Blood, Rust and Blueberries

As sun set on the small, western town of Merylville, the summer heat lingered, and flashes of lightning lit up the omni-colored sky. There were large greyish-purple clouds gathered overhead, but rain was extremely rare in these parts. The townsfolk were closing their local shops and rounding up their horses to ride home for the evening, hurriedly to avoid the potential dangers of mother nature’s beautiful fury in the skies.

Deputy Sheriff Brooks was down at the Two-Bit Cowboy Saloon in the center of town, talking to the barkeep and owner, Cal Bennett. Cal was wiping down the backbar, getting ready to close early for the night on account of how slow business had been recently.

“Thank your wife for me. That blueberry pie she gave me and the Mrs. sure was delicious,” said the sheriff.

“Yeah, woman sure knows her way around the kitchen,” Cal replied. “She’ll be happy to hear you enjoyed it.”

The sheriff walked over to the window and peered up at the sky. “Another dry storm out there. Sky’s lighting up like Fourth of July. Better get home and put the horses in the stable before they get spooked and run off,” he said.

“I’m about done here, Sheriff. No need for an escort. You go on ahead. I’ll be right behind you,” Cal replied.

Just then a loud neighing sound could be heard outside, along with the clopping of hooves at full gallop. Cal stood silently and listened to the approaching sounds, as the sheriff walked out onto the front porch to see what the commotion was. He hadn’t got but one foot out the door before seeing Mavin Pearly dismount from his horse mid-canter. Mavin started running before his feet had even touched ground and the sheer momentum carried him clear across the dirt trail and onto the saloon floor in less than two steps. “Sheriff! There’s a…somebody…a bunch of …blood and…” Mavin struggled to catch his breath and leaned over an oak beer barrel, nearly hyperventilating while trying to get his words out .

“What you on about now?” asked the Sheriff. “Cal, bring some water out here,” he called back into the bar. “Pearly’s having a heat stroke.”

Cal came rushing out with a glass of water and saw Pearly gasping and heaving, bent like a horseshoe around the empty oaks. He started to hand it to him, but at the last second, he opted to just douse him with the water instead.

Pearly looked up right at that moment and attempted once again to speak but was instantly splashed right in the face with a tall glass of tap water, reducing his speech efforts to mere gurgle and sputter sounds.

“Alright, back up. Give the man some air,” insisted the sheriff. “You ok there Pearly? You get a bad batch of shine or what?”

Pearly spat the rest of the water out of his mouth and again lifted his head to speak. “The Miller’s Ranch. There’s been a murder. They’re all gone!”

•

As Mavin and the sheriff rode up to the Miller’s Ranch, everything appeared normal from the outside. The house, which belonged to Elmer Miller and his wife, Dorothy stood in the center of a small, 200-acre farm that hadn’t produced much of anything besides manure in the last 10 years. Merylville had been suffering an awful long drought, so many of the farms in town had dried up, and several had gone into foreclosure with the bank due to financial crisis.

Elmer and Dorothy were holding on by the skin of their teeth thanks to their show animals. Across from the main house, there was a large barn that housed some of the prettiest and most beloved livestock in the country. Dorothy and her daughter, Tabbatha, or Tabby as most people called her, took great pride in their animals. Tabby had won more blue ribbons than she could probably count, especially since Elmer and Dorothy had taken her out of school to care for the animals full-time. She was 12 years old, with bright red hair and big blue eyes. She was the cutest little thing you’d ever seen, and if you saw her with those animals, you’d swear she spoke their language. Horse, cow, pig, chicken, she was fluent in the lot.

The sheriff grabbed his gun and told Mavin to hang back and keep quiet. He slowly approached the house and crept up onto the porch. “Elmer? Dorothy? Y’all in there?” He knocked on the door and called out a couple more times, to no response. Mavin shouted, “They ain’t there, sheriff. I told you. Somebody must’ve got ‘em!”

The sheriff searched the front of the house but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. “Mavin, you mentioned something about blood…” he called back to Mavin, “Pearly?” The sheriff walked back over to the horses, but Mavin was nowhere to be found. The sheriff cocked back the hammer on his revolver, and slowly crept around the side of the house.

He attempted to peek through the windows but couldn’t see anything. Suddenly he heard the loud cracking sound of a branch in the distance. The sound was coming from the old barn. The sheriff scurried over to the barn, and called out, “Who’s there? Pearly? Elmer? Whoever you are, I’m armed, and I will shoot!”

As the sheriff neared the barn, the foulest stench filled the air. It was so disgustingly putrid that the sheriff’s nostrils flared, and his eyes started to water. He pushed open the barn door and heard a loud hollow creaking. As he walked inside the smell became unbearable. It smelled like an old dirty urine trough filled with manure and vomit, also musty like natural gas. The gaseous smell made the sheriff nervous, but he couldn’t see a darn thing, so he pulled out a match from his pocket and struck it. He didn’t explode into flames, but he just about jumped right out of his skin when he saw what was inside.

Horses, cows, and pigs, lifeless and shriveled like dried up raisins. Blood was splattered everywhere. It was a boucherie of horror! The animals looked as if they had been slaughtered, but upon closer examination, they weren’t cut open as the large pools and splatters of blood would suggest. They looked sort of deflated like balloons, as if someone had just sucked all the life right out of them. Just skin and bones; bloody, anorexic animal hides lined every inch of the old barn. But what or who could have done this? How was this possible, and where the hell was Pearly?

•

It was early spring, and the valleys that had once been plentiful with nature’s bounty, was looking far more desolate and despaired. Not a drop of rain had touched down in nearly 2 years, and Elmer and Dorothy were growing concerned with how they were going to keep themselves fed and maintain the ranch. They were riding back from church on a weathered, old horse-drawn carriage that Elmer had built for their honeymoon the year before Tabby was born.

Tabby was starting to look pale and sickly from hunger. Her bright red hair had faded to a rust color, her skin a pale yellow, but her eyes remained brighter than the bluest sky. She didn’t much care if she went without food. In fact, she had been sneaking food off her plate and feeding it to the animals out in the barn. She was more concerned with their well-being than her own.

Elmer and Dorothy were arguing, as they did quite often in recent months. “You should sell this old heap,” Dorothy said referring to the rickety, old wagon. “We rarely use it, except to go to church or the farmer’s market. There hasn’t been a farmer’s market in months, and prayers alone ain’t paying the bills.”

“No way,” replied Elmer. This was your wedding gift, and Tabby is far too weak to ride horseback for long distances. What if we get sick and need to travel up north to see a doctor? What are we going to do then? Besides, I’m not as strong as I was years ago. If we lose this wagon, I just don’t have it in me to build another one.”

“Good. I’ve always hated this old thing. It makes me feel sick to my stomach. Honestly, I’d rather walk.”

Just then the Miller’s horses came to a stop. In the middle of the road was an old man, wearing a hooded cloak. He looked like a monk, and he was limping as if he had been hurt. He was carrying a stack of old books but had dropped them and they were scattered all over the road as if a tiny tornado has whisked past him.

“Excuse me sir, are you hurt? Do you need help?” Elmer asked.

The man said nothing in return and slowly bent down to retrieve one of the fallen books, which had come unbound, leaving pages scattered and blowing in the wind. Elmer climbed out of the carriage and walked over to give him a hand. He tried speaking to him a few more times as he helped gather up the books, but it seemed like he was simply talking to himself. Elmer thought he must be a deaf mute.

Elmer handed the books over to the man and offered him a ride back to the ranch. “Elmer, dear,” Dorothy called out. Elmer walked over and Dorothy immediately shunned the idea of inviting him along. She didn’t feel safe and reminded Elmer that they didn’t have enough food to be taking in strangers off the road. Elmer ignored Dorothy’s concerns, and ushered the man into the carriage.

Back at the ranch, Elmer insistently urged the man to stay for supper. During dinner, Dorothy ladled some soup into a bowl for the old man, and he sat there, awkwardly silent while the rest of the family shared stories of the ranch and Merylville in its heyday. The Millers finished their soup, but the old man never even picked up his spoon. Dorothy retrieved the bowl and returned it to the kitchen, where she and Elmer got into another argument over their new houseguest.

Back in the dining room, Tabby kept eyeing an enchanting, jeweled chain the old man wore around his neck. The light glistened off of it and it shifted between every color imaginable. The old man noticed out of the corner of his eye that Tabby had been staring at it. The old man smiled and removed the necklace from around his neck, putting it around Tabby’s. She blushed as she looked down at the necklace. The colors seemed to flash like lightning in an electrical storm, as she twisted it around in her fingers. Red, blue, pink, green, purple, white, gold, and then black. The jewel suddenly turned matte black, and all of the shine and sparkle disappeared. She shook it around wondering if she had broken it somehow, but it never sparkled again. All at once, it became the darkest, blackest shade of nothingness, like a bottomless pit or a starless night sky.

She felt concerned and guilty thinking she somehow broke the old man’s magic jeweled necklace. She looked back at him to apologize, but as she lifted her head, she noticed him staring at her with his eyes glowing a bright reddish-purple hue. His mouth was hanging wide open, and drool was dripping from the corners. That’s when she noticed he had huge, fanged teeth with dark red bleeding gums. He started to make this low-growling sound, as Tabby quickly tore the necklace from around her neck, threw it onto the table and ran out of the room. Just as she did, Dorothy walked back into the dining room holding one of Mrs. Bennett’s famous blueberry pies.

“Who’s ready for dessert?” she asked, as the old man wiped the saliva from his mouth and spoke, “I would love some.”

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