A Bad Case of Sigbins

by Michael White

  As Wallace stood watching it another one of the creatures almost identical in appearance but slightly smaller in size appeared beside it, its eyes also watching his every move. Wallace took a step back and the two creatures advanced a similar distance. As he stood shaking he saw one of the creatures approach one of the untouched pumpkins in the patch and punch its fist into it, pulling out a large chunk of the vegetable before starting to eat it. Yet its eyes never left Wallace at all.

  “Chi-Chi-Chi.” Came the sound from the other creature, only this time he clearly saw its mouth widen as if it was smiling at him, and as he saw the fangs and wide evil mouth he gulped loudly, turned on his heels and ran for all he was walk back to the car, the strange “Chi-Chi-Chi.” sound following him a little of the way but as he increased his speed and ran around the corner of the old mansion house, his coat tails flapping behind him he soon left it behind.

  ***

  Breakfast was most definitely the most important meal of the day, Wallace often thought and he would frequently start the day with a meal that some would consider lavish. Yet not this day. Upon his arrival home the previous night he had found himself almost instantly downing a large brandy which was quickly followed by another. That certainly made him feel a little better, but he could not seem to shake the horrible stench, the smell of which seemed to have followed him home. He had noticed it straight away as soon as he had thrown himself into the car the night before, instantly locking all of the doors as he did so just in case the creatures had as of yet not given up their pursuit.

  Yet he did not linger to see if they still followed him, instead driving home perhaps a little more quickly than was probably legal.

  What to make of the two small creatures in the pumpkin patch however he had no idea. He had certainly never seen their like before, though he knew it was down to these creatures that the pumpkins were being eaten, for he had seen them eat into one with his very own eyes!

  Yet he could not make his mind up what to do, and placing a new sign on the shop window indicating that the store was closed for a few days following a family emergency he sat down and poured through his ledgers, encyclopaedia and reference works in search for any mention of the creatures. He drew a complete blank. Just after eleven in the morning his phone rang and a gut feeling told him to answer it, and when he picked up the receiver he heard the familiar tones of Lady Spiers-Faulkner.

  “Any luck with the pumpkins, Barrington?” She enquired, “Only there have been another two eaten in the night and Chalky found your torch and flask on the path still. Not a problem is there?”

  “Of course not, Lady Spiers-Faulkner.” he lied, “Not a longhorn beetle though. They are confined to wood piles I fear, not pumpkins. I have not enough evidence as of yet and shall extend my vigil to this evening. I suspect it may be a bad case of Mongolian dust beetle.”

  “Sounds horrid.” Said Lady Spiers-Faulkner. “Though as long as I have some pumpkins left by the end of the week then I will be more than pleased, I assure you. Make sure you sort this out with all haste will you, Barrington?” She had enquired and cut the call before he could give her his earnest reply that of course he would.

  Which was not with confidence that he would have said this even if he had been given a chance to do so. Quite simply he had no idea what the strange pumpkin eating creatures were and therefore equally no idea on how to be rid of them. None of his reference works could find them, and he regretted very much having to fabricate the Mongolian dust beetle, which technically did not exist at all, but he also knew that Lady Spiers-Faulkner would not take a verdict of “I have no idea what the creatures that are eating your pumpkins are” terribly well.

  So Wallace decided he had to widen his sphere of research, and of course the university library was just the place to do so. Professor Cyril Geannon was of course his contact at the university and after a quick phone call Wallace found himself in the university reference library surrounded by dusty tomes relating to the world of garden pests, woodland creatures and the like.

  He had arrived at the university in good time, though the traffic in town slowed him down somewhat, and so it was already eleven o’clock when he sat down to begin his research. By three o’clock in the afternoon he was beginning to despair, for he had searched every volume of garden and countryside pests that he could find and was no nearer to finding out what the creatures were then when he started. Slightly disheartened he widened his search to the continent, but here the number of reference works was slighter, but still equally vacant of any mention of anything resembling the strange creatures he had seen the night before.

  By four o’clock he moved his search to Asia, and now the number of reference works was extremely slight. At four forty-five he was in despair. He had promised Lady Spiers-Faulkner a result, and was due back at the manor hall that very evening - in fact, in but a few hours time, and he still had no idea what it was he had seen in the pumpkin patch.

  On the last book he snorted as he saw that the title indicated that it was a reference work of Asian folk creatures. He did not remember selecting it from the shelves, but there it sat on the desk before him and opening it up he began to leaf through the yellowed pages, hardly looking at it at all. He flicked through and stopped. A picture on the previous page caught his eye and he quickly turned the page back.

  “The Sigbin.” said the footnote below the picture, and Wallace grinned widely, for here was a facsimile that represented exactly the creature he had seen the night before! Reaching eagerly into his pocket for his fountain pen he opened his notebook up and began to write.

  ***

  Back at home Wallace hastily ate a sandwich, which he realised with regret was the first thing that had passed his lips since breakfast, and having secured several small sharp sticks from his garden he found himself in his woodshed at his workbench, filing the sticks into sharp little pointers. Carefully he referred to his notes.

  “The Bagakay stick” he had written, “Cigar thick and sometimes weighted with clay it is a small stick sharpened almost to that of a dart shape and particularly useful at seeing off Sigbins.” Well the clay would have to wait he thought, though as he sharpened the sticks to a fierce point he felt that these would be particularly useful against the fell creatures in Lady Spiers-Faulkner’s pumpkin patch.

  Wallace fashioned half a dozen of the evil looking little darts in the short space he had time to do so, and placing them into a carrier bag he set off for the manor once again. As he arrived at Wanthrop manor and made his way around the house into the gardens and towards the pumpkin patch night had already fallen. He had taken a spare torch with him and he shone it along the path as he approached where he had seen the creatures the night before. As he approached it he smelt the foul smell almost instantly. He had had to have several baths the night before to be rid of the smell and he was now more than familiar with the foul stench.

  “Chi-Chi-Chi.” He heard before he even drew near to the pumpkins, and extinguishing his torch and placing the carrier bag at his feet he pulled one of the Bagakay sticks from it and held it in his hand. A full moon shine down from above, illuminating the pumpkin patch eerily, the large rounded vegetables almost seeming to be illuminated in the moonlight and then not far away he saw a pair of red eyes shining in the darkness, drawing nearer. He held the bagakay stick tightly, waiting for the Sigbin to get nearer, and then off to his right this time he saw another pair of red eyes watching him carefully.

  “A very bad case of Sigbins.” muttered Wallace under his breath as the creatures slowly approached, seemingly oblivious to the bagakay stick he held tightly in his shaking fist.

  “Chi-Chi-Chi.” Came the sound again, and then one of the creatures was near enough for him to see. It stood on its two back legs, short tail supporting it as it stared at him with its red eyes, glowering almost, its thick black fur making it almost invisible in the darkness. Wallace considered whether after he had slain the first creature the second would flee, and he considered t
hat it might, which would need another nights attendance, but it was his commission, and he wearily resigned himself to it.

  “Chi-Chi-Chi.” Said the Sigbin. It was almost a challenge, Wallace felt and angrily screwing up his fist he launched the Bagakay through the air, the small dangerous dart shooting towards the creature with what Wallace considered to be remarkable accuracy. Yet as it approached the creature it simply side-stepped the bagakay stick, the speed of which it did so remarkable to Wallace as the dart flew past it, landing some way off in the pumpkin patch behind the creature that seemed to hop from foot to foot madly as if this was some sort of game!

  Wallace was not to be beaten however. He grabbed another stick and launched this, only for the creature to move out of the way yet again. The third and fourth Bagakay sticks sailed wide of the mark, and the Sigbin grinned evilly at Wallace, almost as if it was enjoying the game. He was down to his last Bagakay now, and anger getting the better of him he raced towards the creature, throwing the dart with all of his might.

  The two Sigbins began to run away, capering almost as they did so, a deep sniggering sound and foul stench coming from the direction in which they fled into the night. The dart however sailed straight toward the largest pumpkin nearby, which Wallace saw with a gulp was more than ripe. In fact it was, he realised with dismay, positively inflated. There was a loud bang as the Bagakay stick hit the pumpkin, which exploded loudly, covering both the surrounding area and Wallace in pumpkin.

  “Damn.” said Wallace as he stood dripping with exploded pumpkin. “Damn.”

  The Sigbins had vanished now, a distant “Chi-Chi-Chi.” sound echoing over the fields, and pumpkin splattered, Wallace made his way back to the car cursing loudly under his breath. As he passed the rear of the manor house however a light came on and a door opened revealing Lady Spiers-Faulkner standing in her dressing gown with what appeared to be a double barrelled shotgun propped up under her arm and pointing at him. The light blinded him slightly but the lady of the house peered at him quizzically, her nose held rather higher in the air than Wallace thought humanly possible.

  “Is that you, Barrington?” she enquired and Wallace grunted a terse “Yes”.

  “Are you covered in ruddy pumpkin?” she asked, the gun thankfully being lowered.

  “I am indeed.” he more or less snarled.

  “Not Mongolian dust beetle then?”

  “No.”

  “Very well.” said Lady Spiers-Faulkner, and with a loud tut slammed the door.

  Wallace sighed and headed back to the car, though the appearance of Lady Spiers-Faulkner had unsettled him rather, for she had stood in the door of the rear of the house with the light shining from behind her. Yet strangely, and Wallace thought long and hard about this, but he was sure that he was correct and that it was not a proverbial trick of the light, for Lady Spiers-Faulkner had cast no shadow. No shadow at all.

  ***

  Wallace picked delicately at a piece of toast. It was just before seven in the morning, and he had hardly slept a wink. The previous night he needed three baths this time. One to rid himself of stray particles of pumpkin (the most difficult to remove being that caught in his hair, oddly), and then two more to free himself of the fearsome stench from the Sigbins. He consulted his notes once again. Clearly the Bagakay stick was not going to work as the creatures were far too fast for him, and so he had to come up with another plan. Wearily coaxing his aching back into his armchair he looked over his notes once again.

  “Sigbin’s like to feast on charcoal.” he had written, “Though in the absence of charcoal they feast on people's blood, but they do not physically attack.” He sighed. At least there was that. Yet he had written a little more. “The Sigbin sip their victims blood by attacking their victims shadows.”

  He was now convinced that Lady Spiers-Faulkner had cast no shadow upon her appearance at the back door of the manor the night before, and now he knew why. They had no doubt been resident at the manor house for some time, but had only recently discovered a taste for pumpkin as the vegetables came into season. There was also the fact that these exotic pumpkin seeds had been procured from Asia, which was a link to the Sigbins locality in some strange way. Wallace returned to his notes where he had made a few more scribblings. He shook his hand to ease the vague pain of arthritis in his hand that he knew would only get worse over the years and consulted his last notes.

  “In certain parts of Asia it is a widely held belief that a Sigbin held in captivity bestows luck, though it is difficult to reconcile this with the thought of the shadow of the owner being attacked.”

  He put down the notebook and looked out of the window. That was all he had. Wearily he eased himself out of his chair and began to put on his workboots. He had some charcoal to burn.

  ***

  Wallace stood back and unloaded the cage he made from the boot of his car and placed it on the gravel drive of Walthrop Manor. It was a finely crafted thing he thought, and well constructed. He did not know what the strength of the Sigbin was like and so he had constructed it to be sturdy and yet surprisingly lightweight. Bamboo tended to work like that, he thought and reached for the small sack he had carefully tied and placed in his boot so as not to spill its contents all over his car.

  It was early evening and still the birds sang in the trees overhead, claiming their territory as their own he thought. The sun was beginning to drop and the shadows were long but as Lady Spiers-Faulkner and Chalky Whitehaven approached from the direction of the house he could not help but notice that neither of them cast a shadow on the drive, whereas his was long and bloated.

  “Ah. Barrington.” said Lady Spiers-Faulkner, “Tell me you have finally come to rid me of the pests that plague my pumpkins. Another three lost last night. At this rate there will be none of the ruddy things left.”

  “Indeed I have, Lady Spiers-Faulkner.” said Wallace and he saw the pair of them smile at his new found confidence. “Though I must insist upon total privacy for the delicate operation I am about to perform.”

  “What’s the cage for?” asked Chalky suspiciously, eying the small bamboo construct almost eagerly.

  “Wodeburn badger.” said Wallace, making the name up on the spot. “Fearful little buggers, and prone to a bit of pumpkin I would suggest.” he said, smiling even more confidently than before. “Though what I have in this sack will tempt the blighter, never fear!”

  “What’s in it?” asked Chalky, looking at the sack as if it contained something that was about to bite him.

  “Tradesman's secret.” said Wallace, tapping the side of his nose conspiratorially, “Leave me to it and your pumpkins will dwindle no more!”

  “Well your methods are your own.” sniffed Lady Spiers-Faulkner haughtily. “Come Chalky, leave the consulting horticulturist to his work. I wish to discuss my plans for the rhododendrons in the drive at some length.”

  Chalky sighed quietly as Lady Spiers-Faulkner led him away, and Wallace picked up the cage and walked around to the vegetable garden, his back aching madly by the time he reached the pumpkin patch. After that he returned to the car and took up the sack and some other small items and returned to the vegetable garden. Already the sun was beginning to set and he knew he had little time to spare before darkness fell and so he set to work.

  First he installed the cage inside the pumpkin patch and propped the door open with a small stick he had cut a fork shape into. Then he very carefully tied a length of thin rope to the stick and very slowly uncoiled it so it was far from the cage and on the path. Taking the sack he returned to the cage and tipped a small pile of freshly burnt charcoal into the furthest corner of the inside of the cage, though sufficiently far away from the bars of the bamboo box so that the bait could not be got at from outside.

  Then he retreated and nestled down onto the path, holding the rope carefully in one hand. Slowly night began to fall, the shadows increasing as they fell over the pumpkins and once again the moon rose overhead, illuminating the grounds eerily.


  “Chi-Chi-Chi.” He said loudly, though not too loud, calling to the foul creatures that were as of yet to appear. “Chi-Chi-Chi.”

  The first thing that Wallace noticed was the return of the foul smell which seemed to roll across the field of pumpkins in waves. Gingerly Wallace transferred the rope to his right hand, his left being weaker because of his arthritis, and he did not want to ruin his plan with a poor grip. Then through the darkness he saw a pair of red eyes appear, and then shortly after another. They seemed to watch him intently, and Wallace peered into the dark trying to estimate how near the cage they were. Which was very near indeed.

  “Chi-Chi-Chi.” he heard now, though the sound was slightly different; an edge of curiosity in it. Then he felt the rope move slightly and as the creature turned away from him to no doubt enter the trap, he saw the other set watching him still. Cursing under his breath Wallace felt himself perspiring greatly. He needed the other Sigbin in the cage!

  “Chi-Chi-Chi.” Came the voice again, though again the sound was different, though it sounded to Wallace as one of the creatures was calling to the other. Then the second set of eyes disappeared and he felt the rope in his hand sag again as the second creature no doubt walked inside the trap.

  He paused slightly, examining the darkness for any sign of the red eyes, but there was none. Then slowly over the pumpkin patch he heard a new sound, and there was no doubt what this was. It sounded like something was munching at the charcoal. Wallace braced himself and with a mighty tug pulled on the rope and he heard the cage door close. There was a brief moment of silence and then the night was filled with the “Chi-Chi-Chi” sound, though now it was almost in anger and very loud. He grabbed his torch and turning it on, strode over to the cage and pushed closed the locking bar, observing inside the bamboo trap the two sigbins incarcerated inside it, staring at him with their glowing red eyes.