Bestiary

In the Before, this world teemed with many monsters. They were unafraid, and lived out in the open, where they could be seen and easily found. Human beings were no threat to them; in truth, many of them fed on men like men feed on cattle. Humans were too filled with fear to challenge them, and the monsters ruled uncontested. That situation came to an end when Killer-of-Enemies was born into the world. Killer-of-Enemies was not afraid of the monsters, and one by one, he hunted them down, destroying and dispersing them to the last. Except for Big Owl.

As the stories go, Killer-of-Enemies defeated Big Owl and cast him down, dispersing him into hundreds of thousands of little owls, who flew far and wide and hid in the night, afraid that Killer-of-Enemies might hunt them down as well. But Big Owl lived on within those dispersed owls, and within the hearts of the men who, even after his defeat, feared him.

Big Owl lived closer to men than many other monsters did. He had children to feed — two of them, most stories say. His children were even larger than he was, and they were ever-hungry, ever-growing. Big Owl had to stay close to the world of men in order to satiate their infinite appetites. Back in those times, in the Before, Big Owl was unafraid of the light, and walked openly during the day. His horns were long and curved like blunt yellow knives stained with the dried blood of the innocent. His eyes were large and reflected the light of the moon as if they were celestial spheres unto themselves. They were lined with yellowing finger- and toenails, the only parts of the dead he and his children did not care to eat. He wore them like trophies. His feathers stank like rotting carcasses, and the basket he carried on his back, big enough to fit a pair of black bears, reeked of offal and excrement. Big Owl was one of the most horrific of monsters, but unlike the others he carried himself with dignity and pride, a chief amongst the common, a moon amongst the stars.

He lived so powerfully in the hearts and dreams of men that when Killer-of-Enemies dispersed him into the night, he slept bloodlessly in their memories, patient and knowing. His children still lived, somewhere out in the darkness, and they hungered, and without him to feed them, they would dwindle into nothingness. He remembered this as Killer-of-Enemies

walked across the land, slaying the last of the monsters. He remembered this when Killer-of-Enemies settled down to have his own children. He remembered this when Killer-of-Enemies passed into story and legend and myth. And on the lips of mothers trying to scare their misbehaving children, and in the nests of owls high in the trees at night, Big Owl was reborn. He donned his basket and his chopping knife. He watched through the eyes of the owls in the trees and through the moon itself. He called out to strangers walking at night, and reminded them, deep in their hearts, of the terror of being dragged across Big Owl’s chopping block, limbs stretched. The ancestor-memories from the Before would not leave them, and they remembered the knife coming down, chopping them into pieces, and the endless, desolate voids that were the maws of Big Owl’s children, hungrily choking them down.

Big Owl is stronger now than he ever was in the Before, when Killer-of-Enemies faced and defeated him. He lives in the night but does not fear the day. He lives in the memories and hearts of boys and girls, and on their lips when they grow into parents. He no longer slips into the homes of the sleeping to steal victims away into the forest. Now he slips into their dreams, stuffing them into his basket before they can wake. When the sun rises, their families find bloodless empty beds and assume their children ran away. Often, Big Owl targets the most vulnerable in a community; the destitute, women,

orphans and foster children, people who will not be missed. Sometimes the police or even the FBI might open a case and pretend to search for Big Owl’s victims, but nothing ever comes of it, and no one knows where they go.

Except, of course, those who still tell his stories — but every time Big Owl’s story is told, his strength grows, and as Big Owl’s strength grows, his children grow. The real question is this: What will they grow into?

A vast shadow in vaguely owlish form, Big Owl looms through the Penumbra more like a cloud than like any mortal beast. When pressed, this spirit can burst into several thousand (or several million) owls of normal size, or perhaps compress itself into a single owl of unusually intimidating aspect. What kind of owl? Whatever sort seems most frightening to the beholder. Big Owl is not so much a titanic relation to the Strigiformean birds of prey so much as it’s a primordial manifestation of terror embodied in the idea of an owl screaming in the dark.