oneshot

The stale scent of antiseptic and desperation clung to Edward McScrewing’s opulent penthouse like a shroud. At forty-something, his body was a battlefield, ravaged by the spoils of a life spent in the shadows of organized crime. Each breath was a ragged, wheezing testament to the poisons he’d injected, inhaled, and consumed. His wealth, amassed through ruthless extortion and a disturbingly efficient body count, was his gilded cage.

A sharp, hacking cough wracked his frame, forcing him to grip the arms of his velvet armchair. The only sound in the cavernous space was his labored breathing and the distant hum of the city he once owned.

Then, a tentative knock.

“Uncle Edward?” a voice, clear and hopeful, cut through the gloom.

Edward recoiled, a flicker of annoyance crossing his sallow features. Fred. His nephew. A librarian, for God’s sake. The antithesis of everything Edward had ever been.

“Go away, Fred,” Edward rasped, his voice raw.

Fred persisted, his voice unwavering. “Just wanted to invite you to a small Christmas party, Uncle. Just me, Selina, she’s due any day now with twins, and my father, Mark. It would mean a lot.”

The mention of Mark ignited a familiar fire in Edward’s gut. Mark. The man who had, in Edward’s twisted narrative, stolen his beloved sister, Fran. The man he blamed, with a ferocity that bordered on madness, for Fran’s slow, agonizing death from cervical cancer.

“Never,” Edward spat, the word a venomous hiss. “Never will I set foot in that man’s presence.”

Fred’s shoulders sagged, a familiar defeat. He’d been coming for years, a constant, unwavering beacon of Christmas spirit in the suffocating darkness of Edward’s retirement. Edward hadn’t left this mausoleum since he’d traded his bulletproof vest for a silk dressing gown, not since his old partner, Rob Cratchit, had passed. His days were a blur of sleep, substances, and the gnawing emptiness within.

Suddenly, a searing pain exploded in Edward’s chest. His breath hitched, his vision blurred, and the world went black.

He awoke to the sterile chill of a hospital room. A familiar face, etched with concern, loomed over him. Mark. His estranged brother-in-law. The doctor.

“Edward,” Mark’s voice was a low rumble, devoid of the anger Edward always felt when he saw him. “You had a heart attack.”

Edward’s eyes, weak and bloodshot, scanned the room. Fred stood beside Mark, his face pale with worry. This was the first time he’d seen Mark since… since that night. The night he’d confronted his sister during an extortion run, Fezziwig’s venomous command echoing in his ears. He remembered Fran’s terrified eyes, her desperate pleas.

Now, he was dying. The years of abuse had finally caught up. Mark and Fred could only offer palliative care, a futile attempt to ease the inevitable.

As unconsciousness claimed him again, a spectral whisper brushed his ear.

“Edward,” the voice was a familiar, mournful echo. “You are not alone. The spirits will visit you.”

It was Rob. His loyal friend, his partner, the only man who had ever understood the brutal camaraderie of their world.

Then, darkness. And with it, the Ghost of Christmas Past.

He was a boy again, small and alone in a bleak boarding school. Fezziwig, with his greasy smile and iron grip, had placed him there. His father, a mob boss himself, had been powerful, but ultimately disposable. Fran, his older sister, had been his only light. He remembered her, a teenager, bringing the news of their father’s death, a betrayal orchestrated by Fezziwig, a setup to eliminate a rival.

He saw Fran again, promising him a new life. A place with her and her fiancé, Mark, a doctor who could fix him, physically and mentally. He saw the joy in her eyes as she introduced him to a tiny, bundled infant – Fred. The beginning of the end. Fran couldn’t secure a place for him, and Mark had been laid off, his clinic firebombed by Fezziwig in a twisted insurance scam. Edward, already a lonely child, saw only abandonment. He’d run. Ran from everything, everyone.

He found solace in the streets, a thief and a pickpocket. Until Fezziwig found him. Offered him a job. He became an enforcer, a brutal instrument of Fezziwig’s will, with Rob by his side, his true companion in the violence. It was the only time he’d felt… happy. Fezziwig was a father figure, a protector.

Then, Belle. A prostitute in Fezziwig’s ring. She’d cornered him, demanding his affection. He’d killed her, a flash of rage, with Rob’s grim assistance. Later, realizing they were stronger alone, they’d turned on Fezziwig, tipping off the police, sending their mentor to prison. They became loan sharks, their own brand of ruthless.

Mark reappeared, a debtor seeking an extension. Fran, frail and ill, was with him. Edward’s rage, a dormant volcano, erupted. He’d lashed out, his words like daggers, his fists a blur. Fran, witnessing his unadulterated fury, had died of a broken heart. Mark had been spared only by the arrival of security.

He’d retreated further into himself, a slave to the drugs peddled by a dealer named Old Joe, whom he eventually killed out of sheer avarice. The Ghost of Christmas Past offered no solace, only the stark reality of his past actions, the unchangeable truth that redemption lay not in erasing the past, but in shaping the future.

The spectral visitor faded, replaced by a figure cloaked in shadow, the Ghost of Christmas Present. This entity, grim and imposing, showed Edward his current reality. Jacob Harley, his caregiver, a man Fred had hired. Overworked, verbally abused, yet fiercely loyal, grateful for the employment. Jacob’s son, Tiny Tim, critically ill, yet holding onto a naive belief in Edward’s inherent goodness.

Then, a vision of Fred, Selina, and Mark at the hospital. Their hushed words of concern, of Fred’s unwavering love for his uncle, his determination to ease Edward’s suffering. Fred’s middle name, he learned, was Edward. A small, forgotten detail that pricked at something within him.

The Ghost of Christmas Present dissolved into a chilling mist, heralding the arrival of the final spirit. The Ghost of Christmas Future.

This entity was a chilling harbinger of doom. A funeral, somber and sparsely attended. Fred, Selina, and Mark, the only mourners. Jacob, weeping over the loss of Tiny Tim. The city of London, aflame, consumed by the very darkness Edward had both profited from and contributed to – immigration crime, rampant serial killings. His own home, a squatting ground for cannibalistic Muslim rapists, set ablaze. The city was a testament to societal decay, a reflection of the rot within his own soul.

Edward gasped, jolted awake. The pain still gnawed at him, but it was eclipsed by a suffocating wave of regret. He looked at Mark, at Fred, his voice trembling.

“I’m so sorry,” he croaked, tears tracing paths through the grime on his cheeks. “For everything.”

He passed away the next day, peacefully, the fury and addiction finally extinguished. His funeral was a quiet, sun-drenched affair. His last wish, whispered to Fred, was for his immense fortune to be used for philanthropy, not for the shadows.

Edward found himself in an endless, black expanse. Then, figures began to coalesce from the void. Rob. Jacob. And… Belle? No. It was Fran.

“Edward,” her voice, though ethereal, held a familiar warmth. “I was a teacher, you know. Tried to mend what our father broke.” She spoke of her stroke, of meeting Mark in the hospital, of their constant worry for him. She’d found solace in religion, in therapy. She’d always spoken of him fondly, even after his cruel disownment.

Fran explained that Jacob, haunted by his past, had used their shared wealth for extensive philanthropy. He’d sought peace, hoping Edward would retire so they could both find it.

Edward, overwhelmed, finally apologized to Fran, not just for his actions, but for his blindness, his hatred.

And then, a flicker of light. Before them stood two tiny, cooing infants, their eyes bright with a nascent joy. Fred and Selina. Reincarnated.

As Edward reached for them, Fran’s hand met his. “We’re all here now, brother,” she whispered. “Together.”

The blackness receded, replaced by a warm, golden glow. A new beginning, for all of them.