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Dan felt his heart begin to hammer again. “Show me.”
Mason took his hand again and led him through the dining room and into the kitchen and up to the back door. Light from a second Coleman lantern threw pale window squares onto the snow-covered lawn.
There was a man in the yard.
The man had a white beard.
He wore a red suit.
Dan moved closer to the window and studied the figure.
Then he stepped back. Slowly. Making absolutely sure not to make any sudden moves. He very carefully, very quietly found the dial on the lantern and turned down the gas until the kitchen was plunged into darkness.
Darkness was safe.
“Why’d you do that?” asked Mason. “Now we can’t see Santa.”
Dan said nothing.
Out in the yard, the figure turned toward the house
.
The beard was white. Sure. Except where it was red. There was snow on the red, so it was a layered effect. Hiding the truth. Changing the truth.
His shirt had probably been red to start with. A checked flannel shirt. Redder now by far. A belly. What someone might have called a comfortable belly. You say that about old guys with paunches. Mostly bald head, a fringe of white.
Red and white.
Fat.
Not jolly.
“Go back into the other room,” said Dan.
“But . . . Santa . . . ,” said Mason, not budging.
Santa. God.
Dan wondered who it was out there. Father? Grandfather? Or another survivor? Maybe a neighbor from one of the other houses. Maybe coming over to share the world’s last Christmas dinner. Maybe someone who had helped gather enough supplies to make it special. To give the family one perfect night. If so, what had happened? Why had everyone gone out? Did they want to take a Christmas picture in the snow? Did someone have an old Polaroid camera? Or a digital camera that they kept charged somehow? Had they been crazy enough—or felt safe enough—to go out and watch the snow? Had they sung a carol as the snow fell and thought that the dead were too far away to hear? Or that the storm would muffle their voices?
Something had happened, though. Something made them all go outside and leave hot food on the table. Their coats were gone. Their boots. They’d dressed for it, but they couldn’t have meant to be out there long.
Except . . .
There were footprints out in the snow, but if there was blood, the snow hid it. If there were bodies, they’d wandered off.
Except this one old man.
Except Mason’s Santa.
God Almighty.
He looked at his brother, at the unfiltered joy on a face that Dan thought had forgotten how to smile.
The truth is no blessing, he thought. The truth is no gift.
He knew he had to do this right. If he did it wrong, Mason would probably cry. He didn’t cry out loud much—even as young as he was, Mason had learned the rules. But this was different. The dinner, the presents. The man in red and white. Mason sounded strange as it was. Dan couldn’t risk dragging him back out into the cold. Not the cold outside, but the cold of the real world. It might break him. The kid was already cracked.
