gabbleratchet

Gabbleratchets are pack hunters. The noise arrives first — a layered sound, something between a hound baying and a child weeping, multiplied across however many there are that murkneet. The human heads are the worst part, if you're unfortunate enough to see them. Bodies are the dense, dark build of a large dog, wings folded tight until they dive. The faces are human in structure. The expression is not. The eyes track differently — the range is wrong; they hold a direction and then skip, like a machine that was never taught what looking costs.

There are two dangers, and the second is worse. Hearing the pack without seeing them seeds a madness — not violent, not dramatic, a quiet unlocking. Victims walk with arms outstretched, staring, unable to speak. They are replicating something. Whether they know it, I can't say. The condition persists. I have been told it doesn't improve.

If they see you — if you run, or step from cover into the open murk — they take the soul. The body keeps working for a while. The soul doesn't come back. I have no clinical category for this. I can only describe what's left.

They hunt the newly dead first, then the unbaptised, then the lost. The living are third on the list, but they're on the list. The old name was Skriker — from the dialect word for howl or shriek — and before that Cŵn Annwn, the Hounds of the Underworld, led by something black-horned through The Dark Peak sky. I have not confirmed the black-horned figure. I prefer not to.

Field note: Do not run. Stay under cover. Do not look up. Murk-covered ground over open sky, every time, even when the murk is deep.

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