Town Meeting

a flash fiction story about sacrifices

This was written for the 30 Days of Fright challenge (hosted by Wendy Cockcroft). Prompt 21: blood is thicker than water. Write a story about how the death of a loved one complicates your schemes.

The character in this story just sort of wrote herself. I just let her talk. I’m also pretty pleased that it came out to be 666 words.

Town Meeting

Transcript of a speech by Miss J. Worth, presented at the Town Council meeting, August 24 of this year.

Thank you for allowing me to address the council today.

First off, I regret the complications the death of my sister has caused.

Supposedly we’ve got some distant cousins in New Jersey. Maybe that’ll work.

Hard to track down, though, even with those online ancestry sites. And what if they’re wrong. I can’t go around kidnapping and killing random people. I’m not that kind of girl.

Blame Jolene for being a bad driver. She and I are the last ones left in our bloodline, that we’re sure of. She was supposed to be the sacrifice.

The old gods don’t take offerings that got themselves killed in a car wreck. Pretty sure.

And she didn’t have kids. I don’t have any either. Wouldn’t that have made things easier? Am I right? (Here, she pauses for laughs. There is one quiet chuckle.)

I don’t have time to get pregnant now. Would have to wait nine months. Too long. The offering is due soon.

I promise to get right on that baby-making train, though. Now that I’m the only one to keep the bloodline going. Any eligible bachelors in the crowd? (A couple of quiet laughs.)

Anyway, a sacrifice, every fifty years, like clockwork.

As you know, other offerings are acceptable in the intervening years: birds (the old ones like pigeons especially for some reason), deer, squirrels are okay. Rabbits are iffy. A wolf or coyote is great if you can get one. I never could. The gods will even take a nice, fresh bundle of sweet corn every now and again. Go figure.

Maybe we can come up with something else for this year. Think outside the box.

Oh man, but that year Uncle Jim tried to offer up his prized gourd (He’d been saving it for the County Fair and thought it a noble sacrifice to give it up to our gods instead).... that didn’t go well. Some of you remember, that was the year the swarm of locusts descended on the town, razed the crops and fields down to nothing. Oh, and all the first born sons died, too. It was a huge big deal and no one let Uncle Jim forget about it.

He kinda became a hermit after that.

Anyway, every fiftieth year, it’s supposed to be human. And it’s gotta be someone in our bloodline. My family.

Those are the rules. I didn’t make ‘em. You can thank my ancestor, praise be to Jeremiah Worth, for founding this town and keeping it afloat. He made the pact and this town would be nothing without it. (Several murmurs of “praise to Jeremiah” from the crowd.)

All your fine crops, the money pouring in, all y’all living healthy into your nineties, not to mention the perfect weather. All poof if we don’t handle this crisis the right way.

Wait a minute, hold on, I can tell what some of you are thinking. I’m looking at you, Widow Jenkins.

But if you use me as the offering, that might give you fifty more years, but then what? And you think one of you can do the rituals right, make the animal offerings, after that, without me? (At this point, there is murmuring in the crowd.)

That’s not a risk you’re willing to take.

Is it? (Her voice noticeably trembles here.)

Even if you could do it, what happens when fifty years is up? The town dies. Gone.

Hey, stop looking at me like that. Don’t you care about future generations? Your kids and grandkids?

Don’t you care about tradition? Posterity? (The murmuring grows louder. Some of the crowd is on the move.)

(The fear is audible in her voice now.) You’d squander our history, our heritage, our future…. for fifty more years? You’d destroy your own descendants to save yourselves now?

Listen, I’ll look for those cousins in New Jersey. I’m sure I can—

(end of transcript)

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Further Reading

In case you missed them, here are two of my recent posts for the 30 Days of Fright writing challenge.

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