Dead of Winter Read Online Free

Christmas, away from God, by appealing to their greed. To
appease the greed, the parents suffered. And yet no one ever
thought of the old man as anything but benevolent. How shocked they
would be if they knew he thought himself closer to an emissary of
the devil.
    He had flown through wars, concealed
by smoke, dodging artillery not meant for him, coughing through
muddy fields occupied by shifting specters of mustard gas and
littered with bodies. He had watched cities burn and drown and
crumble. He had watched and wept from afar as children were led to
gas chambers. He had seen them murdered by the hundred at the hands
of monsters.
    And he, their alleged patron saint,
had done nothing.
    Disgusted, he whipped the reins,
ignoring the caustic look from Dasher as the reindeer ceased their
feeding and tugged the sleigh along the hill, headed for the edge
and the air beyond.
    People had seen him, he
knew. If there was one joy he could claim, it was that. Over the
years there had been people on the street, young and old alike, who
had glanced up and caught sight of him sailing through the air. The
children had screamed and pointed and danced with delight. The
adults had stared, stricken, unable to reconcile what they were
seeing with the remembered devastation at the hands of their own
parents, who had told them in earnest, that there was no such
thing. And on such occasions, the old man had grinned and waved and
yelled "Merrrrrry Christmaaaaas!" at the top of his lungs. It had
excited him, however briefly, had restored for a while the
jubilation he'd once felt knowing that, for some, it didn't matter
that he wasn't the Santa Claus they grew up believing in, or had
been programmed to
believe in. For some, he simply represented hope, and dreams made
real. Proof that there was sometimes more to life than the grind,
the pressure, the struggle. Proof of magic.
    It had been a long time since he'd
been seen, but tonight, that would change.
    As he angled the sleigh
toward the moon, the reindeer huffing, he did not look down at the
streets sweeping beneath him. There was no need. These days
children did not stay up late watching for him. They did not sneak
out into the cold and stare up at the sky, hoping for a glimpse,
for confirmation that what the other kids were telling them at
school wasn't true. Nowadays, they stayed inside, eyes wide and
glassy as they watched lies on their computer and television
screens, where sincere-sounding reporters stood red-faced and
shivering beside a graphic insert that showed a fictional Santa's
flight-path in real time. No expense was spared on perpetuating the
myth, while elsewhere other children died of exposure or
starvation, or abuse, and still others crumbled as their parents
gave them the truth they'd prayed was not there and therefore dealt
a final, killing blow to the wonderful world of fantasy and
magic. Santa Claus is not
real .
    To the old man currently
riding upward into the night sky, the cold wind biting his sallow
cheeks, the moon looming large before him, he hated that the truth
those parents so callously shared was the ultimate and indisputable
one. He was real.
But Santa Claus was not, and never had been.
    Tomorrow, the evidence of the lie
would be laid out for all to see, and perhaps it would instigate a
change for the better, an embracing of magic one last time. Perhaps
it would do the opposite, forcing people who had once believed to
become bitter and critical of anything they could not see for
themselves. Perhaps it would turn them further away from God. Or,
perhaps it would mean nothing at all.
    Nick,
don't , said his wife. It doesn't have to be over .
    There was, as always, little
conviction in her voice. She knew as well as he did that they had
reached the end of whatever path they'd been instructed to follow.
He had once read a line about every species being able to sense its
own extinction. He thought there might be something to
that.
    "Everything has to end eventually," he
said,