Vu~anpaiakirā

It had been a sleepless night for Toby as he wandered through his family’s home worried. Every few minutes he’s look out a window and confirm that the shadowy figure was still there, standing at the edge of his perfectly manicured lawn.

An hour before sunrise, he’d finally had enough. He went to his study and unlocked the wood frame case and withdrew the long sword with the name he could never correctly pronounce, and which his great-great grandfather had left his great-grandfather and so on.

Though a hand-me-down, it was still razor-sharp and he intended to test that sharpness if necessary by chasing off the demonic menace that was now haunting his front yard. The thing had been there since the night before and as Toby saw it, “That’s long enough.”

As Toby headed out the door, he grabbed his deceased father’s old walking stick. He’d use it as a cudgel before resorting to the sword, besides he simply wanted to get its attention.

“You need to leave, now,” Toby announced as he stepped towards the being. “You chased everyone away last night. I got a whole bunch of candy and none of it was given out because of you!”

The figure said nothing as it lifted a hand and pointed at Toby. The gesture, meant to stop the man from approaching, didn’t work.

“You forget,” Toby stated as he continued forward, “You said I was to stupid for words the last time we met. You spoke it into existence!”

With that Toby swung the walking stick at the things head. However, it deflected the blow with its arm, cracking the wooden shaft in half.

Without missing a step, Toby moved to the right as he drew the sword and flicked it through the midsection of the figure. It came in a single move and came so quickly that the shadowy man had no opportunity to react to it the blade’s bite.

Surprised, the mystery man grabbed at his side. But it was too late, as his upper torso separated from his hips and flopped on the ground.

Next, Toby dissected the beasts head and neck from it’s shoulders and then did the same with the legs, feet, arms and hands. Then, as he’d practiced for years, he sheathed the sword without looking.

Not a sound could be heard from the figures mouth as Toby picked up the remains of the cane, followed by the torso and head. Angry, Toby began monologuing as he dragged everything around the corner of the house and into the back yard.

“I told you and your kind to leave us alone, but no! You refused to listen and then you force me to do crap like this,” he complained as he plopped the torso on the ground.

He placed the thing’s head in the grass near the torso, continuing to talk all the while: “You scared off all the neighborhood kids, gave my wife and daughters nightmares – so this one’s on you Vlad – or whatever you’re calling yourself these days – I don’t care and in a few minutes it ain’t gonna matter anyway!”

As the torso lay at his feet, Toby drove the shattered end of his father’s cane through the center of the rib cage, where the heart should’ve been. And using a rock from his flower bed, he drove the piece of wood into the earth, making certain that it was deep and secure.

In the darker edges of the yard he saw other shadowy figures moving about, looking as if they wanted to attack him and rescue their master. But Toby had planned for this, timing his violent encounter with the rising of the sun.

He laughed, “Rising of the sun…that’s funny as hell. Tora, tora, tora! You’re gonna watch as your body goes up in smoke and ash, you dumb bastard!”

As he said this, Toby noticed how all the body parts he’d hacked away in the front yard, had managed to wriggle their way to the dismembered body. Again he laughed, “And right on time!”

As he said that, a sliver of the sun’s orange glow showed itself from between his home and the neighbors. Knowing that they were in danger themselves, the figures tucked within the yard’s shadows began to fade away to where ever they came.

“Let this be a lesson to all of you – and don’t come back!” he shouted as the torso and it’s limbs began to smolder, smoke and finally burst into a white-hot flame, only to disappear in a cloud of ash.

Toby turned and pointed at the head, as it sat in such a way that it would be last to go and was now beginning to show signs of combustion, “Go back to Hell and tell everyone to leave me alone or they’ll get some of the same!”

In an instant, the head exploded into to a ball of white-hot fire, followed by a cloud of ash. Toby looked around as the sun rose higher, then grabbed the garden hose to rinse away the residue of this epic battle.

Later that week, Tobiachi ‘Toby’ Edo received a letter from his homeowner’s association informing him that his Halloween display had earned first place in the ‘scariest’ category and that he should come to the office and collect his trophy.