“Mock you, Katniss? Never,” Mac said, mocking him. “I was just letting you know I plan to take care of everything.”
He reached out and tugged Archer’s hood up properly, his mittened fingers brushing Archer’s cheek in a brief, tender pass that warmed more than the coat ever could.
Archer narrowed his eyes at Mac behind his polarized lenses. “I don’t like your tone.”
“No?” Mac asked, his scarf hiding the grin Archer knew he wore. “I’m just trying to make you feel better.”
“Lies,” Archer shouted dramatically, the sound getting carried away by the wind.
The rest of the hike passed quickly with their back-and-forth jabs, both of them enjoying their own peculiar form of foreplay. The snowstorm made it feel like the world had been erased, leaving only the shriek of wind and the brittlecrunch of ice under their boots. Snowflakes stung Archer’s cheeks like tiny pinpricks, the cold creeping into the seams of his clothes with nosy little fingers. The exit ramp was barely visible under the drifts, but ahead—through the swirling whiteout—they caught flashes of color.
Not normal color.
Neon.
Not Vegas neon.
Christmas neon.
First a red glow, then green, then something sickly yellow that flickered like a dying firefly. As they hiked closer, shapes emerged: leaning candy-cane lampposts bowing under the weight of ice, each wrapped in strings of mismatched lights that blinked out of rhythm like a town having a seizure. A cracked sign half-buried in the snow welcomed them to Holly Harbour but somewhere along the way, several bulbs had burned out, leaving behind a far more ominous sign.
Welcome To Hol Y Har Our!
“Welcome to Holy Horror,” Mac read. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
It felt like more of a threat than a greeting. Archer’s skin prickled, a primitive little instinct whispering that festive décor shouldnotloom like that.
“Jesus. It looks like a Cracker Barrel and South of the Border had the world’s ugliest baby,” Archer muttered.
Beyond the sign, the storm momentarily thinned, revealing the cluster of buildings huddled near the motel. Everything was decked out for Christmas—but wrong, like someone described the holiday to an alien and the alien hadtried really,reallyhard to capture the magic. A giant plastic snowman leaned precariously to one side, its carrot nose snapped off and lodged in the snow like a crime scene clue.
An animatronic elf in a frozen mid-wave stood outside the gift shop, its mechanical head jerking every time the wind hit it, producing a soft clack-clack-clack that sounded disturbingly like a bomb counting down. Its eyes, wide and unblinking, seemed to track them, though Archer told himself that was just the wind pushing its joints. Mostly.
Fake snow machines mounted to rooftops blasted clumps of slush that whipped sideways in the storm, creating the illusion the buildings were shedding their own skin.
Then the motel emerged from the white—a sprawling L-shaped structure washed in garish red and green floodlights that made the drifting snow glow like radioactive ash. A towering Santa stood on the roof, half of him lit and half in shadow, his plastic face split between jolly cheer and something that looked overtly menacing. His arms whipped in the wind, raising and lowering like a fire-and-brimstone pastor, beckoning them closer…then shooing them away.
“Nope,” Archer whispered to himself. “Absolutely not. This is how horror movies start.”
The storm howled around the building, rattling tinsel garlands and sending metallic ornaments skittering across little bits of pavement like fleeing insects. And through all of it, drowning under the wind, came faint Christmas music from unseen speakers—muffled, warped, and looping one single line over and over again:
“…be your shining light…”
Which, given the circumstances, did absolutely nothing to make him feel better. If anything, it made him want to turn around, brave the snowstorm, and die heroically in the woods.
By the time they trekked into the center of town, snow whipping against them like razor-sharp confetti, it was clear that Holly Harbour rolled up the sidewalks after dark.
Every shop—no matter how loudly its sign bragged about “OPEN 24/7 DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASON!”—had its lights off and blinds pulled. The only illumination came from garish outdoor decorations.
Plastic elves—lit from within—highlighted peeling paint that looked more like something out of a horror movie than a Christmas one. Strings of mismatched lights dangled off rooftops while the motel’s giant dancing Santa loomed over everything like a disappointed god.
Just when Archer was beginning to think it was a ghost town, he spotted a squat metal garage at the edge of the motel’s property, its peeling candy-cane paint looking more like blood and chalk in the storm light. A sign shaped like a Christmas tree readHOLLY-DAY AUTO.
Most of the building was dark, but the bay door closest to the road was cracked open just enough for orange light to spill onto the snow. Archer had seen this movie before, and he hadn’t been particularly fond of the ending. This whole town was pinging his lizard brain. There was something so deeply unsettling about Holly Harbour. It felt like stepping into a festive uncanny valley—cheerful enough to be familiar, wrong enough to feel hunted.
They exchanged a wary glance, then approached. Inside, the radio played an old-timey Christmas song. It sounded far too chipper for the post-apocalyptic-level storm raging outside. The tinny cheer clashed violently with the metallic rattle of wind against the siding, making Archer’s nerves skitter. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Mac rapped his knuckles on the metal door, the sound almost swallowed by the gusting wind.
Almost immediately, feet appeared, then the garage door shot up, causing both men to steady themselves as a blast of icy air knifed in. A man stepped out of the now open bay. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, red-cheeked, bundled in a flannel jacket and suspenders. With an extra sixty pounds, he could have made a half-convincing mall Santa. Now, he just looked like Ozempic had hit the North Pole as hard as everywhere else.
