When we were kids, my brother and I were obsessed with trapping Santa Claus. We crisscrossed the den with fishing line. We stretched glue-slathered plastic wrap across the fireplace. We scattered thumbtacks around the Christmas tree. We loved building traps. But we never caught him.

Now, heavy footsteps thud overhead as I load another nail-spiked board into the spring-loaded trap inside the fireplace. With the windows and doors boarded shut, the chimney is the only way in.

“You sure this’ll work?” my brother asks.

Dust drifts down the chimney as the undead on the roof begin their descent.

“It better.”

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