Christmas Horror Volume 1
Author: Chris Morey; Joe R. Lansdale; John Skipp; Jeff Strand; Cody Goodfellow; Shane McKenzie; Nate Southard; Stephen Mark Rainey; J. F. Gonzalez; Zach McCain
Date: 2015-12-18 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Anthologies
Description: Introducing the new annual Dark Regions Press holiday anthology: Christmas Horror. Volume 1 features all new and original stories from authors Joe R. Lansdale, John Skipp, Cody Goodfellow, Jeff Strand, J. F. Gonzalez, Stephen Mark Rainey, Nate Southard, Shane McKenzie and (in deluxe hardcover retail editions only) William Meikle. Each story is preceded by a full page/full bleed color illustration by artist Zach McCain. Table of Contents “Santa Explains” by Joe R. Lansdale “The Endless Black of Friday” by Nate Southard “Red Rage” by Stephen Mark Rainey “Pointy Canes” by Jeff Strand “Naughty” by
Publisher: Dark Regions Press, LLC
Rights: Copyright 2015 Dark Regions Press

CHRISTMAS HORROR VOLUME. 1

Copyright © 2015 Dark Regions Press

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events or organizations in it are products of the author’s imaginations or used fictitiously.

All rights reserved.

Santa Explains © 2015 by Joe R. Lansdale

The Endless Black of Friday © 2015 by Nate Southard

Red Rage © 2015 by Stephen Mark Rainey

Pointy Canes © 2015 by Jeff Strand

Naughty © 2015 by Shane McKenzie

Krampusnacht in Cell Block J © 2015 by Cody Goodfellow

The Shittiest Guy in the World (A Christmas Fable) © 2015 by John Skipp

Belsnickel © 2015 by J.F. Gonzalez

Dark Regions Press, LLC

6635 N. Baltimore Ave. Ste. 245

Portland, OR 97203

Edited by Chris Morey

Cover Design, Cover Art, Interior Art, © 2015 by Zach McCain

Interior Book Design by Cyrus Wraith Walker

First Trade eBook Edition

Christmas Horror Volume 2 coming 2016

ISBN: 978-1-62641-120-3

CONTENTS

SANTA EXPLAINS
by Joe R. Lansdale

THE ENDLESS BLACK OF FRIDAY
by Nate Southard

RED RAGE
by Stephen Mark Rainey

POINTY CANES
by Jeff Strand

NAUGHTY
by Shane McKenzie

KRAMPUSNACHT IN CELL BLOCK J
by Cody Goodfellow

THE SHITTIEST GUY IN THE WORLD

(A Christmas Fable) by John Skipp

BELSNICKEL
by J.F. Gonzalez

CONTRIBUTOR BIOS

This book is dedicated to J. F. Gonzalez

SANTA EXPLAINS

So you were thinking because I didn’t have a job, Christmas was going to be a bust, but as you can see, you are wrong.

How wrong are you? Huh?

Big time wrong, that’s how wrong.

I’ll explain to you why you’re wrong. I have presents. You didn’t expect that, did you? But I do. That’s not what’s important, though, is it? What’s important is our family, and me making sure we don’t go hungry or lose this shoddy roof we have over our head, and I know the car and the TV got repossessed, but none of that is going to matter. I promise. Not with the changes I’ve made and am making.

We been married nearly twenty years, and you been telling me, “The bloom is off the rose, Tom. It’s all dried up. I don’t think we ought to go on like this.”

Words to that effect anyway. Am I right? I remember it pretty close, don’t I?

I think I do.

But tonight, don’t call me Charles. Call me Santa.

All that stuff you said the other day, about how I couldn’t provide for the family. Couldn’t even have a Christmas for the children, and that it was going to be a ruined Christmas this year, and how you hated the kids had to remember a Christmas when we had nothing, not even a good dinner or a Christmas tree.

You know I been trying. Well, maybe you don’t. I been all over this town looking for work. I tried to get a position for quite some time. A good position. A good job.

Yeah, I know. I don’t have a degree, just a GED, but baby, I got what I got. But that said, I want to say quite firmly here, you were right all along, about me out there looking for a job above my education and expecting someone to give me that kind of position, and me not going in and applying for something entry level, working my way up like your old man, as you have constantly reminded me.

But I don’t want to get that started. You were right.

I wanted respect and a position without doing the work to get there.

I decided what I had to do was swallow my pride, and at my age, after all the schemes of mine you supported, it was time for me to support you guys. Really, I do get it. Don’t look at me like that and tilt your head that way, because I do get it. It took me time, and I know you supported me for nearly fifteen years. I was bringing in some real dough the first five years of our marriage, and before you say anything, I know. That wasn’t what you would call the most legitimate kind of money.

But I was young. I didn’t know better.

Oh, I can tell by that glazed look in your eye that you’re tuning out. Just hear the whole thing. You may not owe me much, and that is something I admit fully and freely and without any kind of proviso. There. I’ve said it again. You don’t owe me a thing.

You were always there for me. Convinced me to get out of that dope selling business when the first kid came along, and I went to work at your father’s lumber yard. Did all right there for awhile. Yet, I felt I was cut out for something more. My mother always told me: “Son, you are special.” She told me that constantly, and I guess, over time, I believed it.

To me it wasn’t just a mother trying to give her son confidence. It was the gospel truth as far as I was concerned. I not trying to lay it all at the foot of my mom, as that’s what they always do. Psychiatrist asking about your mom, trying to find the source, the root that came loose from the ground. It’s always the parents isn’t it? The mom especially. Moms get blamed for everything.

I’ll tell you now, though. You’re a mom. And you’re a good one, and as your husband, as Santa, cause I got the suit on. For the holidays I’m all dressed up, the cap and everything. I got the bag full of delights right over there. I got you, my wife, like a kid at the mall, on my knee. Sitting here like a kid listening to me. I know it may be a little odd, and I thank you so much for indulging me, letting me have my say. I promise I haven’t got much more for you to hear.

I went out and tried to get work at the burger joints. Every last one of them. Anything where you had counter work, cooking. I just missed getting a delivery job. Turned out you had to have your own car for that. We don’t have a car. Repossessed. My fault.

I walked all over town looking for work. Let me tell you, dear, I even offered to sweep up in front of businesses. Stand out there like I was a teenager. Stand out there with a broom and sweep as people I know came by. I offered to do that, sweetie. I offered it to them.

Know what?

Not one bit of interest.

Zero.

Big old goose egg.

Nada.

You remember Cal Luvin?

I think you do. You went out with him in high school. And you know what I’ve heard through the grapevine. I’ve heard since you and me separated you’ve been seeing him again.

Don’t worry.

It’s okay.

It doesn’t matter.

Know why?

Come on, guess.

Not going to say, huh?

I’ll wait.

Nope?

No guesses?

I’ll tell you then.

I have made changes that will make this family not have to worry about its future, not have to worry about losing the roof, or having food on the table, or not having a car. I have repaired all of that in one single day and night.

Christmas night.

I’m not all dressed up in this Santa suit for nothing.

By the way. Know where I got it?

No?

The Goodwill store.

I’m going to admit a little something though. When I figured things out, knew what to do to solve our problems, I had a moment of good luck, like a Christmas present that was just lying there for me to find and pick up. You see, I was walking by the Goodwill, and I saw the suit hanging out of one of the donation boxes. It was as if Santa had crawled in the box and melted and ran right out of the suit like warm water.

The suit was hanging out of the box as if it had been placed there by divine providence. The box was stuffed full and someone had pulled up and half-assed jammed it in there. I couldn’t help myself. They won’t miss it. I mean, hell, it was there for people like us that can’t afford a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.

But after tonight. All of that is fixed.

You see, coming across that suit, and what it represents, I was deeply affected.

Hell. I should have stuck with your dad. He wasn’t so bad. Yet, the way he looked at me, gave me that kind of look like he knew I was a born loser who had married his little girl and was never going to amount to a hill of beans.… It hurt. But you know what? Like you, he was right. I was like an anvil on a float toy pushed out in the ocean. I was going down quick. Had been for years, just didn’t know it.

That suit made me remember what day it was. Made me realize how important it was that I make sure my family didn’t suffer. That my two children, my wonderful daughter and son, and you, honey, would not have one more day of having to suffer because of me. Not having one more day where you had to explain to people that I worked at home, even if I wasn’t really doing much of anything besides messing on the internet, playing video games, watching TV and drinking beer. I thank you for not embarrassing me. At least until lately.

But, hell, I had it coming. I have not been faithful to you the way I should have. You’ve always forgiven me, but after twenty years, all those women, all those other disappointments, I can’t blame you for throwing me out.

I know I’m violating the restraining order being here.

But hang tough. I’m nearly finished.

I was at fault. Makes sense you’d need to run to somebody like Cal. In high school everyone thought you two would get married, but then I stepped in with all my big plans. All my big talk. I could talk it up one side and down the other. I meant it, though. I want you to know that. I may not have delivered, but I meant every word of it. It was just that … Well, it was hard for me to get started. Everything gets boring to me pretty quick. I can look around and see what’s wrong with other people, but I don’t do so good figuring out what’s wrong with me.

I saw that Santa suit, took it, went in a back alley and put it on. I started walking home. And then whose place of business should I pass again? Cal and his hardware store. The same Cal that didn’t have a job for me, not even sweeping off the sidewalk. “I’d like to help you,” he said, “but I don’t think you’re a good risk.”

The same Cal you used to date.

The same Cal who you ran to when you left me, you bitch.

Sorry. Please. I’m sorry. I really am. It’s just I have my moments.

So there was Cal, still in the store. Just one light on. I guess he was doing inventory, and there was the door, propped open. Maybe he’d just carried something heavy inside. I don’t know. Doesn’t matter.

I went in and took an axe off the shelf. It was over quick. By the time he saw me I had split his head like a watermelon.

Got blood on the Santa suit.

I think it’ll wash out, so don’t let that fret you. Being mostly on the red part it doesn’t show up much.

I walked home carrying the axe, and I thought: My family need not worry about anything, because I’m going to make everything all right. That’s why I have the bag there, honey. That’s why I have the axe still with me.

Let me open it. You keep your seat. You’re just fine there on my knee. I can hold you up easily while I reach it.

There. Bag is open.

The children had to be chopped up in more pieces than I would have imagined. But both of them are there. If a bit intermingled. Thing is, though. They don’t ever have to worry about daddy failing again. They don’t have to worry about food and a roof.

And don’t you worry.

I can sew them back together. I’ll put them under the Christmas tree with you.

Oh, damn, there you roll. Thought I did a better job sewing you up. I’ll get the fishing line and needles and sew your head back on again.

Then I’m going to put you and the kids under the tree.

Santa will have done the best for his family, and as present to me, you’ll all be under the tree, without complaints, without worries.

Best Christmas ever.

In the morning, I’m going to go out back and see how hard it is to chop off one’s own head.

I’m thinking it might be difficult.

I hope I’m up for more than one good whack.

THE ENDLESS BLACK OF FRIDAY

It was Friday. Not just any Friday, either. This wasn’t some day of boredom to survive, eight hours and then a trip to some place that serves beer and nachos to kickstart the weekend. No, this was Black Friday. The blackest Friday.

I stood near the middle of the line. In my back pocket, a list waited. My wife, Karen, had written most of it, but she wasn’t going to stand out here, so I’d scrawled NEW TV across the bottom. I deserved it.

Two in the morning, and the wind slashed at my face. I tucked my chin and rolled my shoulder, a boxer’s defense. Around me, others tried to defend themselves in other ways. The suburban schlub in front of me attempted a few jumping jacks, but he was soft. A decade on the sofa had turned his gut to dough. A quick hook to his breadbasket, and he’d drop.

The woman behind me used anger. Maybe she thought a slow boil of rage would keep the November chill at bay. “They better not try some lottery bullshit. I’ve been out here since before midnight, and I’m not losing my place in line.”

“Three o’clock,” somebody further down the line said. “Four more hours.”

Four more hours. Two hundred and forty minutes. That was how long I had left with these people. The bored and tired parents of suburbia.

Four hours. No sweat.

Too damn cold to sweat, anyway.

§

A new guy pulled into the lot and climbed out of his car. He made it halfway to the curb before he stopped and examined the line. His neck moved on a swivel, and I could read the look on his face. Goddamn, that’s a big line. Pretty sure he was some kind of genius.

“Still got power here?” he said like he was asking an auditorium. “Town’s blacked out.”

Nice try. A few people looked around, questions in their eyes, but no one left. The line held. How this guy expected to cut down the line with a story about a power outage was anybody’s guess. Not like we were expected home before dawn, anyway.

“Guess they got a generator,” the woman who hated lotteries said. I glanced her way and saw her looking up at the sign over our heads. Sure enough, it was burning bright. Between the sign, the lights that stood watch over the parking lot, and the fat full moon, we might as well have been standing in daylight.

“It’s a Christmas miracle,” I said. No one laughed.

§

Some asshole started singing “Jingle Bells.” I hated that he was too far up the line for me to knuckle-dance his kidneys. Would serve the bastard right. Probably thought he was being festive, not irritating. He deserved a quick correction. The woman behind me—I hadn’t asked, but she’d told me her name was Susie—agreed.

“If I walk up there to pepper-spray the shit out of him, will you let me back in line?”

I liked the idea. In my head, I heard the prick start screaming as he got hit somewhere between, “Oh, what fun,” and, “Sleigh.” Turning to Susie, I gave her a wink and half a grin.

“You don’t talk a lot, do you?” she asked.

“Here and there,” I said. Figured it was as good an answer as any.

“I get it. Don’t want to get too cozy before the stampede happens. We could get chummy, but then I have to trample you to get at one of the new PlayStations. Those doors open up, and we’re all just animals.”

“Nah, nothing that bad,” I said. “Just cold.” Almost as a reflex, I took hold of my keys, the metal objects slipping between my fingers to create a claw. No animal here. Ain’t no animal this hard.

“I hear ya. We should start a trash can fire.”

I gave her the other half of the smile. “I’m all out of trash cans.”

The schlub chimed in. “Another hour of this, and I might light up one of the cars.”

“Now, there’s an idea,” Susie said. “Pick somebody in front of us. It’ll get us closer to the front of the line.”

Schlub tapped a finger against his temple. Yeah. He was a thinker, all right. Susie would eat him alive. She wouldn’t even have to step out of line to give him the pepper spray. I’d lean out of the way so she could get a good shot. The thought made me smile. Not the little bones I’d tossed Susie, but a genuine, amused grin.

“How about the Kia?” Schlub asked. Jesus, he was still talking.

“Possibly,” Susie said. “Or how about—”

Somebody screamed. Thank Christ.

§

You get a few hundred people lined up outside a big-box store, promise them the kind of deals they can only find once every year, and they get territorial. Folks stake out their place, and they defend it. Over the past decade, I’ve seen everything from shouting matches to brawls to a pair of dads fighting with streams of urine. Black Friday turns people into goddamn hyenas.

Throw in a horrible scream nobody’s expecting, however, and they scatter like cockroaches under a kitchen light. Don’t matter how tough a front people throw up. Whittle ’em down, and they’re all instinct and live wires.

When the scream shattered the night, I jumped the same as everybody else. Only difference was, while everybody else turned and either hightailed it to their cars or ran toward the sound to find out what in hell was happening, I walked casually toward the sound, my fingers tightening, working my keys into a claw again.

“Somebody help! She’s not breathing!” The college kid hunched over a sprawled woman looked close to overdosing on panic. His eyes were wide and jumpy, shooting from one person to the next as he pleaded. He wasn’t playing a first-person shooter this time.

A man crouched beside the woman and checked for a pulse, but no one else did anything but stare. I couldn’t tell if she had been with the college kid or not, but the quickest glance told me both that the kid hadn’t been lying about her not breathing and that checking her pulse was a goddamn waste of time. Her skin had skipped turning white, instead becoming the dirty gray of old ashes, and withered, stretched tight over her skull. Looking at her desiccated face, I thought her cheekbones might slice right through her skin.

“What happened to her?” the crouching man asked.

“I got no clue! She was standing in front of me one second, and then she just fell over. I went to check on her, and …” He gestured at her face. We got it.

“Do you know her?” I looked to my left and found Susie at my side.

The college kid didn’t speak, just shook his head. His jaw had gone slack. Maybe shock was settling in. Pretty understandable for somebody who’d just found a corpse at his feet.

Crouching man checked the corpse for a pulse. I’d watched him do it twice already. “She’s gone,” he said. Must have been a doctor. “I guess I should call the police?”

“I got it,” Schlub said. As he dug his cell from his pocket, I found myself thinking at least he could do something useful.

He shook his head. “No signal.”

Never mind.

“Somebody needs a better plan,” Susie said. A second later, she fished her phone from her purse and checked it. “Son of a bitch.”

That set the dominos in motion. One after the other, everybody checked their cell phones, and everybody realized they couldn’t make a call. I checked mine last, and I stared at my lack of bars while wearing a stone face. Something fluttered in my stomach.

Susie shook her phone like it might start working again. “This is bullshit. We’re outside a damn big-box store. Shit, we’re less than half a mile from the mall. There should be a signal here.”

“Well, I don’t know,” I said. Then, I felt like an ass for saying it.

“Somebody’s going to have to go find a phone,” Schlub said.

Susie gave us a shrug. “We can bang on the door. There’s bound to be somebody inside.”

A few people nodded before jogging to the store’s glass entrance. As I watched them go, I noticed at least a dozen people had returned to the front of the line.

Instead of dwelling on getting to the front of the line, I turned to look at the dead woman. When I first saw her, I thought she’d been blond, but now her brittle hair looked almost white. I felt my brow furrow as I tried to decide which part I’d imagined. That thing in my stomach fluttered a little harder. Not too bad yet, but bad enough that I noticed.

“Hey!” a voice shouted at the glass doors. A few hard bangs accompanied it as they pounded on the door. “Hey, we need a phone! There’s somebody hurt out here!”

“Maybe they won’t let us in,” the college kid said.

Susie smirked. “Don’t be dumb.”

“Open the doors early on Black Friday? Thousands of dollars of merch inside and more than a hundred freezing people outside? I’m not saying it would cause problems, but I don’t think I’d want to risk it.”

“He’s got a point,” I said.

“Seriously?” Susie looked at me like I was mad. Apparently, she’d forgotten all about her lottery tirade.

“I’m not saying they won’t make a call from inside. Just sayin’ they won’t let us in. Hell, look.” I extended an arm toward the reforming line, where two angry men had already started shoving each other.

“I’m telling you, I was in front of you!”

“Don’t fucking lie to me, asshole!”

The punch that followed was purely academic. In an instant, they were on the ground, rolling around like drunken fratboys. The crowd got them separated quickly enough, but one man’s nose had already been turned into a strawberry stain.

Schlub shook his head. “Jesus.”

“The holidays will make assholes of us all,” Susie said.

§

After ten minutes, everybody decided either no one was inside the store or they were ignoring us. The college kid shrugged off his jacket and covered the dead woman with it. He stood there shivering. I felt okay about it.

Most of the line had reformed. Those who’d fled to their cars returned with their questions unholstered. No more fists flew, but the angry shouts and insults circled like buzzards.

For some reason, the five of us stayed beside the body. I’d even taken the time to learn a few names. Schlub was Tony, and the college kid went by Benson. The pulse-checker said he was James. As we eyed the re-forming line, we wondered what to do next.

“I guess somebody should go find a phone,” Tony said.

Benson nodded. “Yeah.”

Susie looked around the group. We all did. “So …?”

An annoyed sigh slid from Tony’s throat. “I’ll do it. Just … will somebody hold my spot?”

“If we can hold ours,” I said.

“Great. Thanks.”

He jogged toward the parking lot. A minute later, we heard a car door open and shut. The engine rumbled a second later, and then Tony followed his headlights out of the parking lot.

When I turned back to the group, James was looking at the sky.

“What’s up?” Susie asked.

He jumped. “What? Oh … I guess it’s …”

“What is it?” I asked.

Again, he looked up. “Wasn’t the moon out earlier?”

§

I stood in line and tried to tell my gut to calm down. Behind me, Susie kept asking questions. I kept ignoring her. Only a few minutes had passed, but that was enough time for some really awful ideas to seep in. Thinking back, I tried to remember when I’d last seen a car arrive, when the line had last grown. It had been a while, probably since the guy who’d reported the power outage. That made me nervous, too.

With my eyes locked on the parking lot’s entrance, I wondered what might happen next. Occasionally, I thought about the list in my back pocket and my wife’s handwriting and how she was probably home sleeping soundly, and I wondered if the moon was out over our house.

When I saw headlights, I held my breath. Twin beams washed over the lot as a car turned in, and soon I recognized Tony’s car. In my pockets, my hands constricted, fists growing tighter with each second.

Tony didn’t even bother parking, just pulled his car to the curb and killed the engine. Not a good sign. The look on his face wasn’t a good sign either, and the way he shook surely qualified as a terrible one. He shuffled across the concrete until he stood beside Susie and me again.

“Well?” Susie asked.

He swallowed hard, shook his head. I saw his lips tremble.

I lifted my eyebrows at him. “Tony…?”

Those who were nearby started to look. Susie placed a hand on his arm. “Tony, come on. What is it?”

Again, he shook his head. “It’s … nothing.”

“It’s obviously something. Just—”

“No! I’m telling you, there’s nothing out there! I made it maybe a quarter of a mile, and then everything just stopped. It’s just black past that. I don’t mean like the street lights are out, either. I mean there’s nothing there. Everything is gone.”

I heard murmurs and curses in every direction, a few scoffing comments that were probably from those who wanted to pretend they weren’t afraid. Over it all, I heard Susie's voice as she turned to me.

“The moon.”

Again, we looked to the sky. Nothing. Just blackness. Forever.

§

Maybe things could have held together after Tony’s bombshell. Could be there were enough of us left with our heads on our shoulders to keep the entire crowd from going south, but three more people dropped dead within the next minute, and then most of the crowd ran for their cars. I hugged the store wall with Susie and Tony, fought the irrational urge to chuckle. I’d never seen a stampede moving away from a store on Black Friday.

“They don’t have anywhere to go,” Tony said.

“They’re scared,” I answered. “Either they’ll be back or they won’t. They need to see for themselves.”

“So you believe it?” Susie asked.

“Do you?”

She shrugged, but I saw the real answer in her pinched expression.

“I’m not lying,” Tony said. “Swear to Christ, it’s just black out there.”

“We get it. I just … I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Dammit, what’s happening?” Benson had approached when we weren’t looking. James stood beside him. Other than a small group surrounding the other bodies, no one remained. The parking lot was a hog pen of honking horns and squealing tires. I heard metal crunch metal, angry voices chasing the sound. On the other end of the lot, a car picked up speed and then plowed into a light post. As the blaring home sliced through the air, I wondered if the driver was now a dried-up corpse.

“It’s like the world’s shrinking,” Tony said. “Everything keeps getting smaller.”

Susie released a breath that almost sounded like a chuckle. “Been getting smaller a while. Work, home, sit on the couch. Wash, rinse, and repeat, right? Shit, this is the longest I’ve been outside in months.”

“Hunker down,” I said. “Everything’s gone to shit.”

§

Some of them came back. Some of them didn’t. Maybe they decided to drive into the black Tony had described. Could be that was the best idea, the quickest way to reach what was probably coming.

Six more dropped dead. One of them—a woman wearing a blue scarf and matching ear muffs—was halfway back from her car, sobbing hysterically, when she toppled over.

I decided I wanted inside the store. Susie and Benson agreed. A quick count told us there were twenty-three people left, and that fluttering in my gut kept telling me we were running out of time. I didn’t know if we might find some kind of answer inside—maybe we’d just drop dead in front of a bank of flat screen TVs—but I figured doing something was better than doing nothing.

Susie hugged herself and bounced on the balls of her feet. “All right, so how do we get inside?”

“Maybe there’s an employee entrance around back,” Benson said. “Could be unlocked.”

As they kicked around ideas, neither one of them noticed me move to the edge of the curb. The garbage can wasn’t terribly heavy, but it was metal. I hefted it with both hands and started toward the glass entrance. At the edge of my vision, I saw other survivors turn to watch me, but I ignored them. Even when I noticed one of them slump to the ground, I kept my eyes on all that glass. A lot of things roiled inside me: fear and anger and the list in my back pocket and the way Karen had told me to stay warm. More than anything, a single thought flashed in and out of my mind like a strobe. I am not dying out here.

I roared as I threw the metal can. Something in my shoulder ripped, burning pain through me, but that roar felt good. That flutter in my stomach became an electric jolt as I watched the garbage can sail toward glass, and maybe even something like a smile touched my face.

Then the can thunked off the glass without leaving so much as a scratch, and anything that might have been a smile died. I was suddenly very aware of my burning shoulder. Clutching it, I dropped to my knees. Susie was shouting something, but I couldn’t hear it. White noise washed out everything, and all I could do was hold my injured shoulder, stare at that damned entranceway, and wonder when I was going to fall over dead. Slowly, I lifted my eyes to the sky. No moon, no stars. Nothing. Just black.

“Merry Christmas,” I said. Then I started crying.

§

By the time my eyes ran dry, Tony was dead. Just a body at Susie’s feet. James followed about five minutes later, and Benson was in the middle of a full-blown panic attack when whatever was killing us finally grabbed hold of him and dropped him to the concrete.

I can’t really describe the feeling. It’s awful, and it’s everything, but I’m not sure I can describe it.

Sinking ships. Raging infernos. Tidal waves. Things you can’t escape. You know it’s just a matter of time. There’s that moment of terrible realization when you finally admit you’re not going to survive. It’s a lead weight right in the center of your chest, and it drags all of you down. Maybe that’s what killed everybody else.

I sat beside … I want to say her name was Sue. A long time had passed. Hours, maybe. Could have been a day. We were the only two left. All around us, bodies littered the sidewalk and parking lot. The car that hit the lamppost had finally gone dead, its horn collapsing on itself half a note at a time. What relief that small mercy offered disappeared when I realized I couldn’t see the far side of the parking lot. Instead of an entrance and the street beyond, there was only a curtain of black.

“Are we assholes?” she asked. “What? Do we deserve this for some reason?”

I shook my head. “Maybe it was always going to happen. It’s just finally caught up to us.”

“What does that mean?”

I shrugged.

“I can’t remember my older brother’s name,” the woman beside me said. “That’s strange, because I’ve known him my entire life. I can see his face, hear his voice, but his name is just gone.”

“I don’t have any brothers,” I said. “At least, I don’t think so.” I didn’t like that. Again and again, I kept finding dark spots in my memory. Just another trick of whatever was happening, but we’d already gone through so much. To tack on something else, it was just cruel.

I looked at the woman. Susie. “Tell me about your brother.”

She smiled, and I saw memories in her eyes. “When I was a kid, he did this thing every year. Started it at Thanksgiving, and he’d keep it going all the way to Christmas Eve.

“There was a window in our dining room that looked out over the town. We lived on a hill, see. I didn’t realize this at the time, because I was a kid, but there was this radio tower way in the distance, and it had this blinking red light on top of it. Well, my brother would show me that light once it got dark out, and he’d tell me it was Santa Claus on his way.

“‘You know Rudolph, right, sis?’ he’d say. ‘That’s Rudolph’s nose. He’s on his way, and he’ll be here by Christmas.’”

I gave her a grin. “That’s a good story.”

“It was a cool thing to do for a kid. Doubt I’ll ever see him again.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Guess not. Don’t think I’m going to see my wife again.”

“Didn’t realize you were married.”

I showed her my ring. “A while, now.”

“What’s her name?”

Any grin I wore fell apart. “I can’t remember.”

For several moments, we just sat in silence, looking out at the withered bodies. I wondered if maybe this was it, and I wondered if it would hurt when I finally toppled to the concrete as a dried-out husk. Fear really took hold in that moment, and I started shivering, the cold and horror working together to lace my bones with ice. With numb fingers, I reached into my back pocket and withdrew the note written by the wife whose name I couldn’t remember. Things we wanted or needed, gifts for children I wasn’t sure existed. I vaguely remembered writing something about a new TV on the bottom.

I unfolded the square of white paper and looked at both sides. Blank. Something clucked in my throat, and I swallowed it, bitter as chewed aspirin.

“What did you want to buy today?” I asked the woman beside me.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “A USB cable, maybe. Not even sure what that is.”

“Never heard of it.”

“What about you?”

I showed her the paper. Nothing but creases. “Beats me.”

And then the glass doors opened. I almost didn’t notice. The strange clicking sound barely penetrated my thoughts. By the time I noticed the sound, the woman already had her hand on my shoulder, pointing past me to where both doors stood wide. A light that looked stale and sick spilled onto the sidewalk. I didn’t see any store employees, no sign of life at all.

“What do we do?” she asked.

Time ticked past as I thought about it. “Let’s shop,” I said. I pushed myself up the wall until I reached my feet. Then, I helped her stand. She nodded, and we started toward the doors.

“They better not try some lottery bullshit,” she said. “I’ve been out here since before midnight, and I’m not losing my place in line.”

“You and me both.” I smiled, chasing away some of the fear. “It’s really good to be with somebody right now.”

“Likewise,” she said. “Merry Christmas.”

“Yeah. Merry Christmas.”

Her hand slipped inside mine, and I gripped it tight. My belly clenched, but a deep breath relaxed it. Maybe it would be okay, or maybe it would all go wrong. No way for us to know. Hand in hand, we stepped in from the cold. At least we weren’t alone.

RED RAGE

NOW

The house was perfect.

For several years, it had been in legal limbo, unsellable, for its previous owners had skipped town, leaving no heirs, and the bank that took over the property had gone bankrupt. Somewhere along the line, the deed had fallen through the cracks. But finally—finally—the mess had been sorted out, and, a few days before Christmas, Roger, Lydia, and Dylan Worsham were able to move in.

It was a two-story American Craftsman–style brick house, sixty-some years old, but in pristine condition. With four bedrooms, two and a half baths, and a finished basement, it was more than spacious enough for the three of them, but they anticipated adding at least one more family member in the near future. Tucked in a cozy hollow amid several acres of woods, with a fishing pond at the rear of the property, the place couldn’t have been more ideal for the family. They were twenty minutes out of Aiken Mill, a generally sleepy little community, but for those occasions they needed or desired something more than the small town offered, Roanoke was only an hour or so up the road. Lydia, in particular, had grown sick of the cramped Aiken Mill townhouse they had inhabited for the past eight years, and spending another holiday there, in a neighborhood going increasingly to seed, seemed a ghastly prospect. Here, Dylan would have a healthier living space, plenty of room to play, and even some woods to explore—well, when he got a little older. Eight years old, he was very independent, a little hyper, and occasionally accident-prone. For a while, at least, either Roger or she would have to accompany him when he wanted to go wandering.

They had decorated their Christmas tree the previous evening, and with its hundreds of colorful blinking lights, it looked just splendid in front of the large living room window. Though Christmas Day was still a week away, she had already hung the stockings from the mantel over the fireplace at the other end of the living room. Risking life and limb, Roger had strung lights over the eaves and gables, and now a colorful, complex galaxy of blinking stars encircled the entire house.

Dylan was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the tree, mesmerized by the lights and ornaments. She felt a little rush of joy, for she believed it important that he understand how special Christmas was to their family, and not just for all the gifts. It was the time for them to gather, celebrate, and give thanks. In a couple of days, her folks would be arriving from Atlanta to stay through the holidays, and Roger’s parents had invited them to their house in Aiken Mill for dinner on Christmas Day. To be sure, it was a hectic season, but she did love it so.

“What’s so fascinating, Dylan?”

“An eye.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“There’s an eye in the tree, watching me. It’s kinda creepy.”

She huffed in mock exasperation. “Young man, there is no eye in that tree.”

“There is too. Look at it.”

Dylan loved to make up stories and conjure fantasies about everything—though sometimes he got a little more wrapped up in them than seemed healthy to her. Still, she couldn’t help but lean in to take a look. Hundreds of lights blinked in arrhythmic sequence, their numbers multiplied by the reflective balls, bells, and tinsel. This was, she thought, the most beautiful tree they had ever put up.

So absolutely fitting for their brand-new house.

With a little sigh, she stood upright and was just turning to face Dylan when something stopped her: a fiery red pinpoint of light, blazing at the corner of her eye. She turned back toward the tree and peered through the dense evergreen boughs.

“Good lord.”

There was an eye in the tree. A red, oblong gem, smoldering like an ember in the heart of a silvery crystal sphere with a long, tapering stem at the bottom. The thing was clearly old, the rings of glitter on its surface faded and uneven. She had never seen it before.

“Do you know where that came from?”

Dylan shook his head, his gaze never leaving the tree.

“Your dad must have put it on there.”

“It’s pretty,” Dylan said. “But I don’t think I like it.”

She offered him a reassuring smile, but, for some reason, she didn’t like it either. She couldn’t imagine that the ornament was electric or even battery-powered, but the glow of the glass gem appeared far brighter than mere reflection. It was brilliant. Blinding, almost, when she gazed into it.

“Time to get ready for bed.”

“Okay,” Dylan said, though he continued to stare into the burning eye.

She shook off her strange uneasiness and started for the kitchen. Maybe Roger had pulled the ornament out of some old box unearthed during their move. It wasn’t that important, she decided.

“Mom!” Dylan cried. “There’s black smoke!”

With a gasp, she turned and rushed back to the tree, beyond terrified by the idea of a fire starting in the house. Just for a second, she saw it—a tendril of thick black smoke dripping like liquid from the ornament’s glowing eye—but when she leaned in to examine it, no hint of smoke remained. After a moment’s hesitation, she reached in and touched the crystal.

Not hot. Quite cool, in fact.

There had been smoke. She had seen it herself.

“Tell you what,” she said, reaching in and gently unhooking the ornament from the bough. “I think I’m going to take this off the tree.”

Dylan’s big brown eyes remained fixed on the silvery, spear-tipped globe in her hand. His fascination with it sparked a resurgence of her strange apprehension. Unwilling to take any chances, she refocused her attention on the tree and scanned every branch, every wire, every bulb. No further sign of smoke. She did catch a whiff of some strange odor, but it wasn’t like smoke; more like something dead. Where on Earth could that be coming from?

Ick.

She hated to do it, but just to be on the safe side, she unplugged the lights. As the tree went dark, she felt her heart sink a little. The last thing she wanted was for their first Christmas in their new house to start on an ominous note.

THEN

Even after thirteen years of marriage, Hannah had kept herself looking great, though Landon Grigg knew it was never for him. This week, it was for her jazz dance instructor—Ricky Delgado was the name, if he remembered right. A few years younger than she, Delgado no doubt saw Hannah as a real conquest after a string of swooning little girls who got off on his godlike physique. Before the dance teacher, it was Robbin Metzger, her former hairdresser’s fiancé. She would probably still be all over him but for the fact he had relocated to Florida for whatever business he was in and taken his ditzy fiancée with him. At least Hannah’s new hairdresser was a hell of a lot better at her job.

Whatever his wife’s infidelities, he still took some pleasure in her elegant, youthful looks.

Months and months ago, he had sworn he would let her know that he was aware of what she was doing; that he wasn’t a spineless milksop afraid of confrontation; that she owed him at least a scrap of common courtesy, if not outright respect. As yet, he hadn’t worked up the nerve. He knew why she stayed with him: his late parents had left him money, lots of it, not to mention their charming, spacious country house. Still, he sometimes wondered why he couldn’t just let her go. He wasn’t ugly, he wasn’t mean, and he came with better-than-modest financial resources. Surely, he could find someone else if he set his heart and mind to it.

But he had never dumped anyone before. He didn’t know how. Women had always dumped him.

That was before he was rich.

Still, his frustration with Hannah was nearing the breaking point. She barely bothered to conceal her extramarital activities anymore. Always going to see an endless number of sick friends, putting in extra time at the gym, visiting her aging parents in Roanoke but never inviting him to accompany her. This morning, she had told him that, after dance practice, she and the girls from class were going to lunch in Aiken Mill, which sounded reasonable enough. But she had been “at lunch” for over five hours now. After the third hour, he had gone stomping through the house, broken the living room pole lamp, and screamed at the mirror until his voice became a hoarse croak. Energy drained, he had staggered out to the front porch and collapsed in his dad’s old wooden rocking chair, where he sat for a solid hour, despite it being 25 degrees and windy.

When the nearest neighbors’ little marmalade cat wandered up to the porch, probably looking for a something to eat and a place to warm up—they virtually never let it indoors—he felt an inexplicable, urge to kick the thing. More than that, to kill it. It took all his willpower not to boot the little thing, to grab it and smash its head against the wall, to hurl its body into the woods.

The cat was peering at him, at first merely curious. Then, as if sensing danger, its eyes went wide and the hair on its back rose. A second later, it turned and bolted for the shelter of the trees.

“Thank God,” he whispered, overcome with relief. “Thank God.”

He had always been kind to animals, especially that little cat when it came around. But now it was afraid of him.

Had it come to this? A rage so potent it threatened to overcome his restraint? To damn near kill an innocent animal?

He could not let anger take hold of him this way.

Still, when he stood up, his blood felt like liquid fire. Deep breath after deep breath; long, joint-limbering stretches; turning on a mellow, pleasant tune in his head. Nothing cooled the burn, the pain spreading through his body and mind.

Before he realized what he was doing, he was pounding the brick wall with his fists.

Take that, Hannah. Take that. Take that. TAKE THAT.

From a distance, he heard a voice that sounded like his, wailing in pure misery. Then agony ripped through his right hand, and he saw a dark smear of blood on the pale brick.

From pinky to wrist, most of the skin was gone from the side of his hand.

With what little remained of his voice, he cried into the woods, “Look what you made me do!”

§

By the time Hannah’s car came down the long driveway, he had cleaned up the broken lamp, the blood, and bandaged his abraded hand. Other than the bandage—and his voice sounding like sandpaper on rusted metal—he showed no sign of his rage attack. When she walked through the door, looking way too done-up for someone who had spent the morning exercising and socializing with the girls, she gave him the usual smile and quick hug, barely noticing his ragged voice when he said, “You were gone a long time.”

“Well, you know how it is when we get going. Especially that Ginny Asberry, bless her heart. She’ll carry on till there’s no breath left in her.”

She stood there, tall, blonde, beautiful, looking better than she had a decade before. His heart ached for that long-gone time when he thought, just maybe, she did love him.

“I knocked over the pole lamp and broke it,” he said, knowing it had been a favorite of hers and she would notice its absence right away. “Sorry. I wasn’t used to it being there.” That much was true. They had moved it from its usual place by the front window to beside the couch when they put up the Christmas tree the day before. He held up his bandaged hand. “Cut myself, too.”

“Oh, no,” she said with a pained expression, finally giving him a long, quizzical look. “What’s the matter with your voice?”

He shook his head in mock distress. “Damned sinuses. Woke up feeling all scratchy this morning.”

“You should take some Benadryl.”

“Done.”

She walked into the living room and frowned at the vacant space beside the couch. “Damn. Oh, well, I guess we can always get a new lamp.”

“Sorry. It was clumsy of me.”

“We’re going to trim the tree this afternoon, right?”

“Sure.”

“Did you bring down the decorations?”

“Last night.”

“Oh, that’s right,” she said with a half-hearted laugh. “I forgot.”

Like she had forgotten what it meant to show genuine affection to her husband.

“Well, let me go to the bathroom, and then we can start decorating—if you want to.”

“Yes, let’s.”

“Tell you what. We’ll open a bottle of wine. It’ll put us in the proper spirit, and probably help that poor throat of yours.”

He smiled, almost believing she was sincere. “We have that new bottle of Aglianico from Villa Appalaccia. Sound good?”

“Sure,” she said. “I remember we liked it a lot.”

He went to the dining room that adjoined the kitchen, to the wooden rack on the wall that held twenty bottles, and found the Aglianico, which they had picked up on a recent visit to the nearby winery. He grabbed a couple of glasses, took the bottle to the kitchen, and opened it, realizing he suddenly felt melancholy, as if some part of himself that he valued had withered and died.

All the wine in the world could never fix what was broken between them.

He filled both glasses, took them into the living room, and set them on the small table next to the front window. Three large boxes sat on the floor at the base of the freshly cut, perfectly conical Leyland Cypress, which he had brought home the day before. He opened the first two boxes, which were filled almost to bursting with ornaments of all shapes and sizes, most wrapped in tissue paper. The majority of them had been passed down from Hannah’s parents and grandparents, and she insisted on hanging every one of them on the tree. The third, smaller box contained several strings of lights, at least one of which had belonged to his grandparents. He was particularly fond of those old ones that were filled with liquid that bubbled when they lit up.

As a kid, Christmas had been his favorite holiday, and he always sought to recapture some of that joy. In recent years, however, awareness of his wife’s indiscretions increasingly eclipsed any happiness the season might otherwise bring.

Hannah soon joined him, and she began to unwrap ornaments while he strung the lights around the thick green branches. Now and again he took a sip of wine, and by the time most of his glass was gone, he had begun to feel mellow, and a little less inhibited.

“Where did you go for lunch?” he asked, keeping his tone neutral.

“Robey’s, in Aiken Mill. You knew that, didn’t you?”

“I’d forgotten. What did you have?”

“Grilled chicken salad with papaya dressing. I figured we’d want wine while we putting up the tree, so I didn’t have any at the restaurant. Wasn’t I good?”

“Incredibly.”

“How many at dance practice today?”

“Small crowd. Most people are out of town for the holidays, I guess.”

“I guess your buddy Ricky Delgado was teaching, as usual?”

She nodded, putting on an affected, disinterested expression. “Mmm-hmm.”

“Is he staying in town for the holidays?”

She shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Why? You’re not interested in coming to class, are you?”

“Oh, lord no,” he said with a little chuckle. “I couldn’t do two steps without falling over. Just wondered. You seem so fond of his technique.”

“He is very good. Much better than Christy ever was,” she said, referring to the class’s former instructor. She gave him a deep, searching look and, for a moment, appeared on the verge of saying something more. But she did not.

He opened one of the ornaments: an antique from Hannah’s grandparents’ day, a large crystal sphere with a long, lance-like stem at one end and a ruby-red glass gem embedded in a deep socket in its center. For a second, the ruby eye appeared to glare at him, with an almost disturbing semblance of cognizance.

He poured a second glass of wine and refilled Hannah’s, even though she was only halfway through the first. “This is quite good, isn’t it?”

“Very.” She took a long swallow, drew a deep breath, and said, “Is something bothering you? You’re more than customarily curious about my day.”

He detected a strange buzzing deep inside his skull—his blood heating up and rushing through his body. Did he really have the nerve to confront his wife about her infidelity?

That red eye. It was still staring at him.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, he said, “Well, it’s been brought to my attention that you and Mr. Delgado…”

She raised an eyebrow, as if genuinely surprised by his remark. “What?”

“Well, that you’re very fond of each other.”

“Brought to your attention? So, there’s some kind of gossip getting back to you?”

“Gossip?”

Her bright green eyes turned cold. “Landon, you know damn well the instructor gets very close to us on certain moves. All of us. Not just me. And yes, I’ve said out loud that I find Ricky pretty hot. There’s not a female in the class who hasn’t said the same thing. But you can’t take that seriously. I gather one of our friends’ wives must have said something to her husband, blew it all out of proportion, and then repeated it to you?”

He shook his head. “Not exactly. Now, why not tell me a little about Robbin Metzger?”

Her eyes turned incredulous. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s not gossip,” he said. “I paid someone to verify my suspicions. And he did.”

“Are you saying you had me followed?”

Swallowing hard, he nodded. “I didn’t have any choice.”

His voice was almost gone again.

“How dare you.”

“How dare me? I’ve been loyal to you every minute of every day since we met. I’m not the one who’s been cheating. You are.”

She took a step toward him, fists clenched at her side. “I don’t know who you had after me, but they’re either inept or lying. What kind of proof do you have?”

“Cell phone video. You meeting Robbin Metzger. Having dinner with Ricky Delgado. At least one of them was when you were supposed to be at your parents’ in Richmond.”

“And you were able to tell from these videos that it was actually me?”

“It was you.”

It had to have been her.

“I’m telling you, it wasn’t. I want to see these videos for myself.”

“I don’t have the copies. Not yet.”

She put on her most disgusted expression. “There’s no way you can prove I’ve been unfaithful to you, Landon. I defy you to produce any conclusive proof.” Finally, her gaze softened. “It hurts me that this is what you believe. That you feel you had to do this.”

She was lying to him now. She had to be. “Why were you gone so long today? Nobody’s lunch takes five hours.”

She hesitated a second before replying. “There was a bunch of us, Landon. It turned out to be more a Christmas party than a plain lunch. And that’s all there was to it.”

“So if I call up at Robey’s, they’ll confirm you were there with a party?”

“Give them a ring. Go ahead. But if this is what you want to do, then it’s you who’s destroying our marriage. It’s you, Landon.”

One of her hands was trembling.

There was faint sheen of sweat on her neck.

Oh, God. It was all true.

Something shifted in his brain—a huge, burrowing insect, gnawing, tearing, agonizing.

Everything in his field of vision had turned red. For a second, he fancied he was actually looking out of that damned red gemstone in the Christmas ornament.

When he spoke again, his voice sounded a thousand miles away.

“You’re a lying, conniving bitch.”

“Landon—”

He raised the ornament he still held in his hand. Her eyes fell on its sharp, lance-like stem.

Red.

He brought it down and around with all his strength.

Rage.

The tip pierced her neck. He felt resistance and then a sudden yielding as it penetrated flesh and muscle.

The impact toppled her backward into the Christmas tree. The ornament, its blood-red jewel staring at him like a living, accusing eye, remained fixed in her neck, blood from the terrible puncture wound oozing out around it.

“Oh, Jesus.”

LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!

Her body shuddered several times, and her eyes rolled toward his, brimming with both fury and sorrow. One hand rose as if to pull the object from her neck, but then it flopped like a wounded bird and dropped to the floor. Then her emerald irises rolled upward and she gasped, blood pooling rapidly in her open mouth and streaming onto the polished hardwood floor.

He had rammed the point of the ornament cleanly through her jugular vein.

No! He had not meant to do this!

This was bad. Hannah was dead or dying, and he didn’t dare try to remove the ornament or she would bleed out all over everything. But now a dark euphoria overtook him. First, he ran to the bathroom for a towel, which he wrapped around her neck to keep the blood from spreading any farther. Then he grabbed her wrists and tugged her body through the living room, into the hall, and to the bathroom. Surely, she was dead, he thought, for her body was limp and unresponsive.

Please, don’t be dead.

No. You need to be dead. You need to be.

Hannah’s body was willowy, but lifting and heaving her dead weight into the bathtub required some effort. Her eyes, glazed and glassy, stared sightlessly at the ceiling. Everything she was and had been was now gone.

Gone, her lifeblood spiraling down the bathtub drain.

He couldn’t call the police. He had to think.

Out here, ten miles from Aiken Mill, the nearest neighbor a quarter mile down the road, they virtually never had unexpected visitors. Neither of them had any appointments or other engagements for the next day or two, at least that he was aware of. For the moment, he had a little time to sort things out in his mind. He needed to not panic; to think calmly and rationally.

WHY was he thinking so rationally now? Hannah was dead. HE had killed her.

He owned six acres of land, a large portion of which was wetlands. He could dispose of her body so it would take an act of God to ever be discovered. Still, in the case of a missing wife—and it was only a matter of time before others realized she was missing—suspicion always fell on the husband. He would have to be careful. And thorough. He must leave no trace.

Oh, Christ, her car.

Her brand-new BMW 750i would be difficult to dispose of, but dispose of it he must. He might be able to sink it in the pond at the back of the property, but there would be no way of getting it back there without leaving tire tracks—and there was no guarantee it wouldn’t get stuck along the way. Even if he got it that far, for all he knew the car might end up visible on Google aerial view. No, he needed to drive it somewhere else, which meant risking being seen or captured by a camera somewhere, and then somehow get back home undetected.

So much yet to do. But he had through tomorrow, and likely the next day, to sort it all out.

First things first. Using a washcloth he took from the shelf, he gripped the ornament and gave it a tug. Christ, it was in there good. When it did come free, blood began to gush fountain-like into the bathtub.

Red.

Yeah, this was going to be a real mess.

Rage.

“Look, Hannah,” Landon Grigg said, his voice still somewhere far, far away. “Just look at what you made me do.”

NOW

Lydia hadn’t been asleep long, but she jerked awake as if cold water had spilled over her face. Roger hadn’t come to bed yet, for his side remained vacant and the hallway light still burned. The clock showed it was just past midnight. No sound came from anywhere in the house. What the hell had disturbed her?

There. An odd noise coming from outside the bedroom door. A low, sliding, shuffling sound.

She sat up, listening. A moment later, it came again—the distinct sound of something heavy moving across the hardwood floor, out in the hall.

“Roger?”

There was no answer. Could it be Dylan? With a sigh, she pulled herself out of bed, crept to the door, and peered into the hall. No one in sight, nothing out of place. Then she heard movement downstairs—just a brief creaking of the floor. Pulling a robe over her flimsy nightgown, she went down the stairs to the living room, where she saw Roger, standing before the brightly lit Christmas tree.

She had told him about the smoke. And the unusual ornament. He said he had never seen it before.

How could that be?

No. He must have found it among some old decorations and absent-mindedly hung it in the tree.

“Hey, honey,” she said. “Is everything all right?”

He did not look at her. “Yes.”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Just making sure the lights are all fine.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Then she noticed a brilliant, crimson glow coming from the center of the tree. It was the jeweled ornament. The one she had taken upstairs and placed on the dresser in their bedroom. She hadn’t even told him where she’d put it. Why hang it back on the tree?

“Roger, did you really need to do that?”

“Do what?”

“Put that ornament back on the tree.”

“I did no such thing.”

“But it was upstairs.”

At last, he turned to look at her. His expression was strange. Blank. “Are you sure you didn’t put it back on?”

“Of course I’m sure. You’re making me feel kind of weird, honey. I don’t get this.”

“There’s nothing to get. You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

“Now, that’s not so. I took that thing up to our room on purpose. I know Dylan didn’t do it. You must have.”

He turned back to stare at the cheerful, blinking lights. “I didn’t.”

“You weren’t just upstairs, were you?”

He shook his head.

What was wrong with him? He had never acted so distant, so cold.

He leaned forward, staring at the burning eye in the silvery sphere. Then he muttered something. Something she didn’t quite hear. Or didn’t hear properly.

It sounded like “He killed her.”

No, he didn’t say that. He could not have said that.

She did not ask him to repeat it. It was late and she was too tired to press the matter. Praying his strange mood would straighten itself out quickly, she turned to go back upstairs, a little shaken and greatly disheartened. Things would be better in the morning, she thought. Late at night, things always seemed worse than they really were.

Tomorrow.

THEN

Landon had wrapped Hannah’s body in an old plastic shower curtain, sealed it with duct tape, and dragged it down to the bog beyond the pond. Using a couple of cinder blocks as weights, he had sunk her in it—along with the deadly Christmas ornament. The bog was so thick and deep that he had almost gotten himself stuck, resulting in a moment of near-panic. But he managed to keep his cool. Now he had to keep his cool. Except for a few footprints at the edge of the yard, the bog had swallowed every trace of his passing. Inside the house, he scrubbed away the blood on the floor with soap, water, and mineral spirits, and then bleached the bathtub. It stung his injured hand, but that was nothing. Nothing. He burned both his and her bloodstained clothes in the fire pit out back and scattered the ashes in the woods. For good measure, he packed some of her clothing and personal items in her suitcase, which he would take with him, along with her purse and all its contents, once he determined what to do with her car.

At the end of all this, it would appear that she had simply gone out of town and then dropped out of sight. She visited her parents regularly, often without advance notice, so her leaving on the spur of the moment wasn’t particularly suspicious, especially since it was nearing Christmas. She had simply gone to deliver their gifts.

Yes, that was the perfect answer.

Tomorrow, getting rid of the BMW must be his sole focus. Now, his body was bone-tired, his mind fried, but his hand hurt and sleep was proving elusive. It was after midnight, the house dark and quiet, and his heart was a jackhammer in his chest.

Eventually, he would face questioning from the police. Before then, he would have to prepare himself for every eventuality. He did not intend to be punished for his wife’s sins.

It was cold in the house—freezing, it seemed—yet he was drenched in perspiration. Lying in bed without Hannah next to him did feel odd. Even knowing of her infidelities, he had always found her presence comforting, especially late at night. Sometimes they would talk, usually about trivial things, but sometimes about deeper issues.

Though never about her apparent dissatisfaction with him.

He guessed, in a way, he would miss her. Whatever her faults, she had possessed a unique charm, an enjoyable wit. And, physically, she was such a beauty.

He sighed, trying to push the more pleasant memories of her out of his head. Succumbing to sentiment would undermine his resolve. His only means of getting through this was to hold onto his anger. He lay listening to the sound of his heart, willing its pounding to ease up and offer his nerves some chance to recover.

It took a long time, but his eyelids finally began to get heavy, his breathing and heart rate slowed to normal, and the throbbing in his hand eased.

Consciousness departed.

§

Sometime later, a shuffling noise downstairs drew him back to awareness.

A tingling sensation passed through his body, and a high-pitched whine rose in his ears.

Calm down, for God’s sake. It wasn’t anything.

He heard it again: a slow, sliding, scuffling noise. Something moving across the hardwood floor of the living room.

Like the sound of Hannah’s body being dragged through the house.

He sat up, cocking his head to catch any further sound. For the moment, all was silent. He hadn’t imagined the noise, though. Something had moved down there.

It wasn’t the heat pump. No ceiling fans were running. Definitely not the refrigerator.

Something outside, maybe. Trees rustling in the wind?

A sudden scraping, scratching sound came from downstairs. From the living room, he thought.

Then a low mewling sound.

Cat!

The neighbors’ cat must have had second thoughts about him and returned. But could it have somehow gotten inside? He pulled himself out of bed, worked his feet into his bedroom slippers, and made his way down the stairs to the living room. The little lamp in the far corner, which he left on every night, gave off a warm, golden glow, and the curtains over the windows danced slightly, swayed by air from the heat registers beneath them. The scratching came again, from the front-facing window. And then a low, coarse “Meow.”

He stepped forward and drew back the curtain. At first, he saw only dense darkness beyond the glass panes. Then, down low, a pair of bright green eyes appeared, staring in at him, unblinking.

He leaned forward to gaze at the animal.

There was no cat out there. Just eyes.

“God!”

He let the curtains fall back together, feeling a prickling at the back of his neck, as if bees were crawling on it. His eyes were playing tricks on him.

As he turned back toward the stairs, something else struck him as unusual. Wrong. A light where none ought to be.

There, on the Christmas tree: a single, blazing pinpoint of fiery red.

What the hell?

Surely, it was just a reflection on an ornament. But no. It was a brilliant, burning red bulb.

No, not a bulb.

When he realized what he was seeing, his heart stopped for a second before racing into overdrive.

Not possible.

NOT FUCKING POSSIBLE.

It was the spherical, jeweled ornament with the long, pointed stem at the bottom. The red glass gem in its hollow center was glowing blood red, as if an intense fire burned inside it.

The ornament he had used to kill Hannah. The ornament that right now lay deep in the bog at the farthest end of his property. It had been the only one of its kind in the house. Yet this was, without question, the ornament.

Slowly, the sphere rotated until the smoldering gem faced him.

It was an eye. A staring, crimson eye, with a cut, beveled iris and a fiery, dilated pupil.

The eye blinked.

Every nerve in his body misfired. He wanted to flee, to rip the ornament from the tree and smash it, to laugh, to scream.

He could only stand and stare at the thing in stunned silence.

He smelled something hot—something electrical, he thought. Electrical, yes, but blended with a fetid, fishy odor. The stench of something dead.

Black smoke appeared to be dribbling from the cavity that contained the gem. Tight black coils unfurled and became wriggling streamers that reached the floor, dancing over the hardwood boards like questing fingers. His rigid muscles yielded enough for him to take a few faltering steps backward. His every instinct screamed for him to go for his guns, which—above all else—had always represented security in this house.

But what he was witnessing was the impossible, and the idea of confronting it with a pistol almost sent him into a fit of raving laughter.

What else could he do?

His paralysis broken, he turned and ran. He ran as fast as he could up the stairs, to his bedroom, to the nightstand where he kept his 9mm Glock 19. Grabbing it, he rushed back into the hall, closing his mind to the impossibility of his situation, refusing to cower up here in nameless terror.

As he reached the top of the stairs, he again heard the sound of something moving in the downstairs hallway. He stood there peering into the dim emptiness, until his eyes finally detected movement below.

A shadow.

A long, steadily lengthening shadow.

Lengthening toward the stairs.

The shadow was tall, ill-defined, but recognizably human. Cast by a warm red glow issuing from the living room.

Independent of his will, his feet began to carry him backward, and then he was in full retreat, racing back to his bedroom, where he slammed the door and crouched next to his bed, brandishing the Glock as if it might ward away the awful, advancing shape.

The rough sliding sound came from the hall, just beyond the door.

There it stopped.

Underneath the door, the dim light from the hall disappeared. Now a great weight seemed to be pressing against the door, for the wood creaked and groaned, and he swore he saw it beginning to bulge inward.

He couldn’t take this anymore. He had to do something.

He pointed the gun at the door and pulled the trigger. In the confined space, the shot nearly shattered his eardrums. When the smoke cleared, he was looking at a jagged hole in the center of the door.

The ringing in his ears gave way to the rapid pounding of his heart.

No more shuffling, creaking, or groaning at the bedroom door.

For an endless age, Grigg remained frozen in a crouch, staring sightlessly at the bullet hole in the door.

Be gone. Be gone. Be gone.

NOW

The glowing clock face on the nightstand read 3:00 AM.

The room was otherwise dark, though she could see a dim light in the hallway, coming from downstairs. Roger’s side of the bed was still empty.

She was freezing, even under the blankets. Had the heat gone off? Clearly, the house still had power.

A low sliding sound came from nearby. That same sound she had heard earlier, like something heavy moving across the floor.

It was in the room.

Right next to the bed.

She rolled onto her side and was about to peer over the edge of the bed when a dark shape rose above it. A solid black silhouette.

The silhouette of a woman’s head.

A pair of eyes flickered open in the black space where the face should have been. Blazing emerald-green eyes.

Then they turned red. Brilliant, blood red, like the jewel in that Christmas ornament.

Lydia screamed, flung the covers back, and began flailing at the silhouette with her fists. Her hands met only frigid air. Painfully frigid. As if powerful claws were gripping her arms, she felt herself being dragged from her bed, into an icy, pitch-black maw that stole her breath, her consciousness.

§

A panicked cry brought her back to herself.

“Mom!”

It was Dylan’s voice. Faint. Far away.

She didn’t know where she was, what had happened to her. Darkness and icy cold surrounded her, and she could hear a low rush of wind.

She was outside.

The last thing she remembered was being in her room. She had seen—felt—something, something awful. Something impossible.

“Dylan?”

She was upright, her feet wet and frigid. A pale sliver of moon cast just enough light for her to make out her surroundings: the edge of the bog, back by the pond. How had she gotten here? How?

Dylan had called her. Where was he?

Above the low rush of breeze, another sound rose—a voice. It sounded female. At first she couldn’t make out any words, but then she realized it was saying “He killed me.”

“Mom, help!”

Panic.

“Dylan, where are you?”

A loud splashing noise erupted somewhere in the darkness, followed by a horribly suggestive gurgling. More splashing, and then a low, animalistic growl. She saw a quick flash of light somewhere ahead—like moonlight glancing off a pair of silver-green eyes.

“Mom! Maa—”

A final splash, and the night fell silent but for the low rustle of branches in the icy breeze.

No!

“Dylan! Dylan, where are you? Answer me!”

The moon disappeared and darkness swallowed her—the unbroken blackness of a subterranean chamber. She tried to force her feet to move, but they were numb, frozen in place. Then, before her, a pinpoint of light appeared.

Red light.

She knew what it was.

Something was moving through the water toward her, and as it drew nearer, she could feel not fear but a wave of powerful, palpable rage, coming on like a monstrous, ravenous spider. Behind the fiery red eye, a body began to materialize in the darkness.

Roger.

He was holding the crystal ornament next to his head, his eyes wide, staring—at her, past her. He was plowing through the waist-deep water, seemingly insensate, his movement jerky, machine-like.

“Roger, where’s Dylan?”

He ignored her, continued to close on her, the eye of the ornament burning with preternatural flame.

“Where the hell is Dylan?” She screamed the words at him.

Less than ten feet from her, he stopped moving. His eyes finally appeared cognizant of her, but his dazed expression did not change. Turning the spear-like tip of the ornament toward his neck, he spoke, his voice hollow and inflectionless. “Gone. We are all gone.”

Then he plunged the sharp point into his jugular vein. For one brief moment, his eyes gleamed with terrible cognizance; then he stumbled sideways and disappeared beneath the inky surface. The burning red eye glowed beneath the water for a few seconds and then vanished, leaving Lydia alone and shocked, bereft of breath and voice, in silent, cavernous darkness.

THEN

After some time, a painful tingling in his feet and legs reminded him his circulation was gone. With supreme effort, he drew himself upright, wobbled for a moment, and then took a few steps toward the door.

Silence.

This was all a bad dream. Some temporary madness brought on by stress and guilt.

There was nothing in the hall. There could be nothing in the hall.

He drew a deep, steadying breath; leaned forward; and put his eye to the hole in the door.

The first thing he saw was a dark, smaller hole in the opposite wall.

Then something blocked his view—something black and featureless.

And the red, burning eye appeared, staring in at him, its brilliant pupil blazing with the fire of hell itself.

He stumbled backward but did not fall.

Something had stopped him. Something solid.

Something as cold as a gale from the deepest, darkest reaches of outer space.

At the periphery of his vision, a shadow was materializing, something tall, something with brilliant, emerald eyes.

The frigid mass behind him was enveloping him—a creeping, swelling mass of black plasma, preventing him from moving a muscle. With a click, the door began to open inward, the space beyond filled with blood-red light.

As if clutched in a giant, freezing hand, Landon Grigg could only gaze in disbelief as the light cascaded over him, countering the icy grip on him with waves of mounting heat. Hotter and hotter, colder and colder, both flaying his flesh, burrowing deep inside him, ripping apart everything within, filling the new spaces with pure pain. The room and everything in it was awash in hot red, he was swimming in red, but he could no longer feel his arms and legs. His sense of being had gone topsy-turvy, his body dissolved, his mind adrift in a sea of dazzling crimson agony.

Fear. Pain. Rage.

For a moment, before all rational thought fled, he realized he was looking out at his old room through a cut, beveled jewel. Before him, a ghastly, pale face—her face—took shape, floating in the flaming sea, eyes wide in shock, her expression frozen in that moment when life had fled from her body.

But he had never deserved what she had done to him.

He did not deserve this.

This horror. This fate.

Fear. Pain. Rage.

Red rage red rage red rage red rage red

NOW

Dylan. Oh, God, her poor Dylan.

Roger had killed him. And Roger was dead.

Lydia knew only pure, soul-deep grief. Her little boy would never grow up, he would never experience life. It was all over.

He was gone.

Somehow, sometime later, chilled and soaked with water already turning to ice, she had stumbled back through the yawning front door of the house. She was alone.

How had this happened? Overnight, her world of warmth and beauty had turned to frigid horror, and then to an abyss of anguish and despair.

The tree in the living room was still alive with multicolored lights, flashing and blinking; a hellish reminder of a life she had loved, now snuffed out by something awful, something incomprehensible.

Something dead but alive.

The spherical, crystal ornament with the pointed stem and gleaming jeweled eye was hanging in its place on the Christmas tree, as if it had never been removed. As if it belonged there.

Red.

She felt it building inside her, breaking through the shell of cold that encased her: monstrous, consuming heat, sending her muscles into trembling spasms, all beyond her control. She could feel her husband’s presence, as if his essence were entombed in that awful sphere of crystal, and just for a second, she swore she heard her little son screaming.

Rage.

Black smoke was dribbling from the silvery crystal sphere, from its glowing, sentient eye, forming tendrils of living, ravening evil that began creeping across the floor toward her.

Behind her, something moved.

Something heavy, shuffling and sliding, like a body being dragged across the hardwood floor.

“He killed me,” it said.

Her body was still frigid, but all she could feel inside was the heat of that mounting, burning, everlasting rage.

POINTY CANES

Uncle Jack loved candy canes. That wasn't disturbing by itself; after all, they're a delicious treat that's made to be enjoyed. What made me uneasy is that he would suck the end down to a point, and then put the candy cane in a large cardboard box with hundreds of others.

"What are you going to do with all of those sharpened candy canes, Uncle Jack?" I'd ask.

"Nothing," he'd say.

If this were happening in his house, I would have figured it was just a quirk. What concerned me is that he brought the box over to Grandma and Grandpa's house every year, acquiring more and more of the pointy canes. Why did he need to bring the whole box? If he wanted to save them, why not simply put the new ones in a plastic baggie and take them home?

"Don't you think it's weird?" I asked Mom, as she drove me home from college for Christmas break.

"It's weirder than some things, less weird than others," said Mom. My mother was not a great conversationalist.

"Did he do that kind of thing as a kid?"

"Oh, yes. Some of those candy canes date back thirty years."

"Candy canes last that long? How come they didn't turn soft and squishy?"

Mom shrugged. "I guess he properly stores them."

"I think it's kind of creepy."

"It's creepier than some things. Less creepy than others."

Uncle Jack had never married, or even been in a long-term relationship. I wasn't necessarily blaming the candy-cane habit, but I also wasn't discounting it as a contributing factor.

We got to Grandma and Grandpa's house right at dinnertime. Their tree was beautiful, as always, and presents were piled high. Uncle Jack was seated on the recliner in the living room, watching an episode of a sitcom that was spoofing It's a Wonderful Life. He was sucking on a candy cane.

"Hi, Barry!" he said, standing up and giving me a hug. "How did your finals go?"

"Pretty well, I think."

"Can I interest you in a candy cane?"

"Nah, that's all right, but thanks."

I don't know why I found Uncle Jack's habit so disconcerting. It wasn't as if he offered the pre-sucked canes to us. Nor did he ever ask us to suck our canes to points for his collection. Maybe he was saving them for some crazy art project.

There were fourteen of us in the house, too many to fit at the dining-room table, so four of us ate our delicious ham dinner in the living room. Uncle Jack sucked on a candy cane between bites, which was odd even for him.

"Are you trying to add mint flavor to your mashed potatoes?" I asked.

"This one is fruit flavored."

"Oh. Are you, uh, trying to add fruit flavor to your mashed potatoes?"

"No."

"Oh."

He took another bite of mashed potatoes. He chewed, swallowed, and then popped the candy cane back into his mouth.

"C'mon, Uncle Jack," I said, "you have to admit that this is kind of weird, right?"

He slid the candy cane out from between his lips. "Do you know what this is?" he asked, holding up the cane.

"A fruit-flavored candy cane?"

"More specifically."

"Cherry?"

"Strawberry. But I mean, do you know its significance?"

"No."

"This is my one-thousandth candy cane."

"Wow."

"Impressive, right?"

"Yes. Congratulations."

"That means that I have finally acquired one thousand candy-cane daggers, and now the ritual may commence." He set his dinner plate aside and stood up. "Daggers for everyone. Grab a handful. Don't be shy."

I looked over at my cousin Neal and Aunt Shawna. They both looked appropriately confused.

"I said, don't be shy." Uncle Jack grabbed a few candy canes from the box and walked over to me. "Put out your hands."

"I don't really want to touch them."

"This isn't about what you want. I've been preparing for this ritual since I was eight, and I'm not going to have you spoil it just because you don't want to get your fingers sticky."

"What are we going to do?"

"For now, you're going to put out your damn hands so I can give you some candy canes."

I reluctantly held out my hands. He placed seven or eight sharpened canes in them. The saliva had long since dried, so it actually wasn't all that gross, but I still didn't enjoy the sensation of holding them.

Uncle Jack gave some candy canes to Neal and Aunt Shawna, then took the box into the dining room.

"Do you think he's going to make us eat these?" Neal asked.

"I don't know."

"I really don't want to."

"He's not going to make you eat anything you don't want to eat," said Aunt Shawna. "He's just drunk."

"He was drinking water," I said.

"Then he's off his medication. Or on new medication. Or very tired. It won't hurt us to humor him."

We walked into the kitchen, where Uncle Jack was busy distributing sharpened canes to all of my relatives. Everybody had an "Uhhhhh …" expression.

"What's this all about, Jack?" asked Grandma.

"It's for the blood ritual."

"Blood ritual?" I asked. "When the hell did this become a blood ritual?"

"Language!" Grandma snapped.

"It was never anything else," said Uncle Jack. "We have a thousand daggers, and they shall create a thousand stab wounds. The blood and the sugar will give rise to the ancient demons, who will devour humanity."

Grandpa raised his hand.

Uncle Jack pointed to him. "What?"

"Why is that desirable?"

"Because humanity is a cesspool! A lice-ridden cesspool of vile filth and wretched mildew! A scabby pustule upon the earth! Everybody knows that!"

"Let's say, for argument's sake, that we agree with this assessment," said Grandpa. "I still don't think that ancient demons devouring humanity is the way to go."

"Are you kidding? How can you be so dense?" Uncle Jack gaped at him in astonishment. "I guess I'll cut you some slack because you're old and set in your ways, but everybody else gets it, right?"

Nobody said anything.

"Shawna, you understand, don't you?"

"I'm sorry, what were we talking about?"

"Barry?"

I looked at the floor. "I guess … I mean … no, actually, I don't. I'm not sure why we'd want to do something like that."

"I can't believe you people! How is it possible that I can be related to such … oh, you know what, I apologize. I didn't explain that we would be spared when the demons devoured humanity. After they're done, we'd rule the planet. I should've clarified that. Now do you get it?"

Nobody said anything.

"You all suck!" said Uncle Jack. "I've spent three decades' worth of Christmases making those candy-cane daggers, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let a bunch of prudes stop me from fulfilling my destiny. Everybody pick up your candy canes. Now!"

"Listen, Jack, you're just sleepy," said Shawna. "Let's get you upstairs to—"

Uncle Jack slammed a candy cane into her throat.

He was standing on the other side of the table, so when he started running toward her, one of us probably should have considered that he was planning to stab her with a candy cane and taken appropriate action. On a similar note, Aunt Shawna should have taken his outstretched arm and the sharpened candy cane in his fist as a signal that she should protect her neck. But I suppose none of us thought he'd really inflict violence upon a beloved relative.

Aunt Shawna clutched at her neck. Blood spurted from between her fingers.

"Mom!" screamed Neal.

Uncle Jack took out a gun. In retrospect, it had been odd that he was wearing a jacket indoors, and I guess I'd noticed a vaguely gun-shaped bulge in his pocket, and if I were being truly honest with myself I had to admit that there'd been a moment where I thought, "Hmmm, I wonder if Uncle Jack has a gun in his jacket pocket?" but how was I to know that he'd take it out and start waving it at us?

"You killed my mother!" Neal wailed.

Uncle Jack shot him in the head.

As his body dropped to the floor, I was horrified at the death of my cousin, though I also felt that Neal was mostly responsible for his own fate. His accusation was entirely correct, but it could've waited.

"I don't want to shoot anybody else!" said Uncle Jack. "It's a waste of death that should be coming from the candy-cane daggers! But if any of you cross me, I'll do it! I'll do it!"

"Just calm down," I told him.

"I don't want to calm down. After all this time, I'm finally at the part of the plan where I can be hyper! Either you're with me or against me, and those of you who are against me are getting shot! Who's with me?"

Everybody raised their hands, except Grandpa.

"Well, Grandpa?" Uncle Jack asked.

"I need to know what being with you entails."

"A mass slaughter with the candy canes."

"Got it. Nope, not my thing."

Uncle Jack shot Grandpa in the head.

"You killed Lester!" Grandma wailed.

Uncle Jack shot her. Again, this act filled me with unspeakable horror, but still, we'd just seen an example of why you shouldn't wail things like that.

"Who's next?" asked Uncle Jack.

"Not me," said my cousin Ralph. "I'm totally with you."

Uncle Jack shot him in the head.

"Aw, crap," said Uncle Jack, as Ralph dropped to the floor. "I got trigger-happy on that one. I know what he said, but I heard something different, and by the time I realized my mistake, I'd already shot him."

I don't think anybody felt that it was a reasonable mistake, but none of us wanted to call him out on it.

"It won't happen again," Uncle Jack assured us. "Now, everybody pick up your candy canes."

Everybody at the dinner table did as they were told.

"The key is to use as many candy canes as you can," Uncle Jack explained. "So if you stab somebody twenty times with the same one, it only counts once. What you want to do is stab somebody with twenty different canes."

"Why not just stab a corpse with all thousand of them?" I asked.

"Good question. Once somebody is dead, they no longer count toward the ritual."

"So you're saying that stabbing Aunt Shawna in the throat was wasteful?"

"Yes," said Uncle Jack, apparently not offended. "But there are a bunch of you and only one of me, so if I'd stabbed her in the arm, you might have been able to subdue me. I wasn't trying to make the best use of resources. But when we go on our stabbing spree, we'll definitely stab people in the arms and legs and other places where they won't die right away."

Everybody was sobbing by this point. "I can't do this," said Mom.

"Mom, no!" I cried out. "You have to!"

"It's just too ghoulish!"

"Please, Mom! Please, do what he says!"

"Relax, Barry," said Uncle Jack. "I'd kill my own parents, my own nephew, and my own sister, but I wouldn't kill my last remaining sister. Everybody else has to be part of the stabbing spree, but if she really thinks it's too ghoulish, she's excused."

"Thank you," said Mom, hurrying out of the dining room and running upstairs.

I noticed that she'd left her cell phone on the table. And Grandma and Grandpa didn't have an upstairs phone. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed that apparently Mom was not going to use this opportunity to save the rest of us.

"We're going to do this as a group," said Uncle Jack. "Candy canes are flimsy weapons, so it's strength in numbers that will assure our victory. We're going to go house to house, ringing the doorbell and stabbing anyone who answers."

The doorbell rang.

"Somebody must've called the police when they heard the shots," I said.

Uncle Jack nodded. "I knew this might end with me being gunned down by the cops. Hoped it wouldn't. Maybe I can take one or two of them out first."

He walked over to the door and threw it open.

A group of Christmas carolers stood there.

They began to sing "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer." It was the version where people say "Like a light bulb!" and other things that weren't in the artist's original creative vision. Mom always disapproved of that version, so it was good that she was upstairs.

Uncle Jack gestured to the rest of us. He didn't actually point with the gun, but he successfully conveyed the message that if we didn't join him at the doorway, he would start shooting us. So we walked over to the doorway. I tried to tell myself that he merely wanted us to enjoy the carolers' heavenly voices, though I knew that most likely was not the case.

"You'll go down in history!" they sang. "Like Columbus!"

"Stab them!" Uncle Jack shouted.

As if to demonstrate, he jabbed a candy cane into the face of the woman closest to the door. She'd been starting up a new song, and suddenly the pitch went way, way up.

Now Uncle Jack pointed the gun at us. "Do it! Do it!"

We didn't have a choice. I mean, technically we did have a choice, but none of us wanted to get shot, so we rushed out the doorway with our sharpened candy canes and we started stabbing, stabbing, stabbing the carolers.

In most cases, the candy canes broke off without piercing their jackets. So we quickly figured out that Uncle Jack's process of stabbing people in the face was the best way to go. Eyeballs in particular were very susceptible to being punctured.

Blood and candy-cane bits sprayed everywhere.

It was an awful experience. Not as awful as being on the receiving end, presumably, but there was not a single moment where it was even remotely enjoyable.

Three of the carolers got away. The other three lay dead in a pool of gore on the front porch.

Uncle Jack hurried back into the house and returned a moment later with the box of candy canes. "Now we have to pick up the pace," he said. "We have to stab as quickly as we can. Every second counts. This is our chance to rule a post-apocalyptic wasteland, so let's not screw it up. Go!"

"What about the pieces that didn't break skin?" I asked.

"What about them?"

"You said you needed a thousand candy-cane daggers to create a thousand stab wounds. So what about the ones that broke off? Do you have to suck them into points again?"

"No, no, don't worry about them."

"We need to do something with them, right? I mean, this whole blood ritual thing doesn't make much sense if it's okay for them to break off in somebody's winter coat."

"It'll be fine."

"Do we just scoop them up and grind them into somebody's flesh?"

"There's not time. Look, the three carolers that we didn't stab to death will probably tell somebody what happened, so we need to get going."

"Yeah, but Uncle Jack, I don't understand how your ritual would work if it's okay for some of the candy canes not to part flesh. Is it a deal where only a certain percentage of them actually have to get blood on them? I'm not trying to tell you how to raise demons, but it seems like the rules would be more strict than this."

Uncle Jack took a deep breath, exhaled, and suddenly looked as if he wanted to cry. "There was no blood ritual. Sucking candy canes down to points and then keeping them is a fetish. I get sexual pleasure from it. When I'm home alone, I take the candy canes, and—well, I'm not proud of it."

"You mean you—?"

"Yes."

"Just to be clear, you're saying that you—"

"Yes."

"And you let us—"

"I never told you to eat them."

"But that's—"

"Yes."

"But—"

"Enough." Uncle Jack began to weep. "I was ashamed of it. So ashamed that when the doctor told me I only had weeks to live, I decided that it would be better to let all of my loved ones think that it was part of a blood ritual than having you discover my Christmas kink. Sure, I burned my diary and erased the videos, but without something bigger to distract you, you would have eventually figured out the truth."

"You let us murder those carolers!"

"I know, I know. It was selfish. I lied. It wasn't even a thousand candy canes. It was, like, eight hundred and something."

"What the hell, Uncle Jack?"

"Hate me if you must."

"I do! We all do!"

All of my surviving relatives nodded their agreement.

"I understand. In retrospect, knowing what I know now, I should've just let you find me dead with a sharpened candy cane up my ass. Who knows? Maybe you still will. Either way, I can hear sirens, so I vote that we all flee in different directions."

Everybody ran off, leaving me alone on the porch with the corpses. Getting out of there was an excellent idea, but I couldn't just leave Mom. I raced upstairs.

I turned a corner and Mom slammed a candy cane into my chest.

I screamed.

"I'm sorry!" Mom said. "I thought you were Uncle Jack! I'm so sorry!"

"Then quit doing it!"

Mom yanked out the cane. "Sorry. Caught up in the frenzy."

I fell to my knees. I wasn't sure if this was a mortal wound or not, but the blood was generously flowing.

"It was all a lie," I said. "He was never trying to raise demons. He just didn't want us to know that he was a perv."

"I already knew he was a perv. I once caught him masturbating to Grandma and Grandpa's wedding pictures."

"Not an appropriate revelation right now, Mom. We have to get out of here."

The sirens were getting closer. And by "closer," I meant that I could hear large vehicles pulling into the driveway, and I could see red and blue flashing lights through the window.

"This is bad," I said.

Mom shook her head. "They're here to rescue us. It's not like you helped stab the carolers to death."

"This is bad," I repeated.

Sure, I'd been forced to do it, but I suspected that my lack of fault was going to be a tough sell to the average jury.

"Come out of the house with your hands in the air!" a voice boomed through a megaphone.

"Maybe his lie was a lie," said Mom.

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe instead of having a candy-cane fetish, he really was trying to raise demons, but when he realized that the demons thing wasn't going to work out, he made up the fetish as a cover story so that he'd seem less evil?"

"I don't think so."

"I don't think so, either, but it's worth a shot, isn't it? I can't let my own son rot away in prison. If there's even a fraction of a percentage of a chance that Uncle Jack's original fucked-up story is the one that was truthful, we have to try."

"But we can't stab those cops a thousand times," I said. "They'll have bulletproof vests and stuff."

"That's not who we're stabbing. Wait here."

A moment later, Mom returned with the box of canes.

"This is a terrible, terrible idea," I said.

Mom nodded. "But it's the only way."

We quickly stripped down to our underwear. I was pleased that Mom was wearing appropriately motherly underwear, because if she'd been in a thong, I would've made sure the first cane went straight into my eyeball.

"Should we stab each other, or ourselves?" I asked.

"I don't think I can stab myself."

"Start with legs?"

Mom nodded.

We each took a sharpened candy cane out of the box, spent a moment working up our courage, and then stabbed.

§

We lay in the back of the ambulance, drenched in blood. It wasn't easy to use up all of the candy canes before the police broke down the door and apprehended us, but we'd managed to do it in the nick of time.

We were almost certainly going to bleed to death. Hopefully the demons would devour humanity and make us the rulers of earth before that happened. Our assumption was that we'd be healed when this happened, although that wasn't based on any real evidence and could be entirely inaccurate.

Mom said something to me that I believe was, "I love you." I couldn't quite understand it because our bodies were pretty much shredded.

"I love you, too," I said. I'm sure she couldn't understand me, either, what with the gargling and choking, but she was my mother, and I'm sure she got the idea.

It occurred to me that the original problem, the part about the candy canes that had broken off in people's jackets, had never been addressed. That could be an issue.

Oh well. Nothing I could do about that now. All in all, it had been a pretty bad Christmas, but not as bad as the year that I got a Playstation 3 that had broken in transit and took several days to get replaced. I gave a contented smile as the world began to blur and visions of bloody sugarplums danced in my head.

NAUGHTY

It’s my turn to die. This is my year. Everyone else is already dead. He got them. Or it did. Whether it’s a he or an it doesn’t matter really. My brother and his friends were killed, either way.

Sitting on my dad’s favorite chair, I face the fireplace and grip the shotgun with both hands. Audrey doesn’t know I bought the shotgun. Parents don’t either. A little Christmas present to myself. Not that I wanted it. But I was never one to get what I really wanted for Christmas.

No yuletide decorations in my parents’ house. Not for four years.

The clock tells me I have fourteen minutes before midnight. Which means I really got about twenty minutes. David had set the clock forward some to keep from being late to school and work and our parents never fixed it.

I don’t know what I’m looking for. What I’m listening for. Hooves clippity-cloppeting on the roof? Milk and cookies for bait? Grow up, right? Get real. Shit, after everything that’s happened I don’t know what’s real anymore. I don’t know what to believe.

A scream explodes from my bedroom. Audrey. It’s a trick. Has to be. I ain’t moving. Not for nothing. I point my new gun at the chimney and hold my breath.

“Bobby! Something … something’s wrong!”

She’s right about that. Something’s definitely wrong. Has been for five years.

Not that Bergstrom, Texas was ever a good place to begin with.

§

The whole thing was David’s idea. Everything they ever did was. His friends went along with it because they went along with anything David told them to. So did I. He was my big brother. Not my idol or anything, but I still looked up to him some. Even though he could be an asshole and mean as hell. When he really put his mind to it, he could be scarier than any monster I ever seen on any movie. Of course, you ask anyone else in Bergstrom about it and they’d tell you different. Everyone loved David. Good-looking and smart and athletic and good at talking. Said he had a bright future and all that. Everyone always smiling at him, especially the girls. Nobody ever said those things about me or smiled at me … especially the girls.

I bet those folks who thought he was so great would shit their church britches if they knew the kinds of things David would say when it was just him and his buddies. Or, worse, when it was just the two of us. He never did anything, not in front of me anyway, not at first. But he liked to talk about it. Girls mostly and the stuff he wanted to do with them. I didn’t really understand what he was talking about, but I could follow along all right. Didn’t seem like the kinds of things anyone would want done to them. He used to show me pictures on his computer that I didn’t like too much. People taking shits on and into one another. Piss and vomit and blood and even animals sometimes. David would laugh when I turned away from that stuff. I didn’t understand how anyone in the world would want to see something like that, let alone participate in it.

But still, I looked up to him some. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did anyway. When he wasn’t talking bad or showing me nasty things, he was a pretty okay older brother. Let me hang out with him and his buddies sometimes, and that was all right.

Our parents didn’t have much money, but they did okay. Enough to get by and keep us well fed and clothed. Enough so we each got one present each on Christmas morning. Got me some new sneakers. Not the ones all the other kids were wearing, but still some pretty good ones. David got our dad’s old car. Wasn’t the nicest car but it ran pretty good. David was damn happy to have it even though I could tell my parents wished they could get him something better. He had just graduated high school that year, and they said it was for college. Not many folks in Bergstrom went to college, so when David said he wanted to, my parents damn near exploded with pride.

“Where we going?” I said.

“Meetin’ up with the guys.”

“What you want me to come for?”

“You’re my brother. Why wouldn’t I?”

I smiled and nodded and followed him out.

“Besides,” he said when we reached the end of the driveway. “Wanted to give you your Christmas present. Got it all set up for you.”

“Really? You got me a present, David?”

“You’re gonna love this. Somethin’ real special. Can’t wait to see your face when you see it.”

We grabbed our coats and told Mom and Dad we’d be back later and took off in the car. During Christmas, you always see movies or shows or newscasts from other places around the world. And there’s always snow. Piled up on the ground and on cars and on roofs. Not in Bergstrom, though. Or anywhere driving distance for that matter. I heard some of the old folks say it snowed once back in the sixties, but that might as well have been Jesus times for me. Only snow I ever touched was the stuff that piled up in the back of the freezer. That year, it did get cold enough for some sleet, but not much. Just enough so that you had to watch where you walked or you might step on an ice patch and end up on your back with both your feet sticking up in the air. Made driving dangerous too, but they had already salted the roads to keep the cars from sliding all over. Our street had a bunch of brown slush packed up by the curb that reminded me of Coke Slurpees.

We drove out to the retention pond across the neighborhood close to Ethan’s house. Same place we used to all gather and play baseball before everyone outgrew it. The ditch we called it. The ditch used to look huge to me, and I wondered when I would be strong enough to hit a home run, which we decided was when the ball hit the side of Mr. and Mrs. Helfond’s house. That was until David actually hit one and broke a window. Had to use a tennis ball to play after that.

I wondered why we used the car just to get across the neighborhood.

“There they are,” David said and parked along the curb, then jumped out before I could ask any questions.

Austin, Ethan, and Drew were there. Fog exploded from their mouths like they were exhaling rainclouds. I stepped out and they greeted me with small head nods then turned their attention back to my brother and his new car.

Austin whistled past the crud on his teeth and stepped past David and me and ran his fingertips along the hood. “This yours?”

“Christmas present,” David said. “All mine.”

“Your pop’s car, isn’t it?” Ethan said.

“Was.”

“Kinda old, isn’t it? I mean, how long till it breaks down?”

“Why you always gotta be a dick?” Drew said to Ethan. “Always gotta say some shit. Where’s your car at?”
“Don’t need one,” Ethan said.

“Right.” Drew laughed and clapped David on the back. “It’s nice. We going for a ride?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

Ethan rolled his eyes and shot me a look like I smelled bad. Austin called shotgun and jumped in before anyone could argue.

Drew squeezed my arm and smiled. “Those your new shoes?”

“Yeah.”

“Sweet. I was thinking about getting the same ones. Same color, too.”

“I like ’em.”

“Good taste, kid. One thing, though.”

“Huh?”

“You’re riding bitch.”

§

When I found out Audrey was pregnant, I didn’t care what my parents thought. I was happy. If it would have happened before Christmas day five years ago, maybe I would have been upset or freaked out. But now the news was like a breath of air in a room filled with tear gas. Something to actually smile about, look forward to. My parents seemed happy enough about it. Probably just didn’t have the energy to try and get worked up over it. Audrey’s parents just about disowned her, though. Kicked her out.

I always expected Audrey to leave me, especially with me being so on edge all the time. I never told her what happened or that I thought I was next to be taken out. She never brought up David because she thought it was good manners not to talk about it. Especially in my parents’ house, where we both live. Any mention of David would bring my mother to her knees and my dad to the liquor store.

Audrey is too good for me. I knew that right off the bat. I guess I see her pregnancy as a way to keep her around. I’m not sure if I’m ready for a family. Don’t have a clue what to do with a baby or how to raise a kid. But we’ll be together. A family. That is if I live long enough for that.

David and Ethan and Austin, they were the ones who really did it. I would say I have nothing to worry about because I didn’t do anything wrong. But neither did Drew. Not really. Not nearly as bad as the others. And he’s dead.

“Bobby, what the hell are you doing?” My father’s voice.

I keep my eyes on the fireplace. Can’t move. Can’t look away.

It’s officially been Christmas day for an hour now.

“Bobby! Help me!”

I want to go to her. I love her. I turn my head just slightly and see my mother running toward me, holding her robe closed with one hand.

“Her water’s broke. We need to get her to—”

“No.”

“No?”

“We aren’t going anywhere. We can’t.”

“Bobby … what are you—”

“It’s not safe, Mom. We can’t leave.”

“Safe? Audrey’s in labor. She needs to go to the hospital!”

“You’re a nurse.”

“Bobby …”

“You can help her.”

“Now I know for goddamn sure you can hear that girl back there hollerin’.” My dad’s in white briefs and nothing else. He never used to have a beard but stopped caring much about shaving after David. His hair had started to go white on him a few years back, too, not to mention the belly from the alcohol. When he comes stumbling into the room I damn near blow a hole through him.

“He says he won’t leave.”

“What the hell do you mean he won’t leave?”

“Ask him.”

“What the hell do you mean you won’t—”

“It’s about David. And Austin and Ethan and Drew.”

I’m pretty sure they both tuned out after David’s name. Not that the other names would have meant anything to them. Not yet. Not until I tell them the rest. Mom’s lip gets to trembling right away. Dad looks at me and holds his stare.

Mom’s crying. She runs away from me toward Audrey who’s still screaming so loud she could knock all the snow off the roof.

Snow. In Bergstrom, Texas. First time since the sixties, they say.

“Talk to me.”

“I’m next, Dad. I know I am.”

“Next for what?”

“You know for what.”

Dad pauses. “You and your brother get into some trouble? Is … is that why he—” Dad doesn’t want to cry, I can tell, so he chews on his lower lip to keep the tears back.

“Doesn’t matter anymore. I can’t let him get me. I’ve got a family now.”

“You won’t have shit if we don’t get that girl to a hospital! She don’t have much time, Bobby, goddammit!”

“He’ll come to the house. Just like he did when he came for David. And I’ll be waiting for him.”

“Who? Who is it? You know who it is, why in the goddamn hell haven’t you called the sheriff?”

“Won’t do any good.”

“Jesus.” Dad storms off. Probably to get the car keys.

I won’t stop him. I won’t stop any of them. Because I know he won’t let us leave anyway.

§

“Where are we going?” I sat in the backseat between Ethan and Drew. I tried to keep my knees together so they didn’t touch theirs, but David kept swerving around turns and making us lean in to one another.

“Almost there.”

“Where?” Ethan said and leaned forward. “Thought you said we were gonna—”

“Shut the fuck up.” David stopped at a red light and turned so he was facing the back, his eyes on Ethan. “You ruin the surprise and I’ll fuck you instead.”

“What do you mean fuck him? Who’s getting fucked?” Drew rubbed the back of his head and shot me a quick look.

I had a feeling he was as clueless as I was, though Austin seemed in on it. Ethan just nodded and smiled and leaned back and stared out the window.

“David?” I said. My voice came out shakier than I meant it to.

“Just relax. You’re gonna love this. All of us. It’s fuckin’ Christmas, ain’t it? It don’t snow around here, but I wanna give my little brother a white Christmas before I leave town.”

We only drove another few minutes. Nobody else said anything. David turned the radio to a Christmas station and when we pulled up to the park, “Jingle Bell Rock” was on. The park was empty except for one person. The same person who sat on that park bench every day, no matter what the weather was like. Alone but happy. Always happy.

I always wondered why her parents didn’t sit there with her. She was younger than David but older than me. Old enough to sit there by herself. But in her head, from what I heard, she was no older than a four-year-old. And that’s why I figured maybe an adult should be with her. Especially on Christmas day.

“That Rickety Kristy?” Ethan said as his breath fogged the window.

“Ain’t right she’s out here all alone on Jesus’s birthday, is it?” David twisted his fists over the steering wheel. When he turned back and smiled at me, I let my eyes fall down to my lap.

“What are we doing here?” Drew said. “Thought we were going down to Grease Hut. Get some burgers, talk to some girls?”

“What made you think that?” David said, then opened his door. Austin opened his, then Ethan.

“You said you wanted to get Bobby some …” Drew looked at me and then leaned forward closer to David. “If you want your brother to lose his virginity, all the girls we know hang out over there.”

“Wait … what?” But they weren’t paying attention to me.

“It’s Christmas day. Grease Hut’s closed, dumbass. Besides. We got us a perfectly good piece of pussy right here. By herself. Nobody around.”

“David.”

“Get out of the car.”

“Come on, man.”

“Get the fuck out of this car before I drag you out by your pussy lips, bitch.”

Drew froze and made his jaw muscles bulge, then finally opened his door and stepped out. The other guys were already standing outside the car and facing Kristy. David reached over and gripped my shoulder and smiled.

“Get out. Follow me. And Bobby?”

I couldn’t figure out anything to say so I just looked at him.

“Merry Christmas.”

I stayed in the car. David looked back at me a few times but didn’t make a big deal out of it. Not at first. He left his door open so I could hear. The cold filled the car so I could see every breath I took. David led the way with Austin and Ethan close behind. Drew stood back but eventually followed.

David sat on the bench next to Kristy. I could only see them from behind. When he sat down she didn’t look at him, just kept staring straight ahead toward the trees. I could hear David’s voice but couldn’t make out what he was saying. Austin and Ethan laughed a couple of times.

David leaned closer to Kristy and whispered something to her. She turned to look at him then. I expected her to look mad, scared maybe. But she was smiling. She was smiling so wide I could see all her back teeth and most of her gums.

People around town felt sorry for Kristy. For her family. I guess they felt sorry for her family because they thought it was unfair they had a retard to take care of. They were good people. Christians. They didn’t deserve to have to take care of a retard with legs that didn’t work right. I never really understood what the big deal was. I didn’t know Kristy or her family, but she went to our school and I watched her sometimes. Always happy. Never not smiling. It’s like nothing could bother her, even when all the kids were making fun of her and calling her names and messing with her. She would just smile at them like she didn’t know they were laughing at her. I didn’t feel sorry for her, I was jealous. Sometimes I wished my head worked like that. That way I could be happy no matter what was happening around me.

I wished that every day after that Christmas.

Rickety Kristy nodded and giggled as David kept talking to her. He ran his hands through her hair and made her smile even more.

Drew looked back at me and shook his head. He mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.” But he didn’t do anything to stop it. He just stood there. Same way I just sat there. Watching it all happen through the windshield like it was some kind of movie screen.

Kristy laughed once loud and hard. David’s arms moved. I couldn’t tell what he was doing because the back of the bench was blocking my way. His eyes were on his lap. So were Kristy’s. She smiled again and her eyes got real big and she looked up from David’s lap into his face.

David reached over and grabbed hold of her wrist and pulled her hand toward him. Into his lap.

Her tongue swirled over her lips as her arm started to move.

§

Still no sign of him. After Dad walks out to warm the car up, wrapped up tight in his jacket and scarf, I take a chance and stand up and walk toward my bedroom.

Audrey won’t stop screaming and calling for me. Mom, too. I can’t take it anymore. I have to make sure she’s okay, have to let her know that I’m not ignoring her. That I’m right there with her. Protecting her. Protecting us, our family.

I walk backward from the living room. Keeping my eyes on that fireplace. The fire’s going strong. I’ve been feeding it logs to keep it roaring. Not that a fire will stop him. For all I know, the bullets won’t do shit either.

When I reach the bedroom I poke my head in. I try to smile at her, but my mouth won’t move. She’s covered in sweat and lying on her back with her knees propped up, her hands clawing at them and leaving red lines behind. Her eyes are squeezed shut and her teeth are bared and she’s making a squealing sound while my mom shushes her and sweeps the wet hair out of her face. Audrey’s eyes open and find me and instantly fill with tears.

“Bobby,” she says and reaches for me. “Something ain’t right. Our baby, it’s—”

“It’s fine,” I say and take one step into the room. I stop and look toward the fire, but nothing has changed. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

“Nothing’s wrong, honey,” Mom says and kisses Audrey on the forehead. She looks toward me and tries to be angry, but it doesn’t last long. She waves me over, her eyes soft and moist. I shake my head.

“B-Bobby …?”

“Yeah.”

“It hurts. Why … why does it have to hurt so bad?”

I don’t have an answer for that. I bet people ask that question all the time about all sorts of things and never get an answer.

“You’re fine, honey,” Mom says. “This is normal. I know it hurts. Burl’s outside getting the car ready, all right? We’ll get you to the hospital quick as we can. Put some of that magic potion into you, make all that nasty pain float away like a cloud. Sound good?”

Audrey nods and tries to smile but fails. More sweat slides down her face. She looks at me again, and without saying anything I know she wants me to go to her. Hold her and kiss her and say the kinds of things Mom was saying.

But that’s what he wants. I know it. Wants to distract me.

I stay by the door. Stay where I can see the fireplace. See the rest of the house. The hallway looks stretched out. The same way it looked that Christmas morning four years ago. Like a rubber band that was pulled taut, as taut as it would go before snapping. The fire was going then just like it is now. Christmas decorations everywhere. A tree that David and me picked out.

And David spread all over the place.

The front door slams open—I flinch and almost drop the gun.

“Shit! Goddamn son of a bitch!” Dad stomps the snow off his feet, unwraps the scarf and throws it on the floor. He glares up at me, then starts toward me, shaking his head.

“What is it?” I say, but I already know.

“Damn piece of shit won’t start.”

“The car?” Mom says, now on her feet.

“Well, what the hell else? Yes the car.”

The same car my father had been driving for years. The same one that was supposed to get my brother around at college.

“Well, call an ambulance, Burl. She don’t have much time here.”

“That’s what the hell I was fixing to do.”

Dad starts to walk off but grabs me by the arm first and drags me with him. I don’t fight him. He looks at my gun and furrows his brow then looks into my eyes.

“Talk to me, Bobby. What’s going on here?”

“You won’t believe me.”

He nods and runs both palms over his face. The snow that had been stuck to his eyebrows and beard melt and drip. A sigh rolls out of his mouth, long and gruff.

“I’m next, Dad. I’m all that’s left.”

“All that’s left of what? Who’s after you, son? Let me help you. I’ll be goddamned if I’m losing my only boy to whoever this sick psycho fuck is. I won’t stand for it, you hear me?” A tear runs from his eye, but the cracks in his face swallow it up. “Now talk to me!”

“Five years ago,” I say. “David wanted to give me something. A present.”

“Present?”

I nod. “But I didn’t want it. And he …”

I don’t know what else to say. Like I said before, my brother had problems. Wasn’t as perfect a guy as everyone thought he was. But he was still my brother. I still loved him. He wasn’t all that bad, not all the time. I never thought he was capable of doing what he did, and I think if he was alive now he’d be sorry for it. My parents don’t know. My parents still remember him as that perfect boy. I’m not sure I want to mess that up for them.

I don’t know that I have a choice.

§

We stood in the woods just on the other side of the park. Walked in deep enough so nobody could see us, but not too far. The woods led to town and the further we walked in the closer we got to the heart of Bergstrom. We were still close enough I could hear the Christmas music playing from speakers set up outside the shops. “Santa Baby” was playing while David pulled all of Kristy’s clothes off, then his own.

She smiled the whole time he did it. Giggling like they were nothing more than two kids playing pattycake. Her eyes were locked on David. Anytime he moved, her eyes followed. Even when he laid her on the cold ground and got on top of her, she never looked away. Never stopped smiling.

I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to stay in the car but David wouldn’t let me. Said this whole thing was for me, and I should be grateful. He pulled me out the car and dragged me in a headlock until we were in the woods. Made me bite the inside of my cheek so my whole mouth tasted like blood.

Austin and Ethan chuckled and looked at each other when David started. Drew stayed back away from everyone. I looked over at him and he was watching David, but he had a look on his face like he could lose his stomach any minute.

I wanted to look away. Didn’t want to see it. But I hadn’t ever seen a naked girl before. Not in person anyway. And even though she was a retard, she still wasn’t all that bad-looking. Had some pretty big tits on her that bounced when David got to moving on top of her. Her leg braces squeaked. I hated myself for looking. I hated myself when my pants got tight and my chest got to tingling real bad.

It only took a few minutes for David to finish up. I hoped we could leave then. That he got what he wanted and it was over and we could go on and try and act like it never happened. That’s all I wanted. I didn’t want to tell on him or get anyone in trouble. I just wanted to pretend nothing ever happened. That it was just a normal Christmas day like any other.

I’ll never forget watching my brother on top of her. The way he moved. The look on his face. But the worst part was the way she laughed. Through the entire thing, she laughed. The same kind of laugh a child might make when being tickled. It started the second David pushed into her and it lasted until he pulled out of her. Even after, even when Ethan got on top of her and pushed his pants down, she followed David with her eyes and smiled. And when Ethan got going, she started laughing again.

“I want to go home,” I whispered to David.

“Can’t. Not yet.”

“Please.”

“Too late. We’re all here. We all get a turn.”

“The hell we do.” Drew was leaning on a tree with his arms crossed. He spat into the dirt and wiped the cold snot from his nose. “Y’all need to stop. This is … this is all fucked up, man.”

Austin was third. I could tell he was almost done because his hips started moving faster and his face turned redder and his lips peeled back to show all his teeth. Still had braces on them. Long as I knew Austin he always had braces. Nasty things. Caked up with plaque and old food bits and his breath always stank. White steam blasted from his mouth in a constant flow as he finished up.

Austin stood and smiled down at Rickety Kristy. He pulled his pants up and chuckled.

Kristy wasn’t smiling anymore. She still didn’t look as scared as she should have, but I could tell she was starting to understand this was no game. Looked like she was starting to figure out what was really happening. Even then, she didn’t panic. Just lay there on the cold dirt and dead grass. Staring across the way at David and me. Her mouth moved like she wanted to talk, but only little whispers came out and I couldn’t tell if they were words or not.

“Go on, Drew. Your turn.”

“Fuck you.”

“Not me. Her. Fuck her.”

“I’m leaving. Y’all need to do the same and stop this shit. Take that girl home.”

“You’re not goin’ anywhere.”

“The fuck I’m not. Come on, Bobby. You don’t need to see this.”

I knew better than to move but David slammed his hands down on my shoulders anyway and squeezed until I cried.

“Get your ass back over here and fuck that retard. I’m not playin’ around, Drew.”

“David, come on. You’re … you’re hurting me.” But he wouldn’t let go. I tried to pry his fingers off but he had too good a hold on me.

“You try and walk out these woods without fuckin’ her, and I’ll kill you. Right here. I’ll smash your fuckin’ head in.”

Drew looked ready to attack my brother. His fists shook at his sides and his eyes looked like they were rattling around in his sockets. Then everything kind of relaxed and he took one step toward us. “Don’t do this, man. Please. We can stop right now and nobody has to know shit.”

“Too late for that. Besides, we were supposed to do this together. All of us. Like friends are supposed to do.”

Drew nodded. He actually nodded and I thought David had got to him, that he was going to do it just like the others and I wasn’t sure I could take hearing her laugh anymore or listening to that wet slapping sound or her leg braces squeaking.

But Drew ran at us instead. David threw me out the way and tried to put his hands up but Drew hit him good and hard across the chin. Threw David on his ass right there next to Kristy, who reached out with both hands like she wanted to hug him.

I jumped up and tried to put myself between Drew and David, but Drew knocked me aside like an empty trash can. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to protect my brother after what he did and the things he said, but for whatever reason I didn’t want to see him get hit again. That and I knew David wouldn’t let this go. I knew this wasn’t near over.

Before Drew could even go for David again, Austin and Ethan got a hold of him and tossed him to the ground. Kicked him a few times in the chest and stomach. Drew’s legs got to kicking and he flopped around and made choking sounds. By the time he finally took a breath, David was on him. Pinned him down, sitting on his chest, and started slamming his knuckles against Drew’s face. Drew was the newest member of their group, only moved to Bergstrom a couple years back, so I guess the three of them didn’t think too hard about kicking his ass like that. But even so, David hit him enough times that the other two guys finally dragged him off Drew and kept him from hitting him again.

Drew wasn’t moving, but his belly kept rising and falling and bloody snot bubbles clustered up and popped under his nose. After about a minute he sat up and wiped his face and looked at the blood in his hands like there was some kind of message written in there.

“He looks hurt,” I said. “We gotta take him somewhere.”

“Nothin’ a good piece of pussy won’t fix.” David shoved past Austin and Ethan and lifted Drew up by the arm. “Ain’t that right, Drew?”

Drew didn’t answer or fight back anymore. Let David walk him over to Rickety Kristy. Even helped him with his clothes. Blood ran down Drew’s neck and chest and dripped down onto Kristy but she didn’t wipe it away—just lay there and stared up at them, even smiled again.

I wanted her to stop smiling so bad I thought about kicking her in the mouth. Anything was better than that smile and that laugh just then.

“Looks like you need to get in the mood,” David said, then kicked the backs of Drew’s knees so the guy dropped down and nearly on top of Kristy. “Here. Nice ain’t they?”

David grabbed Drew’s wrists and shoved his hands over Kristy’s chest. Made him squeeze and rub.

Kristy giggled and mumbled something I couldn’t understand.

“Look at that. You see? All ready to go now.” David stood and took a step back but stayed right there close by.

Kristy’s eyes followed him, but they moved back to Drew as he started crying and shoved himself into her. Blood rained down from his face and freckled her and when he started moving his hips, Kristy reached out to David and whined.

Drew only went for about a minute, maybe less. He dropped down on top of her and cried, then rolled off and lay there beside her.

Kristy rolled over too and started to crawl. Her legs didn’t work too good. Dragged behind her, the leg braces digging lines into the ground as she went.

David looked right at me and smiled. Smiled as wide as I’d ever seen. I thought about turning and running but I knew it wouldn’t do me any good. It wasn’t like I could hide from my own brother. I dropped to the ground and curled myself into a ball. Made it as hard and tight as I could. The only sound I could hear in there was my own breathing and heartbeat.

And then hands were on me. I curled up harder but it wasn’t any use. Before I knew it I was on my feet and being dragged across the way toward Rickety Kristy who still crawled, still whined.

“Quit bein’ a baby,” David said and slapped me. Slapped me so hard I think I can still taste his hand sweat. “This is your Christmas present. Somethin’ special before I move away. You like it, don’t you?”

I shook my head. Couldn’t stop crying. I knew my brother could be bad sometimes, but never like this. It was like he got possessed by something, like in that movie, and it was controlling him. I didn’t want to look at his face because I was scared of what I might see there. So I kept my eyes on Kristy. She crawled away slowly, grunting and mumbling. Her ass was pointed at me, round and pale and covered in zits around the crack.

That’s when I saw the blood on her thighs. And something else. Something white. Dead grass and leaves stuck to it as she was crawling off.

I had my eyes on her when David yanked my pants and boxers down. She hadn’t gotten too far so that when David shoved me from behind I tripped over my pants and landed right there on top of her. I’m ashamed to say it, but nobody had to get me going the way they did with Drew. And my hard-on stuck right in-between her butt cheeks, slid down right into the bloody part.

I know now that I didn’t actually get inside of her. I didn’t know any better then and had never touched a female before so I thought I was doing it. Didn’t matter if I was or wasn’t because Rickety Kristy got to screaming the second I landed on her. Screaming as loud and hard as I had ever heard from anyone. Birds exploded out from the treetops and took off toward the clouds like even they knew things had gone too far and didn’t want to witness another second of it.

I had no experience with girls. In my mind this was sex, and as bad as it was and as awful as that scream was, I couldn’t keep myself from finishing. Never even got started and still finished before the birds had gone a mile. I gasped and shoved off her and crawled away backwards. I saw the mess I made on her and I turned and threw up in the dirt.

“Shut her up, David,” Ethan said. “Somebody’s gonna hear that shit.”

Rickety Kristy kept screaming. Louder and louder it seemed. She wasn’t crawling anymore, like she ran out of energy, and just lay there on her stomach and screamed into the dirt. Dead grass puffed up from her mouth with each holler.

“Shut the fuck up, bitch!” Austin ran at her and slapped his palm over her mouth then quickly jerked it away and made a hissing sound. Shook it like he touched a hot stove top. “She bit me. That fuckin’ retarded bitch bit me!”

And he kicked her in the side. Hard. She acted like she didn’t feel a thing and kept on screaming. Barely took a breath.

I sat there and watched with Drew next to me. He was sitting up now too and we shared a look at each other a few times. I could tell he didn’t know what to do either. I didn’t know if I wanted her to stop screaming or to keep it up. If she screamed hard and long enough someone might come over and help her. If they helped her, then they could help me and get me the hell out of there, but then I looked down at myself and saw the blood on me and I knew she had to stop. She had to stop because I was just as bad as any of them there in those woods that day. A good person wouldn’t have gotten hard the way I did. A good person wouldn’t have stared at her tits as they bounced and a good person wouldn’t have left a mess between her legs.

“Make her stop, David.” I said this. The second it left my lips I hated myself for it. I think Drew hated me too because he gave me a look like he smelled something bad on me.

“I got it,” David said and jumped on her, turned her around so her tits were back up.

“Watch her, man. She bites fuckin’ hard.” Austin was still shaking his hand and grimacing so his dirty braces were showing.

David hit her. He hit her as hard as he had hit Drew, maybe harder. She kept on screaming, though. Blood shot up out of her mouth as she did it but she didn’t let that slow her down any. So David hit her again. Then Austin kicked her again. Ethan joined in.

This time I could look away, even though those tits of hers were bouncing while the boys beat on her. I turned my back to them and faced the woods that led to downtown Bergstrom. I could still hear the Christmas music but didn’t hear any sign of help coming. Probably because it was Christmas morning and everybody was with their families safe in their warm houses.

The screaming stopped after about a minute and a half. But the sounds of them beating on her kept going for another five. I turned enough to see Drew, still sitting next to me, and he was crying and shaking his head with his hand over his mouth. Watching.

“Drew?”

“Killed her. They f-fucking killed her.”

“What?”

By the time I turned to see what he was talking about, David was already walking toward me. His hands were bloody all the way up to about half his forearm. Some blood was on his face too. He was blocking the way so I couldn’t see Kristy, not all of her anyway. I could see her feet and shins and leg braces on one side of David, some hair and one hand on the other. Austin and Ethan stared down at her with faces I couldn’t read. Looked scared to me but I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t be sure of much of anything anymore.

“Stand up,” David said to Drew, and Drew did it without hesitating. David looked at both of us, then at his own hands. They shook and I could hear he was breathing fast. “Wasn’t supposed to happen. Wasn’t part of my plan.”

Me and Drew just stood there quiet. Austin came running up behind David with wide eyes and his mouth open.

“What we gonna do now, David, huh? What the fuck we gonna do now?”

“We have to get rid of her,” Ethan said. “Now. Fast before anybody comes out here and finds her. She was screaming loud enough someone had to hear.”

David made us all help. We didn’t have shovels so we had to use our hands. Scooping out dirt like a pack of dogs. Took a long time to get it deep enough and by the end my hands were numb and cut up and bleeding. Rickety Kristy fit in the hole almost perfect, like she was a gummy candy and the hole was the package she had come out of. We just about had her covered up again when David stopped us, jumped up and pulled a bush out of the ground, roots and all. He shoved it over her body and we finished with the dirt, that bush over her like some kind of gravestone. I wondered if the roots would shove into her, same way we all did.

Nobody said a word. We got in the car and David drove everyone home and not one boy said goodbye or even made eye contact. Before we made it home, David stopped by the creek and washed himself off, but I could still see the pink on his skin. When we got home I ran straight to my room and crawled under my blankets. I didn’t think I’d ever leave from there again. Ended up falling asleep and didn’t wake up until the next morning. I didn’t know what to expect when I walked downstairs and sat at the breakfast table.

But everything seemed to be normal again. Mom and Dad were there, drinking coffee and watching the news. David was eating cereal and talking about college, told our parents his hands got cut up because we met up with the guys, played some street football and Drew tackled him too hard so they both went tumbling into the curb.

§

I kept thinking David would pull me aside and talk to me about it or say something like, “You tell anyone and I’ll bury you by that retard out there,” but he never did. I expected the police to come knocking on the door and say they found Rickety Kristy under that bush and that they knew we did it and that we would spend the rest of our lives locked up. But that never happened either. I figured most people who commit crimes like that and get away with it probably feel pretty damn good about themselves, but not me. Just made me feel worse, like more of a bad guy. If getting caught and paying for what we did would make the nightmares stop, I would have gladly let them lock me up.

I heard somewhere someone say that time heals everything. Can’t remember where I heard it, TV most likely, but whoever said it was right. At first I didn’t think I’d ever be the same again, but after a while, I started to forget about Rickety Kristy. Nobody in town seemed to care too much about her going missing, and even her own parents didn’t cause a huge stink about it. Most likely happy to get rid of her so she couldn’t be a burden anymore. So there was not much talk of her missing in town. By Halloween the following year it was almost like nothing ever happened.

I started high school that year. Met Audrey and had me my first girlfriend. She came over for Thanksgiving and met my parents and David who came back home for the holidays. He had gone off to Lubbock for school and said he was liking it and doing good. I was nervous to see him, nervous he’d say something in front of Audrey that was inappropriate, but he didn’t. He played nice the way he always did when other folks were around besides just me and him and his buddies.

I didn’t see Austin, Ethan, or Drew that entire year. They had graduated the same year as David so I figured they went off to school somewhere too. I hoped they did. If it was up to me I would never see them again.

Everything seemed normal again. As normal as it was going to get anyway.

Until Christmas morning.

I was the first one awake. Sun hadn’t even come out yet. Had another bad nightmare, first in a while. Started thinking they were gone for good until Christmas Eve night, when Rickety Kristy, dressed in a Santa outfit, came spilling out of the fireplace and dragged those braced legs across the floor as she came for me. Laughing. Laughing and screaming all at once. I woke up covered in sweat like I used to and got up since I couldn’t sleep anyway. Figured I’d watch some TV until the rest of the house woke up and we could go on with our Christmas.

I guess I had been rubbing my tired eyes as I walked down the hall from my bedroom to the living room because I felt it under my feet before I saw anything. The blood. Soaked up in the living room carpet and squashing between my toes as I stepped into the room.

I think maybe I screamed but I can’t remember. I just know that within a minute or so Mom and Dad were there with me, all three of us staring at the living room. We were silent at first, the only sound the soft Christmas music playing from the radio. Then Mom screamed and ran toward the tree that was soaked red with David’s blood. His entrails were wrapped around it in a pink-and-red spiral, and organs dangled like ornaments. Two scooped-out feet, only the skin and a layer of meat left, hung just above the fireplace. Nailed to the wall there. Filled with small pieces of coal like black gravel. Legs and arms kept the fire burning and let off a smell like cooking breakfast sausage, crackling and popping as the blood roasted. My brother wasn’t my brother anymore. The rest of him was whole—well, almost whole—and it stood at the end of the room, propped up against the wall. His head, neck, and torso. Cut open and stuffed with coals, bigger chunks than what filled his feet. His skin was stretched about as far as it probably could have been and swelled to bursting. His cheeks bulged out like a hamster’s storing food in its mouth. In place of his eyes were two jet-black coals, crammed into his sockets. His skin was as pale as snow, and as I stood there looking at him, “Frosty the Snowman” came drifting in from the other room. If I would have had a magic hat, I might have placed it on David’s head to see if he’d wake up.

Mom was on the floor getting her hands and knees bloody as she kept on screaming and yelling my brother’s name. Dad was down there with her trying to calm her down even though I could tell he was on the verge of screaming louder than she was. He kept his gaze away from the room, kept them on Mom whose eyes slid across every inch of it.

I guess maybe I was too shocked to really react the way I should have. Or maybe deep down I expected something like that to happen after what we did. But I stepped closer to David, spun in a circle and looked at the mess bit by bit. I said before that the coal-stuffed, gory snowman that used to be David was nearly whole. I found the last part perched up at the very top of the tree. Or the last three parts, rather. I never checked, but I’m willing to bet that the skin bag had two round coals in place of what used to be there. The tree’s tip must have been jammed as far in as it could go because the last part was sticking straight up. Same way it did when it took a swim inside Rickety Kristy.

“Why?” Mom said. The word came out harsh and broke up in a way you know had to hurt her throat. Her eyes were as red as the blood soaked into the carpet underneath her. “Why would anyone do this?”

Dad held her and shook his head, his face pressed into the top of her head and hidden behind her messed hair. I think he was cussing but I couldn’t make out his words.

Over the fireplace, maybe a foot above the skin stockings, was a word spelled out in Christmas lights. Small nails jammed into the wall so the wire could hold onto something and form the right letters. Multi-colored. The kind that blinked in a pattern.

Naughty.

§

“You’re not making any sense,” Dad says. “David couldn’t … My boys are good boys and they wouldn’t …”

I tell him everything. Every detail I can remember. No use in keeping secrets anymore. I know he’ll see the truth real soon. Before the day is over. Any second now as far as I know. Dad just stands there and studies the floor like it has answers for him. I know he’s trying to make sense of it all, how his sons could ever be a part of something as awful as what we did.

Audrey lets out another scream and snaps Dad out of it. He throws me another look like he’s trying to decide if I’m still his son or not, then turns his back to me and runs back toward the bedroom. Before he can get there, Mom comes running out with her cell pressed up against her ear, then pulls it away and stares at the screen.

“There’s no signal, Burl. How can that be?”

“I know exactly how,” I say. “Nobody can help. All we can do now is try and beat him.”

“Beat him? Beat who?”

“That’s enough of this shit, Bobby, goddammit. You hear me? Enough!”

“What’s going on here?” Mom says and dials 9-1-1 again but gets the same result as before.

“You probably don’t know what happened because the other guys moved away after that Christmas. After what happened to David.”

“Shut your mouth, boy!” Dad shoves me but I only stumble a few steps back.

Mom’s eyes ping-pong between Dad and me. Audrey screams my name and the Lord’s and begs one of us to make the pain stop.

“They moved away because they thought he wouldn’t find them. But he did. I found out where they went and looked into it and sure enough they’re all dead. Every one.”

“I swear on my life, Bobby, if you don’t stop this horse shit right now!”

“Who are you talking about? And what … what has any of this got to do with your b-brother?”

“Ethan went off to Oklahoma. They found him under a Christmas tree three years ago. Chopped up and stuffed inside twelve boxes. Each one weighed down with coal. You know what the boxes were wrapped in?”

“Bobby … please. Please … that’s enough.” Mom holds her phone with both hands at her chest and shakes her head slow.

“His skin. Cut and folded and taped around each of those boxes. Wrapped up tight. Silver tinsel spread out on the ground in front of it all to make out the word Naughty.”

Dad comes for me again and tries to grab me but I catch his wrists and slam him against the wall, knocking over the last family photo we ever took.

“Let me go, you son of a bitch!”

“Bobby, stop! Stop this!”

“Booobbbyyy! Oh God it hurts please make it stop!”

I lean in and get close enough to Dad’s face that I’m breathing in his exhales. “Austin found his way to Fort Worth. They found him pressed and flattened to the thickness of a layer of sheet cake. Baked. Cooked long enough so he was hard to the touch, with white frosting patterns drawn on all over, zigzagging. No gumdrop buttons or eyes. Coal. Twisted into him and lodged there. Candy-cane sticks were laid out on the floor to spell out the word Naughty.”

Dad fights with all he has, but the years of liquor and grief and regret have weakened him up, and he can’t do anything but show me his teeth and breathe hard.

Mom isn’t making a sound anymore. Just watching me like a person might watch a TV program. Even Audrey has quieted down.

“Drew they found just last year. Moved all the way to New York. Found him in pieces too. Skin and hair was used to make dolls. Bones were used to make a train set. Some of his insides inflated like fucking bouncy balls. His head was still baking in the oven when they got there, all basted and seasoned. And stuffed with coal dressing.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Mom jumps at me and slaps me across the face. Her bottom lip trembles. “What’s happened to you, Bobby?”

Dad shoves off hard, and even though I can still hold him, I let him go. He doesn’t attack, but goes to Mom and holds her like I might hurt her.

“I read they thought maybe the killer was still there since the head wasn’t burned. That maybe they got there in time before he had a chance to run off. They hear some noises on the roof. Footsteps. They run out there and don’t find anything except the word Naughty drawn in the snow with blood. And footprints. A man’s and an animal’s. Something with hooves.”

“You need help, son,” Dad says. “You’re sick and you need help.”

“Nobody can help me. Don’t you understand yet?”

“I don’t blame you for it, Bobby. I don’t. A boy at your age shouldn’t have had to see something like what you saw in this house. Gets in your head and messes you up. We’ll get you some help, son. I swear it we will, all right?”

Mom’s still crying and shaking her head. Won’t look at me.

“Now let’s go on back and see to Audrey. You’ve got a baby coming, and right now our priority needs to be getting it out safe and making sure that girl of yours has everything she needs. All right? Now come on.”

“I can’t. I have to stay here. Where I can see the fireplace.”

“Goddammit, Bobby! It’s in your head, son. If that story you told me is true what we need to do is talk to the sheriff and let him know the whole thing. Have him go talk to that girl Kristy’s parents, any other family she might have. Ask questions. Whoever did that to David, and if you’re telling the truth about them other boys, it’s that girl’s family got something to do with it. Not goddamn—”

“You’re wrong, Dad. Nobody cared about her. You know it and so does the rest of Bergstrom. That’s why nobody ever found her. Because everybody was glad she was gone. Especially her family.”

“Come on, now, Bobby. Listen to what you’re saying here.”

“You don’t have to believe me. Not yet. You’ll see. Before the day is over, you’ll see. And I deserve whatever happens to me. We all did. David especially. David was the worst of all of us. You don’t have to believe that either, but it’s the way it is.”

Mom cries harder and buries her face into Dad’s chest. He puts his arm around her and gives me a look that could have melted all the snow in town. Before he has a chance to say another word, Audrey lets go with a scream I could feel vibrating under my shoes. A scream I’ve heard only once before. A scream Rickety Kristy saved just for me.

I run past my parents and toward the room. I’m not sure what I’m expecting to find but I know it’s almost time. I can feel it in the air like static sliding over my skin. Tickling me.

Audrey is lying on her back with both legs in the air, toes spread so wide it looked like the webbing would split. Her top half is curled over so that her head is nearly between her thighs. Hands gripping her knees. Teeth bared as she pushes and spittle mists out and dusts her chest. Blood stains the sheets and the floor just at the foot of the bed. More splashes out as she screams again. That same scream. A scream that had no business coming out of my girlfriend’s mouth.

Mom shoves by me and rushes toward Audrey. She looks up at me and then past me at Dad who is standing in the doorway.

“Baby’s head is already out. There’s no time. No time.”

“What do you need?” Dad says.

“Towels. Clean towels and water. And scissors!”

Dad stomps away and leaves me there with them. I want to help but I’m too scared I’ll make things worse. Scared to get anywhere near them.

Mom gasps and mumbles reassuring words to Audrey as she pulls the baby out. It only takes about a minute for the rest of it to slide free. Once it’s out, Audrey’s body relaxes and she goes flat and passes out. Just like that. Unconscious and off to some happy place in her mind. I’m grateful for that.

Mom’s got the baby in her bare arms that are now slick with blood and fluid. She’s staring down at it with an expression I can’t read. Dad runs in and pauses when he sees the baby, but snaps out of it and gets Mom the towels which she wraps around the baby and cleans the blood off.

“Bobby,” she says. “It’ll be all right. Everything will be just fine.”

I realize the baby’s not crying. I don’t know a thing about babies or birth, but I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to cry first thing. I figure it was born dead. Stillborn. From where I’m standing I can only see one of the baby’s feet. Hanging down over the crook of Mom’s arm. And it moves. Kicks a little. The toes wiggle.

I run forward and Dad tries to stop me but I go by him and look down at my child. A girl. First thing I notice is that she’s a girl. I’ve got a daughter.

Then I look at her face. The large forehead. Far apart eyes.

It’s dead silent. I can hear “Santa Baby” playing from the other room. Soft like ghost music.

Dad puts his arm around me. “Don’t you worry. Plenty of folks get by just fine. And we’re here to help you, son. Always.”

She looks at me. We stare at each other for what feels like forever.

And she smiles.

KRAMPUSNACHT IN
CELL BLOCK J

One stupid puff put me here, is all Dewey Snodgrass can think, sitting in the middle of his module’s common area at the Vision Quest Youth Correctional Facility, with the cup of jungle juice in one hand and a shiv made from a melted plastic spoon in the other, just trying to hold his wasted cellmates at bay. And now I’m going to die in here.

Then the exterior door opens and smoke pours in and up jumps the Devil.

Dewey drops the untouched drink and knuckles his bleary eyes, but he still sees it coming. Seven feet tall on glistening black hooves, with glowing red eyes and gnarly horns raking down the plastic holly garlands and family snapshots they were forced to hang everywhere, sending stabbing shadows across the roomful of puking, brawling, praying juvenile delinquents.

Bellowing to drown out both dueling boomboxes, it brings down a shaggy arm and cracks a whip across the bare ass of the drooler jacking it to the all-girl gang-bang on the monitor, then points a long red claw right at Dewey like he’s gonna get it the worst.

What the fuck did I do? Dewey wonders. It must be his face. He just makes people feel stupid, challenges their authority. He figured those retarded ads were all lying when they said one joint could ruin your life, put you on a slippery chute to destruction. But he’d only hit that joint once, that one time he and some guys left campus for lunch and got high behind the Del Taco. When they got caught, the cops just kneejerk fingered him, like his face was some kind of confession.

Kicked out of the zero-tolerance charter school, he was the one left holding the whole bag. He wasn’t even tested, because the state said his parents had to pay for it, and Dad wanted him to “learn a lesson.” A crooked judge with coke in his mustache lectured Dewey for an hour about personal responsibility before throwing him in here. One joint and it’s Christmas in jail. Circumstances never factored; what they saw when they caught you was who you were for life.

And now one shitty Christmas party with the goons who steal half the food off his tray every meal and suddenly, he isn’t just trapped in a cut-rate privatized thug factory run by the same corporation that administered the aforementioned charter school franchise; he’s trapped in an honest-to-shit Chick tract.

The Devil wades into the half-dozen kids still upright with a whip and a knobby club that’s clearly a baton wrapped in towels. The few who can stand up at all go blind when the cloud of teargas hits them. Cracking one across the jaw, kneeing another in the face and snapping the whip to pulverize the snotty nose of a third, the Devil puts Hell in session. Casting about with his lambent crimson eyes, he casts his vote in the boombox wars by lashing out and cracking the one playing hiphop off the table. Leaving the skinheads’ shitty bootleg blaring to add another layer to the torture, the Devil steps on three half-conscious, crying kids to advance on him.

Dewey hadn’t touched the drink. He’d only come out of his cell so they wouldn’t dogpile him. Was he the only one who smelled a trap when the doors popped open at midnight, and the TV was showing porn, the same day that juggalo kid scored a jug of Mexican Everclear and a batch of indica wax from the guards?

The skinheads played it like they’d set it up with the guard, like they knew what was going on. Krampusnacht! But they’re bleeding on the floor with the rest.

And the Devil is coming for him and he’s never even been in a serious fistfight before; the cops charged him with resisting arrest just to be assholes, but he’s the only one who’s not shitfaced and he’s not superstitious. If this is Hell, then he’s got nothing to lose.

Half in panic and half in the gleeful freedom of a dream, Dewey springs off the bench and flying-tackles the Devil. Left arm across his throat and right trapping his club hand, he knocks the towering bastard off his hooves and they’re flying sideways. They land on a steel table, slide across and tumble off the edge.

He’s sprawling across the Devil’s chest—and a long, cold rubber tongue tickles Dewey’s ear. The Devil bucks him off. Dewey crabs backwards until he hits a wall. The Devil flips over and tries to crawl after him with one arm wrenched backwards to vainly fumble for the plastic shiv sunk to the hilt alongside his spine, no doubt piercing his right lung.

The emergency lights still glow like red alert on a submarine, and the alarm above the exit still blinks like a strobe, but there’s no siren. Nobody out there knows anything is wrong. The Devil’s eyes still glow, but he’s clearly done kicking asses for the nonce.

The two Mexican kids are praying, the black kid is trying to wake up his friend, and the other three white kids are jumping out of their skins. Two kids are out cold with concussions. Three are passed out from drinking and a sixth huddles in the corner, crying into his knees.

“Turn that shit off!” The music cuts out. The big skinhead whom the others call Cyclops rolls up on Dewey. Deltas of dried blood from his crushed nose streak down the front of his white T-shirt. “What the fuck, fag?”

Andre, one of the black kids, says, “We fucked for real. State time—”

“It was an accident, man!” Dewey rolls to his feet, but he knows they’ll pile on if he backs off. “You bitches saw him. It was self-defense, I swear! He was coming at me.… I thought it was really …”

“Really what?”

In a small, tissue-thin voice, he says, “Really the Devil…”

The other kids laugh, and they forget him again.

“Shut up!” Cyclops edges closer to the dead monster, nudges its long, lantern jaw with one sneaker, then kicks it in the face like a football. “It’s not the Devil, it’s fucking Krampus.”

“Who?”

Greasy Steve the juggalo jumps in, “Yo, I heard of that shit. Like the anti-Santa, know wha’ mean?” Steve’s bouncing in place, scum in the corners of his mouth, on a Ritalin tweak. “My granny, yo, like she used to say Krampus or Ballsnichol would come fix your shit, and if you didn’t say sorry for all the crimes you did, he’d drag your ass back to his crib, like, next door to Hell.…” He jumps on the dead demon’s back a couple times, going, “Ho, ho, ho,” but nobody’s feeling it.

“Chill,” Andre says. He points at the cameras. Red lights off all around. “Any second, they gonna come back on…”

“Naw, they’re not,” Dewey says, “not until this big fuck gets done.” Creeping over, he touches one of the horns like he’s expecting an electric shock. Then he grabs it and yanks on it.

The mask comes off. A skullcap knotted around his head tugs out a hunk of hair, making the head jerk up and the whole room jump. Dewey nervously laughs.

“See?” Even in the murky flashing light, everybody recognizes Persons, the chief of the third watch. Creepy hardass, combat vet, never, never talks except to issue commands, like to dogs. “They’re just playing some kind of fucked-up game to beat on us.”

“All I see,” Andre says, “is you iced a fucking guard.”

“You gonna tell them that?” Dewey turns around. “He was beating all your asses, too!”

“We kind of deserve a beating,” this Mexican kid says. “Look around, dumbass: this is a jail.”

“That’s what they’ll say. We’re rotten kids, killers. We’ll be tried as adults.…”

“Whatta you mean ‘We,’ white boy?”

Dewey kneels beside the body, tugging at the shaggy pelt, a loose gorilla costume. The hooves are platforms strapped to his engineer boots. “He’s got to have the keycard.…” Clinking against the floor, something metal. Dewey grabs it and pulls it out, but it’s only dogtags on a chain. CHARLES “CHIPPER” PERSONS… No wonder he kept it a secret.

The Mexican kids are beating on the door. Someone must be waiting outside for the little prank to end, to turn the cameras on and backstop whatever story they’ll make up to account for the injuries.

This time, only Dewey notices it when the dead guard’s head jerks up. He jackrabbits backwards into a steel bench.

The dead guard arches his back and rolls over, coughing, gagging and a whole lot of blood splashes out of his mouth. Not so dead after all, he rolls his eyes at Dewey that same way his dad does when he says, This’ll hurt me more than it hurts you. And then, heaving out a final glurt of blood from his severed tongue, he dies for real this time.

“Get that door open, man,” Cyclops says, “before he kills us, too.”

“Stop talking like that, you bald-ass piece of shit!” Dewey gets up and runs for the door, waving the guard’s card over the sensor, then punching the four-digit code into the ten-key, and nothing happens. “What’s the fucking password? Isn’t it still 5252?”

But nobody answers him. They’re all screaming again…

He turns around and all his conscious cellmates are back in their cells and screaming like bitches, and he’d be screaming too, if he could breathe.

The little crimson oxbow lake before the dead guard bubbles and boils over, spreading across the floor like it’s growing, reaching for them. Something breaks the surface, reaches out a spindly paw, dragging gnarled claws until they get enough traction to lever the rest of it out of the simmering puddle of blood.

A pair of twisted horns emerge, and then a long, goatish head. Milky yellow eyes blink away blood. A canine blue-black tongue lolls from a panting mouth, snags and tears on broken fangs. Stooped shoulders squeeze through the cooling, clotting portal and then the thing slithers out onto the floor like a half-drowned cat.

It’s the size of a starving toddler, hunched like an ancient under a wicker basket strapped to its back. Huge, gnarled hands wrapped over its face; shaggy, backward goat legs spasm so the hooves click against the pavement. Ribs jut out against slimy, almost translucent blue-gray skin, like when you leave a Band-Aid on too long.

Drawing itself upright on shaky legs, it moves like a stray dog in a gas chamber, but as it throws its baleful glare around the cell module, it clearly sees much more than the drunks passed out or the kids cowering in their bunks. It takes a deep, long breath and swells larger, stretches taller, eyes grow brighter. Again, Dewey’s Disney education serves him well, but this fucking fairy doesn’t feed on clapping.

From a drooping leather belt around its bony hips, it draws out a lump of coal, and with the other arthritic paw, it picks up Chipper’s bundle of birch branches.

Dewey’s feelings and impressions are complex and almost forceful enough to overwhelm his simple desire to protect himself from harm. In spite of a long line of eager teachers, from his dad to Guard Persons, he hasn’t seen much hard evidence of any real difference between right and wrong in this life, but he has a master’s in the study of the chasm between caught and not caught. The company gets paid by the state whether or not the beds are empty, but the officers lose a bonus when offenders get out. It’s in their best interest for you to re-up.

Faced with undeniable evidence that invisible forces do indeed work to reward the good and punish the evil, he realizes it’s clear as glass that the game is rigged, that only the evil-punishers seem to love their work.

What did he ever do? One joint, and he didn’t even get high off it.

Whatever internal debates the other prisoners might be entertaining, it’s over a lot sooner than his. Cyclops and Greasy Steve the juggalo charge back out of their cells to stomp the sickly imp. It runs up Steve’s swinging leg and crouches on his shoulders. Cyclops punches at it but hits Steve square in the mouth.

The troll swipes the branches across the skinhead’s eyes, blinding him. It grabs Steve's cheek and pries his mouth wide. The juggalo grabs for the thing but can’t rip it off. Its hooves kick him in the neck, cracking a collarbone. The thing stops his howling scream with a fist-sized lump of coal, jamming it deep behind the few teeth the juggalo has left.

As Greasy Steve sits down hard, the thing leaps from him to the blind skinhead. Streaking down his back, the thing whips the branches into a bloody silver blur, shaving Cyclops’s face off. The polished, gleaming skull screams for something nobody can make out because he has no lips.

Amid the bedlam, who can spare a second to glance at Greasy Steve, trying to spit out the lump of coal, now glowing a merry cherry-red between his jaws? Cheeks cooking away like bacon fat, smoke and teakettle steam shooting out his tear ducts, and the luminous reindeer beacon of his sizzling nose.

The hideous, snickering thing rides the dying skinhead the regulation eight seconds and springs off to land just within spitting distance of Dewey Snodgrass.

Dewey looks around and sees that even the kids with concussions have been dragged into the cells and they’re all yelling to be locked in, to be saved by Jesus or Saint Nicholas or Harry Potter, and he’s all alone again, holding the bag.

Under slightly different circumstances, he might have turned out to be a good, good boy. Dewey backs away from the Krampus, up against the door. He’s going to miss Christmas, either way.

He waves the card over the sensor and mashes the ten-key with his palm.

Lockdown.

The cell doors slam shut. Nine kids in two cells cheer, then rush the plexiglass walls to watch him pay for saving them.

Growling in some guttural grandparent of German, the Krampus painfully flexes its claws and limbers up the bloody switch.

“Hold up!” Raising his open hands, Dewey lowers his voice. “I’m sorry, OK? Look … I’m sorry I hurt Guard Persons I was just horsing around… and I’m sorry I kicked that cop in the balls when they arrested me, but he pulled my hair… and I’m sorry I smoked that joint, but it was just that one time, and I was selling them my dad’s stuff, so they made me do it to prove it wasn’t oregano…”

Eyes half-lidded, the creature hears him out as long as he can bear, then cocks his arm to whip Dewey’s face off.

Dewey smacks the ten-key. “You kill me and you’ll never get the other nine! It took me a month to memorize the passwords.…”

The Krampus cocks his ponderous head. Probably no computer camp in Niflheim, but he seems to get basic math.

Dewey leans back against the door, feels the insistent pounding against it. Wonders how long before they figure out Persons’s PIN number or override it without blacking out the whole jail.

“Face it, dude. Even if I opened these doors, you couldn’t take all of us at once. And they’ll catch you. They’re just outside. You’re fucked up, dude.

“Nobody believes in Santa Claus anymore. Wal-Mart killed that tubby bitch stone-dead. And nobody even remembers you. You’re just a scary story from the Kentucky of Europe, Grampa Ballsniffer.”

Krampus lashes out with the switch. The skin comes off Dewey’s forearm as easily as his sleeve, the wound so hot it smokes. Dewey makes his move, lunging sideways to grab Persons’s baton and brandish it to block the birch switch.

“You got in here, you’re gonna get out of here, right? You get stronger when people know you and fear you, right? You can get at anybody who’s been bad on this night, right?”

Finally showing some sign of comprehension, the Krampus growls.

“What do you do the rest of the year?”

If there’s a word in the noise, the lewd expression, or the protean obscenity of what his lolling tongue does by way of an answer, then it’s probably something pretty dope.

“You only got three hours, man. And you know who’s been bad?” He punches a button opening the door to one of the cells.

The Krampus grins.

“Everybody.”

§

Somebody is going to pay.

The chocolate was missing from behind Door #5 on Judge Vickers’s advent calendar this morning. Not that he’s supposed to eat chocolate, it’s bad for his complexion and his blood sugar is too high, as it is. But in its place, there was a tiny little black rock. The judge put it in his mouth before he tumbled to what it was. His ex-wife’s sense of humor: she always threatened to leave coal in his stocking, but she hated to shop for other people…

Heh. Let it snow— He bends over the mirrored glass coffee table and snorts another line of fine, uncut flake. Something startles him, a reflection of something behind him. His gasp of breath blows the coke all across the table. Fuck. Of course nobody’s here, but they soon will be. His annual holiday party always kicked off with his little video holiday card from the people over at Vision Quest.

Every year around this time, a bunch of the facility’s rottenest kids got a little special holiday party, and while the cameras were offline, they still fed to corporate, who generously included the password along with his holiday bonus.

They got the kids wasted and then a guard came in dressed like the Krampus and sprayed and clobbered them. A good scare was good for them; hell, it was good for him, if not for his Nana and her boogeyman stories. Fucking senile bitch.

He’s especially looking forward to this year, because a couple of the little turd burglars he packed off to Vision Quest actually deserve it. One of these kids, they only got him on pot possession, but he mauled the arresting officer, bit his finger off. Kicked him in the balls so hard one of them got crushed, they put in like this little silicon thing so it’d feel normal; it’s called a neuticle. What a world …

Hookers are coming in an hour. Vickers punches the wifi up on the big screen and leans forward to do another line. A big dollop of blood slips out his nose and splatters in the midst of his cocaine maze. Grumbling, he picks up the Onyx card and scrapes the pink slush away from the fluffy lines as he looks up and then his nose is flowing freely, but he doesn’t notice.

The guy who’s supposed to be whipping their asses lies sprawled across the floor and two more kids beside him, one with a naked skull for a head, the other apparently on fire. And this thing comes out of one of the cells, and it’s like the camera’s trying not to see it. A blurry pixel smear, it stoops over to get out of the cell and it has horns like a fucking ibex and its tongue hangs down to its belly and its cock practically drags on the bare concrete floor as it lurches over to the next cell, where it licks the glass in anticipation of getting at the four hysterical kids inside.

His jaw drops. His heart pirouettes in his chest and bangs into his sternum.

Someone else comes over to the ten-key, punches a button to let the blurry thing in, then charges in after it. He’s black with blood, only his eyes and his grin showing through on the grainy monitor, but Judge Vickers knows that grin, that flippant angle to his head; for a few minutes, Judge Vickers almost felt sorry for the little shit.

He doesn’t even know what he’s feeling now. His hand goes for the straw, but doesn’t find it. Likewise, the card …

But then he hears it clicking against the glass. Insistently, trying to get his attention.

He looks down into the mirror.

Something is very wrong. He can’t see his reflection. Beneath the half-demolished furrows of cocaine and the fizzing droplets of blood, he can’t see himself at all.

But he can see somebody …

A hand tapping the glass with his card.

That smile—

The horns …

The glass cracks.

THE SHITTIEST GUY IN THE WORLD

(A CHRISTMAS FABLE)

The shittiest guy in the world is curled up in his bed on Christmas Eve, plump and rosy in his satin pajamas. He's an investment banker whose specialty is toxic mortgages, so it's a very, very nice bed.

In fact, pretty much everything on his thirty-acre gated Malibu estate is nice but him. His swimming pool. His tennis court. His Hummer H1, his Tesla, his Porsche, the other seventeen sets of wheels in his collection. The private movie theater in which he screens the Adam Sandler and Michel Bay flicks that make him an extra couple mil per year on the side whether anybody goes to see them or not is state-of-the-art. Because he can afford it. He can afford almost anything.

He likes owning nice things. As many as possible. And doing whatever he wants to them, whenever the fuck he wants. Far as he's concerned, he owns everyone and everything. They just don't know it yet.

The stunningly exquisite, submissive high-end escort he just spent the last three hours abusing and tormenting was substantially— substantially—nicer than him. “Merry Christmas, whore!” were his parting words. He tipped her a ten-dollar bill, which he tossed on the marble floor, so she had to stoop to retrieve it before heading home to her very nice daughter and entire reason for living.

And there he is: sleeping like a baby, snoring like a moose, ripped on coke and thousand-year-old cognac. Far as he's concerned, he's the king of the world. Ain't nothin' gonna touch this guy.

He doesn't see the creeping shadows glide across the Picassos that adorn his walls. Doesn't see the pint-sized shapes who cast them, creeping ever closer. His expensive alarm system is entirely untriggered. His security crew—all brutal goons, but still a trillion times nicer than him—goes entirely unalerted.

It isn't until they jump onto the bed that he stirs in dull, semi-comatose surprise.

But when the first one kneels down and punches him right in the kisser, that definitely gets his attention. He goes “YAUGH!”, sinks into the pillows on impact, three teeth dislodged and aimed straight down his airhole.

His bleary eyes flicker open, see a bright pointy cap on the top of a small whiskered shadow. Another beside it. One red-capped. One green. Both with eyes that blaze rage in the darkness.

The second one stomps on his copious gut, and the shittiest guy in the world sits up, blinded with pain, whooping for air, teeth draped in a thin red halitosis spray as they sail onto his lap.

He doesn't see the bright green sack being swooped over his head until it's already smothering him, pulling down and down, rough hands lifting his ass up the way he removed the escort's panties, then pulling it all the way to his feet and beyond. Until he's entirely encased. With a knot at the end.

Next thing he knows, he's being dragged off the bed, falling, hitting the marble hard. Then he's dragged across the room, into the hall, and down the stairs, one pummeling thump-thump-thump after another, squealing and bellowing to no avail.

Through the fabric of the bag, he can see the bright lights of his enormous Christmas tree come into muted view. A twenty-footer, every inch of it coated in pure gold flake and festooned with $10.5 million in shimmering bling. He does a new one every year. It is his Christmas tradition.

When they come to the fireplace, he instantly regrets having lit up a fire inside it. It cast great shadows on the whore's ass as he flailed and nailed it, yes. But now the flames are down to coals.

They flare for a second, as he is tossed upon them. Screaming.

And then up the flume he goes.

Five whooshing seconds later, he lands like a sack of meat on the rooftop. A couple seconds after that, he hears thuds to either side. The animal whinny of a species he doesn't recognize is directly ahead. He is dragged toward it. Can smell the wet fur.

He hears the moaning of others, then; growing closer, muted as his own. He feels himself lifted, hoisted up by strong angry hands. Then dropped onto something that wriggles beneath him.

Twenty seconds later, they begin to fly.

From there, it's all fierce, freezing wind and vertiginous momentum that seems to last forever. He can barely hear the moans of the dozens that surround him, all encased in their own festive kidnap bags.

He is numb long before the chill grows authentically arctic. And at last they land.

The shittiest guy in the world is one of the first yanked off of the back, slammed to the ground, and dragged through the clanking dungeon door to an ugly, dim-lit stone enclosure, where the stink of despair is only slightly more vibrant than the nonstop ululations of the damned.

It isn't until he hears the chink of steel gates opening, then closing behind him that he is able to, at last, pull the bag off his head.

He is in an enormous medieval prison. There are easily a thousand others there that he can see. Every single one of them as terrified as he is. Every single one unable to comprehend how they could have possibly come to be in such a terrible place.

“What the fuck did I do? DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?” howls one captive after another. No one louder than the shittiest guy in the world.

That's when a distant metal door clinks open, and a dowdy, adorable little old lady comes down the corridor, sporting a Christmasy apron and dress. She is flanked by a security force of short, pointy-hatted, fierce-eyed elves. Two of whom he thinks he recognizes.

“That one,” she says, pointing, working her way down the aisle. “We do love our uncaught serial killers. Oh, and that one might turn out nice. I like his Saudi corporate oil deals, his pay-for-terrorists and exploit-all-women spice.”

When she gets to the shittiest guy in the world, though, her grandmotherly eyes fire up. Nailing him like spotlights.

“Oh, but THIS little fellow!” she laughs out loud.

And that is the seal of approval.

Next thing he knows, he is being dragged out of the cell and harshly propelled down the corridor, past thousands and thousands more. Until he comes to the mouth of the grim, gray stairwell, is poked and prodded up, up, up, away from the increasingly echoing howls of despair.

And toward the mounting sound of warm and boisterous laughter.

And, oh, the smells that beckon from above …

The door at the top of the stairs opens into a vast, expansive and utterly charming old-fashioned fairy-tale kitchen. The kind of kitchen dreams are made of, expanded unto near-infinity. Divinely lit. Both humbly quaint and frankly magnificent.

Hundreds of glimmering pots hang in rows on ceiling racks that go back and back to the vanishing point. Burnished wooden cabinets as far as the eye can see. Ovens the size of morgue vaults line the walls, one after another. So many stove tops a-simmer that it boggles the mind, all decanting olfactory delight.

And the smells are breathtaking. They are the smells of sweetest heaven.

The shittiest guy in the world goes “Whoa.” Taking it all in. Instantly desirous. Calculating how much it would cost to own this, too. Already negotiating the deal in his head.

There is a long, long prep table as the kitchen's centerpiece. Fifty feet? A hundred feet? A million feet? Who knows? Like the kitchen, it stretches out beyond beyondness.

“Hey!” he says. “Who's in charge here? I think we can work this … AWKKK!”

Abruptly, he is hustled forward and lifted aloft like a deli tray, back and skull slamming down onto the tabletop so hard he barely remembers who he is until the little old lady is hovering above him, butcher knife in hand.

He starts to scream, and someone shoves an apple in his mouth. It catches in his teeth, stays there like a ball gag.

Elf hands peel off his satin pajamas, lift his ass up, leave him naked, on display. There are at least a dozen elves holding him down, stripping him down, or standing back with razors at the ready in their hands.

Once every hair on his body has been shaved, the adorable little old lady guts him from dick to Adam's apple, methodically pulling out every unappetizing organ as she goes. Cancer-riddled intestines. Atrophied heart. While he screams and screams and screams.

They then anoint him with a rich honey glaze, add some zesty secret spices, and toss him in the oven for what seems like a million years.

He is awake and alive for every microsecond of searing pain. And every speck of it is monumental. Like burning in hell. Forever and ever.

Only then does the oven door open, and he finds himself slapped back onto the table. Carved to the bone. And carried out on a platter, in slices and hanks, to the source of the warmth and laughter.

His head is intact. And his eyes, though baked, can blearily see the immense banquet table upon which he has been placed. It is lined with hungry, cheerful elves, clinking their goblets to either side.

At the head is the adorable old woman and her equally adorable, cherubic husband. With his classic red suit and immense white beard. Chuckling with delight at the feast to come.

“Let us pray,” Santa says. And all the rest bow their heads.

“Every year, on this day,” he continues, “we nurture the spirit of giving. Giving is what we do. It's a beautiful thing.”

Applause, around the table.

“But there is no bounty without balance. No reward without sacrifice. No gift without a price.”

The shittiest man in the world desperately tries to name his price. But he can't. There's an apple ball-gagging his mouth. He has no guts left, and not a limb to stand on. He is sliced meat on a table.

The most ignominious end of all.

“So tonight, once again,” Santa says, “we eat the sins of the very worst among us. Take their unjustness, their profound self-centeredness, their endless and arbitrary abuse of power, and transmute it to good. Take it into ourselves. And spread just a little bit of it to every struggling person on Earth who could use a little pure love tonight.”

The glasses clink, in support of pure love.

And then they dig in, one dripping slice at a time. He is awake for every screaming bite. Until the last one. Then over and out.

But somewhere in North Hollywood, the lovely daughter of a very nice high-priced escort who has repeatedly eaten all the sins of the world—one ruthless man at a time—gets a hug, and a couple more presents than she might have otherwise dared hope for.

Along with everyone else he ever screwed. Everywhere. All over the world. Making their lives just a little bit better. Not remotely fair, but every little bit helps.

Christmas. Yes, it's a dirty job.

But somebody's gotta do it.

BELSNICKEL

Amy and Doug were sitting down in the living room, the TV tuned in to their favorite network television show—Castle—when the doorbell rang.

Amy glanced at Doug, who had that irritated look she’d come to love—what the hell is this? that look seemed to say. She could relate; it was Tuesday night, four days before Christmas, and tomorrow was the last day at their jobs before the holidays and their weeklong vacations kicked in. They didn’t have to return back to work until after New Year’s Day. Who could be ringing the doorbell at nine o’clock in the evening? It was too late for door-to-door evangelists.

“Are you expecting anybody?” Amy asked as she got up. She handed Doug the remote and he quickly paused the show on their DVR.

“No,” he said, confused. “Are you?”

She gave the living room a quick once-over—it was tidy, laid out perfectly, with a brand-new Christmas tree in the far corner dressed with tinsel, decorations, twinkling lights, and gift-wrapped presents underneath. Amy had also put up Christmas lights along the living room window. When she peered through the viewfinder set in the front door she saw an old man dressed in a brown overcoat and a weird, oversized brown furry hat. Beneath the brown overcoat it looked like he was wearing a heavy flannel shirt. He looked like a hobo. “Who is it?” Amy called out, suspicious.

There was a shuffling of footsteps outside. “It’s Uncle Floyd!”

At the sound of the man’s voice, Amy reacted with surprise. “Uncle Floyd?” She fumbled with the lock. She opened the door.

Amy flipped on the porch light to reveal an elderly man of medium height, slightly portly, with white hair, glasses, and a friendly face. He was wearing a long brown overcoat over a red-and-blue flannel shirt. A worn, brown furry hat was perched on his head. His dungarees were old and dirty, as were his shoes. She recognized his outfit right away; it was one right out of her Pennsylvania childhood. It was the only part of that childhood that made her smile.

“Uncle Floyd!” Amy exclaimed, the shock and surprise giving way to joy.

Uncle Floyd smiled. “Hello, Amy! Can I come in?”

“Sure!” Amy stepped aside and Uncle Floyd entered their end-unit townhome.

“I can’t believe you would come all the way out here dressed in your Belsnickel outfit,” Amy said again. She was also thinking, What’s he doing here?

Doug was standing next to her still looking confused. “Bel-what?”

Amy turned to Doug. “Honey, this is my Uncle Floyd. Actually, he’s my great-uncle—my dad’s uncle. When we were kids he used to be the Belsnickel during the holidays. It’s an old Pennsylvania Dutch legend and—”

“It’s not a legend, Amy,” Uncle Floyd said, bringing the switch out and raising it over his head. “I’m real.” Before she knew what hit her a sharp pain slash across her face, and for the next minute there was nothing but pain, frantic yelling, Doug shouting, and then something hit her alongside her head and she was knocked out cold.

§

Consciousness came back slowly.

The pain in her head and her nausea were the first sensations that dragged her to wakefulness. The second was thirst—her throat was very dry—and the third was the sticky blood drying on the side of her head. She opened her eyes and looked around in a daze. Doug was already awake. He didn’t seem to notice that Amy had just woken up. He was tied to one of their kitchen chairs, arms behind his back, legs lashed to the legs of the chair. Uncle Floyd must have dragged them into the kitchen and tied them to the chairs. Pretty remarkable for an eighty-five-year-old man.

At the thought of Uncle Floyd, Amy’s stomach sank. He stepped into her field of vision, still wearing his Belsnickel outfit, and smiled down at her. “Miss me, dear?”

“What …why are you doing this?”

“Why else? I’m the Belsnickel!”

Doug finally said something—and as he said it Amy realized he hadn’t even inquired if she was okay. “What is a Belsnickel, Amy?”

“What kind of a Dutchman are you?” Uncle Floyd chuckled. “Oh, that’s right … you aren’t a Dutchman. You’re just some west-coast California boy who managed to lure Amy away from home. But that’s okay … she'll tell you what the Belsnickel is.” Floyd addressed her. “Amy?”

She cast a quick glance at her boyfriend, whose attention seemed to be centered on Uncle Floyd. “The Belsnickel is an old German legend originating in the Middle Ages. He’s still a very popular figure with the Pennsylvania Dutch. He shows up at houses a week or two before Christmas to see which kids were naughty and which ones were good. He does this to pave the way for Santa. For children that are bad, he punishes them, usually beats them with a switch.”

Uncle Floyd chuckled. “Now, now, Amy … I never had to beat any of you when you were kids.”

Amy continued. “Legend has it the Belsnickel scares the bad kids into being good, which paves the way for them to get presents on Christmas.” She glanced at Doug and managed to catch his eye. “There’s scarier versions of the legend too—that the Belsnickel would drag the bad kids into the forest, that he’d kidnap them and never return them to their parents.”

“Hogwash,” Uncle Floyd said, waving a dirty hand at them. “I never did that.”

Amy regarded Uncle Floyd as if he’d lost his mind—and she supposed he had if he really thought he was the Belsnickel. “Like I said, the tradition is still popular among the Pennsylvania Dutch where I grew up. Men dressing up as the Belsnickel are as common as men dressing up as Santa Claus. Uncle Floyd used to dress up as the Belsnickel when we were kids.”

“When you were kids?” Uncle Floyd said. He still clutched his switch, a thick piece of branch that was dotted with blood. “Amy, my dear, I still do it. You haven’t been listening to me, have you?”

She continued, somehow finding the strength to continue speaking. “It appears Uncle Floyd seems to think he really is the Belsnickel.”

“Not think,” Uncle Floyd leered at her. “I am!”

“Let me get this straight,” Doug asked, his eyes darting from Amy to Uncle Floyd. “He flies all the way from Pennsylvania dressed like this, comes to our place and pulls this shit because he thinks you’re—”

“Naughty!” Uncle Floyd jeered at her. He laughed—cackled, actually. That cackle was the defining moment for Amy. Uncle Floyd really was insane. There was a sense of madness about him she’d never noticed before at all the family picnics they used to have and all the get-togethers at her parent’s place for holidays and birthdays. The Uncle Floyd she knew then was funny, warm, and gregarious—the only bright spot in those family gatherings, actually.

Amy said the only thing she could think of. “Why do you think I’m naughty, Uncle Floyd?”

Uncle Floyd held his arms out, indicating the townhome. “Take a look around you, girl. What do you think?”

Doug glanced at Amy. “I don’t get it.”

She knew exactly what Floyd was getting at. “He thinks I’m naughty because I left my parents and moved out here to be with you.”

Doug shot a glance at Uncle Floyd. “Really? Is that true?”

“A girl’s proper place is at home taking care of her parents,” Uncle Floyd said.

The moment Floyd said this, the rage and hate that had gone dormant the minute her plane touched down on the runway at John Wayne Airport and she was three thousand miles away from her parents was rekindled. “Taking care of my parents,” Amy said. “Really?”

Uncle Floyd hefted the switch in his hands, as if he were testing its strength. “Your place is back home. Your role as caregiver to your parents—especially your father—is expected.”

Doug started talking, “I don’t believe this …”

Moving swiftly, Uncle Floyd swung the switch viciously. It cracked against Doug’s face with a hearty whack. The force of the blow rocked him back in his chair. Droplets of blood splattered the floor.

The sudden violence against her boyfriend sent Amy’s heart to her throat. “Stop it!”

Uncle Floyd paused in his attack on Doug, the switch raised over his head for another blow. He turned to her. “He’s just as guilty, Amy. Maybe less so because he’s not of us.”

“What is this ‘not of us’ shit?” she screamed, barely aware that she was crying.

“He is not from our heritage, nor our customs,” Uncle Floyd said. He slipped his bloody switch into an inner pocket of his overcoat. “When one is not aware of those customs, they cannot be held responsible for not being aware of what is right.”

Amy couldn’t believe what he was saying. She was having a hard time following his logic.

Uncle Floyd slowly withdrew his hand from his overcoat—the one that had held the switch. Amy saw with sinking horror that he now held a butcher knife.

“Despite that, Amy, I’m sorry to say that your boyfriend must suffer the consequences of his actions.” Uncle Floyd stepped up to Doug, who was beginning to come around after being struck such a fierce blow with the switch. The right side of his face was swollen and black with heavy bruising.

“No, no … no!” Amy yelled, her voice high pitched and pleading. “Please, Uncle Floyd, don’t! Whatever it is … I’m sorry! I won’t do it again! I’ll go back home. Really, I promise.” She instantly reverted to the mind of a child, hoping that if she played along with whatever fantasy/psychosis he was harboring she could somehow maneuver her and Doug free. “I’m sorry I left my parents,” she continued. “I don’t know what I was thinking. You can punish me later if you have to, but please … let Doug go. Don’t do this to him.”

Uncle Floyd’s smile faltered. “Don’t do this to him?” He looked down at the butcher knife. “But … Amy … how else am I to fulfill my purpose?”

“You always played the part of the Belsnickel with the kids in our family, and sometimes with the neighborhood kids,” she said, thinking quickly. “Kids that knew the legend. Doug doesn’t know it. So fulfill your destiny by letting him go and punish me instead.”

From Doug there came a mangled, throaty, “No … this isn’t happening.…”

Uncle Floyd’s face was deadpan. For the first time since he’d blown in, she saw that his skin looked white and pasty, as if he was gravely ill. His eyes were bloodshot. How could he have flown all the way across the country looking like that?

On the heels of that thought: And how did he get my address? She’d left her parents no forwarding address. Nobody in her family knew where she was. She had packed suddenly, taking only essentials, then had bought a plane ticket at a local travel agency, paying for it in cash. She hadn’t even told her old co-workers where she was moving. She had cut all ties with her family completely. It was the only way to start over. Especially after everything her parents had put her through …

“Oh, don’t worry, Amy,” Floyd said. One hand gently brushed Doug’s hair away from his forehead. “I will punish you. You can count on that.”

“Then let him go!” Amy said, more forceful. “Don’t hurt him anymore.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m the Belsnickel. I punish everybody who’s naughty.”

“Earlier you said that you weren’t going to punish him as badly because he wasn’t a member of our family,” Amy said, struggling to stay focused and not scream and yell. “You’ve hurt him enough. Cut him loose and I’ll go back home. I’ll leave tonight with you.”

“Cut him loose?” Uncle Floyd seemed confused.

“Yes, cut him loose. Then you and I will leave. We’ll catch the first flight back to Pennsylvania. We’ll spend Christmas together, with my parents, with the family.”

“Where you belong, ” Uncle Floyd finished for her.

“Yes,” Amy nodded. “Where I belong.”

Uncle Floyd seemed to pause as he looked around the townhome … the decorations, the Christmas tree all dressed up with tinsel and twinkling lights, presents under the tree on a snow-white blanket, candy-cane ornaments draped along the bookshelf. This was supposed to have been what she felt was her first real Christmas, spending it with someone she loved. Amy watched Uncle Floyd and gained control of her breathing, staying focused. It was true: she had left town suddenly for a reason—her parents were financially destitute. Years of alcohol and substance abuse had worn them down physically and mentally—Mom had emphysema and COPD; Dad had developed Parkinson’s disease and was beginning to slide into dementia. Her parents were in their sixties; they looked as if they were thirty years older. When Amy had blown town, her parents were on the verge of being evicted from their ramshackle home in northern Lancaster County due to foreclosure on the mortgage. Her brother was no better, and other family members, various aunts, uncles, and cousins, enabled her parents by giving them money for cigarettes and booze, sometimes drugs, sometimes bail money. They’d been living like this for as long as she could remember. Amy knew the way they lived was not normal, that it was destructive. She’d known this from the time she was seven and had borne the weight of both parents in her tiny, narrow bed during the infrequent sessions they stumbled into her room after a night of heavy partying and raped her. That wasn’t the worst thing they had done to her, either.

“You have a nice home, Amy,” Uncle Floyd said. He was apparently finished with the visual inspection of her townhome.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Your parents are currently living with your Aunt Martha,” he continued. At the mention of Aunt Martha, Amy didn’t react; Martha was her father’s sister and was crazier than her parents. “Unfortunately, they can’t stay there forever. It’s only temporary. Something about Martha’s husband not being able to get along with your mother.”

Amy didn’t react. Uncle Floyd didn’t seem to notice as he continued. “Everybody in the family is angry that you took off like that. Martha found a lawyer, one who specializes in elder care. He mentioned a law, something called filial responsibility law. Pennsylvania is one of twenty-nine states with a filial responsibility law that requires children to be financially responsible for their destitute parent’s care.”

“Have you paid a similar visit to my stupid brother about this?” Amy asked.

Uncle Floyd looked confused. “Why would I do that?”

“Why not? You said this law requires children to be financially responsible for their parents if they’re destitute.”

“You’re their daughter. It’s tradition that women … that girls … provide all the care for their parents when they become elderly. Your brother doesn’t have to do a thing—he has his own family to provide for.”

And I don’t? Amy thought.

“You shouldn’t avoid this—you make plenty of money. It’s your duty.”

Amy’s mind was racing. She was familiar with filial laws, and she had to admit, part of her reason for moving into Doug’s condo on the northeastern outskirts of Irvine, California, right at the foothills of the Santa Ana mountains, was to avoid financial responsibility for her parent’s care due to what they’d put her through. Beat the shit out of me as a child? Psychologically and sexually abuse me? Treat my stupid brother better than me even though he’s a complete fuckup?

You get what you pay for.

She had a new life now. She’d met Doug at a conference in Chicago eight months ago. Work for a mutual client had paired them professionally; natural chemistry did the rest. She’d had boyfriends before, but nothing like Doug. Before either of them knew it they were burning up cellular minutes, engaging in long Skype conversations over the internet during downtime from their consulting positions and hooking up physically when they were in Chicago for work. Amy had flown out to California twice to spend long weekends with him and they’d sealed the deal while on a moonlit walk along Laguna Beach; she was thinking of moving to a different company anyway. A mutual acquaintance hooked Amy up with a Newport Beach firm and she received an offer two weeks later. Hence, her exit from the life she’d known in Pennsylvania.

As far as she was concerned, her parents could rot. She’d left her birthplace, the area she grew up in, the area that bore bad memories and bad times in order to start over fresh. She left home not caring what would happen to her parents, eager for a new life. They’d been dead to her for a long time.

However, she wasn’t going to tell Uncle Floyd that. She had no intention of providing support—physical or financial—to her parents. For now, she had to make him believe she had seen the error of her ways and was agreeing to come home to care for her parents.

“Okay,” she said, “you’re right. I’m done running. I’m in the wrong. I’ll go home with you.”

“Excellent!” Uncle Floyd said. He stepped behind Doug and brought out his butcher knife. “I’ll just cut Doug loose, then.” Uncle Floyd was smiling; his blue eyes were twinkling with merriment and delight. “He can stay behind and finish decorating the tree.”

The comment went over Amy’s head at first but then it became apparent what it—and his first comment about cutting Doug loose—meant. Uncle Floyd’s eyes narrowed as his face changed to an evil grimace as he brought the blade of the butcher knife to Doug’s exposed throat and began to saw through his neck.

Amy screamed. Doug’s eyes flew open and he let out a quick pain-wracked scream that turned into a gurgle as his larynx was severed. Blood spurted out of his neck. It was like watching a faucet being turned on; the flow was strong and the floor was immediately stained with a growing pool of blood. Doug’s feet kicked at the floor and his body spasmed as the blade sawed through his neck.

There were more screams too, but Amy didn’t realize the screaming was hers.

Then she blacked out.

§

When Amy regained consciousness the first thing she was aware of was that her arms were free, as were her feet and ankles—Uncle Floyd must have cut her loose too. She lay sprawled on the dining room floor, her left cheek against the floor.

The second thing she was aware of was the reflection of flashing red and orange lights from outside. There were also voices in the distance. She tried to make them out and saw a group of figures huddled around the corner of the living room near the Christmas tree. She also felt the presence of other figures kneeling beside her. She felt a blood-pressure gauge around her upper right arm, and she heard a voice say, “She’s waking up.”

Her vision swam back into focus. The figures kneeling beside her were paramedics. She glanced toward the living room. There were uniformed policemen and what appeared to be two detectives looking at the Christmas tree, talking in low tones. There was a lot of activity. Blood was all over the living room floor.

And there was no sign of Uncle Floyd. Or Doug, for that matter.

At the mention that she was waking up, one of the detectives approached her. As he moved closer to her she caught a quick glimpse of what the other officers were focused on in the corner.

Uncle Floyd was right.

Doug had finished decorating the tree.

This time she didn’t even hear herself scream as she blacked out again.

§

These days, Amy spends all of her time alone in her room at Canyon Ridge Psychiatric Hospital.

She spends most of that time looking at the white walls of her room, wondering how Uncle Floyd got away with what he did. Occasionally, she mutters to herself and laughs, and then she kind of goes away for awhile. She doesn’t know how else to explain it—it’s like her mind goes blank and when she becomes aware of her surroundings again, time has passed and she’s somewhere else in her room—on her narrow cot, or sitting on the floor, knees drawn up to her chest, or sometimes lying on the floor curled into a fetal position. Then when she comes back to herself she cries briefly, then calms down and starts the whole thought process over again.

Dr. Andrew Stevens watched her through the one-way glass pane set in the door to her room. He clutched her chart in his hands as he talked to Mark Ryan, one of the lawyers from the Orange County District Attorney’s office. Ryan was already leaning very heavily towards not putting her on trial, but he had to go through the formalities—that was why he was here, conferring with Dr. Stevens.

Dr. Stevens was consulting the notes in the chart. “Floyd Heister, her father’s brother, was deceased two years before … .correct?”

Mark Ryan nodded. “Yes. Natural causes, according to the coroner in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.”

“Where’d he die?”

“Ephrata Hospital, in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.”

“And this Belsnickel thing …” Dr. Stevens began.

“Apparently Floyd really did that,” Mark said. “In PA Dutch folklore, the Belsnickel is as popular a character as Santa Claus. Family members say Floyd played the part every year.”

“Even into her adulthood,” Dr. Stevens said, reading from his notes. “You’ve read my report on her. And judging by what your investigation has revealed, I would say that years of extreme physical, emotional, and sexual abuse from her parents shattered her mind into two separate psyches: one completely made up, and her real psyche, which was already severely damaged.”

“So she’s a genuine case of a split personality?” Mark Ryan asked.

“No doubt about it.” Dr. Stevens closed her case file and looked into her room. “It’s such a shame. The mind can take a lot, Mr. Ryan. But when the abuse is so traumatic and goes on for so long with no rescue, the results can be devastating. Combine that with her parents’ real situation—I hear they’re both in a homeless shelter now and aren’t doing well health-wise—and then you add guilt on top of that, well …” He shook his head. “I’m sure that put her over the edge. Whatever ounce of humanity she had left couldn’t handle the fact that her parents were likely going to be homeless, that being homeless would eventually kill them due to lack of proper medical care, food, and shelter—especially as winter set in. She had extreme guilt over intentionally leaving them. That was the icing on the cake that led to this break.”

“Between you and me,” Mark said, glancing at Dr. Stevens, “her parents deserve everything they have coming to them for what they did to her growing up.”

“And between you and me, I agree with you.” Dr. Stevens was watching Amy as she sat up and looked around her room in confusion. “Poor girl. Driven by guilt and the demons of her past, she lost grip with reality and hallucinated her Uncle Floyd. He served as her sort of moral compass through all this.”

“So Uncle Floyd really killed her boyfriend?” Mark Ryan said.

“In a way. The physical evidence, of course, says otherwise … that all points to Amy.”

Mark Ryan looked apprehensive. He cast a sidelong glance at Dr. Stevens, and then looked around to make sure they were alone. When he spoke to Dr. Stevens, his voice was lowered. “I realize the evidence says Amy killed him … but there’s something you need to know.”

Dr. Stevens looked curious.

“Remember the testimony from Floyd’s wife that after his death, all of his clothing was either donated to Goodwill or burned?”

Dr. Stevens nodded.

“The burned clothing included the outfit he used when he played the Belsnickel.”

“Okay …”

“Their neighbors swear the outfit was burned too,” Mark continued. “They saw it … but get this …” He leaned closer, his voice a gravelly whisper. “We found his Belsnickel costume in that townhouse … and it was covered with Doug’s blood!”

CONTRIBUTOR BIOS

JOE R. LANSDALE is the author of over thirty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in eighteen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Hotep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” was adapted to film for Showtime’s “Masters of Horror.” He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.

NATE SOUTHARD’S books include Scavengers, This Little Light of Mine, Red Sky, Just Like Hell, Broken Skin, and He Stepped Through. His short fiction has appeared in such venues as Cemetery Dance, Black Static, Thuglit, and the anthology Supernatural Noir. His short stories “Going Home, Ugly Stick in Hand” and “The Blisters On My Heart” have received honorable mentions in The Year’s Best Horror, and he earned a Bram Stoker Award nomination for his story “In the Middle of Poplar Street.” A graduate of The University of Texas with a degree in Radio, Television, and Film, Nate lives in Austin, Texas with his cat.

STEPHEN MARK RAINEY is not the infamous Stephen King antihero Mort Rainey, but the far more nefarious author of the novels Dark Shadows: Dreams of the Dark (with Elizabeth Massie, HarperCollins), Balak (Wildside Books), The Lebo Coven (Thomson Gale/Five Star Books, Crossroad Press), The Nightmare Frontier (Sarob Press, Crossroad Press), Blue Devil Island (Thomson Gale/Five Star Books, Marietta), and The Monarchs (Crossroad Press); three short story collections; and over 100 published works of short fiction.

JEFF STRAND is the four-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of such books as PRESSURE, DWELLER, A BAD DAY FOR VOODOO, DEAD CLOWN BARBECUE, and a bunch of others. He also conveniently wrote WOLF HUNT, which made it a lot easier to get permission to write the sequel. Future novels may or may not include WOLF HUNT 3, WOLF HUNT 4, WOLF HUNT 5, WOLF HUNT 6, or WOLF HUNT: ALL-VAMPIRE EDITION. Foolish mortals can visit his website at www.jeffstrand.com.

SHANE MCKENZIE is the author of Infinity House, All You Can Eat, Bleed on Me, Jacked, Addicted to the Dead, Muerte Con Carne, Escape from Shit Town (co-authored with Sam W. Anderson and Erik Williams), Fat Off Sex and Violence, Fairy, The Bingo Hall, and many more to come. He is also the editor at Sinister Grin Press. He lives in Austin, TX with his wife and daughter. He eats his portion of meat every day and has the most amazing Corpse Snuff collection you’ve ever seen.

CODY GOODFELLOW has written five novels–his latest is Repo Shark (Broken River Books)– and co-wrote three more with John Skipp. His first two collections, Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars and All-Monster Action, each received the Wonderland Book Award. He wrote, co-produced and scored the short Lovecraftian hygiene film Stay At Home Dad, which can be viewed on YouTube. He is also a director of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival-Los Angeles and cofounder of Perilous Press, an occasional micropublisher of modern cosmic horror. He lives in Burbank, California, and is currently working on building a perfect bowling team.

JOHN SKIPP is a New York Times bestselling author, editor, film director, zombie godfather, compulsive collaborator, musical pornographer, black-humored optimist and all-around Renaissance mutant. His early novels from the 1980s and 90s pioneered the graphic, subversive, high-energy form known as splatterpunk. His anthology Book of the Dead was the beginning of modern post-Romero zombie literature. His work ranges from hardcore horror to whacked-out Bizarro to scathing social satire, all brought together with his trademark cinematic pace and intimate, unflinching, unmistakable voice. From young agitator to hilarious elder statesman, Skipp remains one of genre fiction’s most colorful characters.

J. F. GONZALEZ is the author of several novels of horror and dark suspense and over eighty short stories and novellas. Christmas Horror Volume 1 is dedicated to his memory (J. F. passed away in 2014).

ZACH MCCAIN is an internationally published artist who is primarily known for his illustration and cover artwork in the horror and science fiction genres. He has worked on hundreds of books for numerous publishers. His work ranges from book and magazine illustration to graphic design, album art, DVD and poster work for films, and RPG games. Mediums often used are oils as well as pencil, ink, and digital.