"Pick up. Pick up," I said when the phone continued to ring. "Come on, Sydney."

  The voicemail message came on and I hung up, then pressed redial and waited again. I couldn't stop thinking about Sara Andrews and her story and even more about her words.

  He'll come after you too.

  I had to talk to Sydney and let her know. I wanted to warn her, to tell her to be careful, but she still didn't pick up. I tried again.

  This time, it was picked up. I sighed with relief.

  "Sydney? It's Rebekka…"

  There was heavy breathing at the other end. It didn't sound like it would come from her.

  "Sydney?"

  "Rebekka?" A voice said. It wasn't Sydney's. This belonged to a man, a man with a very deep voice.

  "Who's this?" I asked, heart pounding in my chest. "Who is this? What have you done to Sydney? What have you DONE?"

  "Tell me, Rebekka," the voice said. "Have you been nice this year or have you been a NAUGHTY GIRL?"

  "S-Santa?"

  Part IV

  53

  I wasn't even enjoying the coffee. I was sitting on a soft couch at Café Juice 'N Java while staring anxiously at the front door.

  He was running late. At least by five minutes.

  I sighed and sipped the coffee, my heart worried. I was the one who had called him. Right after I had hung up on Santa, I called detective Ryder and asked him to find Sydney Hahn since I feared something bad had happened to her. I couldn't explain how I knew. I mean, how could I? What was I supposed to say?

  I also told him to look for the red marks on Sara's body. He complained that he was busy and didn't have time for this, but I told him it was important. He simply had to do it.

  Now, two days had passed and he had finally called me back. I was sick with worry. He told me to meet him here at the café. My fingers were drumming on the armrest as I spotted him. He held the door for some lady, then entered. He didn't smile when he saw me.

  He ordered a coffee, then sat down across from me. He threw a file on the table.

  "You were right," he said.

  "Right about what?"

  "The red marks. They were on her neck just as you told me they would be. The autopsy report concluded they were bug bites. Now, my question to you is, how did you know about the marks? How could you possibly know when the woman was in a prison cell?"

  I sighed. "Oh, boy."

  He leaned forward. "It's all a little crazy, don't you think? Something very strange is going on and I can't seem to find any ups or downs to this. That was why I asked you to meet me here instead of at the office. I can't make anything out of this, no silver lining. I can't risk any of my colleagues hearing about this crazy stuff. But now I need you to tell me, what the heck is going on?"

  I rubbed my hands together. I was nervous. "First, I need you to tell me if you found Sydney Hahn. I haven't eaten anything or closed an eye in two nights worrying about her."

  He looked surprised. "You haven't heard?"

  My heart sunk. I shook my head, fearing what would come next. "No. No, I haven't."

  "Oh, dear Lord," he said. "That night you called me and told me to look for her, I went to her mother's house and she told me Sydney and her sister had gone to the mall and been gone all day. We found them inside one of the smaller shops..."

  "What do you mean you found them?"

  "Sydney. She was…dead. Her chest was ripped open. Her sister was sitting in a corner of the shop, hiding behind the shelves, crying helplessly. She kept screaming when we asked her questions, and what she said made no sense, none at all."

  I swallowed. I felt awful, broken. "What did she say?"

  "She kept screaming about Santa. It was all she kept saying. Santa, evil. Santa, evil. We couldn't get anything else out of her."

  "And where is she now?"

  "She's still in the hospital. She wasn't hurt but no one knows what to do about her. Her mother can't even calm her down. I hear they're talking about putting her away in an institution on the mainland. It's the shock, the doctors say. The trauma. But we believe she must have seen the killer and that he was probably wearing a Santa outfit."

  I sighed and leaned back, a million through rushing through my mind. "I don't think he's an ordinary killer," I said. "I’m not even sure he's human."

  Jack Ryder wrinkled his forehead. "What do you mean?"

  "Sit tight," I said and reached into my backpack. I pulled out all the copies I had made lately during my research and showed it to him.

  "What's all this?"

  "Your killer," I said.

  54

  We went through it all together. Every page, every article I had found and, for hours, I spoke about everything Sydney had told me, what Sara Andrews had said, and then about my own experiences.

  "Really?" he said, skeptically. "Blood? In the chimney?"

  "I swear to you, it was there. I saw it again last night when I couldn't sleep and walked across the living room. It was there. It was the sound that made me stop at first. The dripping sound. Then I turned on a light and saw it. Blood running down the chimney. I swear, I also heard a scraping sound coming from the inside of the chimney. Like long nails scraping on the sides of it. I keep imagining these soot-caked claws scraping inside the brick belly of the chimney. I am not making this up, Detective. And the pictures I took at the mall. I looked through my phone yesterday. All gone. Simply vanished."

  "So, you have no proof of anything you're saying?" Jack Ryder said. I could tell he was trying to understand, trying to believe me, but found it harder and harder.

  "I’m afraid not. But I have been doing a lot of research," I said and showed him the many articles. "These are all victims of this. All killed in the month of December since the city of Cocoa Beach was established in nineteen twenty-five. Back then, they knew something was up; they even wrote about it in the local paper, how some people claimed to have heard jingle bells at night and strange sounds coming from inside their chimneys. The story back then went that there was a young boy in nineteen-twenty-seven, who—while playing hide and go seek with his friend—climbed into the chimney of his house and got stuck. The friend went home and later that same night his dad then lit a fire and killed the boy. The first victim that was found dead in a chimney was in December nineteen twenty-eight. It was believed back then that it was him, the boy from the year before that had later returned to haunt the city and kill people as revenge for what happened back then. In the modern day, the story was lost and later just called old superstition, a spooky story to tell your kids so they wouldn't crawl up into the chimney. But what if it is real, Detective, huh? What if this story is real?"

  Jack Ryder looked at me with a deep sigh. "And you say that they all have the same red marks?"

  "All of them that I have been able to get my hands on. Sydney was the one who showed me."

  "I’m not sure I even want to know how she found out," he said. "But let me get this straight. You're telling me you believe this killer is...some type of a ghost? Or what?"

  I shrugged. "An entity of sorts. I don't know. Something evil, haunting this town. Does it have to have a name? Not everything in life comes with a box you can fit it in."

  Jack Ryder sighed and rubbed his stubble. He was very tanned for someone who worked a lot. I knew he surfed, so I guessed that was why. Apparently, everyone in this town surfed. Even the mayor could be found in the waves if they were good. I was even told that, if the waves were really good, all the shops and restaurants downtown would be closed and there would be small signs in the windows saying: GONE SURFING.

  Jack Ryder was still thinking, looking through the papers on the table. I sipped my coffee, then he said:

  "I have to admit that when looking at Sydney's chest, I knew something was really wrong. There was no way a human could have done that. Had we found her outside somewhere, I would have believed it was a panther or maybe a bear, but this was inside the mall. Inside. Everything was closed, all the windows and doors were locked, even the shutters were closed. No animal could have gotten in and out."

  "How about security cameras? Did they have them at the store?" I asked.

  Jack Ryder looked up and nodded. "That's the oddest part. There was nothing on them. Nothing but static. It looked like freaking snow." He paused, then continued: "That's not completely true, there was something on them. A sound. The sound of jingle bells."

  I leaned back on the couch. "You said it yourself, Detective. Something strange is going on here. Something really strange. And, to be honest, it’s beginning to freak me out."

  Jack Ryder nodded. "You and me both. You and me both."

  55

  Alyssa had a hard time concentrating at school. Night after night, she was awoken by the sounds coming from downstairs, but she had stopped going down there. Not since she had seen her brother. She didn't dare to. Yet, the sounds were still there every night and it scared her like crazy. But with the lack of sleep and with everything that was going on, her grades had started to slide. She had gotten an F on her math test for the second week in a row.

  It had her parents worried.

  "I know things are tough right now," her mother told her when she had the talk with her in the kitchen after she had come home from school and she saw the test in her backpack. "But we have got to keep living. We can't just let everything slide. You've got to focus on school."

  Alyssa stared at her mother, looked into her eyes. She wanted so badly to tell her that the only reason she had done badly on another test was that she couldn't concentrate because she was so tired, so exhausted from lack of sleep. It was like the words on the test paper danced and made no sense. She wanted to tell her mother about what she had seen that night. That she had seen her brother, who wasn't her brother anymore, and that thing. That awful thing, a beast with long pointy teeth that had grabbed for her and how terrified she had been that he would run up the stairs after her, or that he would come to her room at night. He was down there at night, she just knew he was, and every night she sat under the covers shaking, listening to every sound in the house, praying that he wouldn't find his way to her door. Oftentimes, she would find herself staring at the door handle for hours, terrified that it would turn. She wanted to tell her mother about the sound of jingling bells that kept her awake. She wanted to tell her how scared she was all night long. And not just at night anymore. She often heard strange noises during the day as well. But she knew her mother wouldn't understand. She would tell her it was only in her mind. Alyssa feared they would think she was crazy and put her away in some mental institution, where they would shock her or medicate her till she never spoke of crazy stuff like this again.

  "I'll get better," she said. "I promise."

  Her mother smiled. It wasn't a very happy smile. "That's good, sweetie. It will soon be Christmas break and hopefully, things will get better after that. We could all use a little break, huh?"

  Christmas. Christmas Eve night, that's when he comes, isn't it? That's when he is planning on killing me, isn't it?

  "Honey. You're shivering. Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine," she said. The last thing she wanted was for her mother to think she was sick and have her stay home from school. She needed to get away from the house, away from the chimney.

  "I'm perfectly fine," she repeated, just to make sure her mother had heard her.

  Her mother smiled again, a little more genuine this time, then got up and walked to the stove. "Good. I thought I would try and cook a little tonight. Would be good for a change, huh? I’m getting tired of all that pizza."

  She turned to look at Alyssa for some sort of confirmation that she agreed, but Alyssa wasn't listening anymore. She had gotten up from her chair in the kitchen and stood where the kitchen became the living room and stared at the chimney. She was hearing loud scraping sounds coming from the chimney.

  "Alyssa?" her mom said and approached her. "Are you all right? You’re acting a little weird."

  She looked up at her mother, her body shaking. "It's that sound."

  "What sound, sweetie?"

  The sound was loud in her ears, sounding like an animal trying to dig its way out of the brick chimney.

  "You don't hear it?"

  Her mother listened, then shook her head. She felt Alyssa's forehead. "Are you sure you're feeling all right?"

  "I'm fine," Alyssa said, trying to sound convincing, but she could hear how her voice was shaking.

  The doorbell rang and Alyssa's mom went to open it. Meanwhile, Alyssa kept staring at the chimney, wondering when that thing—whatever it was—that was trying to dig its way out of it would succeed.

  56

  "Rebekka Franck? What a surprise."

  I smiled at Jackie. Her pale face smiled back. She had lost a lot of weight since I saw her last.

  "To what do we owe the honor?"

  "I'm actually here to see Alyssa if that's okay with you?"

  Jackie looked perplexed at me, then nodded. "Sure. Come on in. She just got back from school."

  I walked into the living room and spotted Alyssa at the other end. She looked frightened and, as I stepped closer, I immediately knew why.

  I turned to look at the chimney as I heard the scraping sound that I recognized from my own house.

  "What a nice surprise," her mother said behind me while closing the door.

  I gasped and looked at Alyssa. Our eyes met and we both knew.

  "Alyssa? Rebekka is here. She wants to talk to you. Can I get you anything?" she asked, addressed to me.

  "If you have some coffee, that would be great," I said, mostly to get her out of the room.

  I approached Alyssa, our eyes still locked, while the scraping sounds filled our ears.

  "You hear it too?" I asked in a whisper.

  She bit her lip. I could tell she was afraid to say it. I knew how she felt. I sometimes felt like I was going crazy when hearing and seeing these things, and talking about it just made it worse. I had tried to talk to Sune about it, but he wouldn't listen. He thought I was losing it. I was beginning to think I was too. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that I knew the kids had seen the blood too. And now the look in Alyssa's eyes told me I wasn't alone.

  "You hear it too?" Alyssa whispered.

  I nodded. "At my house. Sometimes it's bells, sometimes it's scraping sounds like these, and sometimes it's like a pulse or a drumming sound."

  "It's like someone is in there, trying to get out," she said.

  I nodded. We both looked at the chimney, hearts pounding in our chests. "So, I’m not going insane?" she asked.

  I shook my head. "That's actually why I came. You know Sydney Hahn? Or maybe I should call her SH14?"

  Alyssa nodded. "Sure. From my chat room. She lost her dad."

  "She was killed."

  Alyssa's eyes grew wide. She made a sound that I could only interpret as surprise or maybe fear.

  "I think it was the same killer who killed your brother," I said, still keeping my voice low. Jackie was still in the kitchen. It sounded like she was looking for something in the cabinets; she was also mumbling something about cookies. I had to be fast now before she returned.

  "What…what was it?"

  "We don't know. But I came here because you wrote something in the chat, something about you seeing your dead brother in the living room. I went to Sydney's house and talked to her mother. She let me go through her computer and that's how I found out. You really should get a better profile name. If I could find you that easily, then anyone could," I said.

  Alyssa sighed. "H-h-he was right here," she said and pointed. He was looking at me and asking me what my favorite holiday was. His was Christmas, he said."

  "I take it he looked like your brother?" I asked.

  She nodded. "But it wasn't him. I knew it wasn't. And then he ch-changed."

  "Changed?"

  Alyssa's eyes were on me. She nodded. "He became something else. Something I can't even describe. It started with the teeth…long pointy teeth grew out of his face, and then there were the eyes."

  "What about the eyes?"

  "They were red."

  I swallowed hard. "Red? Like two…"

  "Red glowing Christmas globes," we both said in unison.

  Alyssa's mother came in from the kitchen holding a tray between her hands, smiling from ear to ear. "Cookies," she said. "I found cookies. They might be a little old, but I hope they'll do."

  57

  We ate the cookies. They were stale and dry, but out of politeness, we ate them, still hearing the scraping sounds and pretending not to, while I sipped the coffee, smiling at Jackie.

  I told her I was there to talk to Alyssa about arranging something for Sydney's funeral since her mother was too out of it to do anything herself. Jackie didn't seem to know who Sydney was so we told her it was a girl from school that we both knew, and she seemed to accept that. I told her I got to know Sydney while vacationing here, and luckily, she didn't ask for details. We drank our coffee and ate the cookies for about an hour when I told them I had to leave.

  Alyssa walked me to the front door, then leaned over and whispered. "I'm scared."

  I looked at her, then stroked her cheek gently. "Me too," I said. "Lock the door to your room at night and, whatever you do, don't go near the chimney. Promise me that? I gave you my number. So, call me if you need me, okay? If anything happens, just call."

  She nodded and I left, feeling like I was leaving her in the lion's den. It felt so good to get out of the house and away from the scraping sound. It seemed to be a lot worse at her house than mine and, as I entered our own beach house further down the road, I was delighted to hear nothing but the sound of Tobias and Julie fighting over something. I hadn't told them where I went, just that I was going for a run. I yelled that I was back, then jumped in the shower. When I came out, William was standing in my bedroom with tear-filled eyes.