Manx- Tunnel to Christmasland

  Vic had lost sight of the Wraith. It had circled the blasted wreck of the old hunting lodge and disappeared through a gap in the trees on the far side. She slammed the bike up into second, then third, accelerating to catch up. Stones flew from under the tires. The bike felt loose and wobbly on the snow, which had now accumulated to a fine dusting on the gravel.

  Around the ruin, into high grass, and then to a sort of dirt track through the fir trees, barely wide enough to accommodate the Wraith. It was really just a pair of narrow ditches, with a mass of ferns growing in the space between.

  The boughs of the pines leaned in above her, making a close, dark, narrow corridor. The Wraith had slowed to let her catch up, was only about fifty feet ahead of her. NOS4A2 rolled on, and she followed its taillights. The icy air sliced through her thin T-shirt, filled her lungs with raw, frozen breath.

  The trees began to fall away on either side of her, opening into a rock-strewn clearing. There was a stone wall ahead, with an old brick tunnel set into it, a tunnel hardly wide enough to admit the Wraith. Vic thought of her bridge. This is his bridge, she thought. A white metal sign was bolted to the stone, next to the tunnel entrance. PARK IS OPEN EVERY DAY ALL YEAR-ROUND! GET READY TO SCREAM HIP-HIP SNOW-RAY, KIDS!

  The Wraith slipped into the tunnel. Burl Ives’s voice echoed back down the brick-lined hole at her—a passageway Vic doubted had existed even ten minutes before.

  Vic entered behind him. The right-hand pipe dragged on the cobbles, throwing sparks. The boom of the engine echoed in the stone-walled space.

  The Wraith exited the tunnel ahead of her. She was close behind him, roaring out of the darkness, through the open candy-cane gates, past the nine-foot Nutcrackers standing guard, and into Christmasland at last.

- Christmasland: In the Trees