It was dusk, late summer. The light had taken on that blue- grey, dreamlike haze which makes you doubt your eyes. A touch of warmth remained on the breeze, carrying the aroma of cow manure, apple blossom and hay bales wrapped in sun-heated black plastic. 

   Little Jim Rafferty stood in a long, shallow ditch, the water coming perilously close to the lip of his welly boots. He unscrewed the lid of his jam jar and scooped up some tadpoles, almost overbalancing in the process. Straightening up unsteadily, he held the jar aloft and solemnly secured the lid again. In the dim light he make out twenty squirming, comma- shaped bodies inside. 

   His smile was the smile of a nine year old who had thus far enjoyed a good childhood, a true childhood. Every night he fell asleep knowing he was loved. When he worried about monsters hiding behind the curtains, a few soothing words from his mother were usually enough to obliterate his fear. It would come back the next night, of course (fear is a pernicious adversary, after all) but the best thing about childhood fears is that they don’t naw at you like adult ones do. During daylight hours nighttime terrors ceased to exist. 

   Death of course was a foggy abstraction, so far away as to almost be mythical. If he did ponder it, it was in the context of his parents, and even then it possessed less presence than fairytale monsters, some of whom seemed like a much more immediate concern. Hansel and Gretel’s villain in particular; the notion of an old lady eating children worked gears in him he couldn’t quite identify. He was too young to recognise the ancient, primeval terror of being consumed. 

   He headed back home, winding a track though the long grass, coarse against his ankles. He hummed absently, clasping his jar of tadpoles in both hands so as not to drop it. His father’s sheep were vague white blobs the next field over. A wood- pigeon burst out of the trees on the field’s perimeter, the sudden flap of wings startling him. He dropped the jar. It fell soundless unto the flattened grass at his feet and stayed intact. He bent to pick it up. When he straightened again it seemed suddenly darker. His heart beat fast in his narrow chest. 

   “Wise up,” he said aloud, “It was just a stupid bird.” 

But as he strode on, he couldn’t shake the jitters. The sudden appearance of the pigeon had flicked flight or fight to the ‘ON’ position, and there was no turning it straight back off again. Even so, he could see the windows of home, golden yellow through the trees ahead. Soon he would be inside drinking hot chocolate and trying to barter a few more minutes of TV before bed. 

   He was aware of the shape before he really laid eyes on it; a large depression in the tall grass off to his right. The breeze here carried rotting ghosts. The son of a farmer, he knew the scent of dead livestock well. Many’s a time he and his brother had come upon a stray sheep that had drowned in a ditch or been gutted by a fox.

   Curiosity and fear are old adversaries, as any cat can tell you, and Jim let his feet turn right, making a new track towards the stinking pool of darkness he knew he should avoid. His older brother wouldn’t run away, he told himself, and neither would his father. Men have to be brave, after all, tough. Farming is hard business, and death is part of that business.  

   Pushing to the edge of the miniature clearing, he found the grass there alternatively slick and sticky. The stench of blood, shit and viscera was overpowering, hanging over the depression like a fog. 

   It was hard to tell how many carcasses; maybe four, ribs curving to the sky, meat and skin still clinging in sections, skulls smashed in. The flattened grass was slathered with dark blood and slithering entrails. Cloven hoofs were scattered about, some with whole legs still attached. Jim might have been more fascinated than scared, but for the fact the killer was still present.  

   The boy didn’t have the life experience to process how scared he was. All his other fears were imaginary, and no matter how terrifying the witch behind the curtain might be, some part of him had always understood she couldn’t really get him. 

   The sheep murderer was asleep, grey flanks bellowing steadily in and out. The sound reminded Jim of a rusty- hinged door being blown open and closed in the wind. 

   The terror that tugged at his young mind went beyond the fear of death, and it would be many years before he amassed the vocabulary to attempt any description. He was certain of one thing most adults might have equivocated over, and thus been killed; the thing in the grass was a monster.

   More slowly than he thought possible, his mind communicated this truth to his feet, and his feet began the agonising process of backing away. Further, further, until the stench lessened and that squeaky- hinge breathing faded. Jim broke into a run after twenty yards, unable to take the tension anymore. He vaulted the barbed wire fence, coming down hard on the recently mown grass of their back lawn, twisting his ankle. He barely felt it at the time, merely rolling back to his feet and running on. Depressing the handle on the back door and throwing his shoulder against it at the same time, he burst into the utility room and barrelled on into the kitchen. 

   Warmth enveloped him. His parents looked up in time to see him sink to his knees and curl up into a shuddering ball. When his mother managed to pry the jar of tadpoles out of his trembling hands, they were all dead. 

Next Chapter: Chapter 1