A Christmas terror, Festive story

Christmas terror
By Luke Labern

I turned off the television. ‘Nothing good on, again,’ I thought to myself. I got up, and walked into the kitchen. I opened up the dish washer, and took out a fork. I took a plate out of the other cupboard, full of clean items. I put the plate down on the work surface and the fork on top of that. Then, I opened the refrigerator, and took out a microwaveable Christmas pudding. I peeled of the top, and stuck it on the microwave, and set it to one minute. I licked my lips in anticipation, and rubbed my hands together. I checked my watch and it read quarter past three.
‘Damn,’ I said out loud. ‘I’ve got to meet up with Tom at five,’ I carried on in my head.

- - -

I finished my Christmas pudding, and put it on the table in front of me. I turned the television on, again, and turned to the news.
‘Christmas fever is setting in, with the highest Christmas sales of the decade,’ the news reporter said. A grin etched its way on to my lips. ‘Great,’ I again thought to myself. My mobile phone rang, and I felt it vibrate against my thigh. I pressed the ‘ok’ button, and put the phone to my ear.
‘Hello?’ I spoke into the phone.
‘Hey Ted, its Tom,’
‘What’s up?’
‘Not much. But anyway, I got the details for our little, shall we say, unscheduled visit,’
‘Oh, great,’
‘Okay, walk to my house at five, and we’ll put on our disguises. Then, I’ll ring Ian, and we’ll drive to the alley behind the…destination, got it?’
‘Yep. I’m going to have a bath now, so see ya,’
‘Bye.’ And we both hung up. I stood up, and picked up the plate where the pudding was, and put it in the sink. Then I made my way into the bathroom. I ran the bath, and got undressed.

- - -

Relaxing in the bath, I thought about the pure genius of the plan. Thank god Tom had work experience there. I was going to be filthy rich. And, hopefully, the police would never know. The only thing I didn’t rely on was this Ian guy. The guy Tom hired. But I guessed if Tom hired him, he must be good. I had a quick look at the clock opposite the bath on the wall. It read quarter to five. ‘Jesus!’ I blurted out. ‘How long have I been in here?!’ If I’m late, the whole plan could go down the drain. I scrambled out of the bath, and got dressed again. I ran down the stairs, and picked up my wallet off the table, and ran out of the door.

- - -


I arrived at Tom’s house, by my watch, at five past three. He came out and met me, smoking a joint of cannabis. He took a drag, and coughing said ‘Good stuff, this.’
I smiled.
‘Sorry I’m late,’
‘No problem, I guessed you would, but I rang Ian already, he’ll be here in a minute or two. Let me just go throw this away.’ And he walked back into his hand. I put my hands in to my pockets, as it was cold. I turned around, and had a last look at Tom’s house, when I heard a voice.
‘You’re Ted then?’ I turned to see a man, dressed in black, in a Mitsubishi Evo 8. I nodded.
‘Nice car,’ I said.
‘Where’s Tom?’
‘I’m here,’ Tom said.
‘Got the stuff in the back?’ Tom continued. This time, what must be Ian nodded.

- - -

In the back seats, Tom held a plastic bag in his hand.
‘This is yours, mate.’ He said. I looked inside to see a Father Christmas outfit. I laughed, and began to put it on.

- - -

‘We’re here, Ian said. I looked at Tom, dressed in a Rudolph costume, then me in my Santa outfit, and opened the door on my left. We were in the alley.
‘I’ll turn the car around, and I’ll see you in five,’ Ian said.
‘Right, you know the plan? I go inside the front of the Bank, where they’re closing up, and you climb that ladder in front of us, and make your way in to the vault room via that skylight,’ Tom told me.
‘Got it,’ I said. Tom sprint off down the alley, and started climbing the ladder. It took me about thirty seconds to get the top, where I found the skylight, above the vault. I smashed the window with the butt of the gun Tom had given me before I started my ascent. I jumped down, and a guard, that knew the code to open the vault, was staring at me.
I reacted first, and got him in the standard headlock.
‘Tell me the god damn code, or I’ll break your neck.’ He didn’t move, so I squeezed his head violently. He screamed with pain, and I hit him in the back of the head, again with the butt of the gun. He fell to the ground, his head pouring with blood. He told me the code.

- - -

I left the vault door, with my big red sack full of jewels. I made my way down the stairs, and saw Tom, holding up the staff. He saw me and I threw him some jewels.
‘Merry Christmas!’ I said.
‘Merry Christmas!’ Tom said back. I stood next to him, and was about to tell him to join me in escaping, when I heard a shot. I looked at Tom, and saw he’d shot someone dead.
‘What the hell, Tom?’ He laughed.
‘I’m still high, but that was the buzz of the day,’
‘You’re sick,’ I said to him. When I heard another shot. This time it was Tom’s scream. He held his stomach, and fell to the ground. I looked at the door, and saw Ian, with three policemen behind him, in the doorway. I rolled to the side of the ground, and started shooting at them. I hit one of the officer’s in the leg, and they all turned at shot at me. Two of them hit me, and I dropped my gun. They’d shot me in the head, and in the leg. I was still alive, and I realised that Ian was an undercover cop. I fell forward, and my head lay on the floor, my mouth bleeding. Ian came up to me and handcuffed me. I was going to die.
‘Merry Christmas,’ Ian said. That was the last thing I heard,’ Merry Christmas.’

Okay, I read it. It was a quick, easy read. In fact, very easy. The first section, mainly, was waaay too simple. Basically in language.

I did this, I did that. Then I did this. It did that. I did something else.

Way, way boring.

Also, you seemed to use an abundance of unnecessary commas. Here's an example. In fact, it's an example of both issues.

Rather, I would do something more along these lines.

See the difference?

There were also some other errors, mainly grammatical. There were a few instances where you spelled God as "god". Keep in mind that God is always capitalized, whether you are religious or not. Same with "Allah" and others. Basicaly, when you use it in that sort of sense, its a name. "Thank God." If you were using it as a god, however, you wouldn't have to capitalize it.

Alo, one thing really ticked me off. The gun.

You can't just throw in when he needed the gun that he had gotten it. Imagine an epic novel, where in the end the hero is fighting the evil beast. He draws a sword that was never before mentioned in the novel, and it mentions that a wizard gave it to him before. Would that make any sense?
No. We would want the wizard to have given him the sword, rather than letting the hero pull it out of his ass when he needed it. Your thing with the gun is like that, just on a far smaller scale. Still, it annoyed the hell out of me.

Then, your guy beats the crap out of a guard, who still manages to tell the code, even though he should be conscious? Maybe you should at least descirbe it more or something. The way the guard spoke and acted when he told you the code. It just seemed odd to me.

Hope that helps!