Nothing terrifies a child more, or an adult for that matter, than being accosted in a dark alley on Christmas Eve by a bloody Santa head.
But for Little Ned, whose cruel stepfather and stepmother had told him time and again, "There is no Santa! Stop day-dreaming and get on with your chores!" the exciting discovery opened up a whole new world of possibilities.
He decided that the first thing to do was to move the head into a fridge somewhere. He needed time to plan.... and the head already had a slight but distinctive odour.
Then Ned remembered a safeway shopping cart full of deer heads parked on his granny hlvatay's freezing sun porch. sorting through the heads he was dismayed to find one with a red nose.
Ned's suspicions grew. "Odd. I don't have pointy ears like Granny and my stepparents. Are they killer Elves...or something worse?"
He only had a short time before they returned from the liquor store and Circle K with dinner and dinks, so he quickly peeled away the decaying flesh into a tupperware bowl and sat it back deep, behind the pickled pig's eyes and little Susie's gall bladder, so he could dig into the head for the real prize.
Little Ned shook the excarnated skull like a gore filled piggy bank, a smile of satisfaction turning up the corners of his mouth when he heard the wet slapping of gray matter against the fused bones.
'Reminds me of my old dog, Haggis'. Ned thought to himself.
Ned stepped back from the display, his hands placed firmly on his hips, enjoying the satisfaction of his exploit. Something wet touched his toe and he looked down, his curiosity peaking upon seeing the red fluid.
Somehow he'd got it into his head that with gray matter, the fluid would be gray, or a milky froth at very least. But as he bent down and scooped a sample of the fluid into his mouth, he thought bloody frothy head fluid tastes at least as good as milky frothy head fluid.
"How dare you!" a gravely voice said. Ned jumped to his feet, biting his finger in his fright; the irony taste of his own blood mingling with the lingering head fluid under his tongue.
That's strange, he thought. Blood's not supposed to taste irony, it's supposed to taste coppery. Is this an ironic twist to the story?
"What do you think you are doing?" Ned recognized the voice. The voice of his mother. The voice of his undead mother. He ducked as the hot iron was flung. It struck the wall above his head.
"You'll spoil your dinner, eating that! Now, be a good boy and fetch me a fresh batch of entrails. Make it quick; your father will be back from the cemetery soon."
Little Ned hung his head--on a hook alongside the door--and walked outside, looking for the infamous catwoman they had captured earlier that day. Her entrails would make a delicious soup, he thought. Then he realized he couldn't find her without eyes, so he went back inside and retrieved his head.
Sadly, when he put his eyes in, he saw that the catwoman was still quite alive. She lashed him with her cat-o-nine-tails until his skin flayed off. "There you go, sweetie. You look so much better without all that icky outside stuff on you. Skeletons are 'in' this year, anyway."
Little did she know he was due to molt anyhow, and that the loss of skin actually increased his powers. Grabbing her by her skinny kitteh throat, he poked his bony fingers through her furry kitteh gut, ripped out her kitteh entrails and tossed the lifeless kitteh body to the waiting Chihuahua, who promptly devoured it.
Which turned out to be a brilliant idea, since the catwoman turned into a cat ghost, and began haunting little Ned. "Hey," little Ned said, "I have an attack ghost cat now. Coooool." The ghost cat flicked her ethereal cat-o-nine-tails in agreement.
