Abigail Sheaffer

The Beast

Беаст

 

 

Loosely based on the unsettling true account of Petar Blagojević/Петар Благојевић

 

Kisilova, Serbia

1725

 

Dusk.

 

The flap of a wing and the cry of a loon. A man lumbers out of the forest, his hands caked with raw earth. He breathes heavily as nausea overtakes him. His diaphragm widens to take in the pewter sky. He falls to his knees, lifting his wrinkled face to the gloaming.

 

“Црист Господе Исусе, Сине Божији, мерчј имају од мене, ми ћемо,”

 

Lord, Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner.

 

He repeats the prayer solemnly, his tongue pressing anxiously against his palate. Darkness consumes him.

 

***

 

Vuk is unsettled by the beauty of a butterfly as it rests against his windowpane. He gazes in awe of its black metallic wings. His father has been missing for three days. But the village is small, and this is a time of relative peace. He lifts himself up from his cot. Through the white flesh of the clouds, the first violet veins of sunrise give way to the scarlet dawn.

 

He rubs his auburn beard, examining himself through the small mirror that rests above the modest basin. Frigid water unfurls over his calloused hands. The butterfly’s wings flap against the windowpane, unnerving him.

                                               

***

 

She passes by in the evening. Her eyes are a fluid shade of green, she is not like the other girls in the village. Ana, is her name, and she always has a treat for his dog. Everything is gray before she appears, and the farm feels cold after she leaves. Vuk realizes it would be very easy to fall in love with her. Tonight she speaks, and it does little to soothe him.

 

“How is your father?” she asks, seeing the pain in his eyes.

 

“He’s still missing,” he solemnly replies.

 

And the wolves, he wants to say, the wolves that lurk in the hinterland are vicious. She delicately brings her hands to his face, and he feels like a child.

 

She continues to walk down the road, and regret clutches his heart acutely.

 

***

 

Midnight, and the wolves howl. The glass door to the farmhouse rattles. Vuk makes curses and walks upon the dusty wood floor. He supposes it’s the town drunk, but he does not smell the stringent sweetness of rakia that precedes him. Instead he smells something metallic, and it makes his stomach turn.

 

“Father?”

 

He rests heavily against the windowpane, he is ruddy and bloated. A mysterious odor surrounds him. He pushes past Vuk, and with much agitation sits down at the table they share.

 

“How about a little food, eh?”

 

Vuk moves cautiously towards the pantry, grabbing a rope of srmeska sausage and a plum.

 

His father glares at him with half-closed eyes as Vuk arranges his father’s plate. Greedily, he consumes the food.

 

The anger seems to subside, and wordlessly his father leaves his plate and wanders out the door. Wolves follow him as he descends into the dark forest.

 

***

 

The black butterfly returns, and its black metallic wings flit against the windowpane. To his horror, it’s wings are flecked with scarlet.

 

Downstairs, the door rattles. Vuk descends the stairs cautiously as candlelight flickers. His father stands by the door, his eyes fix upon him with a malicious gaze. Again, he pushes past Vuk and seats himself at their table.

 

“Bread! Bread! Have you no idea how to treat a guest?” he petulantly cries, never removing his eyes from his son. Outside, wolves gather by the window, and howl in a cacophonous chorus. Vuk grows cold with fear. In horror he watches as his father bites into the flesh of the bread. 

 

“Give me more food,” he asks.

 

“No,” Vuk murmurs.

 

“Give me more food, boy!” he shouts.

 

“No!”

 

His tongue moves across his yellowed teeth, his lips are rough from the winter winds. Slowly he lifts himself up from the table and lumbers across the floor to Vuk. In an instant, his father’s teeth break the skin of his neck and Vuk feels the coldness of blood like rainwater across his neck. His teeth dig deeper into the wound, opening it further as his tongue laps up the blood. Vuk screams madly, but the wolves’ howls swallow his cries.

 

***

 

Incense, the rich fragrance of cloves fills the church. Father Sava rests prostate beneath an extravagant crucifix while candles burn behind him.

 

“Црист Господе Исусе, Сине Божији, мерчј имају од мене, ми ћемо,”

 

His prayer is little more than whisper, and his lips kiss the holy floor.

 

Footsteps behind him. He lifts himself up, and looks behind him. Ana stands in her black lace veil, beneath it her peridot eyes well with tears.

 

“The beast has come,” she says breathlessly, crumbling to the floor.

 

Father Sava blesses himself, as the crucifix begins to bleed.

 

***

 

He sits alone in the office near the cobblestone roads. Frombald has heard rumors, but doubts their validity. Still, he is accosted by peasant villagers demanding he examine the death of the local farmer. Two in the afternoon and not a thing to do, save for listen to the scribe whose nib scratches pleasantly against the paper.

 

The scribe looks up at him as the postman enters the office. His face goes white. Frombald rolls his eyes and lets out a sigh.

 

“Father Sava has written us, perhaps he wants a permit for the church…”

 

But Frombald’s humor gives way to measured horror. Frombald drops the letter and calls for a carriage. The scribe steals a glance at the letter.

 

“Come, immediately,” it says, “for the devil has come.”

 

***

 

The fireplace crackles. Father Sava and Frombald speak in whispers. Father Sava’s hands move desperately over the small rope of black beads. Frombald tries to apply science, to apply practicality; unrest and paranoia have swept through the village resulting in diaspora.

 

“Nine dead,” Frombald says.

 

“девет,” Father Sava says, “девет мртвих…”

(Nine, nine dead…)

 

The rakia is warm and sweet on Frombald’s tongue. Outside, the villagers that remain shudder their windows. Bulbs of garlic and crucifixes are affixed to doors

 

“But, Father, it was only folklore! Legend from gypsies, surely vampire aren’t real…”

 

Father Sava lifts himself up from the chair. His black robes and the dim room engulf him in darkness.

 

“Kameralprovisor, there are some things in nature man cannot describe… my father told me stories during the reign of the sultan… it was as if the war produced a terrible beast, as though the blood stained land had produced the antichrist…”

 

A frigid draft sweeps through the room, carrying with it an unholy whisper. The candle extinguishes its light beneath the oppressive darkness as a wolf howls in the mountains.

 

***

 

Ana writhes in bed. Feelings of sin corrupt her as she imagines Vuk’s hands between her thighs. His blue eyes pierce through her knowingly as she arches her back, her nipples rise through her muslin nightgown. These sensations are new and strange to her, and she presses her hands to her lips.

 

Nightly, she dreams of him visiting her. He cannot be dead, she thinks, because she is his. Nightly they consummate their love, and this passion controls her. And he is a possessive force. In the village tavern, whenever a vulgar man lunges to grab her, she feels Vuk’s presence.

 

Already, three men have died who have tried to rape her. Each man suffered on their deathbed for a fortnight, and spoke of seeing Vuk’s face in their doorway, his blue eyes curdled their blood, they say.

 

“Come,” Ana begs, “come take me, take me,” she murmurs to the night. Then the weight of his body descends upon her, the familiar auburn beard presses against her cheeks as his plush lips move gently across her neck.

 

“Mine,” he says.

 

He bites into her flesh as he would a sweet plum, and she cries in ecstasy as he sips her blood.

 

***

 

Father Sava walks cautiously through the deserted village. The gray sky weighs heavily on the barren land. An old woman stares at him suspiciously before shuttering her window. Frombald exits his office and walks toward him. Fear has corrupted him. Only the few brave and angry villagers follow behind them.

 

Today they visit Petar’s grave.

 

Twigs snap as Father Sava moves deeper into the forest, and he is mindful of the wolves that prey among the trees. The stillness is unbearable.

 

Using their shovels, they dig. Small mountains of earth loom behind them. Terror strikes Frombald’s heart as he glances at the modest wooden coffin.

 

“Now, we lift it up,” Father Sava says, and his voice does not betray his fear.

 

Together the men heave the coffin upon the forest floor. Frombald feels his forehead start to sweat. Father Sava undoes the brass hinges and the lid whines open.

 

Petar’s eyes stare at them, as his chest rises and falls. Fresh blood covers the lower half of his face. Father Sava blesses himself.

 

“Quick, the stake!”

 

Frombald plunges the stake into Petar’s heart.

 

Tonight the villagers will burn him into ash and cast him into the river. They will scour the graves of his victims and burn them, too.

 

But Ana and Vuk watch the pyre from the heart of the woods. Tomorrow they leave for the Americas.

 

 

 

Abigail Sheaffer is the founding editor-in-chief of Chicago Literati, a nonprofit magazine and organization. She is also the founding editor-in-chief of The Vignette Review, a literary quarterly. She lives in St. Charles, Illinois with her English Bulldog, Winston Churchill.