As I crouch down beneath the back window, in line with the gap in the curtain, and I slowly raise my head — inch by inch — until my eyes are just peeking over the sill, I’m momentarily convinced again that I really have lost my mind, and that I am seeing things that aren’t there. What other explanation could there be for the vision I see through the glass?

Two Santa Clauses, both of them even nastier-looking than the monstrous nightmare of my childhood — two blood-red creatures, like hellish twins . . . two anti-Santas . . .

And one of them has a gun in his hand.

It’s impossible.

It can’t be real.

It has to be all in my mind . . .

But then I see Mum.

And I know, in an instant . . .

This is real.

She’s sitting on the floor with Shirley, both of them bound and gagged, and they’re both in a really bad state. Shirley’s got an ugly gash on the side of her head, and Mum looks even worse. Her jaw’s all swollen and discolored, and there’s so much swelling and blackened bruising around her right eye that it’s completely closed up. They’re both deathly pale, and their ashen faces are stained with tears.

As I crouch there at the window, staring dumbstruck at Mum, a flood of feelings surges through me — rage, fear, love, hate, confusion, madness, violence, vengeance . . . all at once, all together, all uncontrollable and overwhelming.

Mum suddenly looks up at me then — it’s as if she’s felt my presence — and after a brief moment of stunned surprise, she glances anxiously at the anti-Santa with the gun, checking to make sure that he hasn’t spotted me. When she sees that he’s busy talking to the other anti-Santa on the other side of the room, she looks back at me — staring desperately into my eyes — and starts shaking her head.

The gesture’s so vague it could mean anything, but I know what she’s trying to tell me. She wants me to go, get away from here, don’t get involved, it’s too dangerous . . . please, just go . . . right now . . . before it’s too late . . .

I sense rather than see the anti-Santa with the gun turning around, and I quickly duck down out of sight.

I don’t know if he saw me or not, but it doesn’t matter.

We’ll be seeing each other in a few moments anyway.

There’s nothing in my head as I cross over to the back door. No thoughts, no questions, no plans. And my heart is empty too. The flood of feelings has gone. I don’t feel anything at all. I’m just doing what I have to do — whatever it takes, whatever needs to be done.

I’m not scared.

I’m dead.

Nothing in the world can frighten me.

The back door leads directly into the kitchen. The bottom half is solid wood, the top half is a glass panel. Shirley usually keeps it locked. I try the handle, just in case, but it doesn’t open. I step back, raise the rifle, and crack the butt into the glass. It smashes loudly, the broken glass scattering all over the place, and there’s no way the two Santas could have failed to hear it. I quickly reach in through the shattered glass — only vaguely aware of a sharp pain slicing into my gloveless hand — and then I turn the key in the lock, open the door, and step through into the kitchen.

It’s a fairly small kitchen, a bit cramped, but clean and obsessively tidy. Halfway along the right-hand wall is an archway into a little dining room, and on the far side of the dining room a doorway leads through to the hallway, which in turn leads to the living room, the stairs, and the front door.

Just as I’m heading through the archway into the dining room, the anti-Santa-with-the-gun appears in the opposite doorway. We see each other at the same time, and as he stops in the doorway and levels his pistol at my head, I stop in the archway and raise the rifle to my shoulder, aiming it at his head.

The anti-Santa just stares at me for a moment — his eyes cold and hard, his jaw set tight — and then he blinks, and frowns, and looks me up and down, his brow furrowed, and then he shakes his head in disbelief, and his face breaks into a grin.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, “what the hell are you?”

Gordon was still singing along to the radio as he approached the junction at the top of the village, and as he swung the Corsa to the right, without slowing down, the car skidded sideways across the road and the back end slammed into a drystone wall. The wall collapsed, and the Corsa’s right rear wheel arch flew off, but Gordon just straightened the car, put his foot down, and sped off down the road toward the village.

“Suspect vehicle turned right onto Beckshill Lane, now heading south. He’s coming your way, Griff.”

“Do you want us to stop him?”

“Stay where you are for now. But be ready.”

“Received.”

Griff Beattie glanced at his partner. “Okay?”

Rick Tarn nodded, then reached down and started the car.

“Put the rifle down, kid,” the anti-Santa-with-the-gun says dismissively. “You’re not going to shoot me, are you?”

Without lowering the rifle, I take a step toward him. A flicker of doubt shows in his eyes — momentarily pricking his casual arrogance — and he instinctively steps back. He quickly regains his composure, straightening his gun arm and giving me a disdainful grin, but we both know it’s too late for him. He stepped back. He can’t change that now. He backed away from me.

“I don’t want to hurt you, kid,” he says, “but I will if I have to. So why don’t you just put down the gun —”

“Get out of the way,” I say, moving toward him.

My voice is calm and confident. It doesn’t sound anything like me.

The anti-Santa is backing away again now, shuffling backward along the hallway, still aiming his gun at my head.

“All right, that’s far enough,” he says, trying to sound forceful. “I mean it. Any closer and I’ll pull the trigger.”

“No, you won’t,” I tell him. “I’m just a kid. You’re not going to murder an innocent child, are you? You don’t want to be locked up for the rest of your life.”

He stumbles over his feet, regains his balance, then glances quickly over his shoulder to see where he’s going. The stairs are on his right, the front door’s behind him, and the living-room door is just to his left. It’s half open. I can see the curtained front window — and in my mind, I can see Shirley’s snow globe on the sill behind the curtains — and I can see the settee beneath the window, and some of the bookshelf beside it. But there’s no sign of the second anti-Santa anywhere.

Not that I care.

I’m dead.

“But if I kill you,” I say to the first anti-Santa, “if I shoot you dead, no one’s going to blame me, are they? You broke into my auntie’s house, you attacked her and my mum, you beat them up, tied them up, terrorized them . . . nothing’s going to happen to me if I kill you. Nothing at all.”

He’s edging back into the living room now, nudging the door open with his elbow, and as I keep moving toward him, I begin to sense something — a distant voice, a faraway feeling, struggling to rise up through the deadness. It’s too faint to make out clearly, but it feels — or sounds — like some kind of warning.

Everything happens in an instant then.

I see the first anti-Santa glance to his left, looking down at the far end of the room, where Mum and Shirley are tied to the radiator, and at the same time I hear the sound of muffled grunting and thumping coming from them. I react instinctively to it, and as I start moving toward the doorway, and the first anti-Santa starts getting out of my way, I see him flick a quick look behind me. It’s an upward glance, and it’s so rapid that it takes a moment to sink in, and by then it’s too late. I spin around as fast as I can, but the second anti-Santa has already vaulted over the banister and is flying toward me, feetfirst.

A sudden (and totally useless) realization flashes through my mind — Mum and Shirley did try to warn you, didn’t they? — and then a giant hammer slams into my head and everything goes black.