Santa, The Hitman?

Content Note:

This story contains references to physical violence and implied gore. These elements are presented in a darkly comedic and absurd context, focusing on the moral and emotional implications rather than explicit descriptions. Reader discretion is advised.

The hospice smells like antiseptic and failed dreams. A Christmas-themed air freshener dangles from the IV stand, swaying in time with my father’s mechanical wheezing. It smells like cinnamon. And regret. The fluorescent lights hum, drowning out the morphine’s slow drip.

Hi, I’m the man who never amounted to anything. The trophy-less disappointment. If life is a race, I’m the guy who tripped in the first ten feet and never got back up. Thirty-five years old, still renting, and my most significant contribution to society is a viral video of me accidentally setting fire to a microwave burrito. That’s me. Proud owner of a pile of unwashed dishes and a credit score so low it could run for public office.

I sit slouched in the corner, watching my dad suck on life like it’s a particularly stubborn milkshake. He’s enormous—round face, round belly, round everything. A human snowman melted into a hospice bed. The kind of guy who built his whole life on being likable. For thirty years, he played Santa Claus at the mall. Not just any Santa, mind you. He was the Santa. The one people drove four counties over to see. His face still pops up on Christmas cards across the Midwest. A local legend. A walking, jolly Norman Rockwell painting.

And me? I’m the guy who gave him a $10 Amazon gift card for Christmas. You’d think that’s why he’s dying, the look he gave me when he opened it.

He beckons me closer, his hand shaking like a rusty wind-up toy. “Come here, kiddo.”

“Yeah, sure,” I say, dragging the chair closer. It screeches against the linoleum, like it’s legs are fighting with the floor. “What is it this time? Another story about how you single-handedly saved Christmas at the mall in ’93?”

His laugh comes out like a wheeze caught in a blender. Then he stops, face turning deadly serious, eyes boring into mine. “I’ve got a confession, kiddo. Something big.”

I lean back. Here we go again. "Oh great. Did you save Christmas again?”

He laughs, shakes his head. His smile, faint but still there, cracks like old plaster. “No. Listen to me kiddo. I killed people. I was a hitman.”

The words hit me like a sucker punch to the ribs. His eyes twinkle with something far from Christmas cheer.

For a second, I couldn’t breathe. Not because I believed him, but because some part of me wanted to. Like even in death, Dad had to be bigger than life. Then the ridiculousness hit me, and I laughed. Hard. Too hard. ‘Jesus, Dad. Did the morphine knock your last screw loose?’”

“You don’t think a guy with fake snow in his eyebrows could carry out a clean kill, do you?” Dad’s grin spreads like butter on burnt toast, his cheeks wobbling like he’s auditioning for Jell-O’s next ad campaign.

I stare. Words feel stuck somewhere between my brain and my tongue, like traffic on the I-5 during rush hour. I’ve got a list of things I never expected to hear from my father. “I love you.” “I’m proud of you.” “There’s a secret trust fund hidden in the walls.” But this? This takes the cake. And then assassinates the baker.

“You’re messing with me,” I finally manage. “Is this one of those morphine fever dreams? Should I call the nurse? Blink once for yes.”

Dad coughs out a laugh, deep and phlegmy, shaking his head. “No joke. I was good at it too. Seasonal work was the perfect cover. Everyone sees Santa as a big, harmless teddy bear. No one suspects Santa Claus of carrying a nine-millimeter Glock.”

I blink. Hard. He’s lost it. The man’s gone off the deep end, dragged the Christmas tree, the reindeer, and the inflatable snowman with him.

“I had a code,” he says, his voice dropping to a low rasp like he’s auditioning for The Godfather. “Never moms. Never kids. And no one who liked Christmas.”

I rub my temples. “So you’re telling me all those ‘business trips’ to Reno weren’t about fixing mall contracts?”

“Nope.” He pops the ‘p’ like he’s proud. “They were about fixing people. Your old man was a regular Mr. Clean.”

“And you expect me to believe this?”

He leans forward, a Herculean effort given his state. “Remember the upstairs neighbor at our old place? The guy who played techno at 2 a.m.?”

I nod slowly, stomach sinking. “You said he moved.”

“I moved him.” His grin widens. “To a landfill. Permanently.”

“You’re not serious,” I whisper, but my voice cracks. Oh God, he’s serious.

“Go to my apartment and look for a box labeled ‘Santa’s Naughty List,’ top shelf of my closet. See for yourself.”

I’m halfway to the door when the heart monitor gives up, the line going flat like it’s tired of pretending he had time left.

******

Dad’s apartment is a shrine to Christmas. Not the classy, Pottery Barn kind of Christmas—this is the Walmart-on-clearance kind. Everywhere you look, there’s a red and green assault on the senses. Tinsel dangles like garish cobwebs. A nutcracker army lines the windowsill, their paint chipped like they’ve been through a war. Fake snow dusts every surface, not sprinkled but dumped, like he’d been trying to recreate a blizzard indoors. I kick a pile of it near the couch. It puffs up, glittering.

The closet, though—that’s where things get creepy. Rows of Santa suits hang in perfect order, sorted by decade. The 80s suits are polyester atrocities, faded red like tomato soup left in the sun. The newer ones are lush, rich velvets. There’s even a Santa pimp cane leaning in the corner, because of course there is.

And the smell? That weird, mothball-meets-candy-cane funk. It clings to your clothes. Gets in your hair. I’d need three showers and a priest to feel clean again.

That’s when I see it: a box on the top shelf, labeled in sharpie, “Santa’s Naughty List.” My stomach drops. No way this is real. No way.

The box creaks as I pull it down, years of dust exploding in my face.Inside, the first thing I see is a pair of cracked glasses. Thick, Coke-bottle lenses, scratched to hell. Still smeared with something. A fingerprint, maybe. Or worse. Intrigued, I pick them up gingerly, like they might bite.

It had a Christmas gift tag hanging from it reading — The neighbor who played ABBA on repeat.

Next, there’s a gold wedding ring, heavy, engraved with Forever Denise. This one has tag dangling from it that reads — Hired by Denise to take care of her abusive cheating husband. She gave me fresh baked cookies still warm from the oven, too. 

The box bulged with trophies, Christmas tags swinging off them like tiny, glittery alibis.

At the bottom, a mall Santa hat, its white fur trim stiff and crusted with something dark brown. Blood? Hot chocolate? Both?

My hand hovers over it like touching it might connect me to him, but I jerk back. My heart pounds in my ears. This is insane. This is nuts. This is… impressive?

Turns out Dad wasn’t just a professional at making kids smile. He was a professional at making people disappear.

******

The thing about secrets is they’re sticky. Once you hear one, it clings to you like gum on a shoe, no matter how much you scrape. Dad’s confession isn’t just sticking—it’s metastasizing. The more I think about it, the more I see his life wasn’t two separate halves. Santa and hitman. Jolly old saint and silent assassin. It’s all the same guy.

And now, I’m the one holding the bag.

He’s dead. The town’s favorite mall Santa, gone to that big workshop in the sky. Kids will cry when they hear. Some mom will bring them to the mall next week, hoping to see his stupid twinkly eyes and hear his gravelly laugh. Instead, they’ll get some substitute in a cheap suit, the kind who smells like whiskey and regret. That’ll be Dad’s legacy—a hole in the lives of every snot-nosed kid who sat on his lap.

Unless I tell the truth.

If I do, it won’t be crying kids. No. The whole town will lose its collective mind. Imagine this headline:

BREAKING NEWS: KILLER KRINGLE CAUGHT DEAD.

The local paper will have a field day. They’ll dig up every photo of him grinning in his red suit, surrounded by smiling children, and slap it next to words like “MURDERER” in bold, block letters. The tabloids will pick it up. Every dumb podcaster with a microphone will start calling him the "Silent Santa Slayer."

And me? I’ll be the idiot who ruined Christmas for the whole town.

******

The funeral smelled like peppermint and formaldehyde. Someone decided Dad’s last ride should look like an after-Christmas clearance aisle. Red and white draped the lid, as if trying to sugarcoat the whole thing. And of course, the mall workers showed up in elf hats. Because nothing says “we respect your dead father” like polyester and jingling bells.

The service started with a speech from Jerry, the guy who managed the mall. Jerry had a voice like a dying accordion and the charisma of wet cardboard, but he tried. “He wasn’t just Santa,” Jerry said, his words wobbling. “He was Christmas. He saved Christmas.”

Saved it? Like he pulled Christmas from a burning building? You mean he sat in a chair for eight hours a day while toddlers screamed in his face.

Then came the slideshow. Dad with kids. Dad shaking hands. Dad eating cookies that probably came with handwritten death requests. And now it was my turn.

I stepped up to the podium, clutching my notes. My palms were slick, my mouth dry. Every eyeball in the room locked onto me like I was the halftime show. Here lies Santa, the town legend. And here comes his loser kid, fumbling for words.

I cleared my throat. “Dad was… unforgettable.”

A safe start. Too safe. My hands shook. I glanced down at my notes, then up at the crowd. Their faces blurred. My brain buzzed.

“Because, you know…” My voice cracked. “He was Santa… and a hitman.”

The room froze. A collective gasp sucked all the air out. Then Jerry laughed. The kind of laugh that makes you wonder if someone’s choking. “Santa? A hitman?” More laughter erupted. “Next you’ll tell us Rudolph ran a dogfighting ring!”

I blinked. The crowd thought I was joking. Thank God.

I faked a chuckle, the kind that burns your throat on the way out. “Yeah, I guess he really killed it as Santa, huh?” The groans at my pun covered my slip-up, and I pivoted. Hard. “But seriously, Dad was the most unforgettable Santa this town ever had.”

They clapped. Some people wiped tears. And me? I stared at the casket, wondering what was worse—burying the truth with him or walking around with it lodged in my head forever.

The funeral was barely over when he found me. Grizzled guy in a trench coat, the kind of face that looks like it’s been carved out of driftwood. He shook my hand, his grip hard and dry, and said he knew my dad. ‘Frankie,’ he said, like I should already know who he was. “An old associate of your dad’s.”

Associate? What kind of associate? Did Santa have a union? A reindeer mafia?

“Sorry for your loss,” Frankie said, not sounding sorry at all. “Your dad was a legend. One of the best in the biz.”

“The biz?” I asked, the words tasting like sour milk.

Frankie smirked, like I’d just failed some kind of test. He opened his trench coat—not for a gun or a bomb or a flashing incident, but for a business card. The font was a little too cheerful, a little too Comic Sans for what it said:

Kringle & Associates. Holiday Solutions for Your Problems.

I stared at it like it might bite me. “This is a joke, right?”

Frankie leaned in, breath heavy with something cheap and lethal. “Your dad wasn’t the only one,’ he said, his voice like gravel rolled in honey. He pulled a candy cane from his pocket, twisting it between his fingers. ‘Seasonal work… it’s got its advantages. Keeps things clean.’ He paused, watching me, waiting. Like there was something I was supposed to say. “It’s the perfect cover.” Frankie smiled, teeth yellowed like a dog just pissed in the snow.

He straightened up, sliding his hands into his coat. “Your dad always said you’d make a great Santa. You’ve got the look.”

My dad spent my whole life teaching me things I didn’t realize were lessons. How to lie with a smile. How to disappear in a crowd. How to keep secrets. I always thought he was preparing me for life, but maybe he was just preparing me for this. Frankie’s words hung in the air like cigarette smoke, clinging to my skin.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Frankie tipped an imaginary hat and walked away, disappearing into the kind of fog that makes you doubt he was ever really there.

I looked at the card again, the words staring back like a dare. Kringle & Associates. Dad always said to find a job that suits you. But some jobs? Some jobs find you.

In the distance, I heard bells. Maybe wind chimes. Maybe the Salvation Army guy packing up. Who knows? What I do know is that I hate kids, I love cookies, and I could probably pull off the beard.