Many weathered faces look down on the passerby, some of them almost human. Gargoyles, green men, Venus reclining on a shell, and a dragon carved into the wood of the only remaining half-timbered building on the High Street, the oldest face of all.

When Peter was new to the town, a year or so ago, he noticed all these architectural flights of fancy with interest. Then he forgot they existed and only saw the shopfronts and the people walking, and on some days nothing but his own thoughts or the messages on his phone.

The dragon was carved just above head height. It was about a metre long and appeared to be crawling down the facade. When Peter first saw it he took a photo, thinking it looked more like a bored iguana. He shared the photo on Instagram, had a laugh, moved on.

Walking to the pub one evening, just at twilight, the street lights only beginning to warm up, the sky was deep blue, darkening by the minute. There was no-one else around, which was unusual, but Peter did not notice because he was absorbed in the music piped into his ears from his phone, and his own internal obsessions. Then the music stopped, and so did he.

His phone was dead. He stared down into its blank black face and saw only his own reflection. This was a mystery. Half an hour ago the phone was fully charged. He shook it, banged it against the palm of his left hand, swore. None of that made any difference. He swore some more, pulled out his earbuds, then swore again.

That was when he noticed that there was no-one else in the street, not even a passing car. For a fleeting moment he wondered if the Apocalypse had happened and he’d missed it.

A street light flickered into almost full brightness a few metres further along and he dismissed the fancy. He shook his phone again, though he knew it would do no good.

Behind him there was a loud creak like a ship’s timbers flexing in a heavy sea. Startled, he turned towards the sound and saw the carved dragon looking directly at him. He flinched, and was glad there was no-one to see his reaction. He laughed, but then it seemed to him that the dragon’s head used to look downwards, not to the left as it did now. He thought of the photo on his phone and went to check it, but of course —

The creaking sound came again and he looked up quickly to see the carved dragon actually shifting on its front legs the better to stare him in the eye.

He yelped and backed off. Automatically, he held up his phone to try to film what he was seeing, but of course —

Above him there was now the sound of stone grinding on stone. He looked up to see that all along the street every bit of architectural decoration that had a face was turning to look at him. Gargoyles, green men, some weird snake things that he’d previously thought were vines, even Venus, every one of them turned to look at him. Then, slowly, they began to creep across the facades of the buildings in his direction.

He yelped again and started to run, convinced that he heard the clatter of stony feet hitting the ground behind him. If only he could record any of it, but of course —

The sun finally dropped below the horizon and all the street lights came on. Peter cannoned into someone waiting to cross the road. There were cars going by and the normal number of people everywhere. After he apologised at length to the offended person, Peter looked back along the street. Illuminated by the mercury lights, each and every one of the statues and carvings was frozen in its usual place and attitude, although the body of one of the snakes did seem to droop a bit further down than the other.

He stared for a while, wondering if he had been dreaming while awake.

The phone buzzed in his hand and he almost dropped it. Just a notification, but the screen was lit up, and when he put his earbuds back in, the music was playing where it left off.

Afterwards, he never failed to look at the populace of the building fronts, to nod to the dragon, smile at Venus, recognise that they were there, and hope that they would never move again.