The Culling

Addison Smith

T he monsters fell from the sky and everyone cheered. They burst on impact, painting the roads in yellow fluid which the people gathered in their Monster Splat-branded buckets and wiped on their celebratory pants. All around the bodies lay in mangled and dripping heaps, and cheers rose into the evening. It was a good event with millions of bodies falling to earth, ensuring everyone had a chance to gather them up.

“They used to be bigger,” Grandpa said, poking a limp and yellow body with his Monster Stick. “Bulbous things with lots of innards. We don’t get good monsters like that anymore.”

I scooped a pile of rope-like entrails in my hands and enjoyed the way they squished between my fingers. I was a big girl now, almost ten, so Grandpa let me lead the expedition. I dropped the guts into my bucket and sucked the fluid off my fingers, shivering at the taste.

All around, kids from school walked and poked and gathered. I saw a boy from my class and called out, “Happy Monster Splat Day!” The boy didn’t respond, watching the celebrations instead. I turned to Grandpa. “Why don’t people fall from the sky?” I asked. “That would be a really big splat!”

Grandpa smiled like he was remembering something a long time ago. He stroked his hand through my hair, wet with yellow goo, and licked his fingers clean before answering. “Not sure,” he said. “Just the way God made the world, I guess. Monsters fall from the sky and people walk on the ground.”

“Has anyone ever caught a monster? Like, alive? I wonder what they think of it.”

“Nah,” Grandpa said. “That’d be a waste of a good splat. Anyway, it’s getting dark. Is your bucket full enough?”

I held it up, overflowing with yellow viscera that covered the orange Splat! logo. Juice slopped over the side and I glared at the waste.

Grandpa didn’t notice. “That’s a good girl,” he said. “Let’s join the others.”

The others weren’t far away, all gathered in the local department store parking lot. Lights sparkled from fences and strobed over cars where boys and girls sat on their hoods to kiss. Grandpa saw a couple making out and didn’t avert his eyes, grinning instead.

“Your grandma and I used to be those kids,” he said. “All hopped up on youth and the excitement of the event. That was early on, when the portals in the sky first opened.”

I listened with rapt attention, because the story was part of the tradition. He would tell how grandma was got the goo on her lips, and she was the first he ever saw lick her lips and smile, that new presence of peace shining behind her pupils.

“The monsters make things better,” he said, finally. “You don’t know what it was like before, not really. They teach some of it in your classes, but you can’t imagine the pain of loss. It’s better this way, not having to feel it.”

Somewhere in the distance, a boy was violently sick, throwing up the yellow goo in a puddle. Nothing changed around the parking lot, except we all started vaguely in his direction.

“The monsters changed us. There were worries early on, you know, as if it wasn’t the will of God himself. They thought the strange biologies would change us in some horrible way. All it really did was release us from the pain of loss.”

The vomiting boy ran, but he couldn’t make it far. There were too many of us, those who accepted the monsters’ bodies. I dipped my finger into my bucket and sucked the juice, sweet on my tongue. Grandpa gripped his Monster Stick, but we were an odd pair in the party. He was too old to keep pace, and I was too young to have a Monster Stick of my own. In the distance, teenagers swung their sticks, cracking the boy’s bones like sugar sculptures in his body. He screamed, but he knew how it went when you didn’t accept the fluids.

“Does it hurt?” I asked, curious at the prospect.

“When they cull you? Probably. Your grandma put up a hell of a fight, I’ll tell you, when her body began to reject it.” Grandpa laughed. “We weren’t in public, so I got the honor. She was a real workout.”

“What about… for us?” I asked. “Does it hurt to kill the ones who don’t accept it?”

Grandpa considered, watching the boy in the distance as his own fluids spread on the concrete, red and thick with gore. “You know, before monsters started falling, I’ll bet it did. Could have been tough, punishing those that reject gifts from the heavens. Specially loved ones. But now we don’t have to worry about that.” Grandpa stared up to the sky and the winking portals above, delivering bodies from the great unknown.

“We have that to thank them for,” he said, hand to his heart.

I stared up with him and put my own hand on my heart. Behind us, the screaming stopped and the commotion returned to subdued celebration. “Thank you,” I said to the monsters.

I couldn’t wait to get my own Monster Stick.

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