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The Beast
(© Biswapriya Purkayastha)

Page 2

“The church says it’s our duty to have children.”

“Since when were you such a follower of the church? So many other things the church says which you don’t follow. I know what you do!”

“What?” Papa’s voice was ugly and threatening. “What do you know?”

Juanita quietly put away the last spoons and sneaked out of the kitchen on silent bare feet. Outside in the street the sun glared down, but there was a cold knot in the pit of her stomach because of the fight developing at home. No matter how often it happened, and it happened more and more frequently these days, she never got used to it – or to what happened afterwards.

Carlito and the other two, Miguel (named after Uncle Miguel) and Chico, were nowhere to be seen. She had been given the responsibility of looking after them. Since they weren’t playing in the yard across the street, she thought she knew where they would be, and went down to the fence where papa and Uncle Miguel had hung the Beast’s head. Sure enough, they were there, all three of them, along with several of their friends, all chattering and poking at the Beast’s head with sticks. They ignored her completely when she told them to go home. After watching them for a while, she suddenly felt completely tired of them and wanted to go as far off as possible. She couldn’t go home – not now, not with the fight, when her mama would be looking to work off her anger on a convenient target even as papa shouted and got to work with his hands. So she wandered away through the barrio, coming almost by accident to the yard where the Beast had been killed. The body of the Beast was no longer there. She had no idea what had happened to it.   

A few teenage boys were standing around, peering into the yard and talking. She knew one or two of them by sight, and nodded to them while trying to walk past. But they glanced at each other and the biggest of them, whom she thought was called Roberto, stepped into her path.

“Your father killed the Beast, here, wasn’t it?”

“Yes...he says.” Juanita tried to get past but Roberto, if that was his name, moved to block her. “Please let me go,” she said.

“Where are you going? It’s just a few questions. Answer them and you can go. Is it true that the big universities are sending scientists to study the Beast, and they’ll pay big money for information?”

“How should I know? Some reporters came, but they didn’t look too interested.”

“Look here,” Roberto said, reaching out and grabbing her by the upper arm, his wrist and forearm pressing against Juanita’s breast. “You can’t just say you don’t know. He’s your papa, isn’t he? And the whole barrio says there’s a lot of money to be had from the university.”

“But I don’t know.” Juanita didn’t wriggle to get away because she knew that would just make him hold her tighter. “I don’t know anything about it. He doesn’t tell me anything.”

“Let her go, Roberto,” one of the others, whom she didn’t know, said. “She’s not worth it anyway.”

Roberto dropped her arm, reluctantly. Juanita could feel the marks of his fingers smarting on her upper arm, and knew from experience that there would be bruises. “We’ll talk to you later,” Roberto said threateningly, walking back to his friends.


It was evening when Juanita came back home. She knew there would be trouble but there would be trouble anyway after her parents’ fight. There always was. On the way she passed the wire fence on which the Beast’s head still hung. Some people had gathered in the cooling air of the evening and were talking at the tops of their voices. She saw her papa among them, talking and gesturing angrily, and tried to walk past quickly, but she couldn’t help hearing what they were saying.

“It was just a harmless creature,” someone yelled, “and you killed it. Beast indeed!”

“It was just some kind of large dog or something with skin disease,” someone else said.

“Harmless? Then why were you all hiding under your beds when you heard it howling? Now it’s dead you can show how brave you all were.” Papa was shouting at the top of his voice. “Just because you all are jealous of me, that’s why.”

[ Continue to page 3 ]

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Information
Genre:General Horror
Type:Short story
Rating:6.47 / 10
Rated By:30 users
Comments: 1 user
Total Hits:19805

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