculated push, sending her wheelchair leaping at her mother.  She gripped the brake just in time to avoid rolling over her mother's foot.  Karen Greenworth gasped and frowned at Nelly.

"Really, Nelly, you're going to have to learn better manners with that chair.  It's like driving a car."  She leaned down to peer into the eyes of her thirteen-year-old daughter who would likely never be able to drive a car.  "It puts people off when you threaten to injure them.  It makes you seem unfriendly.  And you know what they say."

Nelly rolled her eyes, preparing herself for the latest stupid thing that 'they' said whenever she did something her mom didn't like.

"Don't roll your eyes."

"Geez, Mom.  Rolling eyes, rolling wheelchairs and driving cars are not the same."

"I was going to say, you have to be a friend to make friends."  Karen set a large salad bowl in Nelly's lap.  "Now take that out to the table and try not to run over our guest."

"Mom!" Nelly whine-hissed, tugging at Karen's skirt.  Karen swallowed hard.  She hadn't gotten used to feeling that tug at her skirt again after so many years.  It didn't seem right for the mother of a teenage daughter to be summoned by a skirt-tugging instead of a hand on her shoulder.

"What, Honey?"  Karen's voice sounded choked.

"I can't believe you invited that creepy guy to our house for Christmas Eve dinner!"

"Now Nelly.  Clarence is all alone for Christmas now that his parents are gone and his … brother … is in an institution.  Think how lonely he must feel.  Besides, what was I supposed to say when he came here offering to help take you places when he could have tried to make trouble.  After all, you did shoot his brother."

Nelly shuddered at the bits of memory she still held from the horrible night when she'd stumbled across Onion Head and freezer with the body parts in the attic of the old haunted house.  Clarence had told the sheriff he'd been with friends that night, but Nelly still didn't believe it.  If only she could remember what had happened in the minutes before the fall that had left her paralyzed.  Nelly thought Clarence's nickname "Crazy Mother" said it all and that her mom should listen to her daughter's intuition instead of some vague faceless 'they.'

"Crazy Mother is one creepy whacked-out guy and I think he's crazier than his brother."  Nelly would have stomped her foot, but instead settled for pounding the arm of her wheelchair.  A bit of lettuce jumped out of the bowl and into her lap.

"Don't pout."  Karen plucked the lettuce out of Nelly's lap and dropped it back into the bowl.  "It's just one night.  You'll never have to see him again.  It won't kill you to practice being nice for company."

Nelly spun her chair around and rolled out to the dining room where her dad and Crazy Mother were already seated.  Karen Greensworth followed close behind, carrying the honey-baked ham on a platter and smiling at her husband's all-consuming faith in her ability to produce the best ham in town.  She set the ham near the head of the table where Dan Greensworth sat and took her place opposite him. 

The table was new, purchased to accommodate Nelly's wheelchair and armrests with ease.  Nelly positioned her chair opposite Crazy Mother and studied her empty plate.  She'd seen enough of him when he arrived at the door one hour early for dinner.  He was a tall lanky 20-something with long greasy hair and a chin-stubble that made his face look dirty.  The perpetual smirk on his face disputed every word he spoke and his breath smelled of beer and tooth decay.

"Shall we pray?" Karen suggested rather than asked, and quietly rattled off a prayer, eyes open and noting that Crazy Mother was still checking out the room without even bowing his head.  "Amen.  Dan, will you cut the ham for us?"

A brief flurry of commotion ensued, while plates were piled with ham, au gratin potatoes, creamed corn, cornbread, leafy salad and Karen's special homemade cranberry relish.  Then suddenly the clattering stopped and only the sounds of forks clicking plates and chewing could be heard over Placido Domingo and the Vienna Choir Boys' rendition of 'Ave Maria' pouring from the stereo. 

The subtle thumping of Jumper's tail on the carpet beside the wheelchair caught Nelly's eye.  The little butterfly-eared papillion dog was staring intently under the table and a growl rattled almost inaudibly in her throat.  Nelly thought she heard a rustling under the table.  A series of possible culprits sprang to mind: mouse, chipmunk, bat, none of them very appealing.  No one else seemed to hear the disturbance, although Crazy Mother was squirming in his seat.

Nelly deftly flipped her spoon onto the floor, narrowly missing Jumper's head.  Jumper jumped up and scurried to the other side of the wheelchair to resume her watch.  Nelly pushed back from the table and bent under it, muttering 'excuse me' to placate her mom.  Under the table, she found herself face to face with Crazy Mother's right foot clad in a threadbare sock, toes wriggling a saucy 'hello.'  She gasped and thumped the back of her head against the underside of the table in her hurry to get away from the friendly foot.  Jumper leaped into action, ever the family's stalwartly protector, alternately attacking the unfamiliar sock and barking ferociously.

"What on earth …" Karen gasped, eyes wide and embarrassed.

"Stupid dog." Dan muttered.

"Jumper!  Stop that" Nelly commanded, struggling to hold back the knee-jerk gales of laughter.  Jumper whimpered and withdrew to her space beside the wheelchair.  Jumper couldn't see the smirk on Crazy Mother's face, but she could see the smudge on Nelly's pants where he'd been rubbing his dirty sock on her shin.

"You have no feeling in your legs at all, right?"  Crazy Mother asked, looking at Nelly with an almost innocent face.

"Nope. None."  Nelly answered, focusing on soothing Jumper's hurt feelings.

"There are several medical studies taking place right now, researching spinal chord injuries and ways to restore feeling and movement to the limbs of … paraplegics."  Karen's enthusiasm dwindled with the condemnation of that hated label. 

She pushed thoughts of her daughter's dismal future aside and struggled to keep the conversation going.  "We were so surprised to hear about your parents' suicide, Clarence."

"I heard the sheriff wasn't convinced that it was a murder-suicide because he'd seen signs of forced entry."  Nelly stopped short of confessing that she had been there that Halloween night, hiding in the woods, and had seen Onion Head trying to force his way into the house.

Dan prodded his daughter's elbow, which was conveniently parked on the table.  "Pass me the potatoes, Funnyface."  Nelly flinched and quickly pushed the au gratins toward him.

"My mother suffered a lot of guilt because of the way my brother turned out.  My father couldn't bear to see it." Clarence said.  His eyes were stone cold, daring Nelly to say more.

"It sure was nice of you to have me here for Christmas Eve."  He sounded as sincere as Eddie Haskell, Wally's snarky friend from the old "Leave it to Beaver" television show.  Nelly wanted to growl, but thought she might get a toe-nudge and decided to leave the growling to Jumper.

"These holidays must seem especially lonely for you now.  Especially with your brother … away," Karen offered sweetly.

Nelly bit her lip and resisted making the comments bouncing around her head.  She watched her mom dart into the kitchen and return with warm slices of pumpkin pie.  In her head, Nelly screamed, 'He's in a lunatic asylum, Mom!  They had a freezer full of body parts in their attic.  His dad killed his mom and himself to get away from the two of them.  What kind of homey holiday dinners do you suppose they had?'

Conversation stopped while the four ate pumpkin pie and made yummy noises.  Then Dan stood up, patted his stomach and announced, "Great dinner, Karen.  I'm going to step outside for some fresh air.  Clarence, why don't you come with me?"

"That means he's going out to the garage for a cigar.  Go ahead and keep him company," Karen said to Clarence.  Dan had already crossed the living room and was halfway out the door, so Clarence had to move fast to catch up with him.  Karen nodded to Nelly and then to the remaining dishes on the table before retiring to the kitchen.  This part of their old life routine, at least, had remained unchanged.

Mother and daughter, still washing dishes and engaged a rousing debate over the proper age for a girl to begin dating, never heard the loud crashing noises that came from the vicinity of the garage.  After Nelly had dried the last dish, she rolled out to the living room and headed straight for the remote control.  The living room was still empty; Crazy Mother and her dad had not yet returned from their after-dinner smoke.  Nelly punched the remote to turn off the Christmas music.  A second remote flipped on the wide-screen TV where Ricky Ricardo swung the door open and joyfully announced, "Lucy, I'm home!" in his familiar thick Cuban accent.

Seconds later the Greensworth front door burst open and a tall red-coated and red-capped Santa Claus with a pasty troll face sprang into the living room, dragging a large lumpy red sack that seemed to be squirming.  Nelly gasped and froze in her wheelchair.

Santa grunted to the rhythm of "Merry Christmas, Ho-ho-ho," pulled the Santa hat off his onion sprout head and waved it in the air with a toothy grin.  Nelly rubbed her eyes and pinched her arm viciously, praying to anything that might listen in the hopes that this might be one of those nightmares that seemed all too real, but wasn't.  The pinch hurt and her fingernails broke the skin.  This year's Christmas was not going to be much better than last year's, she decided. 

The red sack squirmed and kicked.  With an impish grin, Onion Head released his chokehold on its neck.  The sack thrashed around until a wispy blond-haired waif in a green Santa's Elf costume squirmed out holding a baseball bat.

"You ever stuff me in a bag again, I'll … I'll …" The elf-waif shook the bat threateningly at Onion Head, then turned slowly toward Nelly, noticing her for the first time. 

"You!  You!"  She stared at Nelly, a slow lopsided grin spreading across her face.  "You're the rotten little bugger that shot my friend.  You are, aren't you?  No good to deny it now.  Santa knows and you're gonna get coal this year, yes you are."  Claire shook her finger at Nelly.

Karen walked into the living room then, carrying a plate of cookies.  "What? Who?"

The elf-waif smiled broadly at Karen.  "Hi Mom!  I'm Claire and this here's Santa."  She pointed at Onion Head with her bat, nearly clunking him in the head.  "Your kid would make a great elf, don't you think?"

Onion Head grunted and Claire immediately peeled off her green elf costume.  Karen gasped at the appearance of bite marks speckling the waif's pale skin and showing through the flimsy chemise.  She stepped quickly to her daughter's side, resting a protective hand on the teenager's shoulder.

"What has that monster done to you?" Karen glared at Onion Head.

"Huh?"  Claire followed Karen's angry eyes to her companion and laughed.  "Oh no, Santa didn't bite me.  That was the man with the keys, Mr. Goodtimes Man.  He always wants me to sneak out at night for Goodtimes.  But Mr. Goodtimes Man won't be biting anyone any more."  She reached into the elf jacket pocket and tossed a handful of white pebbles onto the floor.  "I got all his teeth."

One of the teeth bounced across the tile floor and came to rest at Nelly's toe.  The room was quiet for a moment, as though hypnotized by the teeth.

Onion Head put his hand to his mouth and felt his snaggle-toothed gums.  He grunted at Claire with eyebrows raised inquiringly.

"You don't need more teeth," Claire said, patting his head.  "I'll always be around to grind your food for you.  That's what Santa's Elves do, you know."

Nelly and Karen watched speechlessly.  Karen's eyes flickered to the front door as she listened for sounds of her husband's voice and imagined sending up a high-powered searchlight calling for a Batman rescue.  Surely that cheap cigar had burnt down to ashes by now.

"If you want presents, you can have mine," Nelly offered.  She gestured to the Christmas tree and the cheerfully wrapped presents beneath it.  "I'm sure there's lots of cool stuff in there."  She glanced at her mother.  Karen nodded enthusiastically.

"Lots of cool stuff.  Go ahead and help yourself." The pitch of Karen's voice was climbing at twice the rate of her nerves.  "If I'd known you'd be joining us, I'd have bought presents for you both anyway…."

Claire shook her head and clucked.  "No, no, no, no, no.  That's not how it works."  She looped her arm in Onion Head's.  "You see, Santa delivers the real presents … and Santa's the one we want to have a little chat with.  He'll not be bringing any more coal to either of us after tonight."

At that moment, the front door burst open again and Crazy Mother stepped in.  Alone.  He hesitated a moment, looking from face to face, then moved toward his brother.  Claire jumped between Onion Head and his brother, swinging the bat threateningly.

"We were just about to get comfortable and wait for Santa to come.  We want a little chat with him.  You owe your brother that much at least." Claire said, guessing immediately that Clarence was not related to the two women.

Onion Head nodded and grunted at Crazy Mother and Claire.  Crazy Mother gave him a threatening look, then turned back to Claire.  "Why don't you put the elf suit back on?  You look cold and you're distracting my brother.  No telling what he might do."

Claire giggled, poked Onion Head and pulled the elf costume back on, pulling the pointy elf hat down over her ears. 

"Where's Dan?" Karen asked.  "Where's my husband?"

Crazy Mother winked at her with a secretive knowing look.  "He went to the store.  He'll be gone a little while."  Eddie Haskell was never this creepy.

"Well, Santa will never come in while the lights are on."  Crazy Mother announced.  "If you want to have that chat with Santa, we'll have to turn all the lights out and wait very quietly."  His eyes caught Karen's and held them.  "Don't forget.  Not a peep.  No matter what.  Then Santa will come and everything will be okay."

Karen nodded nearly imperceptibly.  Her fear made her eyes bulge and she knew it.  She patted Nelly's shoulder again, standing behind her daughter to avoid spreading her fear.

"Ready?"  Crazy Mother walked over to the light switch and stood with his hand poised over it.  "Okay.  I'm turning out the lights, everyone stay where you are and don't make a sound."

The light switched off.  The wheel chair pulled forward, just out of Karen's reach.  Nelly felt herself being lifted out of the wheelchair and set on the floor.  She bit her lip to quiet the hysterical giggle rising in her throat.  The skinny arms were strong but gentle in lifting her, sort of like a hug.  Seconds later, a hat was pushed down on her head and over her eyes.  Three dull thumps were followed by a scuffle and two tall figures dragging a heavy bag made their way out of the dark house and into the night.

***

Pain swirled around Nelly's body from head to foot.  As the fuzz in her brain melted away, a familiar nausea rose.  She clunked her wrist into the metal railings at the side of her bed.  Hospital.  A desperate plea escaped her lips.  "Not true.  Not again."  Refusing to open her eyes, she slipped her hand down to her thigh and poked at it viciously.  Not dreaming.  Only pain, no real sense of touch.  But I did this once already, she thought.

A chair scraped across the floor beside her.  Nelly opened her eyes in a panic. 

"Hey."  Brandon leaned forward with a smile.  "I told them I was your brother.  These people never check records."

"What?"

"You're okay.  Doctor said maybe a concussion, but nothing life threatening."  His eyes drifted down towards her legs.  "When he said you took a blow to the head, I thought maybe you might get your legs back … but I guess that's not how it works."

Nelly smirked and snorted, "I wish."

"He also said you might not remember much, so I figured I'd stick around and tell you what I heard.  My cousin works at the police station.  He said they caught the guy that clobbered you and your mom and dad.  It was Onion Head – the same guy you told us about at Halloween."

"Mom and Dad?  Are they okay?"

"Yeah.  Onion Head just clobbered them the same as you.  They're here too.  But the girl in the Santa bag is one big bloody wad of mush.  Really gross.  My cousin said Onion Head was done up in a Santa suit and he tied her up in the bag and beat it with the baseball bat until every bone in her body was broken.  He is way nuts."

"How'd they find him?"  Nelly swallowed against a second rush of nausea and struggled through the fog in her head, trying to match Brandon's story to the blurry memories. 

"That's the best part.  My cousin says your mom actually invited Crazy Mother to dinner … I can't believe you knew and you didn't tell me.  But Crazy Mother called police and told them what happened and where to find his own brother.  It took them a while to figure out who the girl was, though, 'cause she was all smashed up.  Cops were too busy chasing down crazies all over town to notice one more missing girl.  Old Onion Head unlocked half the ward before he took off."

Nelly snickered at the mental image of Keystone Cops chasing lunatics down the streets of her new hometown.

"And they say he killed the guard at the State Hospital, too.  Beat his head in with his own flashlight.  Turns out the guard was the dead girl's brother and the dead girl was an inmate there.  They still don't know how Onion Head got out of his locked cell or how he knew where to find you.  Not like he can read or follow a map."  Brandon stopped and puzzled for a moment.  "Your mom didn't invite Onion Head too, did she?"

THE END

But is it really the end? You just never know when he might reappear - check the main menu to be sure.
Check HERE for a peek at Onion Head himself ... Sadly, the T-shirts are no longer available ... but you can still check in on his alter-ego HERE .