Julie mentioned a prompted featuring animals at the writing group on Friday 5th Dec 25. so of course my mind did its thing and a pome and story was born:


’Twas the night before Christmas, and through every room,
Not a creature was sleeping—there was scratching and gloom.
The stockings hung limp by the chimney with care,
But the gifts had been stolen—rats had been there.

They poured from the shadows, with claws sharp,
Gnawing and clawing in the dead of the night.
The cookies were crumbs, the milk long since gone,
And the sound of their chittering droned on and on.

They stripped all the presents, each ribbon and bow,
Devoured the sweetness, left nothing to show.
And where there were treasures, now broken toys lay.
Relics of neglect, of love gone astray.

No jolly old laughter, no sleigh in the sky,
Just red eyes that glittered and tails whipping by.
For Christmas had curdled, turned bitter and black,
As Silas and vermin prepared their attack.


Forgotten Gift

Snow drifted over the city, soft and relentless, like ash from a dying fire. The streets gleamed under icy, twinkling, pulsing lights. While hurried footsteps pattered against frozen pavement. Carols floated through the air, mingling with the sharp scent of pine and cinnamon that rode the frigid wind.

Beneath that glittering world sprawled a kingdom of mildew and ruin. A labyrinth stitched together by rusted pipes and dripping stone. In the gloom, claws scraped against slime-slick brick.

Once, long ago, it had been called Silas. Now he crouched on a mound of sodden rage, staring upward, growing colder in body and in heart. He remembered warmth. The glow of fairy lights shimmering like distant stars, the tender hands of a child, the gilded cage with its little wheel, the summer sun on his back. He had been a gift, begged for and adored. For a brief season, he mattered. But affection, like fruit, rots quickly.

She grew bored. Forgot to feed him. Forgot to clean his cage. Nights stretched long and bitter into a cruel December evening. Silas was cast out with the rubbish, his cage tossed into the snow beside the bins, abandoned in the dead of night. Snow buried him in a shallow grave. He shivered in the darkness, cold and alone, until the knock came.

A snarl split the night. The cage rattled, rolled, splintered open. Silas tumbled into the snow, thin and trembling, heart pounding as green eyes gleamed in the dark. He ran. A yowl tore the silence as he slipped into blackness.

With a splash, he plunged into frigid water. He thrashed and clawed until his paws found a rope dangling from the shadows. He clung to it, dragging himself up with the last of his strength, collapsing onto the brick. He lay shivering, staring at the faint light streaming from far above.

Two years passed in the gloom. Hope curdled into hatred, fermenting until it frothed and bubbled. In those years he collected things, broken, discarded things. Hoarding them like trophies. His smile was a crack in the dark.

‘This time,’ he vowed, ‘she will remember.’ He was only missing one thing.

Silas scurried along the pipes, plotting, until he reached the surface. He emerged near the bin where he had been discarded. There, dangling from the metal rim, hung a crimson-and-white coat, stiff as a corpse’s shroud, and a cap bent like a broken halo. He grinned. That was what he was missing. The memory flashed in his mind. The large man in the same outfit, placing wrapped things under a tree, or into a sock hanging on the wall.

The suit fit Silas like a shroud.

Down into the sewers he slunk, catching his reflection in a shattered bottle. He looked the part now. All that remained was to summon the swarm.

‘It is time,’ his voice slithered through the damp tunnels. Red eyes flickered in the blackness, drawing closer. ‘Tonight, my friends, we strike. The night of the man in red. Take what you will from them… but leave something from my horde in return.’

Up to the house they ran, scurrying into the walls, under the floors. Clawing and gnawing their way to the living room. Hundreds of rats poured forth, they stripped the tree, took the gifts, devoured the cookies. In place of bright packages, they left broken toys.

A timid voice pierced the quiet. ‘Santa…?’
She clutched a night light, bare feet padding across the floor.

‘Yes,’ hissed the dark. ‘Santa.’

She stepped closer, unaware of the vermin lurking just beyond sight. She approached the tree, and her face fell. She kneeled, tears spilling down her cheeks.

‘Broken… all broken. I don’t want these.’

‘You did once. Oh, how you begged for them. Then cast them aside. I know their pain.’

Her sobs trembled in the air.

‘Now you’ll learn yours.’

The rats surged forward, clawing at her nightdress, teeth sinking into flesh. Her screams smothered beneath a tide of matted fur. They dragged her down, deep into the black beneath the world.

Silas crouched in the gloom, scratching a note with a jagged nail:

We grow bored with her. We’ll throw her away.

John Stone