Scrooge vs Aliens: A Christmas Carol Mashup

“YOUR WELFARE,” the Thing traced.

Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end; he was meanwhile quite chagrined over the damage done to his sheets, and found himself calculating the laundry bill that had been thusly incurred.

The Alien, chillingly, must have heard him thinking, for it expressed itself thusly:
“I AM HERE FOR YOUR RECLAMATION. TAKE HEED.”

It then unspooled one ropy tentacle to clasp Scrooge gently by the arm.

“RISE AND WALK WITH ME.”

This was not a request, Scrooge felt certain, but decidedly more in the nature of a threat. He rose, walking unsteadily, and pausing only briefly to seize a sturdy object from beneath his pillow; for, like any sound man of business with a good deal of gold about the house, Scrooge kept a firearm of sufficient size and power to warn off any burglar.

Whether it would possess sufficient force to dispatch his companion, should such measures become warranted, only time would discover.

***

Scrooge is brought on a tour of his past, forced under threat of disembowelment to visit times where his own soul became unmoored from its better nature: Scrooge as a schoolchild, being shown every kindness by a peddler; Scrooge as an apprentice, being shown generosity by his master, a far cry from his current miserliness toward his own clerk. But the last scene is the most troubling.
***

For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now, a man in the prime of life. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root. He was not alone but sat by the side of a fair young girl, in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone off the armor-plated scalp of the Alien.

“Another Idol has displaced me,” she said, “and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.”

“What Idol has displaced you?” he rejoined.

“A golden one.”

So absorbed was the present-day Scrooge in this sad play of ancient shadows that he did not hear the hungry gurgling at his very ear, nor notice the creeping tentacle of the Beast coiling itself around his frail waist.

“I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one,” said the brokenhearted girl, “until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?”

“What then?” young Scrooge retorted. “I am not changed toward you.”

“She shook her head. “Your own feeling tells you that you are not what you are.”

“Show me no more Creature!” he cried, “Conduct me home! Why do you delight to — hey!”

Scrooge stopped himself short, seeing the tentacle draped around his midsection, seeing the massive mouth yawning open; seeing all at once the horrible desperateness of his situation. In a flash it was all clear: the strange visitor had not come for his “reclamation” after all, had shown him the error of his ways not so that Scrooge could repent, but merely to distract him so that he could be killed and eaten.

Scrooge gathered his wits and ran, his slippered feet sliding over the snow-slicked pavement, and as he ran he passed, huddled in doorways but still possessed of their share of Christmas cheer, those very ragged beggars he so long had scorned. Despite his prior cruelties, they came quickly to his aid, guiding his way through the maze of streets and pelting his Extraterrestrial Adversary with hunks of ice. That chorus of cheerful carolers, upon whom Scrooge had lately slammed his door, now formed a kind of defensive cordon around the creature, singing Hark! The Herald Angel Sings even as several of them were eaten whole.

And here came Tiny Tim, Cratchit’s son, that very Cratchit who had long toiled so miserably in Scrooge’s service — lashing out valiantly at the Alien with the tip of his little crutch!

Thanks to such assistance Old Scrooge at last gave slip to the Alien and found himself panting for breath, overcome by a kind of suffusing melancholy: for was it not his own avarice, his pursuit of worldly gain that had brought him to this dangerous pass? And indeed, wouldn’t he be doomed, deceased, were it not for the courage and the kindness of the very paupers and common people he’d so long held in miserable contempt?

For so long he had kept himself walled off from humanity, as if it were HE who were the alien, and not his pursuer! But now — now he understood —

Alas! — before Scrooge could follow this epiphany to its conclusions, the Thing was again lunging upon him.

Scrooge produced his weapon and pointed it at the beast.

“AHgELSCHJEbAJHXBT!” pronounced the alien, to which Scrooge responded by aiming his firearm, clicking the hammer and muttering a steadfast and steely- voiced “Bah humbug” before opening fire. The moneylender’s aim was true, piercing several of the Beast’s goggle eyes and dropping the monster to the cobblestones.

Scrooge exhaled as the sun rose upon a new and marvelous day: Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells; Alien Threat extinguished. Glorious!

Just then Tiny Tim hobbled up on his crutch, and Scrooge embraced him, and the lad said, “God bless Us, Every One!”

To which Scrooge, nudging the unmoving body of his foe with one slippered toe, whispered “Even you, alien friend. Even you.”