Horror Stories from Horrified - Volume One (2)

r esult of r etr eating glacier s fr om the end of the last ice age. I did not mention the lights or
the music for even then, I had a hor r ible feeling that he could neither see nor hear them.
I hur r ied back to the small office. It was dar k enough now to r equir e the light to be
tur ned on w hich gave out a faintly yellow glow. I sat at the desk and unfolded this last leaf.
Instead of disclosing the location of any of the mentioned volumes, ther e was a
disconcer ting account of an alter cation betw een the vicar and some of the village
inhabitants. The vicar , it seems, was in the chur ch w or king his way thr ough some of the
for bidden texts he had acquir ed, w hen he kept getting distur bed by the noise of childr en
playing. Evidently, the w or k he was attempting was of the utmost impor tance, for his r age
was clear ly expr essed over the page. His usually neat and consider ed w r iting became
looser and the pen mar ks fir mer and har der. Finally, he gave an account of how he had
stor med into the neighbour ing field w her e he found a dozen or so childr en dancing and
laughing and shouting. He blasphemed at them and cur sed them w ith, as he put it, 'a
never -ending dance to the death and beyond'.
And that was it, the final paper ended. No r esolution, no indication of his completing the
w or k he had set himself. Just an unsatisfactor y full stop. I looked up and star ed into the
blackness of the w indow. Then I saw again saw the faint, flicker ing glow fr om the field
outside. The fear of w hat I w ould find in that field compelled me to see it. I had to w itness
the hor r or fir st hand. I stole out into the night and flew to the field. Ther e I saw the glow
coming fr om that inver ted hill the war den had told me about. I walked over to it. Ever y
step br ought the sound of music closer and closer to me. I r eached the r im of the pit and
looked in. A dozen blue-faced childr en stagger ed and danced r ound and r ound the cir cular
dip. Their eyes w er e empty hollow s, flesh hung fr om their cheeks and their clothes w er e in
tatter s. They moved aw kwar dly as they danced and I was hor r ified to see that instead of
feet their legs ended in bloody stumps. Yet they smiled and seemed to be awar e of my
pr esence as they tur ned their dead though still animated heads towar ds me. They began to
hobble in my dir ection w ith their ghoulish ar ms outstr etched. I saw then, in the middle of
them an adult, w ear ing the black r obes of a sixteenth-centur y cler gyman and I knew that
he w hose paper s I had been r eading had been taken by them. I tur ned and fled in my car
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