The Culling

“I’ve been marked!”

I jolt awake at the sound of the cry, my sleep-addled brain trying to decipher if this was real.

“I’ve been marked!” the voice shouts, from farther away this time as he makes his way through the village.

No, no, no, no. This can’t be happening.

I pull on clothes and rush from my room. My little sister stands in the hall in her nightgown, clutching her stuffed bear.

“It’s real?” she asks me.

She hasn’t witnessed a Culling before. The last one was before she was born. She thinks they are just tales told by the older kids to scare her. I barely remember the events myself. Sometimes I think the memories are just nightmares fueled by all the whispered fears of the adults.

Now that I’m faced with their reality, the memories become clearer. Waking daily to the shout of “I’ve been marked”, repeated with such relief from the person who was marked, but meaning more nights of fear for the rest of us. The tension as people came out to clap the marked on the back in congratulations, but secretly thinking I’d rather it be you than me, your family than mine. The marked person knowing that everyone resented their safety, but not caring because their family would survive this.

“Yes, it’s real,” I tell my sister. “Go wake Momma.”

I leave her with her task and step outside. My feet crunch in the snow as I follow the sounds of the shouts, trying to see who it is that’s the first to be spared. I stop at the town square, deciding to just wait here for the marked man.

The tension and fear in the air are like weights, pressing down against shoulders and dragging feet. The wide darting eyes send me back to a memory of that same look in my mother’s eyes. My father comforting her the best he could. I would need to be that source of strength now. Just as my father asked me to be on his deathbed. Protect them.

At least we had that goodbye. Whoever gets taken will get no goodbyes. They will simply vanish, along with most, if not all, of their family. Never to be heard from again.

The town butcher, Tomas, approaches the group. “I’ve been marked,” he says. He holds up his hand as proof.

My first emotion is relief; We cannot afford to lose the butcher. But then I chastise myself. No life should be more important than any other.

Other villagers surround Tomas to witness with their own eyes that the creatures have returned to our village. The butcher has a cut along the top of his left thumb extending between the two knuckles. The telling feature is the green tinge to the edges of the cut. The wound will heal, but a green scar will remain.

Tomas is a good man. It’s obvious that it saddens him to be the one ushering in the beginning of the Culling. I put a hand on his shoulder before I go, and he nods to me. I trudge back home to deliver the news to my family.

...

Those who bear the scars from the last Culling have nothing to fear, but my family isn’t safe yet. Although I know it will do no good, I sleep on the floor at the foot of my sister’s bed. Or try to anyway. In truth, I lay staring at the door for hours, waiting.

The tales say that there is nothing you can do against the monsters. I wonder how anyone knows. I’m certain that others have tried and failed to stop them, but I’ve heard no tales of their efforts. Maybe because they never lived to tell of it. I shudder.

I feel like I can’t lay here any longer, but I’m also scared to move. As if the creatures will be drawn by my rising from the floor. I also don’t want to leave my sister, but am I really protecting her by laying here?

I kick off the covers in frustration. There’s got to be something I can do. It’s then I make a decision.

I’ll just go outside and look. I won’t try anything crazy. I’ll be a spy, not a warrior.

I put on a cloak and creep out the back door. I stand in the shadows, heart pounding, searching for any movement. I slide along the side of the house until I can peek around the corner to the front. Nothing there either.

I dart between houses, thankful for the snow that muffles any sounds. My eyes adjust to the darkness, but there is still no sign of anything amiss. I continue searching until I reach my house again. Now what?

My eyes slide to the woods behind this side of the village. I climb a tall, sturdy tree that gives me a good view of half the town. It’s only once I’m settled that it occurs to me the creatures might come from these very woods. I make sure to glance behind me every so often.

I stay in the tree until dawn. My muscles are stiff with cold by the time I climb down. I trudge home and wrap myself in blankets, shivering until I fall asleep.

...

“I’ve been marked!” shouts a female voice, this time.

My head throbs from the lack of sleep, but I rise from the floor and open the bedroom door. I’m about to walk out when there is a tug on my shirt. My little sister holds out her hand to me.

“I want to go with you, Cal.”

I contemplate whether it’s appropriate to bring a 10-year-old along to this. I decide that it’s her reality, as much as mine. I was younger than her during the last Culling. I make sure she puts on a coat and gloves before I take her hand.

We walk in silence to the town center. We stand off to the side, hearing whispers all around, as if the sound of normal voices might draw the creatures out in the daylight. The marked woman arrives.

A seamstress. Alana loves her dresses. She got a blue one for her birthday last year. The seamstress lives above her shop on the part of town I couldn’t see from my tree perch. That explains why I didn’t notice anything last night.

I lift Alana onto my shoulders and carry her home. Mother hands us each a mug of warm milk, mine mixed with strong coffee. I fill her in on the seamstress over breakfast, not mentioning my late night.

I wish I had time for a nap, but I have more orders than usual. The presence of monsters increases people’s desire for weapons. Most days I make knives for the butcher or plows for the farmer. Today, I let the pounding of my hammer onto a short sword settle me. Despite the circumstances, I enjoy the rare chance to make swords.

People came far and wide for my father’s swords. I only wish I had more time to learn his skills. Some of his customers still buy from me, but I know it’s more out of sentiment than for any expertise. I do my best to live up to my father’s legacy.

The day passes quickly, and before I know it I’m laying at the foot of my sister’s bed again. I stare at the door, as I wait for her to fall asleep. I plan to sit in the tree again and observe the creatures. Hopefully, I’ll gain some useful knowledge that I can use to stop them. Hopefully…

...

“I’ve been marked!”

I bolt upright and glance around the room. Crap, I must have fallen asleep. I hit the covers in frustration. I wasted a night, and it could cost someone their life. I yank on my clothes and stomp from the house.

I go about my day in a grumpy mood. How could I fall asleep? I’m such a fool. It’s up to me to protect my family. I have to do better tonight.

And I do. After a full night’s sleep, it’s not so hard to stay awake. I repeat my pattern from the first night, circling the perimeter of the village and then perching in the tree branches. In the darkest part of the night, I hear a noise.

I slide down from the tree as quietly as I can, the bark rough against my hands. I sneak through the woods in the direction of the sound. I see movement near a house out of the corner of my eye. I turn towards the motion, as I feel a soft gust of wind ruffle my hair.

I wake in the snow, the cold biting my nose. It’s still dark. I twist around and search for the…whatever I saw moving a moment ago. I feel disoriented, like hours have passed in an instant. The moon is definitely lower in the sky.

I rush into the tree line, so I can contemplate what happened out of the open. I know something was there, near me, but whenever I try to focus the memory is fuzzy. It’s like waking from a dream and trying to remember what it was about. I get a feeling that it wasn’t good, but I can’t say why.

I start to walk back to my house. I rub my hands together for warmth. It’s then that I realize one of my gloves is gone. In its place is a green-tinged cut down the back of my left thumb. I begin to shake, and not from the cold. I walk faster, looking over my shoulder the whole way home.

I lay back down on the floor, thinking I should sleep but knowing I won’t. I’ve been marked. It feels like a violation. Or maybe a warning.

But we are safe. I can’t believe it only just occurred to me. My family is safe now. A chill slithers down my spine. Maybe this wasn’t so much a warning, as a bargain. A way to say, “We don’t want you. Just let us take someone else, and we’ll leave your family alone.”

I should just let it go. I’ve protected my family. I didn’t sit back and do nothing. Now we are safe, and I can go on providing weapons for the rest of the villagers to protect their own families. That’s what anyone would do. It’s the smart choice.

I shake Alana awake and show her my thumb. “I’ve been marked. We’re safe.”

She beams at me and wraps her arms around me. I pull her from the bed and carry her to our mother’s room.

“Momma! Wake up!” Alana says.

Our mother jolts awake with wide eyes. After a moment, she notices our smiles.

“I’ve been marked,” I tell her.

She hugs us both, and we sit on the bed like that for a while. I can’t remember the last time we’ve sat like this, or felt this at peace. Not since father died. But something tugs at me in the back of my mind. I push it away. I don’t want it to disturb our happiness.

“I should go tell the others,” I say, pulling away.

The mood shifts. My mother and I know that the rest of the town will resent us. The longer this goes on, the more their fear will take over. I wonder if they will still come to buy my swords today. The price of survival is being shunned.

When I get to the town square, I can see the calculation going on in their minds. One less family for the monsters to choose from. The odds going up that they will be next with each passing day, with each night that someone is marked instead of taken. I feel for them. I knew that same fear until last night.

I just want to go home and not worry anymore, but I can’t shake the tension in the air. Our collective lives on hold, just waiting for someone to disappear. And no one ever does anything to stop it. I don’t just mean in our village. In all the towns the monsters come and take people away. They make the rounds through the villages, marking someone each night until they find what they are looking for. Then, they move on to the next place, only to return years later when they need more people for who knows what purpose.

What kind of person am I to just sit back now that I am safe? What kind of people are we all? Everyone just refuses to believe that they might be chosen. Would we rather live in ignorance than confront our reality and fight back? It looks that way.

I trudge back home, and I finally put my finger on the thought that’s been nagging me. Why did they let me live? Clearly I was out there trying to stop them. Wouldn’t it have been smarter to just kill me, rather than risk me continuing my efforts? Sure, it’s likely that I would stop after they made their message clear, but they couldn’t be certain. So why risk sparing me?

Unless they couldn’t kill me. Unless they were afraid to. I almost laugh at the thought of the monsters being afraid of me. And I almost cry at the realization that maybe we had the power to stop them all along, and no one bothered to try.

...

I have my theory, but I know the other villagers will need more before they agree to fight back against the monsters. I need more information to come up with a sound plan. The creatures caught me off guard before and were able to knock me out before I learned anything. This time I resolve to be a better spy.

I go straight for my tree this time. The monsters seem to come out late at night, and they caught me by the houses, so I don’t think they’ve discovered my hiding spot. I sit in the tree, not daring to move, watching the sliver of a moon rise in the night sky. I hear rustling and the crunch of snow not far off, and hold my breath.

Last night I made the mistake of rushing down from the tree in my haste to catch the monsters. Tonight I wait and listen, searching for any sign of movement in the darkness. Goosebumps creep up my arms as I watch lanky shadows stalk from the woods to my right.

They appear humanoid, but hunch forward with their long arms nearly dragging along the ground. As I look closer, I realize it’s not their arms that are long, but the large claws extending from their fingertips. And something is off about their skin. It looks to have a greenish tinge and reflects too much of the moonlight. No, these are definitely not humans.

It’s only once the monsters move out of sight between the houses that I climb down. I stay in the treeline this time, moving until I can just spot the creatures again. I peek around a large tree trunk, hoping they can’t hear the pounding of my heart. I watch as all six of the creatures walk through the wall of one of the houses.

I blink, uncertain what to do now.

Although I want to stay in the woods, I can’t see anything from here. But I also can’t walk through walls. I crouch and make a dash for the house. I move to the closest window and peek through a crack in the curtains. No sign of them. I move around the corner to the next window, and this time I spot movement.

I close one eye and focus on what I can see through the sliver of the window. One of the monsters sneaks up to a bed and leans over someone sleeping. Eyes flash open and just as a look of pure terror crosses the man’s face, the creature opens his mouth. The person in the bed falls back, eyes closing again. I remember the breath of wind on my face last night before I woke up in the snow. Is this what they did to me?

The monster lifts one claw and places it against the man’s thumb. It drags the claw from knuckle to knuckle. Blood wells up and the creature hisses, recoiling from the sleeping man. All the monsters hiss and back away, turning toward the wall along the back of the house. I don’t stay to see the creatures disappear through the back of the house into the woods. I scramble across the side of the house and press myself into the front wall.

I stay this way until my breathing slows and I don’t hear anymore sounds of movement in the woods. I walk back through the center of town and think about what I’ve seen. It seems clear now that blood is harmful to the monsters, or at least some people’s blood. The blood of the marked. My blood. That must be why they leave the marked alone. They go around testing people’s blood until they find…what exactly? Blood that doesn’t hurt them? I still don’t know why, or what they do to the people whose blood they like. I shudder.

When I arrive back home, I lay awake thinking about what I’ve learned and what to do with that knowledge. By the time the man who was marked last night begins his trek through town, I have a plan.

...

I stand in the town square as people huddle together against the cold and fear. Families group together, and those who are unmarked choose each other’s company over the families who are safe. In the light of day, I can see that the man now marked safe is Walter, who tends the fields just outside of town. When he has finished showing his mark, I step forward.

“I saw the monsters last night,” I say.

A few people chuckle, but quickly fall silent when my face stays serious.

“I saw them walk through the walls into Walter’s home, and I looked through the window as they marked him,” I continue.

“You had a nightmare,” someone shouts.

I turn to Walter. “I watched you wake and start to scream, but the creature put you to sleep. When you woke up, you felt disoriented. You probably had a flash of memory of a green monster breathing onto your face, but whenever you tried to focus on it the memory faded. At least, that’s how I felt after I had been marked. The only reason I can remember what they look like is because I spied on them last night.”

Townspeople start to murmur, and some turn to leave, but the people who were marked are now focused intently on me. That’s fine, the marked are the ones I need.

“I know their weakness.”

The crowd stills.

“These monsters made a mistake. They left a mark on everyone who is capable of stopping them.” I hold up my hand.

People look between each other. Those who are marked stare at their thumbs. I wait until the eyes settle on me again.

“The blood of the marked can hurt them. That’s why they leave us here. I watched as they recoiled from the blood on Walter’s finger. They hissed and fled his house as soon as the blood welled up.” I direct my attention to the largest group of marked families. “We have the power to stop them in our very veins.”

I let that statement settle, watch the shift in posture as people begin to feel something we haven’t in a long time. Hope.

“I can’t do it alone. There were six monsters last night. I’d like to have more of us than them. Who is willing to join me in protecting our town?”

Tomas and Walter step forward at almost the same time. Some men marked in the last Culling volunteer next. The seamstress joins us, and after a moment a couple of other women step up. Soon, at least one person from every marked family is with us, about 20 people in all.

For the first time, the unmarked look at us with something other than resentment and jealousy in their eyes. They look at us like we are heroes.

...

We meet at dusk in the center of town. People are bundled up and stamp their feet against the cold. Nervousness and an anxious energy fill the chill air. We split into two groups, so we make sure the monsters don’t slip in unnoticed. We agree on a bird call to whistle when we spot the creatures. I spent the day making knives, and I hand out one to anyone who is unarmed before we go our separate ways.

I take my group to my previous spot. A couple of us climb into the trees to serve as lookouts, while the rest huddle against tree trunks. For most of the night all I hear is the others’ breathing around me and the occasional sounds of them shifting position. And then a bird call whistles through the quiet.

I slide down from the tree, and we begin running toward the sound. I dart my eyes in search of movement, as we circle the outside of town. I hear the call again, and turn my head to see Tomas give a wave from the treeline. He points past him toward some houses, and I nod for everyone to move forward.

We step from the woods and walk towards the monsters standing between two houses. My hands shake, but I grip the knife my father made me in my hand for reassurance. These monsters are scared of us, I remind myself.

One of the creatures rushes for us, claws kicking up snow as it digs into the ground. I lift my knife to my palm and slice it open as the monster lunges. I’m knocked to the ground, but I shove my bloody palm against the creature’s chest. It lets out a high pitched scream and scrambles backward.

A couple of townspeople cut their own hands and hold them out to the monster, as I push myself up. The creature cowers, and it’s skin where I touched it blisters up like a severe burn. The metallic scent of blood fills the air, as the other villagers are emboldened by the wound and cut their own palms. We surround the monsters with outstretched arms.

“Do not hurt usss. We will go,” one of the monsters hisses out.

I’m taken aback for a moment at the realization that they can speak. Some of the townspeople lower their arms.

“We can’t allow you to hurt anyone else, not at our village or any other,” I say.

“Pleassse,” the creature begs, “we were onccce human like you.”

I blink, not expecting this turn of events. The people behind me gasp and murmur.

The monster must take this as a sign of encouragement, because it takes a small step forward.

“We were cursssed.”

“Why?” I ask.

The monster shifts its feet. “We were raidersss. We brought about much bloodssshed. And then we came to the wrong village. A witch who lived there sssaw the ssslaughter and curssed usss. ‘Blood will bring you both life and death.’ Sssince then, we have needed blood to sssurvive, but sssome blood was toxic to usss. Mossst of usss died out jussst trying to drink blood to live, until we figured out thisss method of tesssting.”

“So you were cursed for a good reason, and you continue to shed blood in order to preserve your own lives? You learned nothing from this curse then,” I say. “We will let you leave, but only because I don’t want any of my friends to get hurt killing you.”

The monsters sigh and turn to go.

“BUT,” I call after them, “we will spread the word about what happened here far and wide. All the humans will know your weakness. The people you have marked will serve as protectors over their towns.”

The monsters turn back, hissing, but they listen.

“So you know that word has spread, we will tell each village to mark their entrance with a handprint in blood from the marked. Then, you will know not to bother them. And just in case you manage to find a way to survive the years ahead,” I continue, “the marked will tell our descendants about the power in their veins. Our ancestors will serve as protectors for generations to come.”

The creatures look ready to rip our heads off, but their nostrils flare at the scent of our blood. We step aside, and they flee back into the woods. We cheer and hug each other before marching back to the center of town. Villagers hear the noise and wake to join us. There is loud chatter as we share the tale of what happened, and those who were with us show off their palms.

We make a parade to the entrance of town, the heroes of the night carried upon shoulders the whole way. Each of the protectors places their palm against the front gate one-by-one, amid cheers and whistles. Then, those who can travel saddle their horses and head into the fading night to spread the word far and wide about the power we had inside of us all along.

...

What did you think of The Culling? Do you think you would have faced the monsters, or just kept your head down to survive?

Thanks so much for reading!

-Clever & WTF