Spain—El Sacamantecas [Pirate raids, 15th-19th century]
Why denying what was evident? The human body could be a exceedingly profitable merchandise, and in many different ways. For labor force, sex, home service..., medicine...
Yes, it seemed nothing could cure as many diseases as the grease, blood and bone powder of healthy individuals. There were people rich and sick enough to pay whatever it took for those. Whoever got their hands on them would make a good profit.
Where could one acquire them?
With the help of a shovel, sneaking into the cemetery late at night, if you're well informed of the recent newcomers and you're not superstitious.
Bribing the executioner well, becoming one yourself.
Or in the usual way one acquires a person: taking them by force.
Spain had heard those stories, of children lured with the promise of food or toys, maidens who go get water to the fountain and never come back. Sometimes they find their corpses beheaded, or with very ugly cuts, hung upside down, blood completely drained from their bodies.
And he had also heard of the devils from far away lands who raided the ports and took men, women and children who were never heard from again, not even paying whatever they were asking for.
Two stories which were very easy to understand together.
They said the Sacamantecas acted in towns, in forests, hiding in the shadows...But Spain was convinced he mostly stroke at sea and didn't mind anyone watching.
The warning yells of his watchmen were enough to make his skin crawl and picture it so vividly he paled. The abducted victims trying to escape the butcher's knife unsuccessfully, treated like meat, sold as such...What do those heathens know about compassion or simple humanity?
It hit different after he became a father. When you've got children, after witnessing the horrors in the world, what some are capable of, you want to keep them safe.
His youth terror became panic, after his children came to him crying: "There's a monster under the bed!"
The Sacamantecas could take any form. He could have silky, golden, long hair or spiky and expel smoke from his mouth. He could also have thick eyebrows or wear a turban and a mask. It could be anyone. Any person who approached them, with sweet promises and a smile, or threats and force...
He wouldn't take his children away! He wouldn't take him or any of his people, not one person!
Shaken to the core, he fought with passion, so none of them ended up—oh, what a dreadful picture!—hanging from their ankles, giving every single drop of blood, every portion of grease, to their captors, gutted and sold like pigs...And if he had to hang every suspicious man he found, if he had to fill his beaches with fortresses, he would, he really would!
Growing up means you know the Sacamantecas is very real...and he could be anywhere...