Sukuna (Medium's Short Story Contest Version)

The lights go out. For the third time this week, my house, all of Glanvilles, maybe all of St. Philip’s parish, is plunged into darkness.

Beep. Beep. Beeeep. My computer’s backup power supply wails in the dark. I stumble from my homework at the dining table to the computer desk and snap the thing off.

“Dem damn disgusting!” Mama, my grandmother, says from the veranda. She’s talking about the Antigua Public Utilities Authority’s constant “load-shedding” to perform “scheduled maintenance”.

Mummy rustles in the kitchen and strikes a match. A spark jumps in the dark and Mummy light a candle. Pale yellow light floods the kitchen from the long stick of wax.

“You need more light right,” Mummy asks coming to stand over me with the candle. I recoil. I’ve been accidentally dripped on with hot wax too many times in my fifteen years.

“Nope,” I say, “Study break.” I snap my thick red Principles of Business textbook shut and jump up from the table. Five long strides bring me to the front door. I yank it open. It creaks a long heightening creak and I hop unto the veranda.

The moon is full and white tonight. Our street is bathed in a pale blue light that casts every color into a shade of navy. In the soft light I can make out the stout shape of my grandmother with her legs and arms crossed sitting on her little white bench in the west corner of the veranda. She faces the street. In the east corner sits Bramble, the man that raised my father and my aunt Cynthia while my real grandfather ran off to England. Bramble sits on a concrete block and taps his walking stick rhythmically against the short decorative block wall.

“Well Yan,” Mama says as I take a seat on the wall behind her bench, “Current gone wild.”

We laugh. The door creaks and admits my mother carrying an insect repelling candle in a yellow glass vase. She sets it down in the center of the un-tiled veranda floor. Mummy sits next to me on the wall.

“Wait,” Mummy says, “Where’s your brother?”

I shrug. “In his room I guess. You know how he is.”

“Eedy!” Mama shouts for my brother. Mama often sits on the veranda and bellows for people a block away. No one ever fails to hear her. “Eden Bird!”

“M’orm,” he answers from somewhere in the back of the house.

“You no see everybody outside?” Mama says. In the yellow candle light her teeth flash in a mischievous smile. “You no ‘fraid jumbie?”

Five. Four. Three. Two. One. My brother Eden burst through the front door. The veranda echoes with laughter. Eden is un-amused. He scowls at us all in turn and steps off the veranda to sit on the front steps.

Mama leans over the wall to flick his head playfully. “You ever hear bout Sukuna?”

“No.” Eden says shortly. “And I don’t want to hear.”

“Ha-hai!” My grandmother throws her head back and laughs. “Yan, you ever hear?”

I shoot a grin in Eden’s direction. “Yes but I wouldn't mind hearing again.”

Sukuna are sometimes called West Indian vampires. No Caribbean person thinks of them that way though. They are usually female humans transformed into village-roaming bloodsuckers by dark rituals performed by obeah men[1]

“Dem old Dominican woman, dem turn themselves into sukuna and all kinda ting. Then dem go round and suck people. Suck them dry you know!” Mama says. She leans forward and drops her voice to almost a whisper. “When we used to live at Long Lane Estate, this man, honest to God, every morning the man wake, he look like subben suck he.”

“But I thought sukuna only sucked children” I say.

“Yes, dem suck pickney plenty,” Mama confirms. “But people can set sukuna on big people.”

I leaned back against the column and pulled my legs up to my chest. I thought I saw Eden cover his ears.

“Yes man, sukuna bad! Every night they suck, suck, suck this poor man, John Martin from Cedar Grove. Every day John look more weak. He get thin. He get light like-a feather. As any hard wind blow, he stagger. Sometime, at night time, you hear him shriek out ‘help! Murder!’ but when the rest man dem reach in the room not a soul in there ‘cept poor John. Ah so he shake, ah so he ah sweat.”

Mama clenches both her fist in front of her and vibrates her hefty body on the small wooden bench to imitate John’s shaking.

“De man and dem hunt ‘round de estate fa da sukuna skin. You know dem peel outta dem skin before dem can suck people? Well, dem haffu hide way the skin so nobody can find it.”

“What happens if they find it?” I ask.

“Dem can kill the sukuna. The only way fa kill dem as fu throw salt inna dem skin.”

“How is salt supposed to kill them though?”

“When you throw the salt in, then dem can’t go back inna dem skin when morning come. When da sun rise, dem get burn up.”

Bramble snorted from the corner. “John Martin? He deserve wah he get.” Bramble’s speech is slow and impeded by the presence of only one tooth.

“He and he wife jus dabble innna all kinda darkness.”

Mama kisses her teeth loudly and slaps at the ar to dismiss Bramble. “How you know dat?”

“You stupid woman! Everybody know dat. They min find one Black Heart[2] book in some old obeah house and go down ah Newfield Graveyard fu raise old jumbie and ask for dem money.”

My eyebrows shot up. “That kinda stupid! How would a ghost have money?”

“Dem no stupid gyal. Just greedy. Dem say that the old white people that use to live on the estate bury dem money before they died so nobody can teef um.” Mama says. “They say if you can raise the jumbie and bind um, you can ask he whey he bury he money.”

“When we dug the foundation for this house, there was a story that some old jumbie promised money to your cousin Linroy,” Mummy says.

“Okay, stop now! You gone too far,” Eden springs up from his seat and whirls to face us.

“If you don’t want to hear you should go back inside,” I say. “Oh wait! You can’t! You’re too scaaaaared to!”

“Me nuh ‘fraid nuthin!” Eden shouts back.

“You two behave,” Mummy hisses at us. We fall silent.

And remain silent. The moon ducks behind a thick black cloud. Eden scrambles up off the step. A shuffling noise comes from the darkness of the street. Shuffle, scrape, flap. Shuffle. Scrape. Flap. My heart pumps. Eden draws an audible breath. Mama, Bramble and Mummy look to the street. Shuffle. Scrape. Flap. Could it be a sukuna or a pyro-manic, horse-legged diablese[3]?

“Good night! Good night!” calls a familiar voice from the pitch blackness.

The shuffling, scraping, flapping becomes our neighbor Ira as he steps into the yard and half way up the steps. His shoes are lace-less. The tongues flap about in front his foot. He shuffled along the rough tarmac street with his shoes scraping the ground.

We exhale collectively. Moonlight baths the street again and the yellow dancing candlelight trembles our shadows and we wait for the lights to return.

---

[1] Obeah men are comparable to voodoo priest and shamans. Obeah is a form of witchcraft unique to the West Indies.

[2] The Black Heart book is often thought of an the obeah Bible. It contains spells and instructions on how to perform rituals. The books are usually heavily guarded by sprits or enchantments that make it impossible to open and use without permission.

[3] Diablese is pronounced “ja-bless”. They are female pyromancers: spirits that wield fire. Diablese have one human leg and one horse (or donkey) leg. They wear broad rimmed hats to obscure their faces and long dresses to conceal their mismatched legs.