<br/>When Jude shook the poker at them, the boots retreated, seeming to shuffle behind and over each other in their haste to escape.  They shuffed around the corner of the suede couch, the toes of the boots just visible behind the edge of the fabric.<br/><br/>And, aside from the fact that they appeared to be moving entirely on their own volition, without being attached to any sort of visible leg or foot, they appeared to be just a perfectly ordinary pair of footwear.  There were no jagged mouths, no vestigial limbs, no reddened eyes--just soles, and insteps, and the criss-cross of leather laces.<br/><br/>One of the boots--it was difficult to tell if it was the left one or right one--edged back around the couch after a moment, and just sat there, the laces regarding Jude cautiously.<br/><br/>Outside, the snow fell in lazy sheets.<br/>