The patrol car was positioned sideways across the road, just a few yards down from Shirley’s house. It was the narrowest part of the road — made even narrower by the cars parked on either side — and the blockade was so solid that even a cyclist would find it hard to get through.

With the emergency lights flashing, coloring the black sky with waves of blue, and the patrol car’s headlights on full beam, the roadblock was unmissable, and Gordon saw it in plenty of time to stop.

Not that he had any intention of stopping.

Stopping meant a return to reality, and Gordon had had enough of that. He’d lived all his life in reality. He’d never known anything else. He’d never known he could be up here, riding the stars, riding the roller coaster, singing his heart out . . . and now that he did know, he was never going back.

It was as simple as that.

He was staying up here.

And nothing was going to stop him.

“What the hell’s he doing?” Beattie said, staring in disbelief at the rapidly approaching car.

The front end of the Corsa on the driver’s side was hanging down even more now. Sparks were still shooting out from under the car, half the front bumper was missing, and the left-side wheel arch had broken off and was jammed up under the chassis.

“He’s not slowing down,” Beattie said.

“He will.”

“He’d better hurry up then. Unless he hits the brakes pretty soon, he’s never going to stop in time.”

The roadblock was less than thirty yards away now, and Gordon knew exactly what was going to happen when he got there. He could see it all in his mind, every little detail. It was as clear to him as if it had already happened. The shocked faces of the police officers as he hurtled toward them . . . the sudden fear in their eyes as they realized he wasn’t going to stop . . . and then, at the moment of impact — or the moment of expected impact — their amazement and wonder as the Corsa became what it really was — a magnificent silver stallion — and instead of crashing into them, it took off into the air and, with one mighty bound, leaped effortlessly over the patrol car . . .

Gordon smiled.

That’ll give them something to talk about.

There’s nothing in the universe now but me and the anti-Santa. We’re all there is, joined together by our eyes and the gun. My hand gripping the barrel, keeping it pressed to my head . . . his finger on the trigger, flesh and bone on cold steel . . . my eyes showing him my deadness, his showing me that there’s a lot more to him than I thought. I can see his whole life in his eyes, and I can see the real possibility that this, for him, is where it’s meant to end.

He doesn’t fear it.

In fact, there’s a part of him that welcomes it.

I feel an almost imperceptible movement in the pistol, and I don’t have to look at it to know what it is. I can see it in his eyes — his finger is tightening on the trigger.

The tire blew just as the Corsa was passing the second house up from Shirley’s. It was the front right tire, and the car was traveling at sixty-five miles per hour when it burst. As the Corsa veered violently to the right — angling in toward the line of parked cars — Gordon reacted instinctively, stamping on the brake pedal and yanking the steering wheel hard to the left. The car turned just in time, narrowly missing a black Jeep parked in front of the Land Rover, but now the Corsa’s wheels were locked up and it was skidding uncontrollably across the road in the opposite direction, still traveling at speed and heading straight for the houses . . .

Gordon was fighting the steering wheel, swinging it from side to side, desperately trying to control the skid, but he didn’t really know what he was doing, and the car wasn’t responding to anything he did anyway. It was as if it had a mind of its own, and it knew where it was going, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

As it hurtled through a gap between two parked cars and mounted the sidewalk with a shuddering thunk, Gordon suddenly recognized what he was seeing through the windshield. The Volvo in the driveway to his right, the low picket fence straight ahead, and on the other side of the fence the snow-covered patch of lawn — which he dutifully mowed every Sunday in the summer — and beyond that the all-too-familiar house that had been his home since the day he was born . . .

Gordon smiled.

“It’s fate,” he muttered.

As the Corsa smashed through the picket fence and careened across the snow-whitened lawn toward the house, Gordon took his foot off the brake and let go of the steering wheel.

We both hear it at the same time, and without changing position or letting go of the gun, we both instinctively look over at the front window. The sound we hear is familiar, but wrong. It’s obviously a car, but it’s not the kind of sound a car usually makes when it’s passing by, and it’s rapidly getting louder and closer . . . much closer . . . and all we seem able to do is stand there in the middle of the room, frozen together in our absurd pose, both of us staring numbly at the curtained front window.

We hear a shuddering chunk, then a loud crash of splintering wood . . . then a fleeting moment of relative silence . . . and then, with a thunderous crash, the room explodes.