Halloween ’23
It was the sound of water lapping on the wharves
brine crusted pilings that alerted me.
The dense roving fog had not only blinded but also
muffled my very footsteps in the darkness.
Now, standing still in the eerie soup, another sound
shuffled closer, causing my heart to speak in my ears.
My vision adjusted, blurred, adjusted again until a
silhouette formed causing my breath to catch.
I was not alone….
My body froze along with the very blood in my veins
as I slid against the nearest plank wall.
The dampness hid my motion in a veil of secrecy,
embracing me as its own. Only the scent of fresh
rot filled my senses and my hearing continued to
betray me.
My eyes drew to slits straining to regain
the form of the creature stalking me. Surely my life
wouldn’t end on this putrefying wharf, here on the
waters edge.
I had to believe in destiny, my destiny.
My breath caught once again as I listened to whisper
quiet footsteps now less than a dozen paces in the
distance.
I cursed myself for allowing this unknown
to lure and trap me here with only one means of escape.
A starlit shadow moved over me, then slowly past where
I was hiding in the pitch dark, clutching a small
dagger, my only defense,
I waited for the fates to decide if I survived these
last few hours before dawn.
There had been better clutches in which to hide, more
defensible, had I known the darkness was secreting death
in its arms.
The lapping waves, moved by a sudden night breeze, caused
one of the moored boats to rock against the lashing and
the following silence betrayed how close my enemy
neared me.
I heard a sudden intake of breath, severe, then a snort,
betraying the evil that wanted my flesh.
My heart skipped several beats, as I fully understood.
This solitary hound of hell, separated from its pack, moved
away, down the fog soaked boardwalk in search of the sound of prey.
Only the urgency of the coming dawn could have motivated
this change in tactic.
I felt my hand quiver from the grip on my utterly useless
weapon. No earthly defense could stave off the gnashing
jaws of a hellhound after it had marked its quarry.
I felt my very reserve wilt as I considered my short future!
No human had lived to tell of surviving such an encounter.
My only recourse was to flee at first daylight and put as
much distance as possible between us, as much as the
late Fall sunlight gave me on the coming day.
Who had commissioned this brute to deliver me
to the gates of hell?
How many of its brothers were in league to search me out?
My life, what was left of it, would never be the same.
……………………
Copyright 2023
