The man did as Stanley asked, took another drag on his cigarette and ran one blood smeared hand through his already bedraggled hair. He was dressed in a T-shirt and checkered sleeping pants. His eyes were huge, wild and bloodshot.

"Let's start at the beginning. OK? Start from when you went to bed last night."

Daniel took a deep breath and looked down at the table. He looked like a man who was trying hard not to throw up. Then he looked up into Staley's eyes and suddenly the detective was afraid. It wasn't the type of fear that you felt on the street, the type when you were afraid that you weren't going to make it home. This was the fear of his childhood, the fear of things under the bed and boogiemen in the closet. Part of him still wanted to believe in monsters.

Stanley fought a shiver and turned on the mic in front of Daniel.

"Lizzie and I went to bed after finally getting the kids to sleep around ten. They were excited and we let them write a note to Santa and leave a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. It was a trad…"

He almost broke down right there, and if he did, then that would be the end of his testimony. Stanley put his hand on the man's shoulder.

"Take your time."

"I'm alright. I just can't believe that they're gone."

"Take a deep breath and go on. They'd want you to tell what happened Daniel," Stanley said, trying to make the man believe that he was on his side. He had to keep him talking

"OK. So we went to bed about ten and I guess we fell asleep pretty quickly. We'd been on the road for most of the day. We go to Lizzie's parents on Christmas Eve and then we go to mine on Christmas day after we open presents. "We woke up; I guess it was about one. We heard this weird scratching noise coming from downstairs. And there were these voices, but they didn't sound human. They were really high pitched almost like squealing. So I grabbed the bat from under the bed. We keep it there just in case ya know, and I snuck down the stairs. We don't have a phone jack in our room so I would have had to go downstairs to call 911 anyway.

"I rounded the stairway and peeked around the wall. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. They were these little people, like three or four inches high. Shit, I know how crazy this sounds, but they were there in my living-room. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. So now I don't know what to do. They were eating Santa's cookies and drinking his milk. They weren't like the elves that you picture at the North Pole. These little fuckers, excuse my language, were dirty. They were covered in soot from our chimney and their clothes were ripped. A few of them had scraggly looking beards and one of them was naked from the waist down and he was pissing all over the presents. Some of them carried little toolboxes and others carried swords and spikes, ya know like spears. They were climbing all around in the Christmas tree and tearing open the packages.

"I tried to get to the phone. Usually we bring the cordless up to the bedroom, but I guess we put it on charge and forgot it when we went to bed. I snuck down the hallway and tried to run past the doorway to the living room where they were, but one of them saw me and they all let out this ungodly howl and came running. I almost made it to the phone, but they were all over my back and my legs, chewing on me."