It was a shimmering of light that brought Bobby to the windowsill at first. Looking outside, he discovered that the snow had began to fall once again. Flurries swirled in the chill winter air, depositing a soft, muffling white blanket over Nature. This vista would have excited him far more at a different time, but he was recovering from the euphoria of starting winter break and the snow, like so many other things, no longer mattered to him.

The impending two weeks off school were not the only thing on BobbyÍs mind. The day was the 24th-December 24th, the night of the possible visitation of a figure dressed in red, a figure who was known to awaken some basal response in all children. He is known far and wide, and under many different names. But the translations mean much the same thing: Santa Claus, who at this moment was coming to town.

The remainder of the day passed uneventfully, up to the point where his mother closed his door after the perfunctory reading of The Night Before Christmas. It was some five minutes later that he heard two distinct thumps, a muffled curse, and a mechanical sound that lasted for several seconds. These he could attribute not to the landing of hoofed feet on the roof, but rather his parentsÍ departure for a late-night Christmas party. The curse was the product of his father, who invariably caught either some part of himself or his clothing in the car door virtually every time he closed it. The mechanical sound rang out again, and then there was silence.

Thirty minutes later, just as Bobby was drifting off to sleep, the heard another, much odder noise. It sounded as if a minor but violent hailstorm had started, one confined to his roof alone. Forty-eight thumps, coming in pairs of two resonated down from the attics to BobbyÍs ears. A crunching sound, as of a runner sled followed, then the sound of two extremely large booted feet crashing down upon the roof.

Bobby sat bold upright. Here was his chance to see Santa! He slipped quietly out of bed and walked silently down the hall, pausing once to pick up a Polaroid camera. Its most recent use had been by his parents to capture several images of their only offspring sliding down a hill in the back yard. It was for this reason that the number on display in the small window was a 2.

Surreptitiously, Bobby snuck down the stairs and hid in the coat closet, which provided a prefect view of the living room, undetectable except to the most through search.

He did not have long to wait. A large red bag trimmed in white rolled out of the fireplace, despite the fact that the flue had been closed since last winter. A large, jovial fat man dressed like the bag followed it.

Bobby put his eye as close as he could to the opening in the door for a better view. The fat man took several parcels wrapped in brightly colored paper out of his bag and arranged them under the Christmas tree. He then closed the bag, appraised his surroundings to be sure that everything was in order, and was about to make his return trip up the chimney when a sudden flash disturbed him.

The whirring noise immediately following the flash lasted exactly 1.2 seconds, which was all it took for the grin to melt away from the large manÍs face. Bobby had taken a step away from the rather angry-looking saint, when he slipped on a carelessly dropped piece of junk mail. Looking up from the floor, the last vision that ever graced his retinas was that of a blood-encrusted ice axe, swinging down, towards its eventual target.

It was not for another five hours until his parents arrived upon the scene of carnage that awaited them in their living room. Scattered like confetti, the boy had been hacked to pieces, and parts of him hung from every available surface in the room. His parents, now in a state of extreme shock noticed the photograph on the floor which had developed some time ago. It showed a scene of their living room, decked out for the holiday occupied by a large red suit occupied by-could it be?-a crumbling skeleton.

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