Perihelion
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Agent Zupan hit the brakes as a shaggy figure jumped into the street in front of his car and suddenly, they were surrounded. As he cautiously rolled down the window, the noise outside was overwhelming.

The discordant jangling of hundreds of bells merged into a mind-numbing wall of sound that nonetheless could not cover up the occasional scream and whoop. Everywhere he looked, huge furry forms ran rampant in the streets. At nine feet tall – if you counted the horns – they towered over the car and its occupants. Unholy amalgamation of animal and man, skin and fur and feathers inelegantly joined, a beak-like snout framed by curling tusks and bristling whiskers, all topped off by an obscenely long tongue the colour of blood.

Once again, the Kurent had conquered the town of Ptuj.

As the procession of costumed men wound its way across the street and in and out of the line of stopped cars, one of the Kurent recognized Agent Zupan and gave him a cheery wave. And while any other day – any other year – the sight of the festival would have ignited a warm glow of patriotic pride within Agent Zupan, it now filled him with dread. All he could manage in return was a weak half-smile.

“Impressive,” said Researcher Harley. She was leaning in from the back seat to better see the procession. “But I don't suppose you have a local equivalent of the phrase about barn doors and bolted horses, do you?”

Agent Zupan ground his teeth, stepped on the accelerator and swerved the car past the tail end of the procession.

Agent Zupan would gladly admit that 4772 was his favourite skip. Every year for the past eleven years of his service for the Foundation he would be temporarily reassigned from his usual duties at Site-58 in London and stationed in his home village in Slovenia. He and his family would get to visit his parents for Christmas and then he would spend the next two months working behind the scenes to organise the carnival to the Foundation’s specifications.

He would handle the finances, channelling funds to local historical and ethnographic societies under the guise of a UNESCO World Heritage initiative. He would liaise with the municipal authorities and establish relationships within the local community. He would unobtrusively help every step of the way, from the planning of the carnival processions to the sewing of the costumes. Sometimes he’d even put on one of the foul-smelling sheepskin outfits and run around town ringing the bells himself. In short, he’d do everything in his power to keep the quaint local tradition of Kurentovanje alive.

Because the consequences of neglecting the ritual were too terrible to contemplate.

If there were no Kurent to scare off the winter and ring in the spring, SCP-4772 would provide some.

Of course, for almost sixty years the anomaly had been as thoroughly contained as it could be without being reclassified as Neutralised. 4772 was one of the safest field assignments and all of Agent Zupan’s colleagues back at Site-58 teased him for landing such a cushy job.

But that was before the pandemic and the new laws regarding public gatherings. The festival that had drawn thousands of visitors from across the country as well as foreign tourists to the small town of Ptuj would be cancelled. Agent Zupan and his colleagues knew that months in advance.