Talk Vomit

By Jordyn Robvais

There comes a night once a year when the fog rolls in and the moon hides away in fear. The animals go quiet, and the air becomes pregnant with a kind of chill that seeps between the marrow of your bones. It is the departing squawk of the crow which alerts the villagers that the time has come once again to fall to their knees in supplication to their forsaken gods and beg for mercy, for their families to be spared on that fast-approaching night. For if the wicked crow, with his coat of onyx and eyes of obsidian, takes flight on the Eastern Wind to shirk the approaching darkness, then maybe it is wise to offer up a prayer or two. Maybe it is a good thing to prepare, as many of the people do each year, in whatever miserable way they can. 

And so, in this brief waiting period, no more than a day or two, the narrow, cobbled village streets become alive with a sort of frantic, desperate energy. Broken windows are repaired, doors reinforced, wood chopped in surplus to feed the greedy hearth throughout the night. It is whispered that the demons flee from light, that a few quick prayers and a fire’s steady burn is all that is needed to keep the beasts away. Yet, this is the talk of fools, for if they want to come in, they will come in, these creatures of fangs and nightmares – cracking through doors, slithering down chimneys, hiding in the wisps of curling smoke and the shadows of the dancing flame, no more preventable than death itself.

 Some think them beasts of hell, Satan’s dogs sent from the bowels of the earth to leech life and hope from man, to fuel those ever-burning flames with terror and despair. Others worship the creatures as gods, lording over the common folk with the steady, terrible hand of death. It is these few who are set apart from the rest, and viewed as despicable beings, dwelling on the far side of the village. They do not desperately prepare, but wait in a sort of reverent eagerness, because they know there is no stopping the fiends, that they will simply take what they want.  

For have you not heard the chilling story of the house on the corner of Cherryton Road? On the Devil’s Night, their youngest daughter went missing from her bed with nothing left of her but rumpled sheets and still warm blankets. No trace of intrusion, as if an invisible claw had plucked her up and melted her into its darkness. Did you not hear of the poor girl’s return? It hadn’t taken the beast but an hour to be done with her, to pick her youthful bones clean and leave the remaining scraps of her before the cottage’s front door. Oh, how her mother and father shrieked upon discovering their little girl. How their horrified screams colored the night air, such melodious bellows blending and dancing with the soprano song of the crying children peering between their mother’s legs. A raucous symphony offered up to the blackness between the stars, as the hungry night opened its gaping maw to swallow their screams.

The way those beasts must have fought over her, snarled, and snapped over her. What else might one assume from the deep gouges in her bones, the evidence of caressing claws? Everyone knows it is children’s flesh that those demons covet the most. Something of their fine hair, wide eyes, soft, supple skin which tears like tissue. Something of it all invites a savage kind of bloodlust which only the howls of the utterly innocent can sate.

And so, keeping such an awful thing in mind, would it be so wrong, so truly and morally wrong, to offer up one’s own youngling as sacrifice? To whisper things of love and safety into his small ear, as he doses off in the night, yet leave his window open just a crack? Just large enough for those grasping talons to strangle him, snatch him away to feast on? Would this be such an awful thing to do if it spares the rest?

How could anyone truly blame those on the far side village, who have resorted to such a clever method of evasion. After all, it is the will to live that is beaten into the breast of every man, drives him to kill and betray. There is a festering, cruel little piece that throbs beside the heart, hatching, calculated, evil schemes to benefit the self. “What better thing,” asks this piece “than a naive child to offer up to Death? It does not know enough to fear or fight and is too dumb to understand pain.” Whispering slyly, it continues, “Far more desirable is it to die at the hands of gods than men or illness. Yes, what a tremendous honor it would be, indeed, to be sacrificed for the benefit of the masses!” And with this reasoning, awakens an entirely different monster which prowls beneath the skin and mirrors the growing blackness within the soul. It grins at the sight of babes plucked from their mothers’ arms, and sold as fodder, bares its teeth in fiendish delight at the boys and girls who go missing when they play a little too far from home. It growls in satisfaction at the young women whoring themselves in alleys and dark walkways, forcing their weak and hunger-starved bodies to serve as containers for infants, all for a few coins. 

Surely you have been told of the Orphan’s Market which comes alive under the cloak of darkness each night, a bustling hive of forsaken trade, consisting of a few thickly covered tents and the ever-present scent of urine. Inside, children squat in low, stacked cages behind each stall as their yowls and cries provide a constant background to the hum of commerce and the jangling of coins. Small, grubby fingers grip onto the cage bars, as glassy eyes peer out at the den of monsters before them. The gazes they meet are flat, merciless, greedy, even, as they are taken away to be plumped and fed. 

  These people, the ones who revere and worship the beasts, eagerly await the coming of their gods, offering prayers and fragrant smoke. They cry out with adoration and open hearts, inviting the things to come into their homes and accept the sacrifice they set beside an open window. When the night brings with it a dense veil of fog, and the crows have long since screamed their warnings, every home falls silent and the demons start to prowl. 

In the nights following the devils’ arrival, it is no uncommon thing to hear unearthly shrieks and howls from the far side of the village as the heathens sing, and dance, and writhe in honor of their beasts in a mad frenzy. Bare feet beating the dirt, they revel in blazing firelight until the sun warily peeks its head over the horizon. It is an obvious thing that those who sacrifice their little one’s fare better than those who do not, for in order to escape the fate of prey, one must become a monster himself. Yet, with freedom from death comes freedom from humanity, and the bindings, which hold one’s soul intact, unravel and snap about in the hurricane of insanity. Is stolen life truly worth its asking price? Would you snatch a babe from its mother’s belly to fill that of a beast if it meant salvation for the rest? If so, then leave a window open this night.