No, Liz, you don't understand. You never will. She's from St. Louis and doesn't appreciate traditions in a small town. "The town did it. They won't let him die in peace. He's in that house, dying, alone, and the town won't let him go. He should be in a nursing home or a hospice. Someplace else."

"Maybe he wants to die in his own house." She touches my arm under the blanket. I pull away.

"I'm sorry. Goodnight," she whispers. Within minutes, I hear her breathing slow to a steady rate.

The boys are asleep, dreaming of Santa on the roof, but I can't sleep thinking of how many times I've driven past that house. I don't even know the old guy's name. I'm a leech-the whole town is full of leeches-sucking pleasure from his Christmas display for thirty years, and now he's rotting from the inside and no one seems to care about anything but the lights.

I climb out of bed and slip downstairs as quietly as possible. In the kitchen, I eat one of the cookies. The red sprinkles look like splatters of blood in the dim light. I swallow the milk in three big gulps. The boys will think Santa did it.

In the garage, I rummage through Mom's tools, looking for something to do the job.

I leave the house through the back door and drive away without headlights so they won't see the glare and wake. A fragment of moon hangs limply in the midnight sky; I glance at it, half expecting to see a sleigh pa.s.s across its yellow face.

At the Phillips 66 station, I turn and drive three blocks. The lights are still on, even at midnight. I look closer at the house this time and notice peeling paint. The house is rotting outside just like the man is dying on the inside. Volunteers put up the lights, but can't paint the place? All people care about are those G.o.dd.a.m.n traditions-s.h.i.tty town. They don't care about his pain, suffering. He's dying for Christ's sake.

I pull around to the alley, sure that the loud Christmas music pumped on an endless loop will cover the sound of the back door splintering around the lock. Maybe he wants to die in his own house. I take up the hammer, feel its weight in my hand, and imagine the peace the old man will feel once I've cracked open his skull and ended his misery. That will be a real Christmas gift.

Then, I'll take down the lights.

Chapter 71: Inked.

The man limped as he entered Skin Arts tattoo parlor. Hector only noticed because the shop was empty that early in the afternoon. Men didn't generally come in wearing a suit and tie. He flipped his magazine closed, stuffed it under the counter, and yawned into his hand.

The man's face didn't move for a few moments-long enough that Hector thought of a mask, not a flesh and blood face. Then his eye twitched, a small movement, just a flicker.

"I'd like a tattoo," the man said in a steady, calm voice. A banker's voice, Hector thought. The man reached into his suit coat and produced a folded bit of paper, worn and slightly yellowed. "I've been thinking about this for a long time. I need to know if you can do it."

The look on this man's face-the steady blue eyes and clean skin-made Hector feel dirty, gave him the sensation that he should scrub his own tattoos with steel wool until he scratched through the dermis and peeled away the pigment. What did he want with a tattoo? Hector took the paper and unfolded it slowly. From the stains and softness of the paper, many other hands had done the same.

Three letters: E.G.M. The font was wide, plenty of black ink if the man wanted a fill.

"Any color?"

The man shook his head. "No. Just the letters on my leg, in black."

Hector quoted a price, and the man seated himself in one of the chairs. Such a simple job would take less than an hour, and the man hadn't even haggled when Hector boosted the price for the fill. He gathered the works, his needles, the iron, and laid them out next to the chair.

"You can either roll up, or drop the pants completely."

The man nodded, and his fingers tugged at the cuff on his pants, revealing a prosthetic leg.

Hector gawked. Was this a joke?

"Is there a problem?" The man's voice was smooth, not the least agitated or upset.

Hector's head swung slowly from side to side. "I...I don't think..." He stood from his stool, nearly toppling his tools. "I can't ink a fake leg, buddy."

The man frowned, the first time he had shown any emotion on his mask-face. "I see."

Guilt boiled in Hector's stomach-he couldn't explain why, but the man hung his head and looked so disappointed. "I'm not trying to...y'know, dis' you or nothin'."

"I can find someone else who can." The man shrugged and started to pull down the pant leg but stopped mid-calf. His eyes locked with Hector's. "I a.s.sure you this isn't a joke. I'll double the price."

"Look, I can't promise anything." Hector's head swam with the promise of twice the fee.

"Will you do it then?"

A pause-time crawled at a snail's sprint. Hector nodded. His brain screamed no, but his fingers felt the money. Hector quickly traced the letters on the prosthetic leg before he decided otherwise. Count the cash, he told himself, who cares if this guy is a nut job. He opened a fresh needle package, and clicked on the gun. The machine buzzed. His forehead started to sweat and he brushed away a few stray beads with the back of his hand. With a deep breath, he pressed the rapidly vibrating needle against the smooth artificial leg, and it gave like flesh. Hector jerked the needle away.

"Is everything okay?" The man's voice sounded distant-not in pain, but something else.

"Fine-fine. Just getting a feel for..." Hector waved the gun toward the leg. He pressed in again, and started making the first line of the E. A tiny bead of blood trickled from the dark mark-more than Hector was used to seeing from real flesh. His eyes glanced away to the man's face; the mask didn't break. Hector swallowed the bile that burped into his mouth, and resumed work. Perspiration continued to work its way across his face-he hadn't sweat as much since his first job.

"The initials, someone close?" Hector asked. He wanted to fill the room with something other than the buzz of the machine. No money is worth this, he thought.

"No."

Something in the man's tone made Hector wish he hadn't asked.

"Ellen," the man said. "Her name was Ellen, and she was seventeen."

Hector blotted his forehead with the back of his left arm. He stopped momentarily and soaked up a little blood with a gauze pad. When his fingers touched the prosthetic, it was smooth and plastic.

"She was driving the other car."

Hector leaned back from the tattoo; the E was done as was half of the G. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Can you finish? No one else was willing to do this. I've tried most shops in the city."

The parlor was silent save for the buzz of the tattoo gun for a few, long moments. Finally, Hector rubbed his face and nodded.

"Good," the man said. "There will be more blood-but I want you to finish, no matter how much pain I'm in, no matter how much I ask you to stop."

With a deep breath, Hector bent forward and pressed the needle into the artificial leg and tried to focus on the ink through blurred vision.

Chapter 72: The Find.

Jerry and I are dumpster diving when we find it.

He thinks it's perfect, a genuine find. A tall armoire, deep maple finish.

"A beaut," Jerry says. "Stop."

I pull the truck over-we're off the main streets here, out behind an older lot of row houses. The sun has started to set, and twilight is pouring on the shadows.

"C'mon," I say. "Let's get that f.u.c.king thing in the truck."

There's no breeze in the alley. No breeze and no G.o.d-d.a.m.ned light.

"Just a minute," Jerry says. His arms are wrapped around the thing in some kind of bear-hug as he tries to walk it over to the truck.

I hop out of the cab. "Pansy."

"No." Jerry releases his grip. "Too heavy."

We look at each other for a second. One of those quick moments of "h.e.l.l-no". We know we shouldn't open the thing, but I yank the door toward me anyway.

It wasn't that the body was in there-I almost expected something worse in that alley, behind those decaying houses. What got me was how fresh it was, how the blood dripped off the fingers when her arm tumbled out of the open door.

Chapter 73: Donuts of the Living Dead.

I sit in my car and watch this old dude, like maybe approaching a century, drag his sorry corpse-body across the parking lot toward the bakery, staggering like the living dead straight out of vintage Romero. He is wearing these overalls and a feed hat, probably a retired farmer or whatever, although I've learned farmers never really retire. The bakery, Munchers, swallows this old guy into its brightly lit belly, and I muster the energy to hoist my b.u.t.t out of the car.

Inside, tables full of these peculiar old men sip on small paper cups of coffee. They all turn to look in unison when I walk in the front door. I've always been a connoisseur of pastries, and one sure sign of a quality donut joint was the volume of elderly that would beat the sun into the place. Munchers seems to have that market locked. I scan the gla.s.s case in front of me, and rows of shiny fried bread, dripping with glaze, stare back.

"Can I help you?" this voice says a woman's voice at the lower end of the register-a really s.e.xy growl floating just beneath the words.

"I'm just checking out what you have here." I look up and see the clerk, this cute twenty-something with her dark hair pulled back from a smooth, milky face and blue marble eyes that are fixed on mine. My brain locks up in one of those cognitive dissonance moments-why is this beautiful creature hawking donuts at six in the morning to all these walking cadavers?

"Let me know when you're ready," she says before moving to refill a cup of coffee. I continue to watch her as she snags pastries for a couple of the coffee club members from a rack behind the counter.

"Ready?" She catches me in the middle of my thousand-yard-stare.

"Could I get one of these," I say, gesturing to a rather opulent looking wad of dough drizzled with white icing.

"Good choice, the cream cheese donut-Munchers's specialty." She stuffs one in a small paper sack. "Anything else?"

"No-yes." My tongue launches an ambush on the rest of my mouth, and my reasoning faculties are caught asleep. "I notice all the regulars get donuts from a different rack." Now I sound stupid-too observant maybe, but all I can do is wait for her return volley.

"Yeah-those donuts have secret ingredients." Her mouth grows into this lopsided smile as she leans forward and says quietly, in a near-whisper with that s.e.xy voice, "human brains."

"Brains?"

"They look like zombies, right?" She flashes her eyes toward the old guys.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Here's the test though-Dawn of the Dead '78 or '04?"

I look at her brilliant blues for a moment, trying to read anything, and answer honestly. "'78 of course-hands down. I love George Romero."

"Well played. I like Night too, but Dawn of the Dead had better production values."

"And Tom Savini-crazy special effects," I say.

Her smile grows, and for a split second I think my courage has sufficiently thawed to ask for her phone number.

"Ahem." This old guy behind me coughs into his hand as a hint to move on out.

"See you later." She hands me the bag and I realize I haven't paid. She winks and whispers, "my treat."

Chapter 74: Small Magic.

There were two of them, Nadia and Arkady, brown bears abducted from the Siberian forest when they were cubs. At the end of a prod, the circus trainers taught them how to do tricks, how to dance, for one to lay his or her forepaws on the other's shoulders and stagger about in mock-human fashion. Crowds howled and hooted at the antics, staring greasy-eyed from behind stuffed popcorn boxes and buckets of soda.

When their dancing was finished, they lumbered into their cages, their great muscles sliding in waves over their bones, chameleon hair brown then black than brown again under the lanterns. They sat with muzzles clamped, staring with their polished bear eyes at one another. Each month a new town, another ma.s.s of bleary human faces jeering at them as they trundled about, together, to the delight of the crowd. Night after night, town after town, until they had nearly forgotten their bear-hood.

"Nadia?" Arkady paced for a glimpse of her in her cage, rose on his legs, and leaned against the bars like they were her shoulders. Human voices and laughter sounded in the distance.

"Hey," he called.

She shifted.

"It's time. Tonight. While they're drunk. We'll do it like we've planned. Like they taught us."

She raised her snout and sniffed the air. "I can't."