Margins | Christmas Edition - Featuring, "The Spirit of Giving" by A.P. Murphy

The Drek Death and Doom Newsletter

The Spirit of Giving

A short story by A.P. Murphy

This song to set the mood.

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Happy birthday, baby Jesusito.

Midnight tolls out on the mission bell and all our Santa gigs are shitcanned for another year. The good gigs in Shabley Mall for young stags with full beards dyed white are gone. Middling gigs in Mooseblanket Discount Palace for entry-level Santas with goat-hair beards, their peachbrandy caustic breaths scouring the faces of demoralized children of discount parents. Those gigs too, are gone. And for us deadbeat Saint Nicks who hobble through graybrown slush in our acrylic beards and ring out forlorn bells into the city silence, all is very much gone.

Oh, sure, I could step out to the streetcorner and cling-clang for a while, roll out my ho-ho-hos and shake the giving cup, but Christmas in the bummery is generous in beatings and I’d be more likely to get a summary billyclubbing from an enraged patrolman than to score a clump of chump-change. All good cheer – whatever there was of it – has been chased indoors now. On this stark morning, out on the raggy-assed streets, nothing more remains of the spirit of giving. But out I go anyway, to deliver my gift.

First day morn, the dead of night. Not a creature is stirring not even a. Oh, maybe a rat creeping in the dumpster’s shadow, skitter claws on concrete, tiny scratchings on the underside of my skull. The sky begins to sprinkle the day with its pointlessness. Soft tiny melts of sleet gone in instants like the tears of embarrassed children. I arrive at the steps of The Holy Family Church and deposit my gift on the steps. Make a little bow for some reason then limp away into silence.

A single human penis. Lightly cauterized so there’s no mess.

First day, first gift.

Wake late inside the squat to chesty heaves and foggy exhalations. Sounds bad. But however: nothing hurts at all. I stretch tight sinews in a stiff mildew bed and my brain lights up like fairylights.

Like dandruff, ideas scatter across the shoulders of my mind. Ideas about everything: the harmonious ordering of society, the correct ratio of cream to coffee, absent masses of intergalactic dark-matter halos, where souls go to hang out in the bardo, the sensations inflicted by a dull notched knife, and pain’s residual imprint in stainless steel’s whorl and rust. I itch with insights, my skin prickles with them.

The captive is fine. I already said that nothing hurts. The captive has already become used to peeing sitting down, the stinging pink ooze streaming away with no guide but gravity. But then there’s a relief too; the relief of never again needing to worry about this troublesome thing that’s been taken: will it go up, is it big enough, do the ladies like it? My captive tells me it’s fine, and I have no choice but to believe him.

And so we share bottles of barley wine, peach wine, rice wine. A three-course feast just as baby Jesus intends, and as we glug our Christmas meal we consider the gifts of his babybirth. Gold: seems obvious, right? Riches, gold doubloons – but what if I told you there’s also the gold of barleyfields waving in the wind, a sunny disposition and a burnished soul preparing to rise up, rise up through whitest gates? Frankincense: the fumes of fragrance sweet with rot, the swinging bells of a censer at requiem mass. And myrrh –

I don’t really know what myrrh is. All poetry breaks down in me as I sip sake and burp out my perplexity. Sour eructations in place of sagacity. I sit in my bathtub and watch all the pinkness from wound and urination dribble away to nowhere.

When I wake again it’s dark in my chamber. Gone midnight. Second day of Christmas. Out once more to deliver second day gifts.

Jesus Herbert Bicycling Christ, the air out on the streets tonight bites like a spiteful cur. Still in my Santa costume, threadbare and faded – in the streetlight fluorescence not true Christmas red but the red of Mars – I recreate the rant of Saint Stephen to the best of my recall. For this is Saint Stephen’s Day and I am, like him, the first martyr of an unbelieving age, I am the spirit of giving you hell, I myself am WAR.

And did Stephen not state, before they pitched a big fat rock into his skull, a succession of imprecations along the lines of Oh Ye Stiffnecked Assholes, Uncircumcised in Heart and Ears, and were they not cut to the quick by these words and gnashed at the sorry son of a bitch with their teeth? With their teeth the high priests, can you picture it? With their teeth they set on him and to rent his skin apart, and then they threw great stones over him, mounting one upon another till he was a broken doll.

And thus I declaim my Martyrdom Day sermon shuffling in the damp where dogturds lie interred under the mounds of snowsludge. In nearfreezing air the slush teeters on its phase boundary, tempted to melt and become water but sticking resolutely to its semisolid character, as in fact do I.

My gift for this second day of Christmas will be for the city fathers. No, not out at the front of City Hall where a security guy puffs steam on his stiff trigger fingers, for that would be an end to all my gifts. No, like a sly street-kitty with a dead sparrow in its jaws, I slink my way to the back door. Right there, where the goody-goods are delivered for assemblymen and district wardens, I leave behind my present:

Two human ears, each perfect in their way and perfectly symmetrical. Set upon a strip of manila cardboard and placed together on the back step, they form a single adorable heart. I do my little bow – apparently it’s a thing I do now, a ritual genuflection, kowtowing to Christmas itself? – and walk off into night’s indifference.

My captive doesn’t complain. He’s good like that. He doesn’t attempt to run away. He’s resigned, is what they say. Resigned to his fate, an admirable stance if you think about it. He affirms that it doesn’t hurt too bad. The pain of a notched knife getting duller each time is nothing to the hurt of being a nothing-at-all. It’s actually preferable, because being a nothing feels like nothing, but the sawing of a dull knife is a feeling that is undeniably there.

Even so, it’s time to sharpen my blade and be merciful for my third-day task. I use the top rim of the bathtub where it’s cracked and abraded. Hsssk hsssk hsssk, the sound is so beautiful like an old train sliding softly to a halt.

Last bottle of schnapps, swiped on Christmas Eve from the Hungarians at The Ghoulish Goulash, while the staff were too sloshed to even see a surreptitious Santa prowling in their storeroom. We need to be resolute, my captive and I. Third day, third gift. Three things must be gifted this time, whatever the cost, but at least my blade is sharp now, its notches smoothed down.

Today marks the third. And then tomorrow a fourth... but four what? Then five? All the way up to twelve days? What will there even be of the captive? What left to give?

Red cap pulled on tight, acrylic beard all wispy-worn and stained with dried gore and eggnog, I tread Saturday streets. It’s more lively this third night, so there are rubberneck observers and catcalls aplenty, but none will approach an untouchable Santa in such a doleful season. I ring my bell, not in merriment but as a warning, like tainted plaguemen long ago. Grumblefucks at street level and guttering ravens up on the ledges mark my passage past. Sidewalk huddles part and midnight strollers gape, then scurry to avoid the contaminant despair that I lug about me like a burdensome sack of undesired gifts. And what’s not to avoid? Mars red is my scuffed and tainted jacket, off-white its furry fluting like the scabies of a dog. Not one of these walkers can overcome their sudden dread for long enough to even spurn me. As I toll my Christmas bell the fug of cheap spirits and vomit wraiths along beside me and I’m abject beyond all their countenancing.

My destination appears at the end of the block: City Police Department Headquarters on Lincoln Rockwell Square. I’m here to deliver my response to all the cops that have jabbed me in the ribs with their nightsticks. On this third day I have one single sign with three elements: truncated index finger and ring finger of a left hand, and to set between them the proud magnificence of a fully-extended middle finger. This sign will be set down carefully so as to clearly indicate my opinion of the city police. ACAB? All Christmases Are Blunt. Blunt instruments evoking blunt expressions.

But there’s a hiccup before I get to the main entrance of City PD. One of my adversaries – a towering loon of a patrolman who’s pushed me on and pushed me again, from corner to corner and from street into alleyway where finally he laid unwanted hands upon me – this flatfoot on rounding the block spots me and calls on me to halt. But I do not halt.

So then he does what cop reflexes prod him to do. He lifts his gun, levels it at my eyes. I halt then, for I would not yet give him the satisfaction. Now we form a dyad, beatcop and low-down Santa, coupled along the notional axis of a trajectory that starts at his gunmuzzle and terminates in my forehead.

And they gather all around us, the street tribe of the Saturday curious. Here is the imminent feast of knife-edge martyrdom. An assemblage of cat-callers, onlookers, and stiff-necks, of pill-poppers and slime-chewers, the unwell-wishers and the jeerers, all these has-beens and all those never-wills. I shall gift these multitudes a gift indeed: a story they will tell in hushed tones for as long as they live.

I yank off my little Mars-red cap with its fur bobble globule and the congregation gasps. For where there should be ears there are red streaky gashes glistening forth hardened crimson scabs. Then I hold up my left hand with its three missing fingers, thumb and pinky forming the metal malocchio sign of warding against malediction. Still the blood oozes from my violated knuckles.

“HE DID THIS!” I yell, indicating the cop with these stumps. The crowd shimmies; a tremor of revulsion washes through them. Like a tugging string, I feel the chord of the bullet’s trajectory tensing, an ardent wish in the cop’s darkblue heart. Still, he doesn’t shoot, for it’s a coward’s heart withal, and here are many eyes to witness.

I snatch down my loose Christmas pants with a swift jerk and again he does not shoot. The watchers gargle loud to see what’s there. Or rather, what isn’t there: the savage gash where Santa’s manhood should be. The dripping unhealed wound of it, a promise and a threat. Ragged tears in my skin concealing an unbidden fantasy of never-to-be-imagined teeth. The captive trapped within me groans in agony, but captor me delights. The Christmas spirit is a spirit of giving, and I am presenting this crowd, the city, this world entire, the gift of a memory they won’t easily forget. A Christmas miracle.

“Ho-ho-HO!” I yell, and the cop accepts his cue. His face screws into a final snarl as he comes to recognize that yes, he is the one who did this to me. I was his captive all along, prisoner also to the assembly of gawking street-watchers who despised me and despise me still. But it is for him alone to make me eat of my sin in the fullest humility.

Blue-on-red time. He fingers his trigger and in the very truest spirit of giving he gifts me the gift of–

BONUS XMAS JINGLE

Last Christmas I gave you my schlong

After singing one song

You did me all wrong

This Christmas I give you my ears

And you gave them

To law enforcement

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I. Editor’s Note
II. What Did We Do This Year
III. Margin Comments
IV. A Call to Arms
V. What’s New
VI. Coming Soon
VII. Books

I

Editor’s Note:

Merry Christmas, those who celebrate. Happy other…day, those of you who don’t. I hope you enjoyed Murph’s Christmas Noir tale.

It massages nearly every stylistic quality of fiction I like to publish, and it maintains the author’s distinct voice. It’s a difficult task to read the guidelines of an open call, interpret their meaning, slant to the publisher’s predilections, and retain the soul of your own imaginative workings so wholly.

Great job.

I am incredibly grateful to everyone who submitted a story and trusted me to represent it here and on the public face of this press. Each person wrote great stories. I wish I could publish them all. Keep popping ‘em up all over Substack and sharing them around (don’t feel the need to tag me for these stories; they’re all bangers and they’re all you and I don’t need to steal any of that away).

I am either sold out, or almost sold out of all of my stock for all books. I want them all gone. I want to be able to say, specifically, substack has sold me out of all seven books I’ve published this year multiple times, and goddammit, I want to finish selling off these Shieldbreakers before book two. Tom Schecter deserves ‘em gone. Don’t forget, his portion of the profits go directly to the Judith Ashcraft Author Site initiative, too.

It’s been a hard year, guys. Many of us ended up jobless, behind on bills, facing homelessness. Others, met with systemic failures, faced food insecurity. Some, too, battled chronic and even terminal illnesses. This just scratches the surface.

Fiction can’t solve everything, but look what the fiction community can do. When we rally together, people, mutual aid, saves lives.

I don’t know if you guys noticed, but it’s almost like paying people to do the things they are good at, people who aren’t AI or blank-faced corporations, or a kid on facebook charging $15—people you actually know and care about—provides those people with security.

Now do that with authors, too.

Sincerely,

Dylan Bosworth

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II

What Did We Do This Year?

I started Drek Death and Doom in July—which, strangely, is the month I spent a bunch of time in the hospital. I was on fire then, and I think it burned me out.

I self published a collection, then I quickly re-did it when I started the press and published it under that. Consistency. The idea was to self publish small collections through my own press then to widen the readership, and also to try to publish an anthology or two.

Instead:

You know the story. I saw Pablo’s work and started Nascent Night Press to get that man a desperately needed book.

Since then, I’ve done contracted work with twenty other authors. We put physical books out into the world for many who had never had their name in print.

What’s Next?

It’s but a small doorway, but it’s one less gate, one more tallied accomplishment, one addition to a bio, a query, another notch on the ever-expanding belt of experience for people who may have never gotten that small sprinkling of gilded asbestos dust known as luck.

The market for challenging fiction, whether general, literary, or some form of you-call-this-contemporary, is a hard membrane to poke through. With Nascent Night, the ceiling is high. The crowd is hard. The reward, earned. This is a narrow needle’s eye to pass. Forgive me if the rejection rate for Nascent Night is colossal.

Luckily for many of my subscribers, the horror market is a bit easier at the moment. Horror is hot, and it’s picking up steam. A lot of people are reading it, crossing over from the saturation of fantasy in the markets over the last few years, and distancing from hard Sci-Fi, which is fairly niche at the moment.

The types of markets we’ve been in for my first two collections, and the Thanksgiving anthology are quite accessible. You’ll see a lot of similar work being accepted by other small horror presses with bigger names. My come-up, my first angle in writing was for slots in books by Hellbound Books, Dark Horses, Burial Books, you know most of them. Severed Press, Evil Cookie, and similar.

Other presses have a higher ceiling but are still very small. Bad Hand Books has one of the best editors of small press horror around. They’ve done projects with Stephen King, Palahniuk, Laird Barron, Clay McCleod Chapman, etc. The Dark has a high ceiling, Tenebrous, Apex, Cemetery Dance. This is the best in indie horror.

This is where I want to bring us.

I say us, because I don’t want to imply we—I, you—aren’t capable of these markets. I am not saying, “I belong at the upper eschelon, and you don’t.” I am saying, “This is not only an editing goal of mine, a class of writing I wish to promote, but it’s also a level of writing I have yet to achieve.” WE. YET.

Some of you guys are already writing at that level.

I want to reinforce that quality. And I want to encourage and coax out that quality in everyone I publish.

As a writing-first-focused press, and with the level of talent we’ve seen so far, we’re going to get there. My growing press experience, how to better market, how to reduce errors, collaborative efforts with awards, associations, better, less rushed publishing goals, more input on both accepted and rejected work, arcing writers’ groups and beta readers, tighter belts in editing, everything, we’re going to get there.

Open Calls: ENDS TODAY!!!

1.

Open call submission information is available at

https://drekdeathanddoom.com/submissions/

Drek Death and Doom and Nascent Night Press are both open for long fiction submissions. Collections, Novellas, Novels.

For long fiction submissions, send query letter and first chapter. I will ask for the full thing if I want a closer look.

Submit at submissions@drekdeathanddoom.com.

2.

The submission window for Bloodlust—the anthology we’ll be publishing next Valentine’s day—closes TODAY.

III
Margin Comments

1

Remember that getting published is hard.

2

Fuck AI

3.

All of our books will be converted into e-books now, too!

IV
A Call to Arms:

1.

Real talk, a lot of people are going through a lot of things. Buying indie books directly first, then ordering through your indie shops, then bookshop.org, then all the other major retailors in that order helps—not only me—but the writers I publish, directly.

With that, there are other people and places in great need:

These are the most recent. Apologies if I’m missing anything. I’m jumping in where I can

FiC: Ottoman Family New Year's Cards

FiC: Introducing Mike's Food Fund

FiC: Introducing WordiGirl the BabyBard!

Introducing RECIPES TO FEED THE DUCKS

Introducing ASHCRAFT AUTHOR SITES

2.

Street Team is still on AF. Times, what do they say…? Are fucked? Wild? Just wild? Either way, after the holidays and after I get my shit together, I’ll have some packets of stuff to mail out to those who were interested.

3.

Shift, incoming.

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V
What’s New?

Give Us This Day: A Horror Anthology

Welcome to the Giving Season

Through the twining forests where brittle frost crunches like shattered glass and the wind holds still and silent; to the holiday kitchens where strange smells burn, and virulent colors swell from rotting food; into the twilight cities, cold and harsh and wantonly eager for violence—as the days grow shorter, the nights blasphemously deep, and inhibitions weaker, something ancient and starving stirs.

This Thanksgiving, make sure to say Grace. Seventeen new, emerging, and established writers come together to spread tales of thanks, family trauma, ritualistic terror, and folken Elder Gods imposing unknowable will.

Featuring stories from Sean Thomas McDonnell, Douglas Ford, Lucy Zhang, Drew Valdez, Connor Mancuso, Judith Ashcraft, Hamish Kavanagh, A.P. Murphy, Michael Duffy, Saint-Lazare, Aurelian Ashmore, Keith Long, Shawn Brooks, Edward Marlo Ruiz, Lane Blevins, Brody Farrow, and Garen Glazier

You can pick this up for free on Kindle Unlimited or buy the ebook here:

Amazon Kindle

Or, you can get the paperback easily at these places while you are waiting for the Drek Death and Doom restock:

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Bookshop.org

VI.
Coming Soon:

2026

Atone: A Collection by Dylan Bosworth

Featuring a bunch of stories you’ve read here, and a few you haven’t. These stories focus on transformation, and many of them were experimental in a way that I found transformative for my writing, helping to develop my current style.

This one is very personal.

There’s some stuff in here you guys haven’t seen that I hope will blow your mind. This is the connector. I’ve hinted at a shared universe throughout my stories through multiple books.

Ready to see that stitching pull tight?

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VII
Books:

Below, you can find all the books sold by Drek Death and Doom and Nascen Night Press

Thanks as always, so much, for reading.

the next one will be shorter, I promise

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