28 Sleighs Later

Above the laughter and Christmas music, the bang against the door came: thump thump thump.

Paul Reyes sighed. He patted his wife’s hand and pushed his chair away from the table. ‘Don’t worry, love, I’ve got this one.’

Rosemary frowned at him. ‘But everybody’s here. Who could it be?’

He stopped. Rose had framed the doorbell with tinsel. You couldn’t miss it. It would take a brain-dead person to knock instead of ringing. He shrugged. ‘Carolers, or something. I’ll give ‘em a quid and tell ‘em to bugger off.’

A round of laughter rippled around the table. The playlist swapped over to Wham!’s ‘Last Christmas’. Outside in the front hall, the door shuddered again—thump thump thump. It banged hard enough to make the door vibrate in its frame.

Annoyance flickered in his mind: the nerve of some of these charity-begging types. He wasn’t one to sniff at donations but give a man ample time to get up. And don’t knock his door down like you’re the wolf versus the three little pigs. He hurried along in his slippers. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming, hold your horses!’

But still, the banging continued: thump thump thump. The little panes of glass at the top of the door vibrated and threatened to shatter. The figure of a man swayed beyond, blurry and dark.

Paul gritted his teeth. He’d have some stern words for whoever it was. It didn’t matter what good cause they were raising money for. This behaviour was downright rude. He slid the chain off and yanked the door open. ‘Oh, for goodness sake, what’s your prob—’

The man behind the door barged through, snarling and screeching. He wore a parka coat with its fur-ringed hood raised. It framed his mess of a face. He had blood smeared all across his skin, and his nose was missing. A window shattered somewhere in the back of the house, and a woman shrieked.

Paul’s stomach dropped, and he screamed. He grappled with the invader and grabbed ahold of his shoulders. ‘What—’ he grunted. ‘Let go of me!’

The man clawed at Paul’s shirt. He leaned forward and snapped his teeth. His breath was rotten, and he had bits of ragged meat caught between his teeth. He snarled like a wildcat, and his eyes were white except for tiny pinpricks of blackness in the centre.

He flinched backwards from the bites. It was almost as if the maniac wanted to bite his nose off, too, as revenge for losing his own. Whatever was wrong with him—drugs, he guessed—he was dangerous, and Paul had to stop him. Paul grabbed the nearest thing from the shelf on the wall: an animatronic snowman. He smacked the madman across the face with it. ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ played from the crappy speakers, and the snowman started to boogie. Paul hit the man with it again and again. ‘Get out! Get OUT!’

The man recoiled from each blow of the rubber decoration. He snarled and shrieked, backing away through the front door as Paul struck him. At some point, something mechanical cracked inside the snowman. The song came out slurred and slow. Jack Frost danced slower; one arm snapped off, and his head dented inwards. Blood smeared across his white body.

Adrenaline surged through Paul’s veins, reminding him of how it felt to be a young man. He became aware of his battle cry as he fought the mauled lunatic out of his home. With the noseless man wobbling on the threshold, Paul landed a kick into the guy’s gut. ‘AND STAY OUT!’ he roared.

The man went sprawling backwards over the Reyes’ front steps. He clattered into a heap at the foot of their driveway. At the top of the driveway staggered a group of people, two men and four women. Each had various ghastly wounds, like the noseless assailant. A cheek torn open here, an eye gouged out there. Intestines spilt out of one woman’s belly and trailed behind her like a bridal train. Across his small patch of lawn in front of the lounge windows, a woman with one arm shambled towards him.

Paul’s nerves turned to liquid and his legs to jelly. He whimpered and felt his bladder threaten to release. He scrambled for the door, missed, found the handle, and slammed it shut. With shaking hands, he slid the chain back across, his fingers slaked with gore. ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,’ he whispered to himself.

Immediately, the door began to bang again. And so did the windows looking into the lounge. And the screams from the back of the house continued, high-pitched and terrified.

Gooseflesh rippled up all over Paul’s body. These nutcases had surrounded the house. He had no idea what they wanted, but he guessed it wasn’t a cup of cocoa. He pushed off from the vibrating door and strode towards the sound of the commotion. He brandished his decoration-slash-weapon. ‘Rose?’

In the kitchen, some of the attackers had smashed their way through the windows. The glass sliced their forearms to ribbons, but they didn’t care. They were trying to pull Rose out by her hair. She shrieked and kicked and batted at the hands to no avail. Several of their guests stood by and watched, their faces drawn in a rictus of shock. They still held their alcoholic beverages. Shaun from next door had gone white, and his beer was tipping and spilling on the kitchen tiles.

Paul froze. Rose had always argued about getting double glazing, but he’d deferred. He now wished he’d listened to his wife. How long until the front windows looking out onto the lawn shattered under the strain? He slapped himself across the face and raced into the fray, swinging Frosty for all his worth. He smacked at the hands that snaked through the glass over and over and over again. ‘GET OFF MY WIFE YOU DAMN HOOLIGANS!’

That broke the paralysis spell over the others. The kitchen became a flurry of activity as people dropped drinks and grabbed ahold of Rose. Gale Clark yanked on Rose’s feet, pulling her back into the house. In his vest-and-tie combo, Shaun lobbed his pint glass through the window with a violent yell. The claws clutching Rose weakened enough for her to break away. Rosemary collapsed to the floor, sobbing. She held her hands to the blotchy red patches of yanked-out hair.

Paul’s mind was a flurrying snowstorm of thought. He stood in the kitchen, chest heaving. He stared out at the people gathered in his back garden. ‘Zombies,’ he said, not quite believing himself. ‘They’re goddamn zombies!’

The swaying figures closed in on the house. Bangs and clangs echoed from the front. The dim winter light faded as the bodies blocked out the windows. They moaned in a chorus of the dead, their bloodied hands slapping against the four walls. Someone asked, ‘What do we do, Paul?’

‘I-I don’t—’

A woman screeched. ‘They’re coming down the fireplace!’

An ice shard speared through Paul’s core, and the world seemed to slow. ‘Sweet baby Jesus,’ he mumbled.

An enormous thud shook the foundations of the house. The survivors staggered to the walls for support.

Paul shook his head clear. He tightened his grip on Frosty and ran for the lounge. He skidded to a halt as a cloud of coal dust settled across the room, coating the furniture and the tree. ‘The hell?’

The smog cleared to reveal a massive man in a red-and-white suit. He kneeled, fists on either side, like the Terminator from that Schwarzenegger flick. A large brown sack slung over his shoulder. He had heavy-duty black boots and a Santa hat clung to his head.

Paul’s insides shrivelled. He’d fought off the one at the door because they’d been roughly the same size. But this one? No chance. He tried to speak but found that all the spit had evaporated from his mouth. Only a tiny mouselike squeak came from his vocal cords.

The giant looked up. His eyes sparkled above two rosy cheeks. The orbs looked normal—no cataractic whiteness narrowing to a black pinprick. A big, thick, white, bushy beard sprouted from his face.

Paul dropped the damaged Frosty, which bounced to the laminate wooden floor. His head spun like he’d taken a right hook to the dome. ‘Santa?’ Paul whimpered.

Santa smiled, but the smile was fleeting. ‘Yes, Paul. It is me. Do not be afraid.’ He glanced at the window, which showed the growing horde pressing against it. ‘But you should be afraid of those naughty boys and girls.’

Paul’s heart hammered high up in his chest, like a hummingbird trapped in his torso. His brain kept rifling through facts and thoughts as if to make sense of it all. His old thinker kept coming up short. It threw its cards in the air and searched through the rubble again. ‘What—’ he licked his lips ‘—what do we do?’

Santa grinned and stood up. He was eight feet tall and towered over Paul and the others. If he were any taller, he wouldn’t be able to stand upright in this house. He chuckled a deep, throaty laugh—‘Ho ho ho!’ It rumbled through the earth like a bear’s growl. Santa unslung his sack and upended it onto the living room floor. Machetes, blades, baseball bats, cricket bats. Axes and chainsaws, swords and knives. Flamethrowers and guns. Even a grenade. And armour. It looked like police riot gear, except it had the symbol of a snowflake. ‘I have brought you well-behaved children some toys to play with.’

Paul regained some of his lost nerve at the sight of the armoury. With this elf-like giant on their side, they could turn the tides of battle. He bent down and picked up a chainsaw. ‘Groovy.’

Santa bowed. ‘Now if you will excuse me, I have a few hundred thousand more homes to equip for the coming siege.’ Out beyond the front window, a reindeer with a red nose was fighting off zombies with its antlers. It was winning.

Paul felt like someone had punched the wind out of him. His eyes darted from Santa to the fireplace. ‘You mean you won’t stay? Won’t stay and fight? We— We won’t last without you.’

‘I am afraid there are others who need me.’ Santa raised one gloved finger. ‘Remember, Paul. Jealousy and greed are very naughty.’ He gestured to the treasure horde on the ground. ‘I brought you these because you have all been good. Let us keep it that way, hm?’

‘Will you at least tell us why this is happening?’

Santa narrowed his eyes. ‘When there is no more room in ho-ho-hell, the dead will walk the earth.’ And with that, he vanished back up the chimney in the blink of an eye. In the background, the glass front window started to crack. A lightning bolt fault line zigzagged.

Paul revved the chainsaw and beckoned his friends and family. ‘Let’s do this! Everyone, arm yourselves! Rose, stay behind me! Put some armour on!’

Gale picked up a spear and donned a helmet. She pulled up alongside Paul and jabbed at the air between them and the fracturing window. A flurry of movement in the distance showed that Rudolph was still fending off the zombies. Gale screeched. ‘Jesus is the only zombie we allow this time of year!’

Paul took the lead and strode forward, chainsaw in front like a jouster.

Shaun drew alongside with a shotgun. He pumped it, and two red shells bounced to the Reyes’ rug. Shaun had a steely look in his eyes that Paul had never seen before. He didn’t even know the man could handle a gun. ‘The only thing we should be eatin’ is turkey.’

The window gave way, and the zombies flooded in.

Paul raised the growling chainsaw and went to battle.

‘Rest in peace on earth.’