WISH I COULD BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

December 2023

I wanted to wrap up the year with a Christmas story, but wasn’t sure whether to go down the Richard Curtis romcom or folk horror routes. I think you can guess which direction I chose to take.

‘It’s not called Wish I Could be Home for Christmas, you dumb ass.’

‘Yes, it is!’

‘It isn’t! Seriously. Google it. You are talking about the Jonah Louie song, right?’

‘Think so.’

‘Here you go then.’ She searches for the lyrics, then holds her phone up in front of him and he squints until the small text comes into focus. ‘See. It’s called Stop the Cavalry.’

Bryce looks surprised. ‘Well, I didn’t know that.’

‘Your favourite Christmas song, and you didn’t even know what it was called? Jeez!’

Her infectious laughter fills the hotel bar, but Bryce doesn’t care. She’s laughing with him, not at him, and it feels like the first time he’s had someone onside for months. He still feels obliged to make excuses. ‘I think my dad or my granddad probably called it that, and it just stuck. It happens.’

‘Yeah, but not knowing the name of your favourite Christmas song? That’s tragic. The name of tonight’s game is Christmas Song Title Bingo, remember?’

‘I didn’t say I was playing anything.’

‘You so did! I am seriously gonna whip your ass.’

‘Is that a threat or a promise?’

He’s said it before he’s thought about it. He immediately looks down into his drink, too scared at first to look up and see how she’s reacted. When he finally dares to make eye contact again, he sees it’s all good. He’s been notoriously bad at reading the signs recently, but he knows without a shadow of a doubt that she’s definitely in whipping mode. She grins at him, then picks up their empties.

‘My round,’ she says, and she picks her way through to the bar.

The Christmas Eve that Bryce has been dreading for weeks has, so far, turned out to be the best he can remember. It just goes to show, you never know what’s around the corner. If his life hadn’t fallen apart the way it had over the last few weeks, he wouldn’t have been on the road today. And if the road hadn’t flooded, he wouldn’t have ended up abandoning his car and walking to the village of Tallerton. And if it hadn’t been so late in the day, he wouldn’t have needed a room in the Tallerton Hall Hotel. And if he hadn’t ended up in the hotel, he’d have never met Isabella and he wouldn’t be sitting here now, half-pissed, waiting for a roast dinner, and having the time of his life.

She crashes into the table, spilling both of their pints, then collapses heavily into her chair. ‘Happy Christmas,’ she says.

‘Cheers. Happy Christmas.’

‘A wet Christmas, though, not a White Christmas this year.’

‘Tell me about it,’ he says, thinking about his car, abandoned wheel-deep in running water. And it hasn’t gone unnoticed that she managed to sneak another song title in there. ‘Anyway, I thought this one was gonna be a Blue Christmas for me,’ he adds, levelling the score.

‘Yeah, you were saying. That’s shit. Sorry to hear you’ve had such a crap time. Do you mind me asking what happened?’

‘I saw Mummy kissing Santa Claus.’

‘What?’

‘I walked in on my wife kissing another man. And he actually was dressed as Santa Claus, as it happens.’

‘Ouch.’

‘It was my brother.’

‘Oh, fuck.’

‘And she wasn’t kissing him, she was giving him a blow job.’

‘Very not good. Rocking around the Christmas Tree?’

‘Up against it, actually.’

‘Ouch,’ she says again.

The Tallerton Hall Hotel is busy tonight, but nowhere near as busy as the staff and management had expected. The folks who ended up stranded by the flood have been able to occupy the rooms originally booked by those folks who didn’t make it to Tallerton at all. As Bella pointed out a while back, the Christmas story would have been very different if Joseph and his mysteriously pregnant missus had steered their donkey towards this particular inn on this particular night: no need for a stable, rooms to spare for the wise men and whoever else turned up, too.

There’s a lovely atmosphere in this place. Christmas has been saved; victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. Staff, planned guests, and unplanned guests alike are all resigned to their collective fate and are making the absolute most of the situation. There have been times recently when Bryce thought he’d never feel happy like this again. The failure of his marriage had hit him like a wrecking ball (one made of glass, because he hadn’t seen it coming). In the aftermath, he’d had too much time for self-reflection and had carried out a self-post-mortem to try and understand what it was about him that had forced Julia away. Because it had to be his fault, didn’t it? Was it because he was too much of a nerd? Was he too loud or too quiet? Was it because he told terrible shitty jokes and had a frustrating lack of subtlety at times? Whatever the reason, until a few hours ago he’d given up hope of finding anyone who’d want to share even a drink with him, never mind the upcoming holiday season. As he’d discovered, Christmas could be a truly magical time until it wasn’t.

But she’d walked into the hotel a couple of minutes after him, both of them soaked with rain, and he’d let her go first in the queue to check-in, and that had got them both talking, but it had cost him the last decent room. When he’d changed and dried made it down to the bar for a pre-dinner drink, she’d insisted on getting in the first round to make up for stealing his crib as she called it (hilariously).

The chances of him and Bella ending up drinking together like this must have been infinitesimally small. They have more differences than similarities, it seems, but that feels like a good thing. He’s mid-thirties, she’s early twenties. His tastes are broadly middle of the road, hers are far more eclectic. He spends his time assessing risks, she just takes them. But here tonight, they’ve just gelled.

‘Where did you say you were going for Christmas?’ she asks.

‘I’ve an uncle who lives on the Scottish borders. Haven’t seen him for years.’

‘And you just called him up out of the blue and asked if you could spend Christmas with him?’

‘Kind of. The family home is currently a no-go zone, and I just needed to get away. Uncle Bill doesn’t do Christmas and, to be honest, until I got stuck here, I was planning on boycotting it too. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved that the road got washed away. I wasn’t looking forward to it. I called him and told him I wasn’t going to be able to make it after all.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Good.’

She laughs. ‘Yeah, I can relate to that,’ she says. ‘It’s good to be cut off from the rest of the world sometimes, don’t you think?’

‘Absolutely,’ he says, and he chinks the side of his glass against hers.

Bryce looks around at their opulent surroundings. The hotel, a stunning, recently renovated eighteenth century manor house, is plush and well-appointed, draped in tinsel and fairy lights. He’s more used to Travelodges and Premier Inns, and generally feels like he doesn’t belong if he ends up staying anywhere any grander. Not tonight, though. Tonight, they’re all in it together. There’s no fussing about dress codes or dinner etiquette. People are wearing whatever they’ve got with them. Some have had their Christmas breaks interrupted, while others are technically still at work. Dean Short, a very amiable chap Bryce was chatting to earlier, has only got his work’s overalls to wear. Two couriers, stranded mid-journey, have a van full of cat food, and not a lot else.

Holidaymakers and workers alike, locals and those who’d come from afar, solo travellers and families, a pay-what-you-can arrangement has been agreed for everyone and a swathe of people are currently being treated to an evening (or possibly two) of luxury the likes of which few of them typically experience.

Bryce feels like he’s won the lottery.

Bella won him over in a heartbeat tonight with her stupid humour. Her opening gambit was asking if he was driving home for Christmas? It took him an age to realise she was playing Christmas Song Name Bingo with him and winning by a mile.

Talking about when they first arrived and the weather outside: “If we make it through Christmas.”

When he’d first mentioned his marital grief, she’d said: “So in your house, Christmas isn’t cancelled (just you)?”

Then she said, “so you’re gonna be Lonely this Christmas?”

And he still hadn’t twigged. In his defence, he hasn’t known many of the song titles she’s quoted, and he’s been distracted because he’s forgotten what it’s like to have someone be pleasant to him like this. It was only when she called him her ‘sad Little Drummer Boy’ just now that he’s worked out what she’s up to.

Bella’s own Christmas options sounded equally bleak. She told him she was glad the road had been damaged and she’d been stranded here. She’d been relying on friends and sofa surfing for a few months, but they’d all got plans and families of their own to spend the festive period with, so she’d had to accept her fate and go her own way. The prospect of being trapped with her lot hadn’t appealed. Mum and Dad were bad enough, she told him, but add her precocious and annoying little sister and her lazy as fuck older brother into the mix, and it had been a recipe for disaster. She said her family had sounded as relieved as she’d felt when she’d phoned home this evening and told them she wasn’t going to make it back after all.

The drinks Bella got in have been knocked back quickly. Dinner’s taking longer than expected (no surprise, given the circumstances), and the alcohol is going to their heads. Bryce is getting impatient for food. He’s glad of the music and loud chatter in the bar. It hides the grumbling of his empty stomach. He hasn’t eaten since breakfast. ‘I’m starving,’ he says.

‘They’re working as fast as they can. They’re probably short-staffed if people haven’t been able to get in, and they’re having to change things around because of our orders. It’s good of them to give us a choice.’

‘I know. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I’ll eat anything they’ve got, it’s just that…’

‘Just what?’

‘Well, it’s not as if they’re having to feed the world, is it?’

He looks at her expectant. She looks at him blank. ‘What?’

‘Feed the world,’ he says again, overkeen. ‘Come on.’

‘You’ve lost me.’

He sings the chorus to the Band Aid song to her, then shakes his head. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know feed the world? There’s you coming out with all these obscure song titles, and you don’t even know the classics.’

She roars with laughter, loud enough to make most of the other drinkers in the bar look up. ‘It’s not called that, you muppet! It’s called Do They Know it’s Christmas?’

‘You sure?’

She proves it with another quick search on her phone. His face glows redder than the log fire they’re sitting close to. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘I didn’t know that.’

She reaches her hand across the table and squeezes his. ‘You are so lovely when you’re embarrassed,’ she tells him.

---

The dinner was magnificent, the post-meal atmosphere is joyous. To think, just a few short hours ago the exhausted, bedraggled people who’d abandoned their cars and been posted here had given up any hope of salvaging any kind of celebration from this rain-soaked ruin of a day. Their earlier despair had been replaced with sheer delight and exhilaration. The Tallerton Hall Hotel staff, and the people of Tallerton village too, welcomed them in and the entire gathering have shared a wonderous, semi-improvised seasonal celebration. As the evening has unfolded, the lines between staff and guests and locals and travellers have blurred to the point of all but disappearing. Currently Andrew Donoghue, the hotel duty manager, is standing on a table by the reception desk, worse for wear. A loud, big-bellied man, his voice can be heard throughout the building. ‘We’re all in this together,’ he yells.

‘We All Stand Together,’ Bella says to Bryce. ‘Rupert and the Frog Chorus. I fucking hate that song.’

‘Is that even a Christmas song?’

‘Only because that’s when it came out. It’s about as Christmassy as sitting on a beach in June.’

‘That bad, eh?’

‘Worse.’

Some people have begun to drift away to bed. It’s almost midnight, but the bar is still open and shows no signs of closing. Bryce is really beginning to feel the effect of the booze. They snaffled a couple of untouched bottles of Chardonnay from the dining room after dinner. They’ve been trying to intentionally pace themselves, but all that’s gone to the wind now. One and a half bottles have been downed in next to no time.

‘I’ve had a really great night,’ he says, beginning to slur his words. ‘I think you’re fucking amazing.’

The alcohol has imbued him with a level of confidence he doesn’t usually possess. He has a fuzzy third-person disassociation, and in the brief pause (that feels like forever) before she replies, he feels like he’s watching himself and he silently repeats Did I just say that? Why did I just say that? over and over and over in his head.

‘Best Christmas I can remember,’ she says, breaking into a grin and relieving his misery. ‘I’m so glad I got stuck here with you, Brycie.’

There’s so much more he wants to say, but even after a heavy drinking session, he doesn’t have the nerve. The last few weeks have stripped him of almost every shred of self-confidence. Instead, he tries a more subtle approach. In his current state, it seems subtle, anyway.

‘I’ll tell you what’s a really shit Christmas song.’

‘What, worse than Rupert and Paul McCartney?’

‘Way worse.’

‘Go on then,’ she says, intrigued. ‘What?’

He refills his glass and gestures with it towards the top of the bar where a sprig of mistletoe has been hung. ‘Cliff fucking Richards,’ he says. ‘Mistletoe and fucking Wine.’

‘I’ll drink to that.’

‘From what I’ve seen, Bella, you’ll drink to anything.’

‘Damn right,’ she says, and she drains her glass. She stands up and gets him to follow her. He does what he’s told, because he knows she’s heading for the bar, heading for the mistletoe he not so subtly pointed out. She wraps her arms (and one leg) around him, and they kiss like they have no right to in public.

‘Merry Christmas,’ he says.

‘And a merry fucking Christmas to you, too.’

And at that moment, despite the hotel bar being still filled with other revellers and their noise, it feels like there’s nothing but the two of them.

He looks deep into her beautiful eyes, not quite able to work out how he got here. ‘After all the shite I’ve had recently, if you’d told me this morning that Christmas Eve would end like this, I’d never have believed you.’

‘I know. I feel the same. It’s like something out of that crap Richard Curtis Christmas movie. Anyway, I’m very, very happy to be here with you tonight.’

They kiss again. And again. And again as the clocks chime midnight. Fucking perfect.

‘I Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day,’ he whispers to her.

‘Very good,’ she says. ‘You’re finally getting the hang of this.’

‘That’s because I’m having a Wonderful Christmastime.’

‘Epic. Ten out of ten. Okay, my turn.’

‘Go on, then.’

‘All I Want for Christmas is You.’

---

Bella’s room is more like a suite. It’s stunning. It puts Bryce’s small, square room at the end of a corridor to shame. Bryce doesn’t care. As long as they’re together, he’ll be happy in a basement or a broom cupboard.

The centrepiece of the suite is a four-poster bed. He’s never seen one in real life before, he doesn’t think. He’s definitely never slept on one, or done anything else, that’s for sure. It’s like something out of a fairytale. Is this really happening? To think, less than twenty-four hours ago he’d been at rock bottom, dreading this Christmas. And now here he is, stumbling into this opulent hotel bedroom after the most incredible night with the most incredible, sexy girl who – for reasons he’s completely unable to fathom – seems to be as much into him as he’s into her. It’s the stuff of dreams, in a life that’s turned into a nightmare. He’s waiting for the twist in the tail because stuff like this doesn’t happen to blokes like him. But he keeps reminding himself, she’s in the exact same boat.

And if it all ends in the morning, he thinks, if the roads are clear and they go their separate ways and never see each other again, then it won’t matter because this has been the most wonderful night, and he won’t trade the memories he’s made (and is still making) for anything.

Bella kicks the door shut behind her and they collapse onto the bed together, tearing at each other’s clothes. Bryce hasn’t had many partners, but he’s had enough fumbled encounters over the years to understand the difference between passion and perfunctory. What’s happening now makes him realise just how stale his marriage had become, the increasingly intermittent sex uneventful and unsatisfying. Being with Bella is different on every level. She has imbued him with the confidence he’d lost. He doesn’t need to ask, he just knows what to do. There’s an electricity passing between them, a spark. It sounds cliched, but it’s undeniable. He can tell from the way she looks at him and holds him and kisses him and licks him and bites him that she feels the same way too.

The room is cosy and warm, the lighting gentle. It’s like the old building is protecting this pair of weary travellers, holding them safe in its comfortable cocoon. At this moment, it’s like nothing else matters, like nothing else even exists.

And the sex is fucking magnificent.

---

Bryce wakes up a couple of times in the night, but sleep is never far away. He tiptoes to the bathroom, then hesitates before he climbs back under the sheets, because he still can’t quite believe he belongs in here alongside this beautiful, hilarious woman who single-handedly saved his Christmas. Not just his Christmas, he thinks as he snuggles back down under the duvet alongside her, his life. Tonight, she’s shown him that in spite of everything, he’s still someone worth knowing. Someone worth spending time with. Someone, perhaps, worth loving.

And he’s again thinking how it will be okay if they wake up in the morning and go their separate ways, bracing himself for disappointment. She opens her eyes and smiles at him, then pulls him closer to her naked body and they make love again.

---

It’s three o’clock now, and there’s a hell of a noise coming from the corridor outside. Santa? A herd of Santas? Nope, it’s just other guests going about their own drunken business. It’s late, sure, but he reminds himself that he and Bella left the impromptu party before it had ended, when the bar had still been busy, and the Christmas songs had still been blasting out.

He can’t get back to sleep. First time he’s been excited for Christmas morning in as long as he can remember. He tries to remember all the song titles they shared, because he thinks if he can remember them all, he can use them to help him remember more of the evening. He doesn’t ever want to forget a second of what happened.

He’s going over the same few songs over and over, trying to recall the order they came up in conversation, but sleep soon catches up with him and he’s gone again.

---

It’s five o’clock. Still dark outside.

Someone rips the covers off the bed.

The drop in temperature is startling. Bryce is awake in a heartbeat, flat on his back, completely naked.

Bella’s suite is full of red-suited people, tightly packed, fighting for space. He tries to sit up, but Bella rolls on top of him and kisses him on the lips. ‘It’s okay,’ she whispers. ‘Don’t worry. Happy Christmas.’

But it isn’t okay.

And he is worried. Very worried.

Scared.

Terrified.

He looks around the room. The only light comes from the hallway outside. It’s enough for him to be able to recognise some of the faces. Guests and hotel staff, all of them familiar.

The hotel manager is front and centre. He raises his arms. ‘Friends and family of the village, today marks the end of the old and the beginning of the new. At this most wonderful time of the year, we celebrate the start of the new sixteen-year earth cycle. We give thanks.’

‘We give thanks,’ everyone else (including Bella) repeats.

Bryce tries again to sit up.

‘Don’t struggle, my love,’ Bella whispers, and she pecks him on the cheek, then moves out of the way so that another one of the red suits can hold him down. He looks up and sees that it’s the guy who wore his overalls to dinner last night.

The manager continues. ‘The land has provided again as was written, as it did and as it always will. The soil and the the water and the wind did combine as our Great Lord told us they would. We give thanks.’

And again, the others repeat, ‘we give thanks.’

‘Has the seed been planted?’ the manager asks, and the short, elderly woman who greeted them at reception when they arrived yesterday burrows through to the front of the crowd. She looks at Bella and grins expectantly. Bella nods and grins back. The woman runs her hands over her naked belly, then puts her head between Bella’s legs and sniffs long and hard. She looks up at the manager with even more excitement than before.

‘The seed has been planted,’ she confirms.

‘We give thanks,’ bellows the manager.

‘We give thanks,’ repeats everyone else.

Bryce tries to fight to get free, but all it does is make things worse. There’s someone else holding his feet now, and when he tries to scream a woman who served them at the bar last night shoves wadding in his mouth then covers his face with a cloth. He’s aware of a sharp, chemical smell and he thinks he needs to—

---

Outside now.

Upside down.

Naked.

Cold.

Wet.

Hanging from a wooden beam by his wrists and ankles, strung up like a hunted animal, being carried by his red suited captors.

Next to him, Bella, trussed up the same way.

His eyes are wide and terrified. Hers are filled with wonder and joy. She smiles at him as they bump together, swinging into each other. ‘I love you, Bryce. Thank you. Thank you so, so much.’

The fixed grin on her face is insane.

The fact that she’s a part of this – whatever this is – hurts him more than anything. He’d tell her but his mouth is still full of wadding. They’ve wrapped adhesive tape around his head to keep it in place.

The sky overhead is heavy and foreboding, grey and black clouds criss-crossing at speed. He moves his head to try to work out where he is. The hotel has been left behind. Other than that, it’s nowhere he knows. A muddy path through trees. A downward slope.

Really cold. Really, really fucking cold.

All of the people who crowded into the room are here, running and dancing alongside him and Bella. There’s so much noise. Boundless celebrations. He glimpses kids with wide-eyed faces full of the wonder and excitement of Christmas morning.

He’s so scared that the bitter cold and the physical pain of being strung up like this don’t register. But no matter how terrified he’s been feeling since he regained consciousness, it gets even worse when they suddenly stop.

They plant the end of the logs Bryce and Bella are strapped to into pre-dug holes in the ground, then raise them upright. Next, they hammer blocks into the wood to give them both something to stand on. Then, they take Bryce’s left hand and Bella’s right hand and bind them together. Bryce looks across at her again for reassurance he knows he’s not going to get. She manages to lean across and nuzzle the side of her face against his. ‘It’s okay, my love,’ she whispers. ‘Happy Christmas.’

It’s only now that Bryce looks around again. He realises they’ve been propped upright on the edge of a cliff overlooking a vast grey lake he didn’t know was here. He’d be impressed by the view if he wasn’t so completely fucking terrified. It’s beautiful. Epic. Couldn’t have been more perfect. The first few fluffy flakes of snow start to drift down, right on cue. He’s been craving this kind of picture-perfect isolation since he discovered his wife had been fucking his brother, but now the emptiness only reenforces how utterly alone he is, how vulnerable. Trapped and exposed, at the mercy of a village inhabited by crazy bastards.

Speaking of which…

He cranes his neck again and sees that there are hundreds of red suits now, many more than before, all holding position some twenty metres or so back from the edge. The only thing between him and the crowd is the bloody hotel manager again. He’s standing on a pulpit-like rock midway between the crucifixion and the masses. He raises his arms to speak, and the people obediently fall silent. Bryce pisses himself with fear because he senses some kind of climax to proceedings is at hand. Bella notices that he’s wet himself. Rather than repulse her, it seems to endear her to him even more.

‘We gather here on the edge of the world, overlooking the lake, as is tradition on the morning of every sixteenth Christmas, to give thanks and to offer ourselves to our Great Lord and protector. As is the way, we offer one of our own, and one who is new to us. As is the way, they have consummated their relationship, and for all this we give thanks.’

‘We give thanks,’ reply the crowd.

Bryce thinks these people are fucking insane, but he also thinks they’re so consumed by this pagan, folk horror bullshit, that he might still have a fraction of a fraction of a chance of escape while they’re distracted.

‘Our Great Lord protects our village and our homes, holds us close and keeps us from harm, keeps the inside in and the outside out. And for this, we give thanks.’

‘We give thanks.’

The hawser binding Bryce’s right wrist to the stake is starting to loosen. Also, he’s realised that the block he’s standing on is moving with his body weight, not nailed in properly. He’s thinking if he keeps working the rope and the block, when they reach the zenith of their collective hysteria – the point where they’re most focused on this ridiculous, elaborate celebration – then he’ll try and make a run for it.

Crazy fuckers have started singing now. The carol is instantly recognisable: Oh, Come All Ye Faithful. They’ve taken a few liberties with the lyrics, adapting them to suit their own nefarious ends. Where he expects to hear ‘Oh, come let us adore him, Christ the Lord,’, he instead hears ‘Oh, come let us implore him, our one Great Lord.’

Fucking crackpots.

He reckons they’re all on drugs, too. It’s a mass delusion. They’ve rehearsed this, for fuck’s sake, because they’re all perfectly in sync with the twisted arrangement of the carol. Now they’re singing the ‘Oh, come let us implore him,’ part over and over and over as if the needle’s stuck in the groove of a record, getting louder and louder on each repetition until suddenly, without warning and in perfect unison, the entire crowd stops and holds the same note indefinitely.

The voice he can hear loudest is Bella. He glances across at her, mouth wide open, eyes screwed shut in total euphoric bliss.

Their combined one-note voices are like a siren being sounded, echoing across the lake. The noise is sinister and ridiculous in equal measure. He can’t imagine what comes next in this batshit crazy celebration of chaos because when they—

Wait.

He can hear another noise.

Much louder.

Much closer.

Much more dangerous.

Coming from the water.

Bryce almost can’t bring himself to look, but he does.

Something is emerging. It starts as a ripple right in the centre of the lake, then it breaks the surface. It climbs and climbs and keeps climbing skyward, a leathery grey monstrosity. Already dwarfing all the trees in the surrounding area, the creature – because that’s the only word he can find to describe it – continues to grow as it rises itself to full height from the murky depths. Bryce can’t see arms or legs, just thousands of writhing tentacles which are drawing towards the centre as the thing raises itself up. Inherently shapeless, as the tentacles come closer together and bind, their density gives the monster an impossible definition. Bryce still can’t make out a head or any limbs, but it’s definitely got a mouth.

He’s looking up into its gaping maw now as the worm-like aberration bends down over him and Bella. Vast amounts of water pour from the gash that has formed in its otherwise featureless visage. It drenches him, but he can’t shut his eyes, won’t look away.

‘I love you,’ he hears Bella shout, but he knows she’s talking to it, not him. She gazes up at the colossal grotesque with the same warmth and passion and wanting that she had for him last night.

And for some reason, that hurts more than anything.

He feels a great rush of wind and glances up again, just as the jaws of the immense beast come down and swallows the two of them whole.

---

The suits have been packed away for another sixteen years. Bryce’s car has been driven to the far side of the lake and pushed into the water along with all the others. The ceremonial posts and ropes and other trappings have been properly secured in the basement of the hotel, as is the way. Now all that’s left is to celebrate.

The party is in full swing. This has been the best Christmas anyone can remember. They’ve laughed, they’ve embraced, they’ve eaten, they’ve drunk, and they’ve sung pretty much every song in the book.

Arthur lives in the neighbouring village. He’s walking his dog across the fields, overlooking the lake. He’s had enough celebration for one day. The kids won’t go to bed, the in-laws are staying over… he’s glad to get out of the house for a while.

He pauses when he hears noises on the wind. It’s the other lot. People don’t much venture near Tallerton if they can help it. Strange folk, they are. It’s quiet out here, perfectly still, but even now at this late hour, he can hear the Tallerton folk partying like it’s the last night on earth. It takes Arthur a second to identify the tune. It’s a massed choir of voices singing ‘I Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day’.

Sounds like the whole village is involved.

Bloody weirdos.