Chapter 1

A whip cracks, and a scream sounds somewhere in the distance, the elves in the boardroom all shuffle in their seats,   no one making eye contact, one of them hesitantly clears his throat, instantly all eyes are on him, and he sinks further down in his seat.
Santa Claus turns his gaze slowely to the shaken elf, and after taking a long delibrate puff of his cigar and blowing the smoke in his direction he says 'You have something you want to add? or you just got a frog in your throat.'
The smoke makes weird shapes as it passes under the single light swinging lighty in the center of the room and moves to envelope the poor elf, who bursts into a coughing fit, once he waves the smoke away to join the haze lurking near the roof he gathers up courage and manges to stutter 'W-w-well sir, we have some, some, some p-parents who aren't, well, p-p-paying this year.'
'Is that so.' Santa mused, 'Well, you know what to do about it.'
Gaining a bit more courage the elf continued, still stuttering slightly, 'I-is it really necessary' Santa snapped his full attention to the elf, who patheticly tried to continue, 'I mean, surely a couple of p-people don't matter, we've still got more t-then enough parents who p-pay' he finished lamely.
Santa picked up a couple of walnuts from bowl near him, then slowely stood up and started to walk to the elf, who was a shaking wreck now, “So, you think I should ease off a bit, after all, it's Christmas right?  Season of good tidings and joy, so we shouldn't be too harsh, is that what you're saying' The elf hesitantly nodded his head, 'Wrong' Santa bellowed, 'Do you know what would happen if we eased off, soon those pathetic parents would start to feel safe, feel like they could get away with it, soon, more then a couple would stop paying, it would snowball, and I will not let that happen, we've got them by the balls, and we're going to squeeze and squeeze, never a moments relief' saying that he crushed the shells with one of his massive hands, and popped the nuts into his mouth, then he started to laugh, not a pleasant laugh like you might hear if a couple of friends shared a joke, but a deep rumbling laugh that shook the whole room, the folds of fat around his middle vibrating more and more, 'Ho ho ho, HO HO HO HO HO HO HO.' Then with a deft move he raised his giant candy cane and brought in down with a crack on the elfs head, the blood splashing onto it, adding to the swirls of red and green, suspiciously more red then green, then he turned his attention to the rest, then strolled back to his place at the head of the table and lowered himself into his chair, the smoke lazily swirling around his head as he settles down, then he proceeds, 'Now, does anyone else have any bright ideas?, no, good, lets continue then.' he stops and takes another puff at his cigar then turns to one of the elves to his left, 'Hayward, how are the finances coming along this year?'
The small elf adjusts his glasses and ruffles through the paper in front of him, then flicking a nervous glance over to the dead elf before continuing in a slightly snobbish voice, 'Well, as has already been raised, certain parents feel that they can get away with not paying this year, but so far not enough to really effect our turnover by any significant amount,' he shuffles through some paper 'but if the growth of the rebelion continues at it's current rate, within 5 years it will really start to show.'
'You've done good.' Santa said, 'So, who has any ideas on what to do to, ho ho ho, “fix”, this situation?'
Another faint scream sounds in the background as they look at each other, studiously ignoring the corpse, no one wanting to be the first to speak, 'No takers?' Santa said, slowely scanning the room, 'hand me that list Hayward.'
Hayward ruffles through his sheets, then passes a couple of sheets over to Santa, 'That's the complete list of everyone who hasn't paid yet.'
Santa reaches over and takes them, and then sits back and scans that pages, 'Alright, here's what we're going to do, this guy here has a nice family, couple of kids, and a fairly high up job in a big company, he also happens to grow marijuana and sells it to select friends.  So the police are going to get an anonamous tip, and the local newspaper too, and I want you guys make sure that the other parents find out about it, capeesh?'
The elves all nod fervently, and Santa stands up, 'Good, make it happen then.' he says as he flicks his cigar in a nearby trash can, and starts to leave  the room, fat gently rolling from side to side as he walks, as he gets to the door he turns and says, almost as an afterthought 'And someone clean up that mess,' pointing to the corpse.  The elves nervously watch him leave, and then the spell broke, and they all got up and turned to leave, none of them looking at each other, or the corpse, they would get someone else in to clean up the mess.