The Crooked Hounds

I watched as Monroe sipped his hot cocoa and stared into the flames of the roaring hearth, before which we sat so comfortably. Our large, overstuffed armchairs offering a place of safety and grounding while my friend regaled his tale of which I could barely believe. I felt a chill draft and pulled my blanket tighter about myself. I looked around, the room surrounding us I knew was large, but beyond the dull orange glow of flames the room plunged into darkness and I dared not stare for too long beyond the dancing sphere of light cast by our hearth, for fear of the dread I felt within.

Returning my attention to Monroe I asked he retell the story, for hope analysis of recent events may bring to light plausible answers to his story of strange, supernatural occurrences, and thereby calm our nerves at such a late hour. Monroe drank the last half of his hot cocoa. Then shivered and hunkered down into his blanket, before sighing and beginning his narrative anew.

~ I lay curled upon my bed fast asleep beneath satin sheets, when I was roused by a rather loud crashing noise. I sat upright and endeavoured to deduce what it may have been. A falling pan in the kitchen perhaps? After a few minutes of sitting still and silent, I did not hear so much as the squeak of a mouse and decided to fall back to sleep. ~

"Did you not suspect a burglar?" I interjected.

"It did not enter my mind, as the house is ancient, far from town, and contains nothing of any value."

Monroe continued.

~ I was awoken once again, this time by the furious neighing and the startled whinny of my horse, Franklin, in the stable outside. I sat up and peered through my window. It was a new moon and the night was dark yet the crooked shadow of the shape of a man wandering out of sight behind the stable was unmistakable. Now as you know I enter my horses in the local village races, so I suspected the apparent wraith a saboteur, come to lame my prize gelding.

I rose with reluctance from the warmth and comfort of bed, lit a candle and resolved to investigate the matter. I quickly reached the front door and donned my winter jacket from the coat rack, then selected my favourite walking stick, a sturdy sword-cane. I stepped out into the night, bracing against the cold winter air as I moved ever cautiously toward the stable.

The tortured call of a fox startled me and I hurried over to Franklin, hushing and soothing him by rubbing his nose and speaking in gentle tones. Looking about I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, a feeling not to be ignored. I unsheathed my sword, which glinted in the candle light, before making my way behind the stable, sword point first. I discovered no saboteur but instead an entire wall splattered in a dark substance that could only be blood for the smell of iron was so strong as to cause me to wretch. What I saw before me shocked me so, that I dropped my candle in a bale of hay, this is dry hay mind you and the flames leapt into the night, pushing back the shadows and darkness. What the flames revealed is a scene best suited to a horror story than reality.

A dozen hounds, their bodies bent and misshapen, prowled before me. Heads lowered and growling, lips peeled back baring their slavering fangs. Their horrifying forms constructed of the night's shadows to form pelts of onyx black. But the eyes, I will never forget the eyes, for they glowed a pale blue as piercing as the winter air.

Heat from the fire spurred me from my paralysis and I flew from the dogs of hell. Unlatching the stable door I leapt upon the back of Franklin and together we cantered across the garden onto the woodland trail. Chilling howls broke the silence of the night and told of the demons' pursuit. Even now I can feel Franklin's muscles tense as he sensed hunters approaching.

Following the seldom used back trails of the forest, it wasn't until I reached the edge of your land an hour later that, hearing nothing of my pursuers, I finally slowed Franklin to a trot, my own heart pounding with the fear of pursuit and with my horse lathered with sweat and foaming at the mouth from our rapid escape from those nightmarish hounds of hell, finally knocked upon your door for succour. ~

"From there, my friend, I invited you in, sat you before my fire, and set about making soothing hot cocoas." Said I, ending Monroe's account.

"For which I am ever grateful."

"There is one matter that gnaws at my mind, and it's that of the hideous shadow you proclaim seeing wondering beside your stable."

"Oh yes, I forgot about that." Replied Monroe, his eyes widening in recollection at the hideous form he'd seen stalking his stable block. "I believe my eyes must have been playing tricks on me for the grotesque outline of some hunched and deformed creature I witnessed in the darkness, could hardly have been human, and must surely have been yet another of those monstrous slavering beasts."

"No, your observation was quite sound, the figure you saw was, by your description, that of the Crooked Man. He stalks the night transforming from man to beast in search of vulnerable prey to feed his pack of vicious hounds. I read of it in a collection of folk stories, the Crooked Man is in all accounts a supernatural tale to scare children. Yet here you are, and as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once wrote, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." From the moment you described the disfigured shadow wolves with pale eyes I knew there was no hope, no chance of escape. You are already a condemned man and by coming here you have sentenced me to the same fate."

At this the floorboards began creaking as a tall misshapen figure moved forward from within the shadows surrounding us, the pungent smell of iron assaulted our nostrils as further shadowy deformed outlines advanced upon us, and as I looked into my doomed companion's face I saw he too was gripped by dread and assailed by the stench of death.

"Oh my dear Monroe, I believe he has found us."