The senior staff of Site 19 huddled in the conference room, warming themselves from the chill air of the cold mid-December morning. Coats and hats hung on the wall and over the backs of chairs, ice and snow dripping into puddles on the tile floor, as their owners drank strong black coffee from styrofoam cups and chatted idly. None of them knew why this emergency meeting had been called, nor why on such short notice, so early on a Sunday morning right in the middle of the holidays. The muffled conversation came to a halt as Site Director Ives entered the room, carrying a stack of notes and a reel of slides, and approached the podium in the front. The director's suit was wrinkled, his tie undone, beads of sweat on the balding man's forehead (though the heater had yet to kick in) as he shuffled through his papers before addressing the group.
"Good morning, everyone," Ives said. "Thank you for coming on such short notice. I know it's early and most of you had the day off, but we've got quite a lot to discuss and there's a lot of work to be done. I've just finished up a conference call with the O5 Council, and I'm afraid I've got some bad news."
Ives paused and shuffled through his notes again before continuing. "At 0532, Greenwich time, we received an emergency distress signal from Area 36, near the magnetic north pole. Security personnel reported that unidentified aircraft had been observed entering the zone of exclusion around SCP-404040's main facility and they believed a hostile attack was imminent." Ives paused. "Three minutes later, we lost all contact with Area 36. We attempted to raise SCP-404040 directly and got no response as well.
"We went into high alert at that time. We dispatched Mobile Task Force Alpha-7 from Montreal and they arrived at the scene at approximately 0930." Ives set up the reel of slides on the projector sitting on the front desk, and pulled a screen down from its place along the wall. "Adelstein, could you dim the lights, please?"
Dr. Adelstein flicked the switches by the front door, casting the room into darkness as Ives turned on the slide projector. "When MTF A-7 arrived, this is what they found." Ives pressed a button and a slide popped up on a screen, depicting a single small house, alone on the Arctic tundra - what remained of that house, anyway. The windows had been smashed in, the door kicked open, its interior laid bare to the cold Arctic winds and the perpetual winter twilight. A giant candy cane standing in front of the dwelling had been smashed in two, and whatever color the building had been before, it was covered in a bizarre sort of ooze, dark and red, that dripped from the rooftops and formed crimson icicles, hanging by the dozens over the awning.
"It wasn't much better inside." Ives flipped to the next slide, of the little house's parlor - furniture overturned and broken, cabinets emptied onto the floor haphazardly, everything covered in that strange thick red ichor. "The annex was the same - except for the bodies." The next slide showed a tiny humanoid, no more than four feet tall, dead on the floor. Its skin was horribly burned and fused together like it had been set on fire, its flesh fused to its tiny green outfit, also soaked in red. "We found sixteen SCP-404040-3 dead in the annex. One hundred and eighty-four unaccounted for. No survivors that we've been able to locate. The entire on-site security team was also KIA."
"What about SCP-404040-1?" asked Dr. Johnson.
"As of this time, MTF A-7 has been unable to locate SCP-404040-1 or his remains," Ives said as he flicked through several more slides, every one showing a similar scene of devastation to the Arctic workshop.
"And the rei-"
"All nine instances of SCP-404040-2 are missing as well, I'm afraid." Ives signaled for Adelstein to turn the lights back on as he shut off the projector. "Area 36 is a total loss and almost all of SCP-404040 is either dead or in the hands of a hostile power. As you all know, it's now slightly less than five days until this year's scheduled occurrence of Event 1225-Pinnacle. In light of the damage to the facility, even if we're able to recover the surviving elements of SCP-404040, I'm afraid that…" Ives stopped in mid-sentence as he looked out over the researchers.
"I'm sorry," he continued after collecting himself. "I've seen a lot of shit go down in my day and I never thought I'd have to say something like this, but it looks like we're going to have to cancel Christmas."
The room was aroar with worried exclamations. "Cancel Christmas?" "No presents?" "What'll I tell the kids?"
"Please, everyone, calm down," Ives said as the group fell silent. "We're collating the available evidence as fast as we can, but what we need right now is information management. The O5 Council feels that, given our minimal lead time, Procedure 1843-Scrooge-Haymarket-4 - that's the "Elves' Union Goes on Strike" story, by the way - is the appropriate cover story to disseminate to the media. We should be able to cover this up and keep the civilian world from getting too worried about Santa's absence until we can get a substitute toy delivery up and running."
Dr. Jones raised his hand. "Do we have any suspects yet?"
"All we know for sure is it wasn't the GOC and it wasn't the Reds," Ives said. "We've been in contact with Geneva and Moscow since this whole thing started and they're as much in the dark as we are. It doesn't look like a CI job, either. The signs just aren't there. There aren't any bullet casings, either - whoever took this place down, they did it without firing a single shot."
Dr. Michel spoke up next. "What about that ooze all over the place in the photos? It's not… elf blood, is it?"
"No, thank God," Ives replied. "That's the strangest thing of all, really. The lab boys are still trying to figure it out, but as far as we can tell, it's tomato sauce. Ordinary, run-of-the-mill, five-cents-a-can tomato sauce, with a little extra salt. Anyway, there'll be time for Q&A later. We've got to get started on this."
Ives picked up his briefcase from next to the podium, set it on the table, and opened it to reveal several manila folders packed with pre-prepared documents. "This is what we'll be working from and what I want you to disseminate to the personnel under your authority. Anderson, get this out to the press ASAP - the LA Times, the New York Post, CBS, NBC, ABC, BBC, CBC, everyone."
"Yes, sir," Anderson said.
"Jenkins, get the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters on the line, see if we can arrange some "sympathy strikes" with the elves' union."
"Right away, boss," Jenkins replied.
"Clef, I want you to liaise with the Republican party, have Goldwater or someone give a pro-Santa speech."
There was no response. A confused mutter filled the room as the researchers looked around for the missing administrator.
"Has anyone seen Clef?"

Fitzroy the elf woke up with a start as a bright light shone in his face. His joints ached, his skin still burned from the hot liquid that the men in green costumes had sprayed him down with, and his head was pounding. He opened his aching eyes slowly, trying to adjust to the glare of the bright lights. As he looked around, he found himself in a massive room with high ceilings and distant walls. His feet were shackled to the chair in which he sat, and a second chain bound him around the waist, leaving only his arms free. In front of him sat a long bench, one of five stretching the length of the room, before which sat scores of other elves shackled as he was. In front of each of them, as in front of him, sat a curious collection of accessories - a hot plate, a spoon, a potato peeler, a kitchen knife, and an ice chest.
Fitzroy struggled with his swimming head as he tried to remember how he'd gotten there. It had been just another morning in the week before the big day, just another shift making toys for the boss' big delivery. At least it had been until the lights went out and the men in green busted down the doors. He could see a few of them marching back and forth between the benches even now, their green dresses (or togas, maybe) dragging on the floor behind them, their matching spiked crowns obscuring their faces in shadow, each of them wearing a tank over their shoulders connected to the nozzle that spewed that burning hot red fluid that had scalded his friends to death as they grabbed him and injected him with something before tossing him in a sack.
Fitzroy didn't have much time to contemplate the circumstances of his captivity, or what fate had befallen the boss, before a loud and evil voice rang out over a loudspeaker hidden in the rafters, echoing throughout the cavernous building. "Good afternoon, my happy little elves," the voice declared. "I'm afraid there's been a little change in the work schedule this holiday. For the next couple days, you'll be working quadruple shifts. Meal and smoke breaks are canceled, and you won't be making toys anymore. You'll be making something… different." The speaker snickered to himself. "We've got a big quota to make in time for the big day, and I'm counting on your magic little fingers to make it happen. And once this is finished, you can all go back to your happy little elf families, safe and sound."
"Oh, and by the way," the voice added, "I have your boss and his… delightful little animal friends in captivity as well. If you resist, or fight back, or don't work your hardest - well, I can't guarantee that I won't be eating reindeer sausage this Christmas!" The speaker laughed, his wicked, cacophonous howl echoing over the booming loudspeaker. "Now then, no time to waste! Get started! You'll find the recipe guide in the cooler. Start by warming your hot-plate up to medium high, then go ahead and add a few tablespoons of butter…"

"Extra! Extra!" shouted the news agent to the dozens of somber businessmen passing his stand on 5th Avenue. "Special edition! Elves' Union pulls out of negotiations! LBJ demands immediate resolution to Christmas catastrophe!" A man in a trenchcoat and fedora hat flipped a nickel to the newsman as he grabbed a copy of the New York Times off the stack, unfolding it and reading as he walked;

CHRISTMAS IN PERIL AS STRIKE CONTINUES
Elves threaten to stay off the job until after New Year's
"First canceled Christmas since 1896," says Santa Claus
Is there still a reason for the season?

The man folded the paper up as he crossed 59th street, approaching the throng of people outside FAO Schwarz. With no kindly elf to deliver toys for their kids, the parents of the city had gone mad. The man peered in the window at shelves almost bare, as men in suits practically engaged in tugs of war over stuffed animals and Barbie dolls.
"You must have more bicycles in the back!"
"Do you have any more Jack Proton toys? I'll pay anything! ANYTHING!"
"Whatever she's paying for that doll, I'll pay double!"
A man was standing by the door with a box of teddy bears and auctioning them off to the highest bidder as the man in the coat made his way past. People were waving bundles of cash in the air, a look of desperation in their faces as if they were bidding on the last loaf of bread in Manhattan. The man decided to take his leave before the police showed up and found his way to a phone booth on the corner. Closing the door behind him to keep out the winter chill, he fished through his pockets for change as he dialed seven digits and dropped a dime into the slot. The phone rang five times before his intended contactee picked up.
"Hello?"
"Doc. It's me."
"Who is this?"
"It's… it's nobody. Listen. Cronkite was right. This place is going insane."
"So?"
"We're gonna have to speed up production. We need at least 10,000 more units, and we need to be able to get them on the shelves by Christmas Eve!"
"Are you crazy? I can't work that fast."
"This is our golden opportunity, doc! Every toy store on the island is sold out. All these people out here gotta get something under the Christmas tree now that Santa's out of business. That something could be your toys."
"What if something goes wrong? You know this technology isn't perfect yet."
"Relax, doc! This is a once-in-a-lifetime shot! If we play this right, every boy and girl in Manhattan is going to be playing with one of your toys. And once the word gets out… this could be the year the whole world learns the name 'Wondertainment!'"

Dr. Jacob Andrews, flashlight in hand, made his way through the dark, cramped basement of Site 19. Most people barely even knew the basement existed, let alone had a reason to go down there and root around the old stacks of Spiritualist quack artifacts, and mothballed electronics from World War II, and reams and reams of handwritten SCP files from the days when things like radium and daguerreotypes were considered anomalous. Andrews had his reason. Nobody had seen Dr. Clef since the meeting yesterday morning. Everyone assumed he'd gone home, or walked out, or holed up in one of the labs, or something. Andrews knew better. Passing the shelves of preserved Egyptian mummies and turning left at the Olmec head, Andrews reached the brick wall and counted off one, two, three, four, five, six bricks before he grabbed onto the masonry and pulled.
The wall opened up instantly, and the smell of salt water and kelp hung heavy in the air as Andrews descended the stairs into the hidden grotto beneath Site 19. Andrews admired the seashell motif along the walls, turning off his flashlight as he approached the well-lit area at the bottom of the stairs. A new smell struck Andrews as he entered the main room of the massive cave - the undeniably distinctive scent of simmering cream, and the frizzle of potatoes gently sauteeing in bacon grease, and the undeniably savory aroma of Mercenaria mercenaria sitenineteenia, the unique species of quahog found only in the waters of this grotto. The meandering tunnels and low ceilings of the Chowdercave could be next to impossible for a stranger to navigate - but Dr. Andrews was no stranger, and in thirty seconds flat he found himself in the "kitchen" of this subterranean base, where Dr. Alto Clef, dressed in his black chef's coat, stood over the stove, stirring a pot and flipping potatoes in his skillet, a dozen spice jars open on the shelf beside him.
"I thought I'd find you down here, Alto," Andrews said to the inward-focused chef.
Clef lowered a spoon into the creamy broth simmering on the stovetop and brought it to his lips. "Needs white pepper," he muttered to himself.
"We've been worried about you, Alto. Have you been down here all night?"
"I've got to get this batch just right, Jacob," Clef replied. "We both know I'm the only person in the entire Foundation qualified to deal with the man behind this Santa-napping."
"You don't know it was him, "Andrews said. "Just because the North Pole was covered with tomato sauce doesn't mean it was the Ma-"
"Nobody even eats that shit anymore!" Clef responded angrily, turning away from the stove as he pulled the potatoes off the flame. "Who else could it be?"
"He hasn't been seen since that cookoff in Rhode Island five years ago. The one that almost got you killed."
"Don't remind me. If I'd been half a second sooner with the parsley, I'd have -"
"Stop, Alto," Andrews said. "You haven't put on that coat in five years now. You're not getting any younger, and… well, we all count on you to keep this place together."
"Santa counts on us too," Clef said. "Those GOC bastards would have turned the North Pole into glass years ago if it weren't for us keeping an eye out for the old man. And we've let him down. And if there's anything - anything I can do to help him, even if it means going back on my promise to never wear that hat again… then I'll do it."
Andrews sighed. "I can see you've got your heart set on this, then." The doctor turned around and began to make his way back to the stairs.
"Wait!" Clef shouted. "I… I could use your help."
"Just like old times, huh?"
Clef smiled. "Make sure the Chowdercopter is fueled up and ready to go. Oh… and see if you can grab some white pepper from the Site pantry."

General Thomas Dawes made his way down a hallway deep within the secret recesses of the North American Aerospace Defense Command. On his left, he was followed by Researcher James, special liaison from the Foundation. On the right followed another military man, his uniform green to Dawes' blue; Colonel Arthur T. Bakker, special liaison from the Global Occult Coalition.
"General," Researcher James said, "I'd like to state again my formal opposition to the GOC having an official presence here. Their position on SCP-404040 is well-established and it simply isn't conducive to our purposes here."
"The Global Occult Coalition stands by its belief that the rogue entity designated KTE-404040-1 is a clear and present danger to international security, General," Colonel Bakker stated with a smirk. "But be that as it may, it is the full intention of High Command to adhere to the terms of the March 1953 Memorandum of Understanding with the Foundation regarding that entity."
"I don't know if my kids would agree that Santa Claus is a 'rogue entity', Colonel," General Dawes said as the trio approached a locked door at the end of the hallway and the general rang its doorbell. "But let's see if we can find him first before we figure out what to do with him."
A guard on the other side of the door opened it. "Area - attention!" the airman shouted, signaling the dozens of airmen in the dimly lit room to stand at attention before the general ordered them back to their posts.
James looked back and forth, taking in the surroundings as best he could. Beneath the dim red lights, men sat in rows at radar terminals, each of them scrutinizing half a dozen or more of the tiny green monitors. Half a dozen officers sat at a bank of phones, most of them in the middle of discussions with Washington, or Moscow, or Beijing, or who knows where else. "This is where the magic happens, gentlemen," General Dawes said as he swept his arm out over the room. "Most people think all we do here at NORAD is watch for a Soviet airstrike. That's part of it, sure, but we've got hundreds of top secret radar arrays all over the world that feed directly into this room. We could probably break DoD's budget just sitting in here, around the clock, tracking every last bird in the sky all around the world." The general laughed to himself. "But that's not what this equipment is for. This is magic radar, you see."
"Magic radar?" Colonel Bakker asked skeptically. "The High Command was not aware NORAD was in possession of magical equipment."
"Oh, it's not the radar itself that's magic, Colonel," General Dawes replied. "These radar arrays are specifically designed to track flying objects powered by magic. That's what we use this system for, on this day every year. To track Santa's sleigh." The general turned to one of the men manning the phones. "Any news from the Kremlin, Captain?"
"Nyet, sir," the officer replied, stifling a chuckle at his own joke. "No sign of the big man."
"If you don't mind my asking," Researcher James chimed in, "how is any of this going to help us figure out who kidnapped Santa, or where they've taken him?"
"As soon as we got the call from the White House that Santa was missing," General Dawes answered, "we started poring over the logs from these arrays. Sure enough, we had some readouts. Whoever got ahold of Santa and his reindeer got on that sleigh and flew it into the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin. By the time the Green Berets got there, though, they were long gone. They must have loaded the sleigh and the reindeer onto a truck or something and moved them by land from there.
"Anyway, it's the morning of Christmas Eve now, of course. But Christmas Day officially started in the western Pacific about seven hours ago. Everyone knows Santa does his work at the stroke of midnight, and we've got seventeen midnights to go."
"So what?" James asked.
"Well, whoever's got Santa, they haven't made any ransom demands. Our guess is, they want him to do something for them this Christmas. Why take the reindeer and the elves as well? They want the elves to make something and they want Santa to deliver it - and he'll have to do that at midnight. As soon as he makes his move, we'll know where he is."
"Deliver what?" Colonel Bakker asked. "Guns? Bombs? Germ warfare? This is sounding more and more like a Pizzicato situation, General."
"That's just wild guessing," James responded. "We can't just jump to conclusions here."
"I will not be second-guessed by a cut-rate mad scientist, 'Researcher'," Colonel Bakker snapped.
"Mad scientist? That's a laugh coming from a John Wayne wannabe like you. After the mess you idiots made of SCP-1609, I wouldn't trust you to neutralize a stray dog."
"I've read your dossier, James. You're not even qualified to be in this room. Why don't you go back to Site 82 and talk to your… what was it, 'toilet ghost?'"
"That's 'butt ghost' to you, you as-"
"Gentlemen!" General Dawes shouted. "You can't fight in here! This is the war room!"
James and Bakker stared silently at Dawes, a mixture of confusion and disdain in their eyes.
"My wife loves that movie," Dawes said.
"General!" shouted one of the airmen at the terminals. "We've got something!" The three rushed over and crowded around the airman's chair, where a single blip was moving towards the top right of one of the screens.
"What are we looking at here, Airman?" Colonel Bakker asked.
"It's over the Midwest right now, sir," the airman replied, "supersonic speed, definitely magical. Heading sixty degrees north by northeast - huh."
"What is it?" asked James.
"If it keeps that heading, it'll be in New York City by sunset."
"New York City," Dawes said to himself. "What could Santa want in New York City?"
"Chowder," James mumbled under his breath.
"Excuse me?" Bakker said.
"I said… umm… Chaplin! Yes. Project Chaplin. False alarm, general. That's one of our birds."
Bakker stared James down, a skeptical glare in his eyes. "Our intelligence did not indicate that the Foundation was in possession of magical aircraft."
"It's a new project. Top secret. We've been developing a plane capable of keeping up with SCP-1115. Looks like just a test run. See how it flutters back and forth a little from its heading? That's how it… how it works. Can't share all the details in mixed company. You understand, Colonel."
"SCP-1115? Those flying robots?" General Dawes chuckled. "Good luck keeping up with them. They had me try to shoot one down in a P-38 back during the war. I was lucky I made it out alive."
"Well, false alarm though this may be," Bakker said, "I really should let High Command know what the current situation is. Is there a private phone nearby?"
"Two rooms down," Dawes said. "Airman Rodriguez will show you to the open line."

"High Command switchboard, how may I direct your call?"
"Put me through to General Abrams at once. Gold priority, security code Delta Omicron Six Six Niner Epsilon Tau."
"One moment, Colonel."
"This is General Abrams speaking."
"Santa's in New York. The Foundation already has a bird in the air en route."
"Coordinates?"
"Unknown at this time. They've got magic radar. Get our primary radar online and watch their bird. It… flutters. Once they do the groundwork, they'll no doubt set Santa loose on his sleigh."
"And then we neutralize KTE-404040, I assume?"
"My thoughts exactly, General."

Santa Claus struggled against his bonds, sweat rolling down his brow, as he hanged upside down by his feet above a giant vat of boiling clam juice. A rope tied around his ankles was the only thing keeping the not-so-jolly old man from falling to his doom in the steaming pot. In front of his field of vision stood his kidnapper - a grizzled old man dressed in a red chef's coat, a toque as red as blood on his head, a tomato embroidered over his heart. The man pinched and twirled his mustache as he paced back and forth in front of Santa. Reaching out to the control panel before him, he pulled the main lever a tiny bit - and the rope loosened, sending St. Nicholas hurtling a few inches closer to the pot.
"It's not much I'm asking of you, Santa," the man said. "Just tell me the magic words I need to use to get those reindeer of yours in the air, and I'll be on my way. And once I've taken care of delivering my special presents to all the good little boys and girls, I'll let you go, and your elves, and your reindeer, and you can go back north and rebuild your little house and your little factory, and you can go on like none of this ever happened."
"Never!" Santa shouted defiantly, his voice echoing through the abandoned warehouse his captor had turned into a sweatshop over the past week. "I won't let you do whatever you're planning to do to all those good little children!"
"I was kind of hoping you'd say that," the man said as he pressed the intercom button on his console. "Libertines! Do you copy?"
"Yes, sir," a voice crackled over the radio.
"Take one of the reindeer down to the basement. I don't care… the freak one with the atomic nose. We're eating good tonight!"
"No!" Santa shouted. "Please don't hurt Rudolph!"
"You know what you have to do to make this stop, Santa," the red man said. "Tell me the magic words."
A tear fell from Santa's eye, rolling down his bald head and dripping into the clam juice where it boiled away instantly. "Alright. Come here and I'll tell you everything." The man leaned over the edge of the pot as Santa, between his tears, told the man all the words he'd need to know - how to get the reindeer flying, how to break the sound barrier, how to stop time long enough to visit every house in the world before the sun came up.
"I knew you'd see reason eventually," the kidnapper said. "I'll go ahead and call off that order of reindeerburgers now."
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH! IT BURNS!" The kidnapper recoiled in surprise from the horrific scream he heard the instant he pressed the intercom button.
"What is the meaning of this, Santa? I swear, I'll butcher every one of those reindeer myself if… AAH!"
The kidnapper's words were cut off as a flying porcelain bowl smashed into the side of his head, shards flying every which way as piping hot cream splashed all over his immaculate coat. He turned towards the door where his guards were standing and saw them on the floor, coated in the same boiling broth that had now soiled his costume. Standing between them was his counterpart - black coat, black hat, a massive tank strapped to his back, bowls hanging by the dozen from his utility belt, a long tube connecting the tank to the massive cannon in his hands, and a righteous sneer on his face as he eyed the man who had kidnapped Santa Claus.
"Chowderclef!"
"The Manhattanite," Clef responded as he stared down the vermilion varlet before him. "I knew it was you the second I saw the pictures of Santa's workshop coated in Manhattan-style chowder."
"Impossible! There's no way you could have tracked me here!"
"Quite possible indeed, you burgundy burglar of Christmas cheer," Clef replied as he approached his arch-nemesis. "The breed of clam you used was specific to the East River. Once I figured that out, it was a mere matter of checking through the real estate records to find any disused waterfront warehouses that had changed hands lately. Now stand down - I'm taking you in and I'm letting Santa go."
"Don't you take another step!" The Manhattanite dodged a blast from Clef's Chowdercannon as he leapt towards the console, wrapping his hand around the control lever. "One more step and Kris Kringle here is Santa stew!"
"You monster!" Clef shouted. "What is it you want from St. Nick, anyway?"
"Nobody eats Manhattan-style chowder anymore," the Manhattanite mumbled to himself.
"Excuse me?" Clef asked.
"Chowder! It's everywhere these days! From Suffolk, to Seattle, to San Diego! From Lafayette to Las Vegas! From Miami to Manitoba! From DC to Dallas! From Tampa to Timbuktu! You can't so much as walk through the door of a seafood restaurant without having a bowl of it shoved in your face! But you know what, Chowderclef?"
"What?"
"Everywhere you go, everywhere in the whole wide world, it's New England style. Nobody has time any more for the simple joys of clams and tomato sauce. It's all heavy cream, and bacon, and potatoes, and a splash of sherry… it makes my blood boil, Chowderclef! Not that you can even boil that stuff - oh no, it scalds the milk, we must be delicate with it!
"It's time the world got to know what real clam chowder is all about, my friend. That's why I've had the elves so hard at work this last week. They finished up an hour ago. You know, it's amazing how well the magic on that sleigh works - I didn't think we'd be able to load 3,268,896,174 gallons of piping hot chowder onto the back, but believe it or not, it fits!"
"3,268,896,174 gallons?" Clef said to himself as he came to a horrific revelation. "Why, that's exactly…"
"Exactly!" the Manhattanite shouted. "Exactly one gallon for everyone! When the sun comes up on Christmas morning, all the little boys and girls aren't going to find hopalong boots and talking dollies underneath their Christmas tree. No, they're going to find the greatest gift of all - piping hot chowder."
"You're insane, Manhattanite!", Clef yelled. "You can't take away everyone's presents and give them your disgusting tomato soup! They'll detest it! We'll have a revolution on our hands!"
"A revolution indeed!" the Manhattanite shouted! "A chowder revolution! We shall cast down our New England oppressors once and for all! And it starts - now!" The Manhattanite jerked the control lever all the way down, snapping it off in his hand as Santa began to lower slowly towards the vat of clam juice.
"Your choice, Chowderchump - save Santa, or chase me!" The Manhattanite dodged three blasts from the Chowdercannon as he leapt through a door at the edge of the room. Clef started to give chase, but stopped himself - in less than thirty seconds, Santa would be in the soup. As fast as he could, Clef switched the control knob on the Chowdercannon to Setting #2 and poured a bowl of the creamy, savory end-product into a bowl, gulping it as fast as he could. Strength welled within him, Omega-3 acids coursing through his veins as his muscles seemed to double in size. Santa even fancied that he saw a stylized image of a clamshell appear on his bicep as Clef rolled up his sleeves, set his hands on the side of the boiling pot, and, impervious to the pain from the hot steel, upended it and turned it on its side, spilling its deadly contents down the stairs and over the half-dozen guards in their Statue of Liberty dresses who had been on their way up the stairs to confront the Dark Chef.
A kitchen knife tossed from his utility belt severed the rope, and Santa fell into Clef's waiting arms before being set back on his feet. "Why, if it isn't little Alto!" Santa said, his typical joviality returning to his voice. "I guess that Easy-Bake Oven I gave you when you were little paid off, didn't it?"
"Are you OK, Santa?"
"Nothing a long winter's nap won't fix! Believe me, I'm putting you on my 'Nice' list for next year!"
"There's still this year to worry about, Santa. Where's the sl-"
Clef stopped mid-sentence as he heard the jingling of bells outside the window, and turned just in time to see Santa's sleigh ascending into the night sky, a bubbling pot of chowder sitting in the place of Santa's bag of toys. "Ho ho ho! Merry Chowdermas!" The Manhattanite's voice echoed through the empty streets.
"Dammit!" Clef shouted. "We're too late!"
"No need for coarse language, little Alto! It's not quite midnight yet," Santa said. "He won't be able to use all of my magic until it's Christmas day. You can still catch him!"
"No offense, St. Nick, but I know what your reindeer are capable of. My Chowdercopter might have magical clam-power, but even it can't keep up. There's no way I can catch him in time!"
"Oh no?" Santa winked and stuck his fingers into his mouth as he whistled. In a moment, an eerie red glow began to emanate from the staircase to the ground floor - and a single reindeer trotted up the stairs, past the Libertines rolling in agony as the chowder burned away their flesh, his bright red nose illuminating the room like a Christmas tree.
"You called, Santa?" the reindeer asked.

Santa and the elves stood on the roof of the factory in the darkness, looking out into the overcast sky for any sign. Santa checked his pocketwatch - a quarter after one. He sighed.
"Do you think Chowderclef's alright?" Fitzroy asked Santa.
"I think… I think it's going to be a late delivery this year, boys."
"Wait!" one of the elves shouted. "Look over there!" A faint glow shone through the clouds to the east. It might have just been a warning light from one of the beacons on the river - but as they watched, and watched, and watched, it started to grow brighter, and brighter, and brighter still - until Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer himself emerged from the fog - and behind him came Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen, and behind them the sleigh - and riding on that sleigh, alone, smiling, and covered head to toe in tomato sauce, was Chowderclef. A cheer rose up from the elves as the sleigh alighted on the rooftop and Clef stepped off.
"Alto!" Santa shouted. "I knew you'd do it!"
"It wasn't easy," Clef said. "The GOC tried to shoot us both down. I guess they figured nobody would know it was them if Santa and his reindeer just happened to get blown up by air-to-air missiles this year. I'm going to have to have words with them after we're done here. Now this guy here-" Clef patted his red-nosed mount on the head - "now he's a real trouper."
"Thanks, Clef!" Rudolph said. "All I did was do a barrel roll like you said."
"Don't be so modest, Rudolph! It was you who came up close enough for me to make the jump onto the sleigh."
"But how did you stop the Manhattanite?" Santa asked.
"Well, Santa, in the middle of all our fighting, I asked him a question."
"What was that?"
"He's spent his entire life fighting to wipe out New England-style chowder. I asked him if he'd ever actually tasted any."
"You mean he hadn't?"
"I had a special batch just for him. Call it a Christmas present." Clef pointed to the control knob on his Chowdercannon, which had been turned to the third and final setting. "I spent days trying to get that batch just right - and to make sure it was perfect, I ran it through SCP-914 on Very Fine. He was in tears after a single spoonful. He poured the pot out over the Atlantic Ocean and parachuted out."
"Wonderful, Alto! You see - Christmas can soothe the heart of even the most wicked man!"
"Oh, I doubt we've seen the last of him, Santa. This isn't the first time we've dueled over the question of soup supremacy - and it sure won't be the last."
"Well, the important thing is, I have my sleigh and my reindeer back! Thanks for all the help, Alto - I've got a Christmas to save!"
"It's already a quarter past one, Santa," Clef said as he looked downward. "It might be too late."
"Oh, Alto. The magic works for any midnight! I've still got six more chances!"
"But what about the toys?"
"The Manhattanite never got anywhere near the toys, Alto! I keep them somewhere very safe," Santa said with a wink. "It's just a matter of picking them up and - say, Alto?"
"Yes, Santa?"
"There is one more thing we can do to make up for lost time. I hope you don't mind lending a hand a little while longer - and letting me borrow that cannon of yours…"

Dr. Andrews sipped the coffee in his styrofoam cup as he drove home along the darkened roads. His watch said it was 5:32 AM. Christmas morning. He hadn't had a wink of sleep in the past three days. Nobody at Site 19 had, with all the work convincing people that things would be just fine as soon as the elves settled their labor dispute with Santa. He'd spent all night on the phone with Researcher James at Cheyenne Mountain - tracking the bizarre radar sightings all around the eastern seaboard, and ultimately dealing with the blowback after the GOC had been caught red-handed violating the rules of engagement trying to shoot down Santa's sleigh and the unidentified object chasing it. What had become of them after that was anyone's guess - it was a miracle NORAD was still standing after what the GOC liaison had tried to do to "neutralize" their "magic radar".
Andrews pulled into the driveway of his little house in the suburbs and shut off the motor as he climbed out into the pre-dawn air. Site Director Ives had been kind enough to let him spend the morning at home and explain to his girls why Santa hadn't come. He groaned as he looked at the headlines in the morning paper on his doorstep;

NO SIGN OF SANTA AS CHRISTMAS HANGS IN BALANCE
LBJ makes last-minute call to North Pole as strike continues
Riots in New York, L.A., London outside sold-out toy stores
Buckley and Vidal debate: "Is Santa a Red?"

Andrews dropped the paper in amazement as soon as he saw the tableau in his living room. Beneath the glow of the lit-up Christmas tree lay dozens of presents, all wrapped up in paper and bows. He hadn't bought them. Karen hadn't bought them. Who had? Like an excited little boy, he fell to his knees and examined the tags. "To Jane, from Santa". "To Amy, from Santa". "To Mom and Dad, from Santa".
He had done it! Somehow, his crazy old friend in the black coat had done it! Santa was safe and it would be a merry Christmas after all. Andrews was about to race upstairs and wake everybody up when he noticed something else - a certain aroma wafting in from the next room. He turned the corner into the kitchen and there, sitting on the warmer on the stovetop, was a great big pot bubbling with cream, and potatoes, and clams, and just the right hint of bacon, and a little splash of sherry. A note on the side read "To the Andrews family - from Santa Clef". Four brand new porcelain bowls and shining silver spoons sat on the counter next to the stove, waiting to be used. Cautiously, Andrews dipped a spoon into the pot and took a taste.
"Hmm," he said to himself. "The white pepper really does make a difference."


Doctor Moore took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes again. The last handful of aspirin hadn't taken effect yet, and the glare from the three monitors was piercing her throbbing headache with an acute pain she felt sharply behind her right eye. The sterile white paint of the cell walls somehow looked brighter through the security cameras. A muted cacophony of intermittent beeps, digital tones and industrial machinery laced through the background of the observation chamber. SCP-480 required intensive monitoring and staff attention at all times, but what really made these shifts hard was that there was never anything visible in 480's holding cell. The mixture of fear and intense boredom was stultifying. Dr. Moore shook her head and tried in vain to regain her lost focus.
"Moore. I need the infrared spectrography variance," wheezed Dr. Hirsch.
Dr. Moore started. Where were the numbers? Why couldn't she remember which monitor?
"Uh, just a second, sir."
Dr. Hirsch fumbled in his labcoat for a package of Camels. The ting of a Zippo was somehow audible through the background noise. He took a long drag on his cigarette, and exhaled a stream of smoke that doubled as a sigh. "C'mon Moore. The breach wasn't even three weeks ago. Infrared. What is it?"
Squinting at the middle screen, Dr. Moore carefully moved her finger along screens of various scrolling data. At last. "Five seven three sigma eighteen point three. Don't smoke those in here, they're bad for the equipment and they give me a headache."
Dr. Hirsch consulted his tablet and punched in a few numbers. "We're in quite a lot of trouble if a little smoke can take down a Class Two rad-hardened EMP-shielded workstation, Moore. And you've got headaches because you sleep two hours a night. I told you to take an extra month off."
"There's too much work, sir."
Dr. Hirsch punched more numbers into the tablet. "Yeah, yeah there is. But you're not doing me any favors like this, Ellen. Or yourself. I've tried asking nicely, but I'm ordering you, as your superior, to take some damn time off. Effective immediately."
Dr. Moore stood up quickly from her chair. "But I've just gotten back! SCP-480 is a unique and dangerous-"
"Yes, it is what it is, Doctor," said Dr. Hirsch, "and you're an important part of keeping it here. But as you yourself know, we need everyone at one hundred percent. I need you to go home, Ellen. Take care of your mom. Take care of yourself. And I don't want to see you back here until you've had a full week of eight hours a night."
"But-"
"No. No arguments. We've got Ramirez from Site-23 to help us cover for now. You're an integral part of containment, Doctor, and I need you at your best."
Dr. Moore felt the initial anger drain away. Replacing it was the realization that Dr. Hirsch was correct, followed by a wave of exhaustion that she could no longer hold at bay.
She logged her ID out of the terminal, gathered her personal effects, and headed to the antechamber. As the door closed behind her, Dr. Hirsch called after her.
"Hey. Ellen. Halloween tonight," he said. He mimicked a steering wheel with his hands, the cigarette dangling from his mouth. "Watch out for trick-or-treaters."
Dr. Moore managed a weary smile and a wave goodbye, and headed into the security checkpoint. The doors closed behind her. She hung up her labcoat, and unbuttoned the top button of her blouse. She placed the leads of the wall-mounted ECG monitor on her chest, and waited expectantly by a speaker mounted next to the monitor. The familiar automated voice soon greeted her.
"Initiating memetic containment protocols. Please state the approved passcode."
Dr. Moore cleared her throat and spoke into a small microphone next to the ECG monitor. "At no point during the last shift has SCP-480 made contact with me."
Seconds passed. Dr. Moore had begun to stand up to head out, but the doors remained closed. The automated voice spoke.
"Vital signs incorrect. Please state the approved passcode."
Dr. Moore shrugged. She resolved to call Security in to calibrate the ECG when she returned. She repeated the passcode into the microphone. This time, the automatic security doors opened. She removed the leads, and headed outside the facility, into the fading sunlight of the late afternoon.

She sat in her car, parked in the driveway and watching the window above the garage. It was dark enough now that the light in the window made the room clearly visible from the outside. The light shone the brighter for the lack of a working streetlight, out of commission for two months now, she noted to herself ruefully. To Dr. Moore, rural living meant hour-long commutes and waiting interminably for maintenance to such niceties of civilization as paved roads and electricity. She understood why Site-415 had to be where it was, but cursed her lot in the countryside once more. Her head was swimming. Why had she tried to go back so soon? Alan was right. Tired researchers meant casualties in her line of work. Or worse.
The light in the window suddenly blinked out. Dr. Moore heaved herself out of her car and finally made her way inside her house.
"She spent most of the day sleeping, so no changes there." The nurse put on her coat as Dr. Moore stepped in through the front door. "Dosage on her pain meds is steady. I changed her sheets and cleaned everything out. Not much improvement, but it's not getting any worse."
Dr. Moore nodded as she slumped in a chair in the kitchen. "Thanks Juana. Did…did…" She gestured futilely towards the staircase as she leaned her forehead against her hand, searching for words.
"Your mother?" Juana raised an eyebrow slightly.
"Yeah. Mom. Did she say anything while I was out?"
The nurse shook her head. "Nothing I could make out, anyhow. You know the doctors, though. They say she's lucky to be breathing unassisted after what happened."
"Yeah. Lucky." Dr. Moore took off her own coat. "Definitely. Thanks again, Juana. I think I might be taking some more time off. So why don't we say Tuesday next time."
Dr. Moore lay her head down on the table. She turned to look over to the nurse, and noticed that she was mouthing something. Puzzled, she sat up. Juana finished mouthing whatever it was she was pretending to be saying, then headed for the front door. Had she been speaking? The door closed, and the familiar sound seemed too loud to Dr. Moore. Too many echoes. She shook her head and headed upstairs to her mother's room.
Most of the room was taken up now with IV drips, heart monitors, a hospital bed and assorted medical equipment, displacing the desk and bookshelves of Dr. Moore's former study. A small, wizened form slept in the midst of a nest of tubes and wires. With the exception of a tangled mass of white hair on the pillow and a sallow, wrinkled arm covered in bruises hanging from the side, one may have easily overlooked that a person occupied this space. Dr. Moore stood in the doorway.
"So." She sighed. "Hi mom."
The arm shifted slightly, rustling a small portion of the tubes and wires.
"Right then. I'm going to be across the hall-"
She was interrupted by a gurgling, wheezing sound from the hospital bed. The low, guttural sound was reminiscent of labored breathing, except it seemed much too slow to be regular breathing. Dr. Moore winced. Her mother would make this sound for hours on end sometimes. Usually in the middle of the night. The doctors were unsure whether it was voluntary, just as they were unsure how much higher brain activity was still occurring. There was nothing for it except to wait. Nothing for any of it except to wait. She stepped out of the room, deciding to wait a little while before a futile attempt at sleep.

A knocking at the door woke her up from the kitchen table. She had fallen asleep onto the newspaper. Groggily, Dr. Moore looked at the wall clock - 8:30 pm. Who could be knocking at the door now? She vaguely remembered that it was Halloween, but no children ever came out as far as her house; the nearest neighbor was a quarter-mile away. The knock came again, three light but insistent raps. Dr. Moore looked through the peephole in the door. There was only darkness.
She kept looking through the glass, straining to see something before opening to the door.
Rap. Rap. Rap.
Dr. Moore jumped backwards instantly as something pale and white obscured her vision of the peephole, and the knocking continued. Her heart pounding, she backed her way into the kitchen, feeling behind her for the knife block on the counter as she was moving, never taking her eyes off the door. Something was not right here. Not right at all.
Rap. Rap. Rap.
The knocking continued. Again, it was soft, but clearly someone was knocking on the door. Dr. Moore never had visitors other than her mother and Juana, and no one had ever bothered to come looking for candy on Halloween in the eight years she'd lived there. Surely whoever this was would get the hint.
Rap. Rap. Rap.
This was going on too long. Something was terribly wrong. Dr. Moore drew the largest chef's knife out of the block. She waited for the knocking to continue.
And waited.
Two minutes passed, her pulse pounding in her temples and in her grip on the knife. Then another two minutes. Nothing. Dr. Moore started to move, slowly, back towards the front door.
SLAM!
An impact like a sledgehammer shook the entire house, and the door rattled on its hinges. A picture down the hall fell off the wall and crashed with the sound of breaking glass. Dr. Moore thought she had screamed, but couldn't hear herself over the noise of the impact. From upstairs, her mother's labored breathing started in earnest. She didn't dare to look through the peephole now.
SLAM!
The door was starting to give way now. Plates fell from cupboards and lamps tipped over. Dr. Moore could only see the knife in her hand through her terror-narrowed tunnel vision. Phone. She must reach the phone. They'd never arrive in time. She needed the phone.
SLAM!
The gurgling from upstairs was now a drawn out, hitching rattle, droning without pause. Dr. Moore ran for the phone in the living room.
SLAM!
The door was flung open now. She heard it slam into the hall closet. The droning of her dying mother filled her ears. She reached for the phone frantically. As she touched the receiver, darkness washed over her.

"Zanitz, get in here! Hurry, now! Stabilize! Stabilize, god damn it! I need all personnel on-"

A knocking at the door woke her up from the kitchen table. She had fallen asleep onto her book. She looked at the cover. "Secure and Protected Homes: A Locksmith's Guide," by Dennis Rader. She hadn't remembered starting to read this one.
Groggily, Dr. Moore looked at the wall clock - 9:48 pm. Who could be knocking at the door now? She vaguely remembered that it was Halloween, but no children ever came out as far as her house; the nearest neighbor was a half-mile away. The sound came again. Three slow, heavy knocks. Dr. Moore looked through the peephole in the door. A small, disheveled woman stood on her doorstep. Her face was obscured by a white mass of hair. Dr. Moore squinted; was she wearing a hospital gown?
Hesitantly, she opened the door. An elderly woman stood, her back to Dr. Moore. Despite the cold, she was indeed dressed in no more than a hospital gown.
The doctor paused. It couldn't be. "…hello?"
The old woman stood there, her back still to the doctor. She stood perfectly still.
No possible way. She was upstairs, she couldn't have moved from her bed without help, let alone downstairs and outside. But there was no mistaking the wiry white hair. Dr. Moore put her hand on the old woman's shoulder. The woman instantly crumpled to the ground in a heap. As the old woman hit the ground, Dr. Moore could hear several of her bones snapping, and a hollow, wet ripping sound. The woman's hip had been bent at an impossible angle, and she lay in an inexplicably mangled state. Dr. Moore leapt back in horror, the blood instantly drained from her face.
The familiar, hitching gurgling started to come from upstairs. How was this possible? Who was this at the door?
The broken form at the doorstep started to twitch. Muffled grinding and splintering sounds came from the old stranger's corpse as broken limbs started to move again. The overwhelming smell of freshly butchered meat hit Dr. Moore, though there was no blood visible from the strange old woman. The corpse's head suddenly snapped upwards. Though its face was still obscured, Dr. Moore knew it was staring straight at her.
"Hsssssshh. HUUUUURRRRK. Hsssssssshh."
Her mother's persistent death rattle now greeted her face to face. The corpse slowly rose, pulled upwards by an unseen force, its twisted and broken legs now barely brushing the ground as it came eye level to Dr. Moore.
"HUUUUUUURRRKK."
Dr. Moore spun around at the sound behind her. Her mother's face had been mangled beyond recognition. The only recognizable feature was the mouth.
"HUUUUURRRRKK."
The doctor opened her mouth to scream, but no air could escape the grasp around her throat as an unseen pair of hands choked her from behind. Unconsciousness immediately followed.

"Nonessential personnel are out of the sub-wing. It looks like we've got the source of the breach, doctor."
"Jesus. Check for vitals, but be careful."

A knocking sound woke her up from the kitchen table. She had fallen asleep on top of a large sheaf of papers. Confused, she picked up the first page. The ink was smeared from where her face had come to rest. The first line was hard to read. The second paragraph started with "mind the infrared settings." She remembered saying that earlier today. She looked closer. The entire paragraph was a conversation she had had this morning with Technician Wei. It was written in her own handwriting. She didn't remember writing this down at all.
Dr. Moore looked at the wall clock - 11:58 pm. How had she slept so long?
The knocking started again. Someone was knocking on the glass coffee table in the living room. Her stomach dropped and a chill seized her extremities. The breath stopped in her chest. She slowly approached the living room.
The room was dark, but the children were easy to make out in their crude white sheets. Somehow, three kids in stereotypical ghost costumes had gotten into her house. Some of the fear faded, as she now remembered that it was Halloween, but confusion set in; no children ever came out as far as her house for Halloween; the nearest neighbor was at least two miles away. And why were they in her house?
"If this is your idea of a prank, kids, it isn't funny. I'm going to need parents' phone numbers right-"
The three diminutive, costumed figures traveled quickly to her. She didn't see any legs move, nor did she understand how they moved so fast. Two of the children slammed into Dr. Moore, knocking her off her feet and onto the ground. The third moved next to her head. A withered, gnarled arm reached out of its costume's eyehole and seized her by the jaw. Up close, she saw spotted, red stains starting to show through the immaculate, bright white of the costume sheets.
One of the kids that had knocked her down now lept on top of her midsection. Bony, wrinkled legs now protruded from the bottom of its costume, wrapping around her and pinning her to the floor with a tremendous weight that could not have possibly belonged to the wasted body that these legs must have been supporting. Rivulets of blood started to run down its thighs, soaking into Dr. Moore's shirt.
Her hands still free, Dr. Moore struggled desperately to pry loose the grip on her jaw, but to no avail. The hand was locked onto her, its strength overpowering.
The last costumed figure slowly hovered into her view. It appeared to bend down and look into her eyes, though she couldn't see anything through the blackness of the costume's eyeholes. Another withered arm reached out from under the sheet, holding a pair of pliers. The wrinkled fingers slowly worked the pliers open and closed, moving them slowly towards Dr. Moore's face. As the hand came closer, a wheezing came from whoever was under the sheet.
"Hssssssshhhh. HUUUUUURRRRKKKK."
The costumed child forced the pliers into Dr. Moore's mouth.
"HUUUUUUUURRRKKKKK. Hssssssssshhhhh. HUUUUUUUUURRRRRK."
As several of her incisors were violently twisted from her lower jaw, Dr. Moore tried to scream, but the blood quickly filled her mouth. She couldn't breathe. She felt several more teeth from her upper jaw being wrenched free. There was nothing but pain and the taste of copper. Her mind rebelled, and she lost consciousness.

"So you're saying we have to keep her like this?"
"Dr. Hirsch. Alan. You know the protocols. She did too. She helped write them."
"Do you have any idea what's happening to her right now? In there?"
"The last host bought us eighteen months of unbroken containment for 480. You of all people know what that's worth, Alan."
"You cannot do this! No one-"
"Site Director's orders. Your euthanization request is denied. Dr. Hirsch. And that's the end of it."

A knocking sound woke her up from the kitchen table. She had fallen asleep on top of a manila envelope.
Had she imagined the knocking? She looked at the envelope that had been under her face. "For Ellen," labeled on the front in typeface. She didn't remember taking this home with her.
She opened the envelope. As she shook the contents out onto the table, a pile of photographs came tumbling out, scattering onto the table and the floor.
Groggily, Dr. Moore looked at the wall clock - 1:05 am. She had the vague notion that she had slept through Halloween. She felt a small amount of guilt about not being able to greet anyone at the door, but then remembered that she never had any trick-or-treaters. Still, she pitied any children who may have come out as far as her house, only to be turned away.
She picked up a photograph from the table. Instantly, she recognized her own face. What was she wearing here? Why didn't she remember taking this picture? And why was she making that hideous expression?
Dr. Moore picked up another photograph. It was another picture of herself. She was in a hospital bed, hooked up to what looked like dozens of machines. Men in labcoats were visible on either side of her. Who were these people? Why couldn't she remember taking these pictures?
As she reached for another photograph, the pile of pictures jumped as something knocked three times, in rapid succession, from under the opposite end of the table.


Carmela carefully packed a basket of ofrendas for the trip to the cemetery. A cloth doll for Hernanda, a bottle of tequila for Fernando, a bouquet of cempasúchil… The rest of the family would bring their own gifts, but these were hers. And hopefully her lost family would visit and comfort her from Heaven. Abuela Maricela used to say that she talked with her husbands after drinking Los Recuerdos, but Carmela never had. Of course, she'd never sipped the wine of a husband or daughter before, only that of cousins of cousins or uncles or ancestors dead before she was born.
Picking the berries from their graves only four months ago had been one of the hardest things she'd ever done. The temptation to eat them right then and there had been nearly overwhelming, but she knew that all of them would be needed to make the wine. Don Peñaranda was the only one in their village who knew the exact recipe, but he had assured her that it would be ready in time for Día de los Muertos, even if only barely.
He said he would bring the bottles by later that afternoon, after the flight of the kites. Carmela used to love flying them with her family and friends, and would try to put on the best face she could, but watching the messengers to the dead fly overhead was less joyous now. Abuela Maricela said it would pass, that time and Recuerdos would help ease the pain, but Carmela didn't know. The large, colorful kites had been Hernanda's favorite part of the celebrations.
Carmela's hands stilled as she stared off into the distance, the memories of the brightly colored kites mixing with the faces of her little girl and husband, and the green grass covering their fresh graves… Everything blurred together into one great kaleidoscope of thought and grief and reluctant hope and memory and color and love and family and…

…Fernanda came back to herself and looked in awe at the shot glass in her hands.
"What did you see, niña?" asked her mother, as she recorked the bottle and put it on the altar with the others.
"I was Tía Carmela!" exclaimed the little girl in wonder.
"I know, niña. This was her bottle of Recuerdos. Did you see anything special? They say that los muertos can talk to us through them."
"It was her first Día de los Muertos after her family died. She was so sad! But a little happy, too! Why was she happy, Mama?"
"Oh, that is a special memory, niña," smiled her mother. "Sometimes people are sad because someone they love is gone, but happy because they can see them again, like you just did. That's was los Recuerdos are for."
"Will you make tequila like this, too, Mama?"
"Of course, niña, and you will too someday." Her mother scooped her up and swung her around, then carried her out of the room. "Now let's go down to the cemetery and clean Tía Carmela's grave, and watch the kite contest."


It had taken a long time and a lot of practice, but he was now able to draw pretty well. Or at least he thought so. He could also write well enough that he could ask for just about anything he could think of. The guards were fairly nice most of the time and usually did their best to get him what he wanted, but there were a lot of things that he wasn't allowed to have. Whenever those kind of requests were denied he would also invariably get a short lecture about having to stay healthy and eat right and all the other things that his mother would normally have said. All in all, it was almost like being home again, except that he wasn't very good at video games any more and he couldn't see any of his friends.
They did let him watch TV whenever he wanted, though, which was nice of them. He wasn't really good at keeping track of the date, so it was through watching that he realized that it was that time of the year again. He remembered from last year the time he'd spent under the careful, loving watch of his parents, running around the neighborhood with his best friends, gathering an enormous hoard of candy that their parents were careless in hiding afterwards and how sick they'd gotten afterwards.
It wasn't until several minutes later that he realized what he'd been drawing while his mind wandered, and as he looked down at the jack-o-lanterns and children in costumes that he'd doodled, his heart sank. Screeching angrily at himself for dwelling on things he couldn't have any more, he dropped the crayon and retreated to the back corner of his room. He didn't come out for several hours, even ignoring the guard that was his favorite when he asked what was wrong. If he noticed the sympathetic frown on the guard's face as the man pored over his drawings before eventually disappearing from the room, he didn't care.
As all children eventually do, he stopped sulking and came out of hiding, too hungry and thirsty to stay angry at himself. If he were capable of rubbing his eyes, he would have done so, as he stared open-mouthed at the (to him, at least) enormous pile of treasure that had appeared while he wasn't looking. Every kind of candy he ever loved, even the ones that his parents wouldn't let him have because they were "too bad for him", were sitting there just for him. Maybe, just maybe, this Halloween wouldn't be so bad after all.

A severe reprimand and administrative action have been levied against Agent Johnson due to his involvement and responsibility in Incident 1192-09, as his willful violation of standard procedure in his handling of SCP-1192 could have resulted in grave physical damage to the specimen.
While Agent Johnson's career service vitae speaks much of his experience in the field and normally excellent handling of sapient objects, his poor judgment in this incident put him, his coworkers, and the Special Containment objects under their care in danger and such unprofessional behavior cannot be tolerated at the Foundation. Effectively immediately, Agent Johnson is to be transferred to Observation Post █-██ for a period of no less than twelve (12) months, during which he will have plenty of time to reflect upon his priorities.
Dr. █████████
Senior Observer


If you don't know what this is, don't worry about it.
Part 1: The First

Hi, everybody, my name is Margaret Sawyer-Sheen, and I'm a doctor with the SCP Foundation! This si the story of how I fell in love with my dearest love of all time, Dr. Clef!
—
One fine spring evening Maggie looked deep into Clef's eyes, they were sparkling with violet and amethyst. And with sparkling tears. "But how will we stop 682?" she asked, eyes glistening. "he killed my parents too! please do not tell anyone, I could not bear it if everyone knew. it is my deepest secret."
—
"Don't worry," Clef said, his handsome face clearly visible to his one true love. "we will find a way because we have each other and that is all we need. We can do anything if we work together." Clef took Maggie's hand in his and picked up his shotgun with the other hand, full of determination to not to let her down.
—
"My luminous pear," Clef said, frowning, "I think I have the perfect plan to rid ourselves of that evil, despicable, and handsome lizard. But I'll need your help. We shall allure him with the power of compassion. Not even his thick skin could hope to stand against our love!"
—
Together, Clef and Maggie walked through the scary dark halls of the SCP Foundation, holding hands together, bravely facing the darkness alone. Until finally they came to a big, steel door. The door tht held the monster called SCP-682.
—
Suddenly another door opened and out from the door came scp-999 who said I will help you against 682!"
—
"Welcome, 999," Clef says. "we will have the power of friendship and also love. Our bright hearts will bring tears of happyness" After SCP-999 joiined them bravely, thehy contfroned the door with eyes sparklingly at the same time. The door opened cavernously to reveal the monster that hates all love, SPC-682.
"We hav e come for you this day, 682," Clef challenged, only one small quaver in his brave, musical voice.
—
Maggie clung to Clef's side, the power of her kindness surrounding her with a soft pink glow, a warmth that could banish any evil.
"Be brave," she whispered to Clef. "we can do anything if we try… take the power of my love and use it against 682!"
—
Suddenly, SCP-76-2 rushed in and glared at Clef handsomely. “No! I will not allow you to do this, Clef, even if you are my ex-boyfriend! Maggie is my own true love and soulmate , and I will not share her with the lizard! We must fight!"
—
Fighting is wrong!" Maggie said, as she stepped between Clef and Able. "I know we were in love once, Abel, but that was in the past. Cle fis my true love now and unless you're willing to le tme go, you'll never get past your own violent nature"!
—
Able looked down agt the floor with eyes downcast. "You are right, Maggie," he said with a somewhat calmer voice. "You were the light of my life and Clef was my bright and morning star but evrything must come to an end someday and now I understand that Clef is your one treu love as you are his. I promise I will not be jealous again." Maggie and Clef smiled at Able and Able was their friends.
The lizard watched them all with an angry evil eye. "PROFESSOR-SCIENTIST MARGARET SAWYER-SHEEN". it roared in its voice, stunned momentarily by the researcher's caring and kind beauty. "YOURE PARENTS TRIED TO STOP ME LONG AGO! YOU WILL NOT SUCCEED" He also looked at Clef and growled menasingly.
—
"Your parents never told you who I really am, did they Maggie!? the lizard said with vileness. "They couldn't stop me because I was their own son all along!" He grinned. "No, but that would mean you were my brother all along and how could you kill our parents?!" Maggie yelled, her good heart crying. "They tried to kill me because they loved you most because of your specialness!" The lizard raged, "You are as strong as me but also smarter and pretty and lovely, it's not fair! Now I will kill you!" "No you will not, because I have a power you can't hope to defeat." said Maggie with a smile.
—
Because that was the truth about Maggie: Maggie was the daughter of SCP-343 and SCP-469, but while her twin brother, SCP-682, was given all of the evil and darkness in the world, she was made into a creature of beauty and light, incorruptible and pure. It was the light of her purity and goodness that cleanesd the darkness from Clef and Able's souls, and it was her light that now defeated her twin brother an dbanished him from the world until he could be reborn as a creature of goodnesss.

And that is the story of how me and my true love Clef saved the world from SC-682. Feedback please!
—-
Part 2: The Flashback
Author's note: Okay, so people were complaining that my first story isn't aobut how Clef and I met at all, and they didn't get that it was called a flashback, so now I'm going to tell that sotry now, WILL YOU PEOPLE PLEASE GET OFF MY CASE!?
—-
Margaret Sawyer-Sheen looked in the mirror and sighed. She hated herself. She was so ordinary, not like the popular girls in the school, not like Lydia Erickson, the cheer captain. She didn't like how her mousy brown hair looked, or the fact that she had slightly too big front teeth, or the spattering of freckles over the bridge of he rnoe, or the fact that her boobs were slightly too big. She was bored, she was tried. She was looking for something new.


It's been a long time since we had a season like the '56 season. That was the heyday. It seemed like we couldn't sell enough stuff, and everyone wore the biggest smile. We had the tourists and business folk funneled in from the new highway, and business could not have been better. Bertha always used to talk about all the kids she got to talk to. We had Iowans, Nebraskans, and even some folks from California. I recall a couple of Canadians on the carousel. When we closed in November, the boss said that next season would be even better.
But it wasn't. When we threw our doors open the next season, the crowds did not flow in. We had a crowd, sure, but not standing room only. We put on our best faces though, and we made sure everyone was entertained. I made sure that everyone had a fair time at the games. Even though it wasn't the hubbub we'd had last year, it was a good season. Boss knew we were disappointed, but he tried to keep our spirits up. "Next year," he said, "Will be the best for sure."
It wasn't. We had nothing. Hardly anyone came by. The city council started to harass us about permits and taxes. Bossman said it would be taken care of, but when the constant stream of civil servants outnumbered the families, it was a bad time. At least we still had a few families then. Even if business only came in a trickle, they still visited. We weren't in the hundreds, but the dozens. When we closed up shop, Bossman said things would be better soon. Times were tough, but we were the Funland Family, and we would pull through.
Things changed in the '59 season. The town seemed to have dried up overnight. The Dixie highway looked like nobody had paved it in months. There were all these people with weapons and equipment. I thought we were being shut down. But Bossman said to keep up "business as usual" so we could have that great season we needed. So the team kept up the happy faces. Bertha did her 2:00 shows, and Aron served up his gumbo pretzel sticks. The people would come in and poke stuff, but it never brought business, or the families.
Sometimes they had kids in with them, sometimes with adults, but never real families. I can't even remember the last time I saw a real, smiling family here. It's become so sterile. Seasons have come and gone, but nobody cares and nothing seems to change. We don't see Bossman anymore. He left a letter on the floor and walked out a while ago. The people took the letter.
It's darker now. The shows don't happen anymore. If you go in the arcade all we have is a cracked skee-ball table and an empty skill crane. Everything else is broken or gone. The others have changed. Everyone seems less happy and more bitter. If a kid came in today, they'd snap him. It's not that any one of them wants to do it. Nobody knows what is going to happen. If Bossman had given us a way home, maybe things would be different. We're here till he says otherwise.
Sometimes… Sometimes I still remember the end of '56. I think we can be there again. The traffic is gonna flow again, and the lifeblood of tourism will flood into this creaky old house. It'll be next year. I can feel it.


“…”
“…”
“Well then. This is … awkward.”
“Indeed. I believe you have the wrong room.”
“Nah, I'm pretty sure this is one of mine.”
“No, I'm quite sure it's mine.”
“…”
“…”
“This isn't going to go anywhere, is it?”
“Most likely. We'll just end up staring at each other until someone gets bored and wanders off.”
“Just like that time back in Beijing, then.”
“Among other times.”
“Oh yeah…there was Beijing, and then there was Rio, and New Orleans and… What one came before New Orleans?”
“Lagos.”
“Yeah, yeah, Lagos. And that one time in Mongolia…”
“Ugh…Don't remind me about Mongolia. Eighty-five hours in a yurt that smelled of yak dung. Granted, I think I minded it more than you, but that's just because you're used to eating your own shit.”
“Hey! Low blow, man, looooooooow blooooooooow.”
“It's true.”
“That doesn't mean you can just use that sort of attitude with me.”
“Ah, you're right, you're right. I apologize. My snark ran away from me. See, it's over there in the corner.”
“Wait is that…”
“Yes. That is a snark. Also, you're a gullible idiot.”
“Least I actually did my job properly.”
“What, you mean Egypt? Yes, you did a fine job in Egypt. Got them really believing in that stuff, didn't you?”
“Better than you did in Europe.”
“But did that actually matter? Is it better to be loved or hated? To know that there is a sympathetic voice at your bedside as your soul leaves, or only to see the impassionate messenger of dead? To be the fierce guardian on the banks of the Styx, or the silence in the night? Which is the truth, and which is the lie? What is it that they say about honeyed tongues and good intentions?
“You know, every time you walk along the footboard like that I think you're going to start singing.”
“I can see it.”
“So…any chance you're going to leave?”
“Not on your eternal essence, mutt.”
“Oh ho? This again? Okay, tuna-breath, I can play your game.”
“I doubt it, Sir I-Roll-In-My-Own-Shit.”
“Nip-huffer”
“Flowerpot-biter.”
“Sociopathic narcolept.”
“Ass-sniffing son-of-a-bitch.”
“Lecherous tom.”
”Chihuahua.”
“You…you… you hobbesian brigand!”
“That barely makes sense, you caterwauling canine cretin!”
"Decorative puffball!"
“Fetching boy!”
There was a soft padding as a fat grey tabby quite conspicuously missing its rear half walked into the room and, with some difficulty, jumped up on the bed. It curled up by the man's head. The dog and the cat looked at it, and then at each other.
“Eh, you know what, let's call this a draw,” the dog said.
“Agreed,” said the cat.
“…”
“…”
“Wanna go get, I dunno, a burger or something? For old time's sake?”
“Might as well. It's been a long time, you old hellhound.”


I would like to here again state that 106 is not, as is commonly believed, a basic predator, on par with an advanced shark. SCP-106 is a sentient being, albeit a totally alien one. SCP-106 appears to be aware of several things beyond the scope of pure instinct and genetic memory. SCP-106 consistently breaches at moments where recovery and containment are most difficult. A fox may see his way out of a trap, but only a man will wait for his captors to look away to escape.
-Dr. Allok
“On Sentience In Contained Humanoids”

“For fuck's sake, where the hell is it?”
Agent Weng sighed, rubbing his face through his mask. The night was chill, but all three men were sweating badly. All around them surged horrors, monsters, demons, fantasy beasts and animate objects, giggling and roaring as they wandered. The three men in gas masks and armored suits looked under-dressed, if anything. As they stood, one man suddenly reached out, a gloved fist grabbing a mildly drunk zombie and tugging it close for a few seconds, before releasing him back to the surge of humanity, the undead beast cursing and stumbling away.
“Fucking Halloween bullshit. We need to seal this whole area.”
Agent Drak shook his head, gesturing to the traveling packs of costumed revelers. “The railcar popped too close to the city. It wasn't even supposed to be on this track, they think MC&D might have buggered up something. Can't clamp the whole town without major fallout.”
“And what the hell do they think will happen now? The old bastard is out there, and we can't even fucking FIND him!” Weng kicked a discarded wrapper, glaring through tinted lenses at everyone who didn't have to chase hell for a living.
Drak patted the fuming man on the back. “Easy, big fella. Command figures the old man takes a couple people, then does his lazy crocodile thing. That's easier to cover than why a major city had to be quarantined on Halloween.”
Parks, until now little more than a statue, crackled in with his broken, rusty voice. “How hard is it to find a rotten old man that kills everything it touches?”
Weng shook his head, still scanning the crowd. “He just looks like an old man most of the time. He can look however he wants. Normally we tell people to just follow the screaming. Fat fucking lot of good that does now. Where the hell is our expert?”
A brittle, creaking chuckle rolled over the radio. “Harken says he's as much an expert on SCP-106 as a plane crash survivor is an expert on aviation. They won't field lab techs until our initial eval. We're on our own for now.”
The three men stood, awash in horrors, looking for one that would put all the rest to shame.

The drunk angel wandered on the edge of the fire. Demons, zombies, and pop-culture icons swirled around her, moving like a single mass, before scattering into small clusters and pairs, only to surge back together again. The bonfire seemed to roar in time with the pounding music, the field chosen for the sudden teen invasion just far enough to avoid noise complaints, but not far enough to attract unwanted adult oversight. Alcohol flowed, people giggled, and the sharp snap of lowered inhibitions and teen angst was thick in the chill air.
The night was still young, yet already several pairs had drifted from the comfort of the fire, to seek other comforts in the dark, private woods ringing the field. The angel glared at the silent trees, taking another pull on an almost empty beer. She drained it, then tossed it down, to meet a holocaust of its brothers being slowly kicked and stamped in to the soft dirt. She should be there, being held in warm arms, kissing a warm mouth…but no, she decided to run with the one boy who seemed to think the moment before a party was the best time to bring up his “worries about our relationship”. Bastard.
The angel, now with lopsided wings, started to wander to those cool, dark trees. Fuck him…if he wanted to toss her aside, fine…but that didn't mean she wouldn't get to have fun still. She giggled a bit, smiling for the first time in a while. Why not have a little fun…play a trick, and get her treat. She laughed, the flush of wicked amusement and booze high in her cheeks. She'd seen one of the boys from her study hall wander back here…maybe she could find him, get a little…better acquainted.
She walked in to the cooler darkness, the occasional giggle, snip of whisper, or a flash of glow stick the only indication of life. She stumbled over a root, staggering forward and bracing her hand on a slimy tree trunk. She yanked her hand away almost instantly, the gritty, oozing texture making her palm burn, the loss of support almost sending the angel sprawling. She squinted at her hand, making out a smear of gritty, fibrous jelly coating it, the burning getting worse as she noticed the odd pits eaten in to the trunk of the tree.
The angel shivered, suddenly sober, and very aware of the fact that nobody knew where she was. That she knew of nobody close enough to even call for. She tried to rub her palm against her poofy skirts, not noticing the red and black smear she made on it, eyes wide and staring, some deep, dim part of her primordial brain ringing an alarm. She started to walk, quickly, focusing on the waving beacon of the bonfire, trying to make herself feel silly, to ignore the swelling, unreasoning panic.
A twig broke behind her.
She froze, a white shade, one hand dripping blood from a corrosive injury she would have been horrified about, had she looked. The angel didn't dare look back, but she was terrified to run, to hear something following, reaching, grabbing. Moments passed, filled with nothing, the angel finally resolving to run right at the moment when a thin, bony hand reached through her costume and into the muscles of her back like a nasty child squishing his hands into a cake.
She screamed, or tried to, the sound squelched to little more then a harsh bark by the sheer volume of pain, limbs suddenly boneless and leaden, nerves dead except for agony. She felt fingers touching her ribs from the inside, even as they were slowly eaten away and corroded, her body shifting slowly to face the hand's owner. The flicker of the distant fire showed something withered, dark, slimy and pulpy-soft, but wiry and strong. Two milky-black eyes glistened at her in a too-large head, hovering over a frozen corpse grin, teeth thin and chipped.
The pinned angel gasped and blubbered, feeling an oily, burning corruption seeping in to her body, trying to ignore a slow falling feeling, trying not to feel the ground below her turning mushy and soft, swallowing both figures inch by inch. It leaned closer, and despite the searing horror of that face, some still sane part of her welcomed what was surely an approaching end to her pain. It lingered, however, the other twisted claw of a hand rising as the ground started to swallow their hips.
The new touch made the angel lucid with a new fear, her face locking on those rotten eyes. She recognized the shine behind them, and started to scream with a new, repulsed horror, even as it started to pull both her dress and skin away in sodden ribbons.

Jason ran, lungs burning, trying to yell for help between sharp gasps of air. His Batman costume felt like such a joke now, running between streetlights, feeling that warm spot of pee on his pants. Where WAS everyone? It had been so stupid, trying to be the big brave kids and go out alone…now he really was alone, and his friends had probably been eaten.
He didn't know this for sure, but when the boogeyman dropped out of a tree and started shoving kids in to a wall that was suddenly like quicksand, it was probably a safe bet. He hadn't even been able to do anything, just watch as those long, bony fingers grabbed his two best friends and just…yanked them away, like dolls, barely screaming before the squishy black wall gulped them up. The boogeyman, it hooked his fingers in to David's eyes like dad had taught him to hold a bowling ball, and…
Jason was abruptly sick down the front of his costume, the half-digested mass of chocolate looking unsettlingly like the goo that had splattered everywhere while the tall, lanky, naked old man had landed out of the tree. He stopped, stumbling to his knees, coughing and gagging, wailing out a weak scream for help to the dim night. It drifted off, unheeded, the boy unable to even sob, too numb with exhaustion and horror. He barely noticed the footsteps until they were nearly on top of him.
He looked up, ready to beg whatever adult he saw for help. Then he saw the legs. Thin, black, the feet looking pulpy and flat with age, the concrete under them turning cracked and gooey. Jason looked up more, shaking more and more violently. The withered hips, the sticky, soft chest that didn't rise or fall…and finally that nightmare head, looking like some kind of rotten pumpkin, but black and oily as a bucket of tar. The eyes locked on the boy's, as shiny and blank as a flashlight in a basement. The teeth parted, some kind of rolling, slimy blackness shifting inside.
Jason stumbled back, gasping, trying to scream but unable to even breathe correctly. He stared at the boogeyman as he rolled something in the palm of that thin, beaten hand, pulling it between two bony fingers and lifting it to his mouth. The boy thought it was a candy or something, but then he saw the glint of metal.
It was his best friend Anthony's front tooth. It still had the bracket from his braces on it.
The boogeyman placed it between his teeth, gently, the tooth still white and clean in that filthy, dripping mouth. He seemed to hold it there a moment…then his jaw bunched, and the tooth shivered…then burst like a jawbreaker under a car tire. He chewed it twice, then just stopped, still staring at the boy. It seemed to go on and on, Jason unsure if he was even breathing anymore, knowing this was the end, this was what happened when you didn't listen, when you went off alone, the boogeyman came and took you, forever and always…
But he didn't. He turned, seeming to get ready to take a step…then fell forward, slowly, like an old man tripping over a shoe. The black monster almost hit the ground…but just fell through it, like it was made of air, nothing but a black smear left behind on the concrete…and the tiny, corroded bracket from the tooth.
When they found him, hours later, he'd gripped it hard enough to embed it in his palm.

The boy sat, comforted and miserable. His mother had been nice enough to let him at least wear his Mario costume, but even he had to admit he was probably too sick to walk around the house, let alone outside for hours, in the cold. He'd woken up vomiting, and it had just continued, his parents hoping for the best, but finally forced to cancel the trick-or-treating. As sad as he was, they did try their best to make it up to him. There was a small bowl of candy for him, with the promise any leftovers would be given to him, and he could watch all the scary movies he liked.
Knock knock
“Trick or treat!”
“Aww, such a cute turtle! And what are you, honey?”
“I'm Rapunzel!”
“Well, here you go, princess!”
“Thank you!”
He hadn't even wanted to help pass things out. It was better to just try and ignore things, just pretend everyone else was inside too, that made it better. He tugged the floppy hat down a bit, trying to convince himself that his tummy wasn't feeling like a hedgehog was rolling around inside. He watched the zombies lurch across the screen, half-wishing that the screaming people running for the house were kids from school.
Knock knock
“Trick or treat!”
“Oh, what a nice vampire!”
“I'm draculaura! Rawr!”
“So fearsome! Here you go…”
“Thank you!”
He turned up the movie, the slow groans of the walking dead drowning out the happy shouts of the living. The worst was going to be tomorrow, being forced to listen to everyone, watch them eating candy and talking about different houses and adventures. He sighed and swallowed thickly, his stomach doing another slow, oily roll. The boy pushed away the candy he'd been nibbling, suddenly sickened by even the smell.
Knock
“…”
“Hello?…oh…”
“…”
“Uh, are you withOHGOD!”
The sudden, rising shriek of his mother made the boy suddenly bolt upright, his stomach clenching even worse, but now totally forgotten. He couldn't see her from the couch, but he could hear noises, thumping and muffled shouts…and some kind of slimy-sounding rustle, like sewage over dry leaves. He stood, and started to peer around the short wall blocking the entryway, calling with a hesitant voice, scared of not getting a response, but almost equally so of getting one. He was only a few feet away when the hand whipped around the wall, gripping it tight.
It was black-gray and thin, as bony and thin-skinned as his grandmother's, with wide, flat nails gripping the paint hard. Where it touched, a black stain was spreading, like grease on a paper bag, the knuckles looking puffy and thick as they flexed. The boy stared, backing up slowly, calling again for his mother, his voice starting to plead. The hand flexed, actually sinking into the wall as that stain spread, and a nightmare peeped around the corner.
The head was thick, misshapen and lumpy, like a poorly made scarecrow, the skin thin and jelly-like. Two hard, glistening eyes the color of maggots stared from above the thin, wide slash of a mouth. Their eyes locked, and the boy felt fear wash from his head down to his feet, his stomach boiling like a forgotten kettle. His nerves screamed to run, to run away, but he couldn't make himself stop watching those eyes, feet moving slowly backwards like a sleepwalker. The hand and face shifted a bit, and there was a wet, heavy dragging noise as his mother was pulled in to view.
She was dead, or close to it, moved forward by the hand in her chest like a sock puppet, bits of her black and pulpy, smears of that black stain eating in to her face, her neck, her arms. Her chest was a black, jelly-coated hole, the thing's other hand buried in it up to the wrist, the bloodless, ruined remains of his mother hanging from it like a rag doll. He screamed, then threw up, little more then a mass of bile and half-digested snacks, then ran, shrieking up the stairs, begging for his mother, his father, anyone, someone.
He slammed into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door, shaking and crying. His dad had gone down the street to visit, he'd be home any second, and he'd fix this, somehow. He'd call the cops, or something, get them out of the house, leave that black thing far behind. Maybe mom was just hurt, people could get really hurt and still be fine, he'd only seen her a few seconds. That thing was just some psycho in some costume, he'd probably run off as soon as he heard someone coming, and it'd be ok then, it'd be fine. He kept whispering this to himself, feet braced on the sink, back against the door.
He was still repeating it when the face pushed through the wood above him.
He heard the crackle, and looked up, to see that hell face looking down, inches above his head. The floor under his feet suddenly felt sludgy and soft as he stared, the mouth splitting open, to let a tongue as rotten and bloated as a dead fish roll free…and down…and down, sliding down onto that horrified face like a syrup, burning even as he felt his legs sinking down and down, unable to even move really as that soft, slimy flesh burned like an acid in to his face, feeling his nose cook down like an over-used eraser, screaming just long enough to catch a few feet of that endless tongue in his mouth, gagging hard before the nerves died, starting to pass out as he felt the nightmare tasting his eyes.

Drak awoke feeling like he'd been sleeping on a pile of rusty car parts. He sat up, twisting and trying to locate the source of the throbbing pain in his leg, that…memory started to flood back, hitting like a freight train. Running across town. Slamming through a crowd, seeing the withered, crumbling arm laying on the ground. Screams. People running. That horrible black face sliding from the ground, eyes locked on his. Parks firing. More screams. A withered hand reaching, gripping, pulling…
Oh god no.
He looked around in welling horror, pleading with his own brain to lie to him. The room was dark, dirty, and low-ceilinged, tufts of dirt and debris in the corners, the grayish paint peeling in ragged streamers, the stained ceiling and floor warped and lumpy. A doorway opened in to darkness, a vague, insistent noise sounding from far off. The light was dim, but didn't seem to come from anywhere, seeming just a weak, omnipresent glow with a slightly green cast, like deep ocean water.
Drak knew this room, even though he'd never been here. At least, ones very much like it. The old man liked to dump his new catches here before he…found them. Drak rose quickly, hunching down to avoid a sagging bulge of ceiling. He barely wanted his shoes touching this place, let alone anything else. He winced, feeling a dull, empty ache in his leg, high in the calf. Probably where it grabbed him…and damned if he was going to check it. He limped a few steps, making sure it could bear weight, eyes sweeping over every surface.
He breathed slow, deeply, remembering the file, the brief. Time was subjective, he could have been out for seconds or weeks. It liked to play cat and mouse, tracking through its…home, or playroom, or whatever the fuck it was. Space was endless, but sometimes people got out, or were released. Keep moving, don't hide, because it was god here and would know. He felt panic slithering around the edges of his brain, and pushed it down, hard, face set and grim as he stepped out in to the darkness beyond the doorway.
The hall was long, and broken, like a hospital hallway after an earthquake. No big holes, just twisted and tilted oddly. He creeped down, as close to a wall as he could get without touching it, feeling gritty plaster crunch under his feet. The noise was louder, the sound of high-pitched, monotonous crying. It set the teeth on edge, but they'd said it would be like this. The key was to keep moving, keep looking. Yes, it was endless, but if you kept on the move, it seemed like 106 got confused, or lost track of things, and you could accidentally wander back in to the world. He kept repeating the steps, the briefing in his head like a prayer, ignoring the part where 106 would typically hunt escapees forever.
He took a right at the end of the hall, passing down another, then a left, starting to move faster, ignoring the odd, corroded twists of pipe and wire in some of the rooms he'd passed, or the suggestive, soggy mounds of…something. The crying kept getting louder, the high-pitched, gurgling wail of a baby. Ignore it, keep moving. It called the shots, it could make the whole place sound like a dentist's drill if it wanted. Drak pounded down a hall, nearly at a dead run, trying not to see the growing dampness of the walls, the changing texture of things. Broken plaster over old, greenish bricks, floor going from broken vinyl, to concrete, to dirt.
He turned a corner, too fast, a gooey patch of black causing his foot to skitter, nearly dropping him to his knees as he clutched the bare, wet brick wall. He looked out in the the dim, mossy room, the sound of helpless, angry crying very, very loud now. He froze, staring, half-crouched and clutching the wall. It was standing in the middle of the room, a thick, ankle deep puddle of black jelly at its feet. The old man was turning, slowly, rocking in slow, side-to side motions. The crying was coming from the thing in his arms.
It was a torso, wrapped in masses of what looked like barbed wire. The wire threaded in and out of flesh, some places looking like the bleeding skin had flowed like warm taffy over it. The ragged remains of the limbs twisted and stretched, every movement making the wires dig and tear more. It was hairless, the skin of its bare head and neck looking peeled and rotten, the face a mask of pain. The throat had been…opened, carefully, twisted and held with wires. The baby crying was in fact this grown, mute torso, mutilated to make that pitiful, helpless wail.
The old man was watching him. Face turned, eyes locked to the man as he slowly tried to stand upright, ignoring the hissing of his boots, trying not to think of what would have to be done to a throat, to make it sound like a baby in agony…or where that pitiful torso's limbs had gone. It watched him, cracked teeth slightly parted, and slowly stopped its rocking. It dropped the wire-bound bundle, arms going limp at its sides as the mass of flesh and pain bounced off the ground, then rested face-down in the mossy grime, sending up a new wave of protest between bubbly, sucking breaths. It turned to face him, arms dangling, body wrapped in what looked like some kind of shredded cloth of oozing black fabric.
Drak ran, bolting like a scared deer, throwing training and conditioning to the wind in the mad, blind, animal panic of escape. He screamed, panted, talked, laughed, anything to drown out the sound of the slow, stuttering steps lurking behind him. He ran, and ran, and ran, falling and hitting the ground like he'd been hit by a car, gasping and waiting for the end, muscles throbbing…then they would start again, those soft, rustling footsteps, driving him on, and on, and on.
He didn't know it, but he'd run for four days before the old man started taking chunks out of him.

Recovery was in the pre-dawn hours with no sun or moon, and went shockingly smooth, all things considered. SCP-106 was found in the middle of a field, making pumpkins sag and burst by squeezing or stepping on them. The team, a man short, was finally reinforced an hour before they caught it, pushing it back to the recovery chamber with the big halogen “sun guns”, nearly blinding two of the recovery crew in their zeal to have the old man back under lock and key.
It sat in the cell, without a moment's attempt to try and escape. It sat, and did nothing, head tilted, arms and legs limp. One MTF member stated that it looked sated, and was told to shut up in an official capacity. Disappearances were glossed over, murders quieted and made un-newsworthy, urban legends seeded and caressed. Over all, it went well, once the hell was over.
Weeks later, an observation tech made a note in the day's log. SCP-106 was observed to suddenly produce a large handful of small white objects, later identified as teeth and finger bones, and set the pile on the floor. It then sorted these objects in to what seemed random piles, later identified as separated by age of victim. It then stared at these items for several hours, then re-collected them.
The significance of this was considered unworthy of contemplation.