Since I moved to the city, I've been trying to find a basement apartment, or at least swap with one of the people who live in the flats at the centre of my building. True, back home I was on the first floor of house, but that was out in the countryside, a rural town, we didnt have these kind of creatures back there.
Theres three kinds of them. The first kind is friendly. I've named them the Street Striders. I know you've all seen the thing about the forest striders and dismissed it as bullshit, but these are different. They look kind of like Giraffes, but with short, grotesque black bodies, theyre kind of skinless too. They have short necks, almost goatlike heards with distorted eyes and long tongues. Mostly theyre just curious. You see them most nights here, when its quiet. They walk down the street, looking for anything like discarded pizza or paper, something they can eat. Theyre freaky but timid. if they see you they just bolt off on those long distended legs of theirs. The other two are more troublesome by far. The second variety are the Stilted shrouds. Imagine someone took a babys head,, cut it in half and used all the connective tissue and brain membrane in it and the sinews of its jaw to make long, pulpy legs. They walk too, when the Striders have cleared the way. They are so much more sinister. They make a deep booming noise, like a whale if they see you peeking out at them. Gather round your window til you close the curtains. If they get lucky, they'll catch a drunk or a tramp or a junkie and something from within will drop down, ensnare them and carry them inside, leaving only a heap of ruined, soiled clothes and some sort of jelly from inside the human body.... I hope. I've only heard tales of the last kind myself, from the old man down the road who owns the middle eastern grocery shop. Elfayed is his name. He told of a horrendous creature, the qulpuc he called it, though in our language the nearest translation would be sewer goblin. He described it as being about the size of a man, maybe a bit smaller. It's skin is very pale white, almost translucent. It is also covered in weeping tumours, vile cysts, open sores and horrendous boils. It's face itself is something quite alien and eldritch. It is only a goblin in very superficial terms. Its eyes are large, voluminous and damnably gelatinous. It searches for light from windows, though it cant see past curtains or blinds since its eyes are adapted to the half light so well. If your lights are off or you're curtains drawn then your safe. But if your lights are on, your curtains open and you live in the city, read stories like this at your computer at night and hear a scratching at your window... well good luck. They hunt by smell and sound once they found a target. They'll smash that window clean open too.