A Conroy Christmas

By Stephan Michael Loy

In Conroy, that strange small town at the fringe of reason, Christmas can't be as simple as presents, nog, and a roaring fire. It's loneliness, fugitive girls, and the ghastly plans of a shadowy corporate monster. Chris Snow, local philosopher and counter boy at a seedy hardware store, joins forces with Frank Keith, now a patrolman for the Conroy Police, to prevent an abomination against human rights grown in their own back forty. Along with perennial screw-up Clarence Mumfry, the two find themselves dragged into a metaphor they only barely realize and cannot necessarily believe. They are three important standards in a chess game of fate. But whose fate? And whose game?
A Conroy Christmas continues the subtle twist of the weird begun in Ridealong, the first of the Conroy Chronicles. Ho, ho, ho, pass the flaming nuts, and make room in your reading for the Three Wise Guys.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mid-World Arts
• Release date: Nov 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311601674

Stephan Michael Loy

Stephan Michael Loy has been churning out stories of adventure and fantasy since way back in junior high. He's been writing professionally since the 1970s, breaking in his writing chomps on the Louisville Courier-Journal and IU's Indiana Daily Student newspapers. He has a degree in Journalism from Indiana University and an advanced degree in Art Education. He is a military veteran, having served five years in Armor and Cavalry commands in Europe and the United States. He uses all of these experiences in the stories he creates. He has published multiple novels and novellas on Smashwords that can also be found in print at Lulu.com and Amazon, among other online sources. Go to stephanloy.com to easily find these books in print or ebook formats. Stephan Loy lives in Indianapolis, Indiana with his wife Amy and their two criminal cats, Buffy (the Cat Toy Slayer) and Oz.

Book preview

A Conroy Christmas

By Stephan Michael Loy

A Conroy Christmas

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 by Stephan Loy

All Rights Reserved

Published in the United States of America

Smashwords Edition License Notes:

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Contents

Part 1: The Nativity

Part 2: The Flight Into Egypt

Part 3: Three Kings

Part Four: Astrologers in the Court of Herod

Part Five: The (Attempted) Massacre of the Innocents

Afterword

Part 1: The Nativity

(Back to Contents)

The place was a hole, a hole blacker and more corrupt than Kurtz's addled brain. Spencer Christopher Snow leaned against the sagging countertop and peered into the dark, dank den of lime-green metal shelves, flickering fluorescent lights, and faded, scraped linoleum tile. He knew the shelves held a madman's jumble of nuts, bolts, screws and nails, of washers, rock salt, four coal shovels, and two coffeemakers, one with a cracked carafe. The place stank of sweat and mildew, mainly from the uninsulated cinderblock walls. Spencer wondered sometimes if Mr. Bennington had a stash of sweaty potpourri, just to keep out the riff-raff, that is, the double-x chromosome crowd. He wished it were so, a story better than the truth. He had watched those walls bleed water and ice for years. He had watched Chuck Bennington paint over the mold.

The horror. The horror.

Now, don't you go forgettin', Bennington said as he struggled his enormous fat-laden bulk into his ratty army-surplus parka, you salt that sidewalk and turn out them chaser lights before lockin' up, y'hear?

Chuck, do you really believe anybody's coming through that door in the next two hours? Chris didn't want so much to go home as to escape his sentence in Hell. It's Christmas Eve, man. Everybody's home swigging nog and watching Rudolph on the tube. They're not trudging out here in eight inches of snow to get acorn nuts or bird feed.

Snow shovels, Bennington announced sagely. In this weather, everybody needs snow shovels.

This is the Midwest, Chuck. Every house in town has two snow shovels and a spare.

Bennington was at the door. The bell rang from his grasp of the knob. You don't know so much, boy. Bennington's Hardware has stayed open till eight every Christmas Eve since 1969. We ain't changin' just yet.

I get it. But why isn't Bennington the one keeping it open?

The fat man yanked open the door, admitting a swirl of fat snow crystals. I got some shoppin' to do, young man. You know Ginger'll have my hide if I don't get that stuff--

Which we don't carry, and should.

--and you ain't got nothin' better to do.

Christmas is an over-commercialized excuse for conspicuous consumerism that has long since lost its original religious meaning.

Like I said.

It's run by a big eastern syndicate, you know.

And who said that? One of them philosophers of yours? Kant? Nit-she?

"Sally. On A Charlie Brown Christmas."

Bennington stared, frozen in the act of donning his wooly cap. Huh, he finally managed, and shook his head. See you the day after tomorrow, Spencer. Noon, no later, and don't forget them chaser lights.

He waddled out the door, the bell tingling as it shut behind him. Immediately, Chris reached below the counter and snapped on the ancient radio that Chuck never allowed during business hours. The Conroy County retransmission station pumped Jingle Bell Rock into the slouching excuse for a store, all the way from the city. Chris pressed open his dog-eared paperback of Conrad's Heart of Darkness and re-read the section deep in the narrative, Marlowe analyzing Kurtz's downfall. Isolation,