I'm not going to write this out so if anyone out there turns this idea into a short story, or even a best-selling novel without giving me credit, fine. And if any of you are familiar with the novel/AMC series adaptation "NOS4A2" by Joe Hill, that'll help to understand my story idea.
Years after the events of NOS4A2, Millicent Manx discovers the hood ornament to her father's Rolls Royce, Wraith model. It was where she dreamt, buried in the river near where the Wraith exploded overhead as it was crossing the disintegrating Shorter Way bridge at demonic speed, killing her father. She limped her way back to... Home? Halfway house? She's injured from previous suicide attempts, a tragic but common condition of some of the children brought back from Christmas Land.
The hood ornament is eventually bent back into shape just from Millie's obsessively polishing it over many weeks. Then one day she sees "her" Jaguar, a vintage sports car. She easily knocks the Jag ornament off with her dad's wraith one, sets it on the hood, fusing it with the car. The passenger door opens for her. Soon after the owner plops himself down behind the wheel, slams the door before noticing the girl. When he yelps in shock at her the car starts without his key. She smiles lazily at him as it pulls into gear, then casually talks about that poor girl that died in the seat she's occupying, an unfortunate reaction to the roofies he slipped her. "What was it like fucking a dead girl?" she asked him. She now knows the crimes he committed with this car because after all, it was Millie's car all along. He screams "WHO ARE YOU??" then notices the impossible, that they're on the road where he dumped that girl in a ditch over a thousand miles away. Slowly a static blizzard overtakes the scenery. He's vaguely aware of her talking about the other three girls he drugged and raped with this very car, the "passenger" that's now becoming healthier, more beautiful...
They stop at the end of the road. Static blizzard fills the sky, extends down to the road all around. Beside the road is one lonely sign, "Christmas Land ahead." Millie gets out, slowly walks to the drivers door which opens for her, the mummified body of the man falling out. She slips her hand under his right armpit, easily lifting him and throwing him into the static, vanishing forever. She gets in, makes a 3 point U-turn and drives back to the physical world.
Her mission is now to find the former children of Christmas Land, bring that place back to life, make it into something bigger. This is where the bulk of the story is, with teenagers and young adults who were taken from their former lives throughout the 20th century, occupying the inscape of Christmas Land created by the mind of Charlie Manx where they existed as happy little immortal monsters then suddenly dumped here in our 21st century when Victoria McQueen destroyed Charlie while rescuing her son. btw I don't care about grammar or overly long multi-compound sentences I'm just sitting on my bed scribbling this out thankyouverymuch! There are some very personal stories to be revealed. One in particular is a 19 year old dying of the cancer that was killing him before being rescued by Charlie in 1954. Going along with Millie will save his life but he refuses. He's in his bed at the home of his adoptive parents, petting his best friend, a Maine-coon cat. He always adored cats, until Christmasland. That was a time when, like all of Charlie Manx's other children, he would have happily lit this very cat on fire and laughed with delight as it thrashed around, eventually dying. And besides, how many people did they kill with their Scissors-for-the-Drifter games? No, he's staying here. He's dying, but he's also saved by his humanity.
There won't be a Christmasland in this story. Instead there's another inscape already existing long before Millie starts out on her quest. Let the reader assume it's built by a secret society that's been waiting for someone like Millie to come along, giving it the final solidity it needs with human occupants. It's really a place formed unconsciously by individuals scattered throughout the world, an emergent phenomenon they all unknowingly created with psychic abilities they barely knew they had. Millie stumbles onto it, she and her recruits, makes it real, turning what could have been a village into a nightmare-scape. What this particular inscape started as, eventually gets turned into, I don't know. Anymore than I know how this story concludes.
I'll leave all the rest up to you. I highly recommend reading NOS4A2. That might help you to flesh out this story, imagine your own conclusion.
