Halloween “Tropes” Honorable Mention
Blood is sticky, that’s what no one ever tells you. It’s like maple syrup. No, thicker. Honey. But it doesn’t taste even nearly as good. Their hearts are full of it. The heart is the center. When they’re fresh, at least. I bite into them from the bottom, to keep as much of it in as I am able to, to not make a mess. Still, even now, it overflows from my mouth and drips down my chin, trickling down my neck and disappearing between my breasts. It’s no different than a juicy summer peach. There’s not much to do about it. I suppose I could make a pie, a meatloaf, a stew. But that takes too long. And I prefer beef over human. It’s best if I’m done with it quickly. So, when I’m finished chewing the tough, meaty muscle, I lick my lips and trace the stream up from my chest to my mouth with my ring finger and lick it clean. I look at their face, pale with sunken cheeks I can feel under the palm of my hand. I wonder if I should pay some respects to the soul. I think that’s what savages do, thank Mother Nature for the food she has provided us with. I decide against it. I have a bone to pick with Mother.
Their eyes are open still, turned a bit upwards, and I move to my next step. The eyes are the windows. They’re not unlike the gummy eyes children eat for Halloween, if only a bit wetter. They make a weird sloshing sound when I dig my nails into the sockets. They don’t go out easy, bravely resisting the force trying to rip them out. The ganglia, the nerves and the collateral tissue are all sticking out of the back, dripping blood and fat all over my fingers. The whole ordeal is terribly wet and messy, the thin fabric of my dress soaked and sticking to my shins and knees where I kneel in a pool of their blood that’s beginning to creep up my thighs. I’ve wasted a lot of it. I’ll have to try to make all this more elegant next time, I think as I bite into one of the eyeballs. I expected them to be hard, but they’re soft. The texture reminds me of jelly beans, thick on the outside and gelatinous on the inside. I don’t love it, but maybe I could. It tastes like it could be an acquired taste.
I get up and bend their wrists above their head, before the rigor mortis fully sets in. I take both of them in my hands and start dragging the body towards the veranda. It would be a lot for a woman of my stature, in usual circumstances. But my first meal is also a woman, and she’s lost a lot of blood. So, I manage, albeit leaving a bloody trail behind us. It’ll be a pain mopping the floor afterwards. And it’s such a waste, too. I’ll have to make this a lot more elegant next time.
Out on the veranda, I take a rope and tie a noose around her ankles. I make it tight, painful. Not like she can feel it. Not like her death was painless. Not like I cared if she felt pain. I throw the rope over a hook in the ceiling and move a bit further. And I pull, pull, pull, like I’m pulling an enormous turnip. I pull until she’s hanging upside down, about 15 inches off ground, and I wrap and tie a knot around a hook on the floor. Strung up by her feet, she flails in the northern wind. The Chinese make Peking duck like this. They slather it in oyster sauce, rice wine, vinegar and spices, and hang it up by the neck to air dry. I wonder if this little duck of mine will need to hang for a whole day, too. I come closer and put a bucket underneath her before I take a small blade out of my pocket and make an incision. I’ve wasted a lot but there’s still a lot left. Honey spurts. Honey drips. I wonder if this is how they make lamb kosher, too.
0
It’s midnight when I reach the swamp. The wind is strong that night, the harsh gusts of air rustling the tall grass surrounding the water, bending the cattails sticking out of the shallow ends. There’s a rotten smell in the air, the moist skin of frogs and discarded scales of fish barely covered up by the fragrant scent of pink azalea. Its saccharine sweetness is not quite strong enough to fully mask the acidic aftertaste. The moon is still young, high in the night sky, looming above my vertex like a silver scythe threatening to reap. It casts poor light onto the taut surface of the murky water, but I can still make out the water lilies with their flowers closed firmly shut spreading over the expanse of it. Only the center of the swamp is free from its invasion. It’s hardly what one expects the Fountain of Youth to look like.
The water is glacial when it touches my ankles. The entrance isn’t gradual and with my next step I’m already knee deep, my feet swallowed by the mud. I continue wading through the duckweed swaying on the gentle waves formed by my movements. When I reach the center, the water is just beneath my chin. The strands of my hair are floating aimlessly in a halo around me, but they hug my neck tightly when I turn to look at the maple trees behind me. I squint my eyes to see clearer. A lone crane stands on the shore, disturbing the water with its sharp, black beak. I call out to it.
“Is it you, Wish Granter?”
The crane turns its head to the side to take a better look at me. Its body is moonlight white, all but its head and feet. Its eyes, too, are painted a bloody scarlet, blinking slowly at me.
“Is that what they call me in the village?”
“Are you not?”
The crane dunks its beak into the water again, catching flies and fishing for small fish. A minute passes in silence before he speaks up again.
“I am not Wish Granter.”
“Then what are you?”
“I am Deal Maker.”
I grow irritated by its riddled speech.
“Then make me a deal, Deal Maker.”
“What is it that you wish for?” asks not Wish Granter.
“Eternal youth.”
The crane laughs, but the sound is closer to a screech than it is to a chuckle.
“Will you grant it?”
“I am not Wish Granter.”
“Can you offer what I am asking for, Deal Maker?”
“I can.”
“What do you want in return?”
Deal Maker shows me its profile again, its sharp beak, its lithe, long neck, its body in contrapposto.
“Nothing.”
“Do you mock?”
“You will come to regret it in pains. That is reward enough.”
“I shall not.”
“Memento mori. Remember you must die. I gift you eternal life, but all such as you shall perish in agony.”
1000
The sound of blood of the one thousandth man being poured from a crystal flagon into the bathtub with the others’ echoes uncomfortably off the marble. The emptied flagon makes a tinny sound when it touches tile. I rise to my feet and untie my robe. The fabric is bunched up in a heap at my feet as I raise my leg to step inside. Out of the corner of my eye I see my reflection in the mirror. It’s the one I’ve recognized for more than three hundred years now. The woman in the mirror stares back at me, dark hair falling in loose curls over her chest, darker brows arching above her round eyes, small nose and lips stained blood-red, slightly agape. Her cheeks are full and flustered, skin-tight and smooth.
“You will have health and beauty,” the Deal Maker had said, “but you shall see nothing but sickness and disfigurement in the world that surrounds you. You will have to hide and conceal yourself while the people you love die old and frail. You will have no friends, for you will isolate yourself from most and cause envy from the rest. You will never belong, and will come to hate humanity and yourself.”
The mixture of blood sticks to my skin in all shades of red. Some of it has coagulated, spoiling the texture of the bath. My belly feels full and swollen from the hearts and the eyeballs I’ve swallowed. I wonder if it’ll burst, if I’ll give birth to a monster made of hearts that sees everything, or if nothing will happen at all. For the longest time, it seems nothing will happen at all.
“The only way to end your miserable life will be to sacrifice your own soul,” the Deal Maker had continued, “and steal a thousand others.”
Their blood starts collecting beneath my fingernails, browning and coagulating. It looks like dirt. Their blood is entering every crevice of my body, and my skin is wrinkly from staying in the liquid for too long.
“You will eat their hearts, for they are the centers of their souls.”
In the next moment, I feel my heart constrict and beat frantically. I have trouble catching my breath. Then, a hole tears in the middle of my chest and I can see my heart thud and bleed under my ribcage.
“And you will pop their eyeballs, for they are the windows to their soul.”
My eyes hurt, threatening to jump out. I squeeze my eyelids tight, but there’s blood combining with tears that prickles in the corners and bites.
“And you will bathe in their blood to seal what you’ve done.”
My skin is wrinkled. My hair is gray. I hold my eyeballs in my hands. My heart rips to shreds. I drown in my blood bath.
“And your soul will never know peace.”
My screams echo, but there is no one to hear.