They were skeletons skrinkwrapped in skin,

with boots too big for their feet, 

tied up tight,

as if without them they might blow away. 

 

And they had a tinge of the green about them. 

 

We don’t know where they came from

but we think they came from the woods. 

Tho Missus Hopkirk says she saw one slip out of a pond

[but of course she can’t be trusted,

 

not after what happened]. 

 

 

 

They spread like marbles.

​

Dark hoodies, long arms, glowing egg-yolk eyes - 

in the fields,

in the square,

down by the river and the railroad tracks. 

 

You'd know one was close because you’d start tasting metal

and the light would go out in your torch.

So that’s why we started travelling in pairs,

and arranged a ribbon-tying system.

 

Tho that didn’t stop the young Adams girl going missing.

 

 

Horrible.

 

 

 

Anyway, 

 

 

the Wilkes said they’d seen some out on the roads, cutting cables,

and so they’d tried to run them down

but had gotten scared, and two days later they found it

- [the car, I mean] -

upside down with a stake through its heart.

 

And Old Sack punched one ‘square in the mouth’ [he said] 

but his hand went ‘straight through’ [he said]

and all he could hear was this

thin whistle.

 

I remember finding one on the roof of the outhouse where Crisp died 

[do you recall?], 

and I asked ‘what are you doing here’ 

[in as many words]

but it said nothing, just peeled back its lips and showed me its tooth. 

 

One long tooth - more like a horn,

rooted in a gum the colour of sick - 

and I remember thinking ‘how do you even begin to floss something like that?’ 

 

 

 

By the fifth day, it became a struggle leaving the house.

Meanwhile, they continued to come, 

 

pouring bad stuff on the allotments,

clogging the postboxes with dirt.

And sometimes they’d just stand by your back windows and stare,

stare at you, 

till their eyes went red.

 

 

 

A meeting was called. 

The birds wouldn’t be coming back; 

the church was still missing;

and something big was burning, over the ridge. 

 

We thought a collective: fuck 

it can’t 

it can’t end

not like this.  

 

And so we decided: 

something must be done.

 

Duke’s son said he’d learnt they liked car air fresheners - 

said they liked the taste - 

maybe we could build a trap.  

 

Nobody listened. 

Instead we just put more locks on the doors. 

And not long after that

the TVs stopped working

and all the milk dried up. 

 

​

 

Morale was so low not even the good sandwiches could save it.

By the tenth day, the meetings stopped.  

 

​

 

And we called the search for the Adams girl off when we found the rib.  

​

​

 

I forgot the names of neighbours and I forgot the faces of friends.

I put tins into boxes and boxes into secret places.

I sharpened my dog’s leg into a stake.

I was very thorough. 

 

And still they kept coming. 

Turning the air zinc.

Leaving things on your doorstep.  

Putting black lines through street signs and

turning cameras to look the other way. 

 

I found Duke’s son one dusk-time

tangled up in a fence and he had

a car air freshener crunched into his mouth 

- y’know, the ones shaped like a little tree? -

with the words ‘black ice’ printed on it. 

I wanted to ask him what happened but I couldn’t because he was dead. 

​

​

 

The smell of the smoke was pretty loud now. No signal in days. 

One had gotten into the cellar,

and some in the attic too.

Chewed through the rotten bricks, I think.

​

Obviously, I didn't go look,

but I could hear the shuffling 

so I put salt on the stairs just in case, like the lady'd said.  

​

​

​

Last I heard there was a plan, those who were left

would go into the deep trees -

follow the whistle

- take a gun  

and ‘nip the bud’.

Stem the flow. Kill the code.  

End this. 

​

The gunshots came last night,

cracked the valley wide open,

and this morning the sky was full of goo. Orange and milky, a pale syrup.  

We've drawn the curtains and are trying not to look.

​

All I'm thinking is: I hope we haven't pissed them off. 

They've got ways and

the front door can't take much more of this,

it's buckling under the weight and

I'm running out of candles and

we haven't enough peaches left and

the bad dreams are running thick.

​

I'm seeing Crisp

by the little brook 

and he's holding out his hands

and they're full of bones.

​

​

​

Them.

They're sly.  

[I think they know - 

 

you can see it in their eyes -

in the yellow -

that's a dark dark mischief - - 

that's a badness].

​

In horror, I empty out the fridge,

and conceal myself within.

I have juice, sandwiches, and a bundle of cloves,

rocks in a sock,

and I'll exist here,

behind the vacuum seal.

​

Feel the suck of dark

the damp

the green.

Feel my mind go there and return,

shrinkwrapped. 

Tight.

​

And we are changed. 

 

​

​

Inspired by a daydream - hooded figures, coming out the woodwork, descending on a town. A quiet invasion.   

​