Kids, Fear Santa Claus! (An Index Card Novel)
Before the Third American Revolution, Santa Claus delivered presents to all of the good boys and girls in the world, and coal to the naughty children, on Christmas Eve. After the Third, Santa morphed into a villain who took away bad people, including children. For Moms in the new America, he was the new bogeyman. Children knew the story and passed it by word of mouth.
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The fat old white guy had died of old age. His fat old white house, sitting near the famous ravine, was taken as a historic site. A pedestrian walkway bridge replaced the old one. Also preserved was a replacement of a Christmas decoration, Santa and his sleigh. A marker told the tale.
“In the desperate days of the Third Revolution, Federales and Foreigners tried to impose their will on the Good People of New Hampshire. Here was fought the battle of Santa’s Bridge. It was a pivotal battle in the war that convinced the Blue Hats that they could not pass over this bridge at any cost, by any tactic, and, by extrapolation, could not win. … …
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The lines had become static. Technology replaced by well-equiped well-fed conscripted Blue Hats from strange lands in a war of attrition with starving ragged patriots of all ages. The war was televised by CNN trying to propagandize the rebels. They forgot that there was little behind the rebel lines. Especially, working TVs. Or power.
On the front, Geography was key. The ravine anchored a line; that line grew organically into a front.
With TV cameras rolling, a Blue Hat officer gathered some children hostages and began to cross that bridge. The rebel forces didn’t fire. At the end of the bridge, that cunning officer waved his men forward.
From the house, rifle fire erupted. One by one, killing the children. There was no doubt as their little bodies exploded in bits and pieces. Finally, with no hostages at risk, the rebel lines opened up. That officer was killed as well.
The Blue Hat high command was convinced. Despite the CNN coverage showed the rifle fire coming from Santa. But no propaganda could erase the fact that everything would be sacrificed for liberty. In a short time, this war, like so many others, was ended. The rebels “won” their freedom on the little children’s bodies at that bridge.
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… … … An unknown patriot killed four little children being used as a shield and saved the position. The brutal killing was caught on video and was called the massacre at Santa’s bridge.”
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No one talked about it. But it was seared into the new country’s folklore. “Better dead than red”, “Live Free or Die”, and “You’ll have to cross Santa’s Bridge” took on new meaning. Santa was re-tasked as Liberty’s defender and the enforcer of good behavior on children everywhere.
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The fat old white man died and, with him, the identity of the child killing patriot. Shunned in the years after the bridge battle, he was a reminder of that sad event. In his last will, he asked the question: “Do the armchair patriots have stones to do what is needed to defend liberty? I did, and make no apology. Sic semper tyranis.”
Do you?
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Reinke Faces Life 
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