
Did you see Mark Hayes come dancing through the streets last night? The church bell hammered out a lonely chime for the solstice, as night consumed the town. Did you watch from your window, as he moved between the pools of light? His trousers were full of the patterns of darkness, and they did not move in accordance with his dance.
Like the pied piper he went, only I’m fairly sure what he had there was a slightly out of tune crumhorn. The Yule Goats loved it. I heard the clatter of their bones upon the cobbles, I witnessed their monstrous cavorting as they passed through the brighter spaces nearer to the lamps.
What will we do if ever those lamps go out? That blessing of protection from the worst abominations of the darkness. I wish I knew how the lamps work, so that I could contribute to their ongoing light. But even so, I was not thankful that I could see the bone goats.
I followed after them. Some of us felt that compulsion, in the wailing call of the pipe and the horror of bones in motion. Some of us – a mere handful of troubled souls – followed them all as they made their winding journey. We had to know what would follow, no matter how terrible it might be.
They came to that place where witches have been burned. There, the bone goats fell upon Mark Hayes. He made no resistance as they devoured him. How bones could consume, I do not know, and yet they fed. Where they fed, they grew, becoming fleshy themselves, then in turn to be torn apart by other goats in an orgy of mutual consumption. In the end, only one goat remained, bigger by far than all that had preceded it. This goat leapt into the night, running across roofs before disappearing from sight.
Nothing remained of Mark Hayes, but the fallen crumhorn and those cursed trousers.
But then, this is not the first time he’s died so frankly all bets are off.
After the darkness had settled, and the silence had grown. While eyes were else where, someone retrieved the trousers.
And strange haltering laughter was heard in echo’s through the fog.
So that’s not ominous at all…
Ominous trousers will be back next week 🙂