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(Note: this is a short story I just finished writing that may potentially evolve into the opening chapter of a novel. But hey, one thing at a time. Let me know what you think in the comments below. P.S. The second story/chapter in the series, “Finegas and Fish,” is now available to read.)
So crept the monster out of its hole, its limbs like the branches of a dead oak, its twiggy fingers seeking purchase, tearing through root and stone and mycelium web, destroying Dagda knows how many subterranean dwellings in the process. Bugs crept and rodents crawled. Groggy cicadas chorused in confusion, years ahead of schedule. These sounds compounded in the monster’s cauliflower ears.
The roar of life.
Must be getting close.
A blast of late-October air signaled its arrival at the surface. The monster squinted. An instinct, but, given the circumstances, a useless one. Only a crude fringe of cauterized sinews, appearing much like the nubby ends of charred sausages, hinted at the one-time existence of a dinner plate-sized eye.
The monster shivered, its onion skin crackling with the movement. Finding clothes would need to be a priority. But given its size and (mis)shape(nness), it knew that would be easier said than done.
Much to the monster’s dismay, its custom-woven kilt, the one it had donned for nearly a century (or what had felt like one, anyway) had disintegrated in transit.
Such were the perils of crossing over from the Otherworld.
Alas, here the monster was, standing, naked, on the living earth, in a grove full of living trees, their boughs buzzing. It felt awful about what would happen next, about what it would have to do.
The people need to be reminded.
Yes, that was true. Midge, its handler, had been clear as potcheen on that point.
The people need to be reminded. And from now on, you are the one who will be doing the reminding.
Fighting the urge to crawl back into its hole, back to the miserable yet beautiful silence of solitude, the monster took a step forward.
The step did not go as planned.
And now the monster found itself stumbling around on newborn giraffe legs, its knobbed knees buckling, its hooved feet wheeling.
For Dagda’s sake.
When gravity finally, mercifully, ended this hideous dance, the monster lay prone with its face in a thornbush and a fresh shroud of anger draped over its entire being. From deep within the monster’s skull, far beyond the ring of burnt sausage nubs, an orange ember began to glow.
“No,” said a voice. “Not yet.”
For the second time in as many minutes, the monster shivered.
“Who’s that?” it called. “Who’s there?”
And in spite of the cool pins of fear plinking away at the monster’s spine like mallets on a dulcimer, the ember burned brighter.
And hotter.
Until the monster’s trapezoidal head shone like a jack-o’-lantern.
“Now just wait a minute there,” said the voice. “You don’t wanna go wasting your surprise on me.”
The monster cocked its head.
The wrinkled skin around its eye-crater widened.
The ember cooled.
While familiar with the concept of a last-minute, pre-annihilation plea (“Oh, no, please, no, I’ll do anything…”), the monster was caught off guard by the voice’s tone. There was a disconcerting casualness to it. A fearlessness.
The monster became even more confounded after using its charred nostrils to sniff out the extremely pungent scent of the body to which the voice belonged; it was the body of a wild boar.
Slowly, gingerly, the monster got to its hooves and heaved its shoulders back, unfurling ancient vertebrae in an effort to demonstrate its full, nearly twelve-foot height.
“Who are you and what do you want?” asked the monster.
The boar snorted.
“That’s no way to speak to your elders.”
“Elders?” The monster made a show of sniffing. “You’re, what, a ten-year-old pig?”
“What did you call me?”
“You’re a pig. Aren’t you? A boar?”
“A bore?” the boar scoffed. “Who’ve you been talking to, my wife?”
The monster didn’t get the joke.
“I’ve gotta go,” the monster said. It took a single, cautious step forward.
“I know you do,” replied the boar, scurrying after it.
“How do you know?”
“How do I know what?”
“How do you know what I’m doing?”
“That’s an easy one,” said the boar. “This is nearly your thousandth time doing it.”
The monster stopped.
The creases around the crater in its face furrowed.
“What are you even talking about?” it asked. “This is my first time doing it. That’s why I’m—”
“Nervous,” the boar interjected. “You know, it’s normal to feel nervous when it’s your first—”
“No,” the monster bellowed. “I’m not nervous. I’m just trying to understand what—”
“Well, there’s your problem right there,” said the boar. “Stop trying to understand and just focus on carrying out your objective. Now let’s get moving.”
And so the monster walked, and the boar trotted. But after a few yards, the monster stopped again.
“But what do you mean this is my thousandth time doing it?”
The boar rammed the monster’s shin with its tusks.
The monster screamed.
A half-mile away, a farmer sat in a rocking chair on his porch sipping whiskey. The bottle exploded.
“What did you do that for?” the monster asked, rubbing the fresh dent in its shinbone.
“Less talkie, more walkie,” said the boar. “And don’t be so dramatic.”
The monster huffed. “You nearly took my leg off.” And as soon as the words left its mouth, it realized it was being dramatic. Indeed, if any living tissue had remained in the monster’s cheeks, a blush would have spread over them.
“Don’t worry,” said the boar, sensing the monster’s shame. “You’re gonna do great.”
The monster shrugged its lopsided shoulders. Kicked up a puff of dirt.
“Doesn’t seem like I’m doing that great so far.”
“Balor, listen to me,” said the boar. “You were made for this. The people need to be reminded. And you are the one who does the reminding.”
“Balor,” the monster echoed. It had barely caught the rest of what the boar had said after that, though the words had sounded familiar. “Balor,” it said again. “That’s—”
“Your name,” finished the boar.
“My name,” said Balor.
“Or one of them, anyway.”
“What?”
“Your most recent one, I should say.”
“What are you even talking about? I’ve had other names before?”
“Never mind.”
Balor waved its long monster arms in frustration; orange leaves rattled in the resulting wind.
“Why do you keep doing that?”
“Keep doing what?”
“You keep hinting at all of this other stuff but you won’t explain any of it.”
“Ah, you mean I won’t explain any of it yet.”
“Well, when will you explain it?”
“Later.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?”
“Because I’m not the one writing the story.”
“Who’s writing the story?”
The boar sighed.
“I don’t know. Some weird writer-person, probably.”
“But aren’t you supposed to be my wise mentor figure then?”
“Yes, I think that’s the idea. But that doesn’t mean I know everything.”
“It doesn’t seem like you know much of anything.”
“I knew your name, didn’t I?”
The boar had Balor there.
“And,” the boar continued, “I know that if you don’t get down to Tara and do your damn job, Midge is gonna have a fit.”
“Midge,” echoed Balor.
“Oh, for Dagda’s sake,” said the boar. “Don’t go getting all lost in your—”
Why did Midge never use my real name? Balor wondered, lost in its thoughts.
Only “Monster,” “Burner,” “Death,” but never “Balor.” Never my actual—
The boar rammed its tusks into Balor’s other shin.
Balor screamed.
A second bottle of whiskey exploded.
And a few moments later, the boar was no more. Only a charred, smoking husk of the once wise and mighty beast/mentor figure remained.
Balor kicked the corpse into a nearby stream, where a salmon promptly began to peck at its crispy, cracklin skin.
Sometimes the elders need reminding, too.
With that, Balor loped down the hillside toward civilization, its resolve strengthened, its purpose clear, its ember aglow.
The first house it encountered, an old farmhouse on the edge of the wood, was empty, with no offerings left out for the gods save for two circular piles of shattered glass, through which Balor dutifully stomped. There was a melodiousness to the crunching it found quite pleasing.
This house shall be spared.
The second house Balor encountered, this one closer to the town center, was full of costumed revelers. Music shook the shutters as hot toddy vapors wafted from the open windows, carrying with them the unmistakable scent of clove—one of Balor’s favorites. True, there were no carved vegetables on the front stoop. No strung-up apples. No bowls of blood.
But that smell…
If you could encapsulate the transition to winter in olfactory form, then somehow distill or purify it—that’s how Balor thought of clove. It was, it now realized, the perfect scent for celebrating Samhain.
This house too shall be spared.
The third house Balor visited was bustling with children, and at first whiff the Samhain offerings being served up seemed to be on point. Sweets. Apple cider. And was that black pudding sizzling in a pan? A smell not too dissimilar from the one that had emanated from the roasted boar.
But there—yes, there—in a stratum beneath that fatty, fiery, bloody goodness: the faint odor of synthetic fibers. Balor perked its cauliflower ears and could now hear the clacking of plastic armor and the tinkling of cheap jewelry. It feared the worst. And a few clicks of its tongue revealed, in a sort of sonic outline, that its worst fear had indeed come to fruition: these children were not dressed as ghouls or ghosts or goblins. There was no Abhartach or Dullahan or Stingy Jack to be found. No púcas or banshees or wolfwalkers. No equine kelpies or pinnipedian selkies or serpentine oilliphéists. Just an unholy parade of knights and princesses.
They dishonor us.
They dishonor me.
The ember burned brighter.
And hotter.
The people need to be reminded. And I am the one who—
Hold on.
There was a shape on its periphery. A tall shape. A misshapen shape. A shape not too dissimilar from its own. And for a flickering moment Balor worried that Midge might have sent in a backup monster—just in case Balor couldn’t hack it on its own.
But I can hack it.
The relief washed over Balor like a warm spring shower when it realized the “backup monster” in question was nothing more than an obnoxious, oversized, overpriced decoration.
However, Balor could not fail to notice that said decoration was adorned in a floor-length black cloak.
Something in my size. I can’t believe it.
So while the humans were distracted by their tricking and their treating, Balor strode, spider-like, toward the twelve-foot skeleton in the sideyard and slowly—gingerly—slid the cloak from its high-density polyethylene shoulders. Whipping the cloak ’round its own shoulders, Balor knew instantly it would be a perfect fit.
The monster had no choice.
This house shall be spared as well.
Balor would go on to spare some twenty-five houses in a row before recognizing the error of its ways.
It was meant to be an agent of chaos.
An angel of death.
An asshole of epic proportions.
If only I had some kind of mentor to guide me.
It laughed at the thought of the sizzling boar. And that laughter warmed Balor more than the cloak. (But to be sure, Balor really liked the cloak).
It knew what it had to do. Or rather, it knew now how to do what it had to do whereas before it knew what it had to do but not how to do it. (Note: For some odd reason, both of Balor’s shins began to throb while it was thinking the aforementioned thought.)
Leaving the residential district behind, Balor set its nostrils on Tara proper, the seat of power of the human world and former perch of the gods.
Or so the story went.
If Midge’s words were to be believed, Tara was more than just some postcard-worthy castle; it was a (near-)impenetrable fortress with a twenty-foot-tall earthen foundation, atop which towered a thirty-foot crenelated stone wall, inside of which sat a royal palace some forty-feet high, and around all of this was a moat some fifty-feet deep that was filled to the brim with aquatic beasts. And the only way across said moat, assuming one was granted the honor of admittance, was via a sixty-foot-long rope bridge.
So you could imagine Balor’s surprise when its clicks revealed, in the spot where this testament to divine architecture should be, a squat little shack composed of glass and plaster and plywood.
Some kind of trick?
A spell?
But I’m the one with the spells…
Balor crept closer.
Ah, but there is the first of the fortress’s defenses.
It was a bed of river rocks. Dry river rocks. Because there was nary a dribble of water amongst them. And yet across these same rocks there spanned a small plank bridge, which had been constructed from what smelled like reclaimed barn wood.
Ever wary of tricks and spells, especially on tonight of all nights, Balor sidestepped the decorative bridge, avoiding it entirely, and simply stepped across the rocks. Less than a single stride had been required to accomplish this feat.
Shortly thereafter, the second of the fortress’s defenses was deployed:
A force field of aerosolized frying oil.
Overpowered, the monster staggered backward.
It was a truly horrific odor.
But no, I have to go on.
Balor lowered its shoulder against the hot-grease stink hanging in the autumn air and trudged toward the building’s entrance.
If it had been able to make out the words, Balor likely would have balked at the green neon “Tara’s Burgers” sign glowing above the front door. But as it was, there was plenty else for Balor to balk at, including the horrid chewing and gurgling noises coming from within.
This is sacrilege of the highest order.
It wouldn’t overthink it.
It would act.
And so Balor opened its mouth and began to sing.
Within seconds, the chewing and gurgling noises had ceased, replaced by the asynchronous thumping of unconscious bodies hitting the floor one after the other.
When satisfied that its enchanted song had worked its spell to completion, Balor burst through the front entryway, freeing the doors from their hinges and sending a spray of glass in all directions. And yes, it very much enjoyed the crunching of the shards beneath its hooves as it prowled around the restaurant’s interior.
In a heap beneath the first booth was what appeared to be, upon first click, a trio of cat-people.
Balor nearly lost it.
Had it finally started the show only to waste its big opening number on fellow monsters, and not just any fellow monsters, mind you, but the notoriously vicious cait-shìth?
Everyone knows you don’t mess with cait-shìth.
Fortunately, a few sniffs would revea that these slumbering, hamburger-covered creatures were actually human women dressed up in feline attire.
Indeed, all of the building’s occupants were human, which was a big relief to Balor.
Its job was nearly done.
The hard part, as far as Balor was concerned, was over.
It had broken through to the Land of the Living and breached Tara without anyone taking any notice of its arrival (as far as it knew.)
Of course, there was that man in the denim overalls and flannel shirt slumped over a chair in the corner, whom Balor connected, by scent, to the farmhouse on the edge of town, but a few mysteriously exploding whiskey bottles would never be enough to connect Balor to the larger, forthcoming crime…
…right?
Balor balled a fist, coughed into it, then, after the briefest of pauses, incinerated the entire dining room, including the counter and the cashiers behind it. Somehow, as if by miracle, their signature green visors survived the inferno. Balor stepped over them on its way to the kitchen.
What the Dagda are those things made—
A melody stole its attention.
A melody coming from behind a silver door with a silver handle.
A melody sung by a being with a silver voice.
Balor froze.
Felt those familiar pings of fear in its spine.
So that’s why it’s all been so easy.
It’s all been leading up to this:
A trap.
The silver handle jiggled.
The silver door creaked open.
And before Balor could think to sing, before it could think to shoot a beam of sun-hot plasma out of its empty eye socket, it found itself face to face (or rather, face to top-of-head) with a human woman in a black hoodie, her ears covered by black plastic shells. She was lugging a tray of frozen burger patties and singing along to the tinny tune being funneled into her eardrums.
It took longer than Balor expected for her to acknowledge its presence.
“You’re not supposed to be back here,” she said to the monster, without bothering to look up.
She placed the tray on a stainless steel table in what was left of the kitchen. If she noticed the flames and the ash and the black smoke and the smoldering remains of her late coworkers and patrons, she did nothing to outwardly demonstrate that. Just carried on with her tasks: wiping down surfaces, many of them now charred; sweeping the floors, which were now covered in a veritable panacea of detritus; and flipping burgers, of course, granted the grill was now cracked and slanted and all of the patties were sliding to one corner.
“Do you know why I’m here?” the twelve-foot monster in the black cloak finally worked up the courage to ask.
There was no response, not even the slightest raising of the chin or twitching of the eyebrow to indicate that she’d heard its question.
Balor cleared its throat.
“I said, do you know why I’m here, you human scum?”
Too much?
Balor concluded that no, it was not too much. It was perfect. And Balor was confident the boar would have been impressed with its ability to adlib if it had still been around and, you know, not fish food.
In retrospect, Balor wished it had saved the boar from its barbecued fate. That way there would have been a witness to Balor’s remarkable feats. An independent verifier who could have helped spread Balor’s legend.
Alas, here the monster was, alone on this living earth full of living things. Alone and rudderless.
No, not rudderless…
Improvisational.
Balor’s shins began to throb.
The human woman had turned around and was studying Balor’s face—for exactly how long she had been doing that, it was unsure.
Instinctually, Balor stretched to its full height. Its ember burned brighter. Hotter.
“The people need to be reminded,” Balor said in a booming voice. “And I am the one who—”
“What?” the woman asked.
Balor started over, its voice less booming this time. “The people need to be reminded, and I am—”
“Hold on,” said the woman.
She slid the headphones off of her ears.
“Now, what was that?”
If Balor had an eyelid, it would have been blinking it furiously right about now.
“I said, the people need to be reminded. And I am the one who does the reminding.”
“Of what?” she asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“You said, ‘The people need to be reminded.’”
“Yes.”
“Reminded of what?”
“Oh.”
Balor scratched its blistered chin.
“You know, like, the gods. Reminded of the gods. The ones who give us everything. The plants. The animals. The, uh, sky. And the stars. And—”
“So are you some kind of activist or something? One of those militant vegans out to save the cows?”
“A what now? No, I’m—”
“Because I gotta say, you need to work on your mission statement. It’s a little all over the place.”
Balor’s jaw hung open.
“Now, before I call the cops,” the woman continued, “I just have one question for you.”
Balor raised a twiggy finger toward its glowing face-crater.
“A question for me?”
“Yeah. Where the hell did you get that costume? Did you make it yourself? Are those LEDs behind the mask? Because the effect is really realistic.”
She might as well have been speaking a different language. So in lieu of responding in kind, Balor responded with a song.
The woman sank to the floor.
Meanwhile, the flames that had been working their way around the restaurant’s walls were now converging on the kitchen.
Balor sighed, scooped the woman up in its dead-oak arms, and smashed through a rear exit.
Once out of range of the sparks and the soot, Balor—moving slowly, gingerly—placed the woman on a patch of grass and wrapped her in its cloak. It then removed two items from the woman’s slumbering body: her noise-canceling headphones and her green Tara’s Burgers visor. Balor looped both around its wrist, wearing them like torc bracelets.
Savior’s fee.
Needless to say, if the boar had still been in the picture at this point, it would have had an aneurysm.
The number of protocols Balor had broken, the number of security cameras that had recorded its coming and going, the woman who had seen its face up close and even spoken to it and would now live to tell the tale, these movements combined to form a symphony of failure, for which there would be a reckoning when Balor returned to the Otherworld.
But for now, the monster was oblivious.
It sang, ad-libbing as it sashayed back up the hill, back into the woods, back to its hole.
I am the champion of Samhain
The Burner from the briar
Reminding all who dare forget
Of what the gods require
My wrath they will regret
As I set their homes afire
I am the champion of Samhain
Who conquered Tara’s silver voice
At first my charms she did resist
And I was left with little choice
Now her trophies grace my wrist
As the gods of old rejoice
I am the champion of Samhain
For my mercy, I’ve gained fame
I save the souls of those with worth
I spare them from my flame
The rest they feel my fiery mirth
My ember they can’t tame
I am the champion of Samhain
Look, it’s not all about the killing
There are greater things at work here
Certain rites that need fulfilling
So while I might sound like a jerk here
Please consider I’m not willing
I am the champion of Samhain
How’d I even get this gig?
I’m not even really Irish
I can’t dance a fecking jig
Have I been lied to all my life-ish?
Probably should’ve asked that pig
Thanks for reading
Ready for the next story/chapter in the series? “Finegas and Fish,” is now available.
Want to learn more about the Celtic cross-quarter day festival of Samhain? And/or about the two Irish monsters that inspired the main character of this story, Aillén mac Midgna and Balor of the Evil Eye? Check out…
Samhain in Your Pocket
Perhaps the most important holiday on the ancient Celtic calendar, Samhain marks the end of summer and the beginning of a new pastoral year. It is a liminal time—a time when the forces of light and darkness, warmth and cold, growth and blight, are in conflict. A time when the barrier between the land of the living and the land of the dead is at its thinnest. A time when all manner of spirits and demons are wont to cross over from the Celtic Otherworld. Learn more…
Irish Monsters in Your Pocket
In the Ireland of myth and legend, “spooky season” is every season. Spirits roam the countryside, hovering above the bogs. Werewolves lope through forests under full moons. Dragons lurk beneath the waves. Granted, there’s no denying that Samhain (Halloween’s Celtic predecessor) tends to bring out some of the island’s biggest, baddest monsters. Prepare yourself for (educational) encounters with Irish cryptids, demons, ghouls, goblins, and other supernatural beings. Learn more…
Neon Druid: An Anthology of Urban Celtic Fantasy
“A thrilling romp through pubs, mythology, and alleyways. NEON DRUID is such a fun, pulpy anthology of stories that embody Celtic fantasy and myth,” (Pyles of Books). Cross over into a world where the mischievous gods, goddesses, monsters, and heroes of Celtic mythology live among us, intermingling with unsuspecting mortals and stirring up mayhem in cities and towns on both sides of the Atlantic, from Limerick and Edinburgh to Montreal and Boston. Learn more…
More of an audio-visual learner?
Check out these videos from the IrishMyths YouTube channel:
Brilliant! Thank you for that. 😂