It was a clear, dark night and nobody walked the streets. The usual quiet hum of traffic was absent tonight. Every window was covered, every light was off. Doors were not only locked and bolted, but reinforced with chairs and couches and bookshelves.
If one listened well enough, you could hear the quiet breathing of an entire city: shaky, expectant.
Children stifled their whimpers as the clattering began – the deliberate clicking of bone on cobblestone as ancient skeletons began to wander the streets. Mothers hugged their children close, buried beneath coats and shoes in their innermost closets. Fathers relinquished their hard-held concepts of masculinity as they clung to their children’s teddy bears.
Deep in the heart of the city, a single tavern bustled with energy. The lights weren’t on, and the doors were locked like everywhere else, but in its basement sat its usual constituents. The bartender poured frothy beers quietly, but his patrons, red-faced and jolly, couldn’t help but giggle and joke in the face of absolute terror.
The celebratory aura of impending doom radiated from the basement to the buildings all around. It made those who wished for quiet uneasy. They so wished the night would pass and the morning would come and they would be safe. But with such noise, the skeletons would soon come.
The bar flies were afraid of this too, but they long ago learned to quell fear with the courage of liquor.
Words of Crepuscule 