The Cobbler and the Demons by Andrew Kurtz

The cobbler awoke to find shoes stitched from his children’s flayed skin. Each night, skeletal creatures with bone needles emerged from hell’s crevices, weaving screaming souls into leather.

Their wages: his family’s eternal torment—and his complicity in their suffering.

The townspeople worshipped his cursed footwear, each step spreading plague.  When he begged for death, the demons peeled away his eyelids, forcing him to witness their harvest. His wife’s face became boot soles, and his infant’s skull lined the heel.

Now, customers bring their own children as offerings, and the cobbler’s mouth has been sewn shut with his daughter’s hair.