He broke into a gummy smile when he saw them. “Evenin’! You folks look chilled to the bone. Car trouble?”
Archer had a body count that would make a serial killer blush, but Diet Santa’s cheery disposition set his teeth on edge. He was almost afraid to reveal they were stranded. But what choice did they have? The alternative was hiking back into Silent Hill, and even Archer wasn’t that prideful.
“Our car ran over something and it flattened our two front tires. We had a donut but?—”
“Oh, don’t you worry,” the man said, cutting him off with a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes. “We’ll get you fixed right up. I’ll send my boy Nick out in the truck to get your vehicle and get those swapped right out for you.”
Mac’s hand drifted subtly toward Archer’s lower back—an old reflex, protective without being obvious. Archer didn’t know if it comforted him or confirmed they should keep their guards up.
Hisboy? As in his son, or the last poor schlep who had stumbled into this godforsaken town? Anything was possible in this walking-talking Black Mirror episode. Archer’s survival instincts pricked like needles beneath his skin. This place felt wrong in the bones.
“If I don’t have the right size, you might be stuck here until the storm breaks in the morning. I’ll call Rudy and see if he has your size once Nick gets back with your vehicle. Why don’t you folks head over to the motel for some food, maybe grab a room? Even if you’re only here for a few hours, it will be nice to get out of the cold, no?”
“Yeah, totally. We’ll do that,” Mac said, already backing away.
“Tell my sister, Peg, I said to give you the family holiday discount.”
“Will do,” Archer reiterated.
They followed him inside just long enough to give the man—Beau, according to the card on the counter—their cell phone numbers, then turned to make their way across the road to the motel.
“Okay, what the fuck is going on in this town,” Archer asked. “I feel like we’re being punked. Where are all the people? Where’s the traffic? This is just off a major highway and I haven’t seen a single car. That’s not fucking normal. Maybe we ran off the road into an embankment and thisis purgatory?”
“They’re just weird small-town people with a hard-on for Christmas,” Mac said, his tone sounding more self-soothing than self-assured.
“Which one of us are you trying to convince of that? Hm?” Archer asked in a hissing whisper.
“Listen, we’ve stayed in alotof weird places. This is just another one to add to the list,” Mac said. “Also, remind me to get photos of this place before we leave or nobody is gonna believe a word of this.”
Archer nodded distractedly. “Yeah, good idea.”
The wind shoved at them from behind as if eager to get them inside, the snow swirling around their ankles.
Bells jangled jarringly as they pushed open the wooden door to the lobby. At first there was only an eerie silence that followed, but then a woman in a red dress with snow-white hair appeared. Like the man across the street, she had red cheeks and sparkly blue eyes that looked more maniacal than beguiling. She beamed at them with the same gummy smile as her brother.
“Are you Peggy?” Archer asked, giving her his best smile.
“Why, yes,” she gushed, looking them over. “Well, aren’t you boys handsome? Have you been good boys or bad?”
Archer’s smile slipped off his face, jerking his head to his husband, hoping he might have misunderstood the weird… innuendo in the question. The air in the room felt suddenly warm, too warm, as if the heater had cranked up in reaction to her tone.
Mac was as frozen as that elf with the failed mechanicalarm, the only movement a faint twitching in his right eye. Never a good sign.
“Depends on the day, love,” Archer said, putting on his best roguish expression. “Your brother, Beau, is towing our car back in from the highway to change a couple of tires. He suggested we rent a room to get out of the cold, just in case we had to stay overnight.”
Peggy clasped her hands together like they’d just announced they were expecting a baby in June, not stranded in a Christmas-themed fever dream.
“Oh, two flat tires on Christmas Eve? You poor dears. Is there anyone missing you?”
“Pardon?” Archer managed, mouth going dry.
“Were you on your way to visit family, dear?” she asked, another creepy smile spreading across her face.
“Oh, yes. Big family. Lots. More than you could even imagine. Famous too. There would be lots of headlines should we disappear,” he said, then laughed, noting the touch of hysteria he couldn’t quite hold back.
Now she was looking at him likehewas the crazy one. “How nice for you, dear.”
Before he could find a way to steer the conversation away from another verbal concrete embankment, the beaded curtain that separated the front of the lobby from the back shivered, sounding like someone had disturbed a rattlesnake’s nest, and then a man appeared. A man who, like Beau, looked like Santa—thoughpre-diet.
