Your buddy’s uncle tells you to stay in the car. If the bloodshot eyes don’t convince you he’s serious (and maybe a little drunk), the dead reindeer in the snow does.

The hood’s warped and smeared with reindeer bits. Hard to unsee, but there isn’t much else to look at. The headlights catch two beams of swirling ice and snow and everything is dark and downright arctic. Town’s only a couple miles ahead, past McCafferty’s alpaca farm, but the road’s awash with thickening white and you can’t see more than fifteen feet beyond the dash.

Your buddy’s uncle pops his collar and exits the vehicle, leaving you and your buddy to gawk out the window. It’s your buddy who says it’s a reindeer and not the regular kind. He’s big on animal facts, mostly dinosaurs but not only dinosaurs, so you don’t question him. When you later ask the uncle on the ride home, he blinks long and hard and says no, it’s just a white-tail. He avoids your eyes in the rearview when he says it, not realizing you already know the truth about Santa. Dead reindeer won’t traumatize you like they might have last year when you wrote Mr. Claus a letter and sat on his lap at the Lake Torrance Mall.

Neither you nor your buddy mention any of this to your mothers. If you spill the detail about Uncle Rob’s itchy-red eyes, they would do more than fret. As reward, Uncle Rob slips you each a five to splurge on hot cocoa.

The next day, when you two bike past McCafferty’s down the wooded backroad, the body is gone. That’s what your buddy calls it: the body. Weird Phil, who lives in a renovated railcar behind the old ball fields, occasionally makes rounds to clean up dead roadside critters, but this couldn’t have been Weird Phil. An animal dragged it off, big cat maybe, your buddy suggests, and, like before, you don’t question him.

The blood trail is lost under fresh snowfall, but a telltale crimson smear marks the trunks of nearby birches, outlining the deer’s trajectory onto the road, minutes before spewing its insides across Uncle Rob’s windshield. Up above, the barren canopy rattles, the branches sharp and antler-like.

The deer was already bleeding before Uncle Rob clocked him, your buddy says.

Yeah, you say. You’re certain something’s watching the two of you, and it’s not the trees, so you keep quiet and begin steering your bike back onto the road.

********************

Instead of hot cocoa, you both spend Uncle Rob’s bribe money on ice cream. It’s mid-December and you can see everyone’s breath, yet you’re craving cold treats and here’s Ted Owsley running an ice cream truck. Your mothers think it odd and borderline unseemly of him, but you don’t care and you don’t ask what unseemly means. Most days Owsley prowls the streets of downtown Kenwood playing his jingle, and when he isn’t, he parks near the train station and smokes funny things behind the wheel. Everyone’s seen him do it, but you and your buddy know better than to approach him when the truck window’s all fogged.

One day, while waiting in line for overpriced fudge bars, you hear chatter about the reindeer. You whisper to your buddy and he’s adamant he hasn’t squealed about it. This is a different one. Must be. That makes two dead reindeer then, you say. Comet and Cupid, maybe. There’s talk of Amy’s little brother finding a bloody sleigh behind the Romanos’ barn, but your buddy says that’s hogwash. If it’s not, then it’s some psycho’s idea of a joke. A little chicken blood drizzled over a busted sleigh.

When it’s your turn to order, Owsley takes your money and asks how your big sis is doing. You shrug and say you don’t know and why doesn’t he ask her himself? Owsley flashes an uneasy, tobacco-rich smile and gives you your fudge bar.

You stand off to the side and wait for your buddy to order. The other kids wait with you, huddled like geese under the Founders’ Tree, its spiraled branches clawing higher than all others. While everyone gnaws on their treats, which are as hard as lake ice, you notice a fresh indent in Owsley’s fender. A chokecherry-colored smear too. Your buddy doesn’t notice, and you don’t point it out.

********************

On Friday your father yanks you out of fourth period to get a head start on open season’s final weekend. Your buddy says not to worry, the gang’s only gonna be shooting pellets into Carson’s fencepost on Saturday; you won’t miss anything exciting. Great, you say, not entirely convinced.

Your father says he’ll let you shoot this time. Two years ago, your mother—who feels about guns how your father does about video games—would have said no way, not while she has anything to say about it, but you’re bigger now. Last year when your father let you practice, you took a kickback to the shoulder and didn’t so much as whimper; you’re halfway grownup and aren’t about to look all babyish in front of Darryl Buford and Chris Goffney and your father’s other drinking buddies.

The guys assemble at a Speedway two miles north of town and the party’s hunkered into the timeshare cabin by six. Evening casts thorny shadows across the old-growth forest. Kenwood’s already an armpit town, jokingly known in Lake Torrance as Wherever, Wisconsin, so you don’t have to travel far to reach the good duck hunting spots. Your father doesn’t say much to you while he and the guys are setting up shop. You hover at his side, hoping to absorb some of his manliness, but it’s Mason Hayes, the deputy’s son, who reminds you where the safety is on your rifle and shows you how to clean the chamber and asks if you need a tougher jacket when he catches you shivering.

That first night there’s a lot of walking, a lot of squatting, a lot of waiting. The hunt is underway, and you don’t dare whine or complain. Cupping the groove of the barrel in your hands, the heft of the thing, you can’t help but think: this is real, this is adult. You can’t say it’s a good feeling.

Lousy luck, Goffney says after the first day.

Season’s too late, boss, Buford echoes. He stops beside you and your father, swings his gun over his shoulder all cool-like, and squats to inspect the snow; there’s not a single track aside from the party’s. The snow’s a clean carpet over the forest floor, three days fresh, but there’re no rabbit tracks, no ducks, no elk, no nothing.

No reindeer, you think. You wonder back in time, and now that you think about it, you don’t recall there being any tracks when you and your buddy returned and found the body gone. Whatever dragged it off must have done so quickly, while snow still fell, perhaps mere minutes after Uncle Rob hit it.

You shiver, but this time not from the cold.

That night while Hayes is teaching you how to spit like a man over the cabin’s porch railing, you listen for coyotes. Their nocturnal howls were the highlights of past years’ trips, but you hear nothing now. You’re enjoying a Mountain Dew and almost having a good time, but the coyotes’ silence spoils the mood. Hayes looks sideways at you from his end of the railing, a beer dangling from one hand and mischief in his eyes, and tells you not to worry, tomorrow you’ll all have better luck. You smile at him, still unconvinced. The ducks won’t show, and neither will the coyotes. It’s as if something has them spooked. All around you, the woods tingle with an icy vacancy and the wind scurries through bony branches. Again, you get the impression you’re not alone, that something’s watching you, but the adults don’t say anything, so neither do you.

********************

Your buddy hardly asks about the trip when you get back early on Sunday. Not that you mind. There isn’t much to tell. In return, you don’t ask about shooting pellets on the Carson farm. Instead, you ask if there’s been talk of another reindeer.

Your buddy says no, why?

No reason, you say.

You see something up at the cabin?

No, nothing at all.

********************

Whiskey, short for Whiskers, likes to sneak out the doggie door at night. Technically he’s your big sister’s cat, but she’s been living with your aunt since she and your mother had their scuffle. That leaves you. This is why you don’t argue when your mother interrupts your screentime and sends you outside to track down the stupid cat. Your father’s drinking a late-night cup of coffee at the table when you fetch your boots and trudge out the back door. Unlike other times, he doesn’t comment on the brain cells you’re burning playing that computer game. When did kids stop playing D&D, he likes to say. No one ever answers this question, yet he keeps on asking.

Outside it’s dark and cold and you wish you grabbed a jacket. You should have made your buddy put down his controller and help you locate the worthless feline. The snow isn’t clean anymore; it’s scooped into piles and slushy mounds and there’re no tracks. You holler Whiskey’s name again and again until the syllables blur into gibberish. If the neighbors are listening—and if they don’t know better—they’ll think you’ve got more than a few screws loose.

The backdoor clatters behind you and your buddy steps out with a spare jacket in hand. Hurry up, it’s cold, he says. You don’t respond. Whiskey has his favorite hiding spots, and you know most of them, but you’d rather not trek all the way to Mrs. Emmer’s barn to check the rafters or to town hall to check the crawlspace.

Just tell your ma we can’t find him, your buddy says, bending over to peer under your father’s dead tractor.

She won’t accept that until we’ve searched a good while, you say. You don’t know why your mother bothers torturing you; the dumb cat always comes eventually.

Might not be anything left of Whiskey to find, your buddy says. The Carsons lost a couple cows last week. Barn cats all gone, too. They think it’s wolves.

Yeah? you say.

Hogwash, your buddy says. No wolves doing that. It’s whatever got those reindeer, man.

You imagine Darryl Buford and Mason Hayes and your father laughing hard at that one, so you say nothing. You lower onto your knees and peek under the neighbors’ shed, but there’s no sign of Whiskey among the frostbit crates and bundles of old chicken wire. You’re about to call it quits when a faint tinkle rises above the whip of the wind. Your buddy shuts his mouth and listens too. It’s familiar and ghostly in the distance.

Owsley’s ice cream truck, he says.

He’s right. Now that you recognize the jingle, you can’t unhear it, but why would Ted Owsley be driving around this late? You wonder if the jingle plays automatically whenever the truck’s moving or if Owsley has to flip a switch.

You and your buddy share a frequency at times, and this is one of those times. Without a word, you sneak your bikes out of the garage and pedal onto Rector Ave, stopping only once so you can throw on the spare jacket he brought. The wind’s merciless and you can’t feel your fingertips against the handlebars, but there’s a heat burning in your chest and you’re suddenly pedaling faster than ever.

The truck’s music leads you to the train station, which is a letdown, because Owsley always hangs around the station. He must have gone somewhere, though, because there are fresh streaks in the snow and he’s muted the jingle. There’s a phantom vibration in the air now that all is quiet, raising the tiny hairs on your arms. The two of you hide in the trees near the rail track. The expectation is Owsley will kill the headlights, pump the truck’s heater to full blast, and smoke a joint, in which case you’ll both return home unimpressed, maybe stop by town hall to look for Whiskey while you’re at it. But Owsley doesn’t light up. Not right away. After killing the lights, he steps out of the truck and begins pacing. He’s rubbing his elbows and yapping into a phone pinched between his ear and left shoulder. You can’t make out the words over the wind, but you’ve witnessed enough telephone spats between your mother and big sis to know the call isn’t going well.

Owsley’s in trouble, you say.

How you know?

How do you not?

Your buddy shifts uneasily in the bushes. Owsley doesn’t notice either of you, but that doesn’t make you any less nervous. He’s tripping over his own feet, and whenever he looks up from the pavement, it’s at the Founders’ Tree. The branches click against each other like the chatter of carnivorous teeth, but that’s not all. Something dark and massive is slithering in the lower branches, half-concealed behind the ice cream truck. You blink hard and shake yourself, and then it’s gone. If your buddy saw it, he doesn’t share.

Without warning, the truck heaves. Owsley doesn’t budge, but your buddy yelps. The truck’s loading door hangs agape, as though something crawled inside.

Your blood runs cold. You grab your buddy’s wrist and yank him deeper into the woods behind the station. Owsley didn’t flinch at the jostling inside his truck, but now he’s scanning the trees in your direction. Your buddy’s yelp hangs in the air, like an echo stuck on repeat.

Owsley yells into the wind, but you can’t hear because you’re already pedaling. Naked trunks and branches blip by. Ice and gravel spew under your winter treads. You bite your tongue and squeeze the handlebars until everything’s numb. The station vanishes from view and so does the ice cream truck. The image of the dark and massive thing in the branches, however, won’t go away so easily.

********************

The next day you’re waiting in line for a fudge bar. You can’t afford it, but it’s an excuse for you and your buddy to investigate the truck in daylight. Owsley didn’t see you last night, you’re certain, but you avoid eye contact when he asks what you want and how your big sis is doing. He’s making rounds downtown, not loitering by the train station, so that makes this easier. Even from here, you can see the clawlike tips of the Founders’ Tree poking above the chapel on Vermont Street. Some folks in yellow vests with ladders are flinging coils of Christmas lights between those ghastly branches. In a couple days, the tree will burn as bright as a lighthouse.

Hard as rocks, your buddy says of his ice cream sandwich.

What’s new? you say, gnawing your fudge bar.

Others are congregating by the dry fountain across from town hall, where you suspect Whiskey is hiding. In the summer, when the fountain’s flowing and the city’s paying big bucks for its roadside gardens, the kids your age hang out here and swap their parents’ secrets. Just isn’t the same this time of year with everything cold and dead. It’s Owsley and his truck’s fault. Like a winter heatwave that tricks the trees into budding and the birds into flocking north.

My dad thinks Owsley’s deep in debt, your buddy says. The truck’s a bad business investment gone sour or something. Don’t make much sense to me.

Me neither, you say.

The chokecherry-colored smear is gone from the truck’s fender, but the gnarly dent isn’t. You circle behind to the loading door, which Owsley keeps secure with a lock bigger than your fist. No dent here, but there’s the ghost of an odor you can’t quite name. Your buddy stares dumbly, sliding his ice cream sandwich deep into his mouth, then out again. Still frozen hard as rocks.

Why keep things cold? you say.

What? Your buddy tucks his sandwich under his armpit.

Why would you wanna freeze something? you say.

I don’t know. Make it last longer.

When my dad goes deer hunting and gets a buck, he stashes the body in a special freezer at the cabin. Keeps the meaty pieces good.

Gross.

Yeah, gross.

You almost don’t say the next part. If this were your father or mother or Mason Hayes or literally anyone other than your buddy, you would have kept mum.

Do you think it’s any different freezing a live animal? you say.

Your buddy thinks this over, gnawing unsuccessfully on that sandwich. I watched a documentary once, he says, where scientists found a baby mammoth frozen under a glacier. Still had fur and skin and junk in its guts and stuff.

Your buddy guesses your follow-up question, so you don’t bother asking.

It was more than dead, he says. Thawing it out didn’t bring it back to life. Not like Captain America. Or that movie The Thing.

What’s The Thing?

My dad says it’s a remake. Explorers thaw an alien from some ice in Antarctica. I don’t know what happens in the first movie. Dad said not to tell Mom he let me watch it.

What happens in the remake?

Your buddy hesitates. His sandwich has finally softened enough for the first bite. He chews and swallows. He’s not looking at you. He’s looking at the fist-sized lock on Owsley’s truck.

The alien escapes and kills everyone, he says.

********************

Phillip Haugen, otherwise known as Weird Phil, was sheriff before you were born, and before that he wore every hat in Kenwood aside from mailman. Nowadays, folks don’t know what he does, only where to find him. Thankfully, that includes you. He lives out of a renovated railcar, a relic from generations long gone. After school on Tuesday, when you park your bikes behind the old ball fields, you and your buddy find him in board shorts untangling a bundle of Christmas lights.

Aren’t you cold, Mr. Haugen? your buddy asks.

Nah, I keep moving, he says. I’m sweating, aren’t you?

Weird Phil must be ancient, but he’s rather spry and doesn’t strike you as a day over forty, which, to you, is still ancient. Most adults take neither you nor him seriously, so you have that common ground.

There’s a rumor, you tell him, that some kids found a bloody sleigh behind the Romanos’ barn last week, and everyone says you have it now, that you wanna paint it and sell it or something.

Your buddy rolls his eyes. He still doesn’t believe the rumor—hardly remembers it, he claims—but since the dead reindeer are long gone, there’s no other proof of what you saw slithering in the Founders’ Tree. If the sleigh actually exists, you’re hoping for claw marks, teeth marks, something, anything, to prove you guys aren’t crazy—and to give you an idea of what you’re dealing with.

Weird Phil says sure, I don’t know about any blood, but I got it under that tarp there.

Piles of mangled auto parts and forsaken furniture surround the railcar Weird Phil calls home, but there’s only one tarp. Your buddy beats you to it and yanks it loose, unveiling a red-and-green sleigh not unlike the kind a mall Santa might use. Your buddy’s mouth hangs open cartoonishly, and you forgo any I told you so. The sleigh’s dented real good on the left side. Hit by a car, you think, not some creature, but a car or even a truck can’t explain the long, haggard slashes down the front. The metal’s peeling in strips like wood, and sure enough, speckled along the sleds, is that morbid chokecherry color.

What’s this about, little dudes? Weird Phil asks. He’s hunched over a knotted rope of lights, a wire cutter in hand and a couple naked filaments trembling in a gust of wind.

You and your buddy exchange looks. Please don’t tell our parents we were here, you say.

I didn’t ask about your parents, now did I?

You ease the tarp back over the sleigh and stare at Weird Phil’s feet because you’re afraid to look him in the eye. Maybe, you think, just maybe, he’s crazier than us, so you tell him. You tell him everything.

Uh-huh, he says after a long while, his wire cutter pressed thoughtfully to his lips.

It’s stupid, I know, you say. I’m sorry. My dad would never believe—

It’s not stupid, he interrupts. Because if it is, then that means you’re stupid, I’m stupid, and we’re not stupid, are we?

You and your buddy think a moment, then shake your heads.

Good, Weird Phil says. He resumes tinkering with the lights. Tell me more, he says, about this theory of yours, about this…creature hunting Santa’s reindeer.

I didn’t say that, you blurt out.

You thought it, didn’t you? Weird Phil doesn’t look at you.

Santa isn’t real. You don’t have to pretend for us, your buddy says.

I never pretend, young man. I ran this town seven years before your mommas were even in diapers. Made a lot of tough calls. Saw a lot of things I can’t explain, but I never pretended.

You don’t, like, believe us, do you? your buddy says.

Doesn’t sound like you believe yourself. Weird Phil drops the cutter and begins screwing each bulb with shaky, arthritic fingers. Teddy Bear Owsley running that ice cream truck in the dead of winter is a little uncanny, I’ll give you that, he says. You boys told me a secret. Mind if I share one?

You both nod.

Ever hear of Malcom Hill? he asks.

My dad’s fixed a few furnaces out there, your buddy says. It’s a nothing town.

About right, Weird Phil says, then waves toward a stack of empty milk crates. Take a seat, he says, this might be awhile.

You’re both freezing, but you don’t argue.

Few years back two kids went missing in Malcom Hill, Weird Phil says (with wildly irrelevant hand gestures), until a pizza boy stopping at the wrong house stumbled upon them. Long story short, the kids are safe, pizza boy’s a hero, and the house mysteriously burns down. Now here’s what you won’t read in any news clipping. (Weird Phil leans forward.) They say the kidnappers were a clan of cannibals. Some say a lot worse things, but for now let’s go with cannibals, okay? Okay. So, the house burns down and the first responders find no bodies. Nothing. No trace of these cannibals. No trace of anyone. Some say the kids made the whole thing up. Others say the cannibals burned alive. A select few—if you were to ask them today—would tell you with a straight face that the cannibals escaped into the woods and still snoop around Malcom Hill late at night. (Weird Phil points to the snow-weary conifers edging the forest.) And that’s not the strangest of things folks will tell you.

Like what? your buddy asks.

Weird Phil raises an eyebrow. Some might tell you, he says, that the cannibals were…removed. Herded onto a train and shipped off like cattle. Where to, don’t know. By whom, don’t know that either. The story changes depending on who you ask and how many drinks they’ve had. Some say the deputy called in a dog team from the county and sniffed out the woods, rounded them up one by one. Others say the deputy wasn’t involved at all. Some say it’s the government. Regardless of whoever held the leash, they were quiet and discreet while everyone in town slept in their beds. (Weird Phil shakes his head.) Now, you tell me, little dudes, which version of the story do you believe? Who’s pretending?

You hope it’s all pretend. Even if it’s not, you’re relieved you don’t live in Malcom Hill. Your classmates pass around creepy rumors on the playground sometimes, rumors about ghosts in attics and monsters in the school boiler room and men with cat faces haunting local bars, but you’ve never heard this one. They used to give you nightmares, but you’re half-grown now, so you only half-believe them.

Bigfoot, you say at last. It’s just another Bigfoot or boogeyman. Just some story.

Yeah, your buddy echoes.

Then it’s just some story, Weird Phil says with a smile. He reverts to the tangled lights. You wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t. Disappointed, you return your milk crate to the junk heap beside the railcar, about to thank him for his time like the polite little boy you are, when you notice slash marks scouring the car’s rusted frame. They look ancient, like the work of a ghost. Weird Phil answers before you can ask: they used to transport animals by the trainload back in the day. Lions, tigers, bears, platypuses. Anything weird enough to stuff a zoo or a circus. Sometimes legal, sometimes not. Kenwood was a hotspot for that sort of thing. (He looks up at the branches.) Maybe still is.

You know better than to question him. You also know better than to believe him.

********************

You don’t leave home anymore without the airsoft guns if there’s a chance you won’t return until after dark. Whenever you and your buddy are out late playing ball, for example, you tell each other you’re gonna go shoot afterward, but you rarely do. Instead, you’re back home long before the sun sinks, and it’s not to spare your mothers the worry.

Pellets won’t kill boogeymen, so you pretend they’re bullets.

It’s an easy philosophy—pretending—and getting easier. Like when the neighbor kids pass you the ball and your buddy tackles you to the icy ground and you pretend it doesn’t hurt. Really, it doesn’t. No big deal. You get up and keep playing. Or when your parents take you to the Kenwood Winter Fest. You crowd with the other kids by the carnival booths and the snowman-making contest and the ice sculptures and pretend Ted Owsley isn’t over there throwing the ring toss. It’s easier to pretend when he disappears into one of the portable toilets—out of sight, out of mind—with his phone to his ear and a nervous tone in his voice. Your buddy makes a joke about Teddy Bear smoking weed in the potty, and you say yes, of course. It’s not a lie if you believe it.

Or the following morning when your father drags you to the diner for some token father-and-son breakfast and you overhear Mason Hayes tell Darryl Buford about a grizzly the sheriff found off McKinley last night. Dead on site. The grizzly, not the sheriff. Forced from its den, by the looks of it. Hayes sips his coffee and probably itches under your scrutiny because he turns and winks at you. He’s pretending you didn’t just eavesdrop, or maybe it’s his way of saying relax, kiddo, nothing to worry about.

Or when, later that night, you lay awake listening to the brittle clanks of a blue-moon train rolling into the station halfway across town, the baritone burp of a fog horn, the tinny squeak of distant brakes against ancient tracks, the telltale jingle of what could be Owsley’s truck—but that part you’re certain is only imagination. Either way, you pretend the train isn’t here to offload the usual tractors and combine parts. Instead, it’s onboarding Owsley’s boogeyman; Owsley is finally passing the baton in some unearthly animal smuggling exchange. You pretend this horrible thing is true because it means the boogeyman has left Kenwood for good.

********************

Friday evening, you’re crouched in the snow praying Willie Carson doesn’t hear you. Your airsoft guns emit the faintest pfft when firing, but remember, you’re pretending they’re rifles. Your buddy resets the pop can on the fencepost each time you connect and send it flying, which isn’t often. Your buddy’s the better shot, but you both could use the practice. Neither of you say what for.

The sky’s bleeding shadow, so you best be heading home, but your buddy insists he get another crack at the can. You don’t approve, but you don’t say so. You could lie and say you’re worried about Willie Carson, whose homestead looms on the far end of the acreage; Carson wouldn’t shoot a couple kids for trespassing, but he’d make you question that fact.

With you on lookout duty, your buddy squeezes the trigger one, two, three times. The third pellet knocks the can into the snow, which is now falling light and dreamlike. The Carson house is almost obscured by grey-white haze. Your buddy asks you to reposition the can, and when you don’t answer he asks if Carson is stirring from his lair. You shake your head. Soon you wouldn’t even know, not with how fast the weather’s thickening. You can hardly discern Jackson Ave, the road sandwiched between the Carson farm and the woods, also known as your way home.

Your buddy doesn’t ask again about the can. He doesn’t fire at the fencepost either, but his finger hasn’t left the trigger. He’s listening. He must hear it, too. Just above the wind, a faint music tinkles across the barren fields. A familiar music. You’ve come to think of it as Ted Owsley’s theme song. Somehow it felt inevitable. Almost poetic.

You’re kidding me, your buddy says.

A pair of headlights wink through the snowy fog and trundle down Jackson Ave, soon swallowed by old-growth forest. This isn’t horribly far from Owsley’s usual route, but any activity of his is both horrible and unusual.

The wheels of your bikes struggle in the snow, so you walk them off the property. A dinky service road linking Carson’s silo to the barn takes you to Jackson, where you and your buddy stop. Two tire streaks disturb the fresh powder, twinning away from home, into the woods. The jingle’s muted now. Probably parked for a smoke break, your buddy says. But this isn’t Winter Fest and you can only pretend so much.

We should head home, you say. My mom’s gonna flip. Yours too.

Yeah, mine too.

The two of you share a frequency at times, and this is another of those times.

Without a word, you steer your bikes parallel with Owsley’s tracks. Your hands are slippery with sweat on the handlebars. The gun’s strap digs into your shoulder. You’re still pretending it’s your father’s rifle, the one he let you shoot last time. You wish you didn’t have to pretend. Owsley’s brake lights don’t bleed through the gloom until you’re well into the forest, the ceiling a meshwork of white, serpentine branches. The truck idles with three wheels offroad. The loading doors hang agape, lost in a billow of mist. That fist-sized lock is gone, and so is Owsley.

You taste the air, hoping to catch the awful stink of weed, but the truck’s foggy output is tasteless. Water vapor, probably.

It’s defrosting, you say.

What’s that mean?

It’s thawing.

Neither of you have mentioned the creature since Weird Phil, but you don’t need to anymore. You unstrap your guns, prime the pumps, and inch into the fog of the loading doors. Inside, the walls are slick with ice. Vapor swirls in little eddies. Dangling by hooks in the roof are five reindeer carcasses, insides stripped and cleaned. The stench is ghastly. The worst of it, though, doesn’t sag from a hook. Limp on a clothes hanger, a bushy red coat and a red cap, a white poof on top, bristle with little ice crystals. And below, perfectly erect and empty, sit two black boots.

You’re kidding me, your buddy says again.

You ease the doors shut. You’ve seen enough. Still no sign of Owsley—nor the creature. You guys could track Owsley. Only Owsley. His tracks are clear and fresh. As is the trend, the creature hasn’t left a trace.

Owsley’s the leash, you say.

What? your buddy says.

Nothing. Come on.

You hop on your bikes and pedal. The canopy rattles softly overhead, the branches rubbing together in a sickening whisper. Maybe the wind, maybe not. Like before, you feel—no, you know—you’re being watched. Your buddy picks up speed without warning, and so do you. The branches are heaving now. Twigs and icicles and other debris confetti the road. You can’t bring yourself to look up. You pedal harder. You want to close your eyes, close your eyes and pretend. You’re being silly, your father would say. There’s nothing in the woods with you. Nothing in the trees. Your wheels thump over frozen earth. Offroad now. Trees tremble behind you. Your gun clunks against your spine. You’ve lost track of Owsley’s trail, but you don’t care. You pedal faster. Something keeps pace with you, and it’s not your buddy. You don’t know where he’s gone. You don’t dare look up, and you don’t dare slow down.

Not until your bike catches on a railroad spike.

You tumble into a mound of snow and ice. You’re huffing for breath. You turn back for your bike, but it smacked into an oak. One wheel’s no longer a wheel, more of a triangle, and the other won’t stop spinning.

Something’s slithering among the branches, but when you look, the branches aren’t moving like branches at all. They’re antlers. And beneath the antlers: two pupilless, chokecherry-colored eyes. Some kind of predatory mimicry. Oaks and birches croak protest under its weight, but it moves with a wet, awful elegance. It droops one unnaturally long and hairless arm, hooks your bike with a slender claw, and reels it back into the canopy. Your breath seizes in your throat so you can’t even scream. The creature’s more terrible than you thought, like some twisted Dr. Suess doodle. Its breath vaporless in the cold. Its anatomy a mistake. Like something scrawled on ancient cave walls, something that has survived far more winters than days you’ve lived.

Its neck twists to dismember your bike, then turns its eyes on you. That’s when you hear something from another world away, as cold and deep as the creature’s claw: a familiar jingle.