No, I didn’t kill the man in the tree nor can I even guess why some poor, foolish stranger may wander down these streets alone. Yes, I heard screams, but we always hear screams this time of year. Most people that live here don’t look out the windows. Those that did only saw the dark between street lamps. Maybe if he walked just one more block the victim and whoever killed him would have been exposed by the christmas tree light. But everyone here who heard his cries closed the blinds and comforted their meagre guests. We don’t get many visitors, and we don’t go out on winter nights. We all know the story.
One hundred years back- 1918- A clever dog master trained his hound to smell for leather, and together they stalked the night. With a screwdriver he pried door panels away, and sent his hound inside. He listened to the springing of its nostrils, and the clicks of its claws on the floor. Then a moment of silence came. The burglar wandered back, sat by the fence, and waited. The sniffing stopped, but its paws resonated from the opening, and its bright eyes appeared, a shoe in its mouth retrieved for its master. The burglar fed treats to his dog, then moved to the next house.
Together they robbed thirty houses of their footwear. In the snow of winter, their value only increased. However he didn’t sell them. Instead he gave them away to barefoot orphans and vagrants so they may avoid catching frostbite.
Money does make its demands though, so he spent months training the dog to find and recover pouches of sand. Then by night, he strode to the workshops of silversmiths, pulled back the panels, and let the dog inside. Once it came out with a bag, the burglar opened it and stirred the powder inside, then drew out his finger to see in the moonlight. Silverdust. On their way back, he let the dog into the homes of the smith’s for their shoes as well.
He did this trick a few times, but each neighborhood had one jeweler, and if they had three jewelers, they had one silversmith. It didn’t take long to figure out the burglar targeted them. Most decided the let the law handle the matter, but one smith lived where just months before his neighbors suffered loss at the hands of the burglar, so he explained to them “He knows where I am. He will strike me soon if not next, and when he does he will be sorry.”
This smith planted all his bags of silver powder out on the shop floor, and he poked them open at the bottom with a crochet needle. He put a pistol under his pillow, and went to bed peacefully. The smith awoke before sunrise when the tower bell tomed. With his gun he entered the workshop, and found one bag missing, and a faint trail or dust leading to a hole in his wall. Going out the door barefoot, he followed the trail and it lead him over a bridge to the bones of unfinished buildings, and beyond farther to where the road is narrowed to a sidewalk from the tight capacity of crammed buildings, larger buildings interlocked by small ones, with no lanterns to light their front door. Instead messages scribbled on the walls in strange languages read of unfathomable philosophies.
Now, I never would’ve made it past the bridge, and I for sure would’ve ran away at the sight of the mystery graffiti, but he kept going, the discovery small patches of spilled silver propelling him to where he found bars caging the collared skeletons of hounds.
He came to one last grouping of silver dust before the warming, red light of a shack candle flickering in the window. Outside, a hound chewed on its treat before a small house, better insulated than the shack, with carpet and shingles on the roof. A lantern kept the dogs house warm, and quilts covered its back. He drank from dripping icicles, and when he did this the smith took his chance to unfurl his weapon and send bolts into its heart. The dog shook and whimpered. The smith peeked into the shack to find his shoes, but saw only the occupant making his dog treats from the meal he used his money to purchase. The smith leveled his gun again, but his feet hurt from the cold, so he yelped in victory, then ran back the way he came from. Behind him rose the soul shuttering quakes of a weeping man.
The christmas tree didn’t have many decorations on it that year besides some ribboned paper. The sun didn’t rise, but when the tower bell tomed again, he hoped for dawnlight to guide him home, instead he looked up to find the cloud layers falling. Tiny shavings of snow spiced the narrow streets. The cages he crossed before sat empty. Collar tags jingled, and paws beat at cold plaques paving the passage. When he came to the unfinished projects, he heard painfully restrained snarls, and heard claws scrape dust. When he looked into the pockets kept clear of snow he saw fleeting heels banish themselves to the dark realms behind them. When he looked across the bridge, the Smith saw the bones of these creatures sitting, patient, and as they panted steam escaped through the holes in bottom of their jaws, and eye sockets.
No one knows what happened after that. The sun rose moments afterwards, and when everyone came out to view the christmas tree that morning they found it decorated in entrails, shattered shin bones, spine segments, torn clothes dripping with blood, his ribcage replaced the star, but his head- they never recovered.
Eversince on the days leading to christmas, we have to listen to his screams again and again. The part of town he followed the hound master to has since been turned into parking lots, but in return his ghost still stalks our street in search for stray dogs to kill. If you search pockets of the dead man, you will find the bone shaped treats made from the hands of the houndmaster made from the bonemeal of the smith’s skull.
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