Chupacabra Part 1: Courage

The fields were quiet in the oncoming twilight and the sky was caught in its shift from day to night. The sun slowly vanished in the west, only the top cusp of the great orb peaking over the horizon. From its light, the purple, pink, orange, and red lights still gleamed, slowly giving way to the gloom of night. The stars began peeking out from the eastern darkness, piercing holes in the enveloping blackness. A large quarter-moon gleamed triumphantly in the void, as the collage of color was finally blotched out by the gloaming. The night was soon filled with chirps and tweets of the nocturnal insects, and fowl took to the sky with calm confidence. The cows, horses, goats, and sheep had long since been brought in from pasture, as a mild, late spring night would bring predators.

The goblin sat in his rocker on the porch, tapping out the last of the tobacco from his pipe into a brass pan. The darkness consumed the last embers as each one was quickly snuffed out in the open air. The goblin’s hand contracted a bit and his grip became claw-like, clutching the smoothed wooden bowl, his nails leaving small scratches on the polished cherry wood. His joints were a constant reminder that he was in his graying years, along with his eyes. He stared out into the night, the lantern light coming through the open window from the second largest room in the home weakly fought against the encroaching gloom. In his prime, the goblin would have been able to make out the small gate that functioned as the only entrance past the stone wall, unless visitors wished to hop over the little, foot-high blockade. Now, all he could make out was the lantern light that flickered atop the wall, which he had placed there in his growing years.

Calro could smell dinner puffing from the chimney of Foldur’s stead just up the road, well if a dirt trail could be considered a road, perhaps more a path. Down that same path was Dergill’s home, Calro’s second-oldest son, who had chosen to live an honorable life like his father. Not like Nosk and Betree, who both went off to be accountants in the large city of Torzellion. Some new dents appeared in the cherry wood bowl, but not because of his joints cramping. “Dinner’s done,” Susha hollered through the window. Calro pushed to his feet pulling his wide-brim hat from his balding head, another reminder of his growing age and another one he could do without.

As Calro reached for the door, a shout behind him drew his attention from the wafting fumes of baked bean stew with probably some extra broiled rat given the hollow he had found that morning. “Pahna!” Calro wasted no time turning at the sound of Dergill’s panicked voice. The boy looked like he had seen an elf or harpy.

“What’s kicked you in the butt?” Calro stepped away from the door, but Susha’s ears were good, somehow. Calro could barely hear the rooster in the mornings, but she could hear Dergill from the porch. Susha poked her head out from the window peering at her boy, motioning for him to come to embrace her at the obvious fright in his gaze.

Dergill ignored her appearance, “Mildred’s dead, she’s a corpse, but she got no guts.” Dergill looked from his Pahna to his Mahna. “Get your rat stick,” Dergill finally instructed, as neither reacted immediately.