Bleeding Barn

I was looking out the window of my farmhouse not long after midnight. The moon was barely visible through the firm veil of the nighttime clouds. My wife was sleeping in bed, snoring as loudly as ever. A slight patter of rain tapped the window pane and strummed the rooftop. It was not a storm. It was merely a comforting trill. I always cherished nights like this. Calm. Quiet. A perfect ambience of nature and tranquility. The oaky scent of my house cleared my nose. The pines on the edge of my property swaying gently in a chorus of rustling branches scraping against each other. This was it. This was what peace looked like. Yet there was another reason I found myself gazing out the window. There was a reason my eyes lingered on the barn adjacent to my home. The barn door was open. But the goats, cattle, and pigs remained inside their barn sanctuary. Yet not every member of my livestock was indoors. One of my goats was at the door. I was watching it. And it was watching me. Never had a goat stared at me while I occupied my bedroom. Let alone braved the nighttime rain. Yet there it was. Just staring. Doing nothing else. So still. Petrified. Rooted in place without a hint of life in its small motionless body. I looked down on it. And it looked up at me. Curiously, the longer we stared at one another, the more odd things began to grow. A pair of golden eyes peered at me. The brilliant gold contrasted the inky darkness around it as if they were a pair of torches. The goat’s posture was erect. Its head was held high. And its horns were far more prominent than I had come to expect. They were more pointed. The two bony protrusions rose from its tiny head like obsidian spires vaguely reflecting the moonlight above. A part of me wanted to lock the goat into its home, but exhaustion began introducing itself to the front of my mind as my eyes began to flutter. Struggling to keep awake, I accepted the reality that the goat would have to return to its home without my intervention. Small animals breaking out of their pens was not an uncommon occurrence in my line of work. A flash of lightning ignited the sky with a brief gleam of white, and I found myself jumping slightly in the thunder that slammed against the world. The thunder woke my wife.

Wiping a bleary eye, she said, “Come back to bed, dearest.”

But I did not answer. The goat was gone. Likely ran back inside the barn upon hearing the thunder. As I expected.

“What is it?” She asked.

“Nothing.” I answered without looking at her. “Nothing at all.”

Climbing into bed and beneath the wool blankets, I held my wife throughout the storm. I did not know how much time had gone by, but the moon still hung high, and its silvery light pierced my window all the clearer now that the rains had stopped. The moment I began to shut my eyes and embrace the invitation of sleep, the unmistakable noise of cracking metal and slamming wood erupted outside. Leaping to the window, I saw the two barn doors had snapped off their hinges and were reduced to resting flat on the muddy ground. I could not risk letting the livestock roam free. All hints of weariness washed away, I slid on my boots and a thick coat, glided down the steps, and raced to the outside world. Upon meeting the air, I noticed something was amiss. There was no wind. No brushing branches. Not even the sounds of crickets chirping or frogs singing. Just utter silence. When I took a step, it was as if there were no footfalls to begin with. Pure silence. And that silence caused a slight shiver to rise up my back and into my neck. Striding noiselessly to the broken barn doors, I pried them up from the mud and rested them against the front wall of the wooden structure. I figured that the wood had rotted or perhaps the hinges rusted beyond use, but I was surprised to see neither rot nor rust. All I saw were the distinct indentations of horns having slammed into the doors with such force to cause splintering and cracking throughout both doors. With the night free of any schedule or obligations, I took this time to repair the doors to the best of my ability. Screwing them back onto their hinges. Opening and closing them repeatedly to detect any signs of weakness. I was met with such confusion. The hinges were not broken. The wood itself suffered negligible damage. There was no reason for the doors to have collapsed the way they did. Yet they did regardless. The moment I shut the doors, I heard a crash from inside. It sounded as if a heavy mass of bricks smashed onto the dirt. There was such power in the commotion, I felt my feet tingle in the vibration of the impact. Peeking inside, things appeared to be typical. The goats were huddled together. The pigs were clinging to the wall and snorting quietly among themselves. Yet when my eyes moved to the cows was when I began to detect the strangeness lingering in the barn. The cattle were concentrated to their waist-high gates, heads prodding and nudging it, asking without a word to be released. And in the corner of the cattle section of the barn, was a lone cow. She was still and flat on her side with her stomach aimed at me...and her head twisted to the point of bones stabbing out of her skin and into the cold air. It seemed as if someone had snapped the poor cow’s neck with such force, that its head rotated thrice over. My curiosity proved too strong to overcome, as I stepped to the gate of the cattle pens, and leaned in. There was a squelching gurgling noise emanating from the corner where the deceased cow resided. Hidden behind the rotund belly of the dead thing, the noises grew louder. They were guttural and harsh. The sounds of tearing sinew and grinding bone persisted as I gazed in shock. Another boom of thunder streaked across the sky, prompting me to sprint out of the barn straight for my home. Entering my bedroom, I slid under my bed, pulled out an old box, and armed myself with my shotgun.

“What’s going on?” My wife asked with wide eyes.

“I think a coyote broke into our barn.” I answered as I slid a shell into my firearm. “Stay put, I’ll make short work of it.”

Running outside and locking my house door behind me, I reentered the barn and was reunited with that same crunching and biting noise from behind the cow carcass. Shotgun level and one eye closed, I kicked the gate aside and entered the cow pen, maneuvering around the nervous cattle as they lumbered aside. The moment I reached the cow, the eating noises ceased. A second later a pair of golden eyes burned into my resolve. The eyes of the goat I saw earlier. But this was no mere goat. This was something else. Subtly different. Its eyes were forward facing. Its mouth was flat like a seam. And its placid expression turned to bitter rage. Blood dripped from all over its face and horns. Without any hesitation, I fired a slug round right into it. My bullet struck its head and the thing went flipping backwards. I thought it was over then and there. To my shock, the goat made a bleating snarl and reared itself up on its hind legs. When it did, its entire body seemed to extend and unwind. With a series of cracks and snaps its forelimbs began to blossom into gracile claws with each hoof stretching into an intimidating sickle. Feeling my heart turn to ice, I forced myself to slide a new round into my shotgun, and as I prepared to fire again, the thing swiped my rifle away as it fell uselessly to the hay-strewn floor. My knees gave out from under me as a new searing pain jolted up my thighs. Looking down, I saw the sickle claws had severed my legs off from the knee down. And I was bleeding out beside the deceased cow as the reek and rancid odor of blood and iron flooded my nose and drowned my tastebuds. The creature loomed over me, its snout having elongated further as its own skin failed to accommodate the warped skull. Tendons tore as it loomed its now long and winding neck downwards. Its golden eyes locked onto mine.

“What are you?” I said with a thick bubble of blood popping out of my struggling lips.

The monstrosity cocked its head as the golden eyes blinded my vision.

A moment later, a thin raspy voice answered.

“Hunger.”

The last thing I saw was an endless maw of serrated teeth and grappling tendrils as my life was extinguished.