Page 4 of Don't Shoot Me Santa

The boy stands, legs stiff with cold, boots grinding over salt grit. “If this is dodgy—”

“You can leave.” Santa crosses his chest. “Any time. Cross my heart.”

The boy nods.

He doesn’t smile, though.

And he follows silently. Down past the frozen riverwalk and the rusted boatyard fence. Past the Methodist chapel, with its cracked bricks and ivy strangling its spine. The cold slices through the boy’s coat. But he doesn’t complain. Nor does he even speak.

He’s learned silence the way some boys learn football. Or piano.

At the chapel gate, he hesitates. “Are you sure this is—”

Santa moves fast.

Throws the wire loop around the boy’s neck. Tightens it.

His gasp is wet and weak and ends far too soon. He claws at Santa’s gloves, but it’s instinct, not intention. Reflex, not fight.

Then his eyes lock onto Santa’s. And the realisation is beautiful.

Because Santa sees all the versions of him. The boy beneath the grime. The teenager not believed. The child who clung to some tiny ember of hope thatsomeonemight choose him one day.

Well, someone has.

And isn’t that what matters?

Being chosen. Being seen. Being made still.

No one wants to be invisible.

The garotte tightens until he folds. Then, holding him gently as if caught in prayer, Santa strokes his hair back and speaks into his ear. “Good boy.”

Because they deserve that.

All of them.

Deserve to be seen at least once.

So what if it’s in death?

The mainland profilers will circle this like vultures, muttering about compulsion, pathology, control. They’ll dress it up in diagnosis. Ritual. Obsessive pattern. Words to make the darkness feel distant. Contained. Academic.

But they’ll miss the point.

This isn’t about power. It never was.

It’smercy.

Because the world eats boys like this alive. Strips their softness, starves their gentleness, sharpens them against their will, then punishes them for the edges. Forgets them until they’re useful. Until they become cautionary tales, or corpses to moralise over on the six o’clock news.

But Santa doesn’t forget.

Isn’t that the oldest story of all? The benevolent shadow figure in the dead of winter, cloaked in names and bells and bone-deep judgement. Slipping through cracks and whispers,unseen. Watching. Weighing. Choosing. Not giving. Butdeciding.

Saint Nicholas. Father Winter. Belsnickel. Knecht Ruprecht.

Santa was never about presents under the tree.