A gobbo with sallow cheeks and bulbous blood-red eyes comes at her, jaw creaking open and a tubule tongue searching the air – a glistening egg already gleaming at its tip, pushing out like a cancerous tumor through bubblegum-pink lips.

Skelly cries out. Swings with her one free skate. The wheels are Zombie wheels with hard, anodized aluminum centers. She clocks the gobbo in the side of the head, makes a mushy dent. The tongue recoils, and the creature rolls down the bone-heap with a rattle.

She kicks out. Sends another one tumbling.

A third comes up on her left. No tongue, and it takes her a second to realize what’s in the thing’s hand. It’s a Christmas stocking – grimy, greasy, and it swings like it’s got something heavy in the foot. Then she hears the jingle of change–

The gobbo swings the Christmas stocking right at her head.

She’s too slow. She feels it. She brings the skate up and knows it’ll land too late–

The gobbo is suddenly bowled backward.

With Walt on top of it.

Skelly backpedals, the osseous heap shifting beneath her. It’s hard to get purchase, hard to find stability–

The gobbos come at her.

But Walt is there again. He launches himself in front of her. Waves his arms–

“I’m all egged up!” he cries, a yawp of throaty rage. “You come at her, you might hurt your precious babies. That what you want?”

They hiss. Test him by swinging weapons – knives, broken bottles, boards with nails in them – at the air in front of his head. He whimpers with every swing.

It buys her time. She tries not to hurry, tries to focus and do it right. Skate on. Pulled tight. Laces taut.

The gobbos fan out. Walt’s just one man. They are legion.

He swipes at them. Throws bones that rebound off goblin heads.

But it doesn’t matter.

Because here they come.

Skelly doesn’t want to look. She closes her eyes and lurches forward. The skates work against her with the shifting pile beneath her, but it’s all she has.

She’s just lucky goblins aren’t tall.

Hands on hot, rubbery skin. A shriek beneath her. Her elbow connects with something–

When she opens her eyes, she sees no more goblins ahead of her.

All she sees is the downward slope of the heap.

She hits it with her head, and topples down the hill, head over feet, feet over head, end over end again and again – bones cracking her in the head, cutting her skin–

Something slashes her cheek–

Then a sting in her palm–

Green glow a swirl around her, everything a dizzying blur–

Until she lands at the bottom. Shoulder first, hard on stone. There’s a starburst of pain, but no time to think about that now. She scrabbles on hands and knees, more pain in her left hand–