Schroder Farm Part 1

It was a cold, dreary evening on a small plot of land near northern Scotland, a cattle field with a large, six stable barn, and a barn house east of it by the name of Schroder Farm. Three men were to work the night shift, and one of them happened to step out for a cigarette in the cold, damp evening air to try waking himself up more. He was still new to the job's late-night schedule. He was also out in the cold to get away from the old man who frequently barked at him for being lazy. He was Jude, the youngest of the three as he was approaching his middle age years the next month. The old man he was hiding from is Hamish Paterson, the temp for the real owner of the farm who was an old man in Germany.

As Jude leaned against one of the support beams of the porch, he could feel sharp, icy, drops of rain in the bitter wind that came from the brooding thunderstorm to the north. The dark rolling clouds smothered the light of the setting sun leaving everything is dim uncomfortable glow. As he could hear thunder, Jude also heard the restless baying and the stamping of hooves coming from the barn. He considered looking at the animals, but then the notion faded as he thought, "Perhaps it's just the storm." But he was jolted from his lax position when he heard a massive slam and saw one of the walls of the barn bow outwardly as if one of the cows threw itself against it. He hastily rubbed out his half-spent cigarette and placed it behind his ear as he made his way across the yard. Jude could hear the panic within the barn clearly once he got close to the barn door. He began to move the half-rusted iron latch and expected maybe a fox to come bolting out between his legs. Instead, all the cows came charging out the barn and scattered out into the dark of the field. Once he looked into the barn, his nose choked with a thick pungent odor that sickened him. Before stepping any further in, Jude covered his face with his dirty handkerchief and flipped a light switch next to the door. There was only a brief flash of light, and the room plunged back into darkness. He sighed with discontent as he now reached for the oil lantern hanging on a nail beside the switch, it was of course meant for situations like this.

Jude stepped farther into the pitch blackness of the barn, but as he did, he felt a certain uneasiness crawl over him like a swarm of insects. He followed the peculiar stench to one of the far back stables where it was most foul. This smell overtook the smells of manure and the mold which grew in frequent patches in the woodwork. The stable overflowed with the offensive odor, but that only added to what he saw. He reared in disgust at what had been a healthy cow. It was pale and looked bloodless as Jude shined the lanterns flickering light on it, revealing more of the sickening site. Its entire stomach region was gone entirely with not even a single drop of blood near it. Everything that would have been within its chest was missing, and the cow looked as if it was dried up and carved open. Even its eyes and half of its head was gone. The cow's skull, however, looked as if it was melted or eaten away by an aside, leaving only an empty pit where its brain would have been and a pale yellowish dust within.

As Jude tried to keep his composure, he heard and imminently saw something that shook his nerves to the breaking point. Above him came a shrill ghastly shriek. The sound caused him to drop the lantern in the damp hay. He quickly jerked his head up and saw a thin, gray form hanging from the rafters above him and the remains. It glared down at him with a large serpent eye at the end of a rigid, squid-shaped head. Jude stepped slowly back from both the pale things stare and the shriveled cow corpse. As he did, the creature in the rafter slowly lowered itself to the corpse. Though the entity was in the light of the lantern Jude held in his trembling grip, it seemed not to cast any shadow and the way the light reflected from its gaping eye only served to disturb Jude even further. It wasn't long until he noticed that it was gliding through the boards of the loft above like a ghost. It then reached down to the shriveled corpse with a pale, bony arm that branched out in two at the elbow with three long fingers on each of its hands. Once it reached the damp cold ground, Jude saw the last of its torso phase through the planks; revealing eight or nine thick, python-like tendrils or tails that waved uneasily through each other. It then turned its cold stare from Jude to the cow, revealing several thin and long black quills jutting from its back as he was nearly only a yard from escaping the dark barn. Though it had redirected its glare, he still felt it staring at him somehow. He saw a small slited eye snuck into the side of its head. It then shot out a blood-freezing hiss as it finally took its eyes off Jude as he darted out from the barn like a frightened rabbit, slamming the barn door and locking it before running back to the barn house. He was unsure if that would work on keeping it in there, but Jude was too frightened to find out.

He burst in through the door of the barn house yelling, "MONSTER, THERE'S A MONSTER KILLING THE COWS!"

"What are you yelling about?" barked Hamish from behind his graying beard. He was sitting at the table in the kitchen drinking until Jude slammed the door open.

Jude looked at the old man with terror in his eyes," There's something in the barn. It killed one of the cows," he whimpered.

"What do you mean something," the old man asked perplexed by the statement. "You mean a fox or wolf?"

"I mean there's some squid, snake, thing in the barn and it killed one of the cows," replied Jude, trembling as he started opening the closet for the rifle that leaned ageist the frame within. But he was stopped when Hamish slammed his hand agents the closet door, closing it with a loud crash.

"What do ye think you're doing, boy?" demanded the old man.

"I'm going to kill that thing. What the hell else do ye think I'm doing, yah old coot?" spat back Jude, his eyes full of anger and fear.

"No, what you're doing is sitting down and calming down," the Hamish yelled as he pointed to a chair with his other hand. Jude sneered at the command and shoved the old man from the closet, knocking him down to the ground with a clatter of shattering dishes and a mug hitting the wood floor. Lucas then came storming from his room, shouting, "What's going on here?"

Jude had loaded the rifle and had charged out the kitchen door and back to the barn, leaving Lucas to help Hamish to a chair. "Follow him," muttered the old man. "Something's got him all riled up, and I don't want him to hurt one of the cows or himself, at least." Lucas then left him and followed Jude out through the kitchen with the screen door crashing behind him. Hamish could hear Lucas yelling after Jude with," Jude, the hell's gotten into you?"

Jude didn't stop his march to the locked barn, even when Lucas was right behind him and tried stopping him by placing a hand on his shoulder, but it was shrugged off without a sound. The second time Lucas tried this, Jude turned around, elbowing him in the stomach and knocking him to the wet ground of the field, doubled over in pain. With no one to stop his purge of that blasphemous thing, he shakenly undid the lock and swung the door open. But once he entered the splintering barn, he was back out a moment later without a single sound and slumped against the outside of the barn next to the listlessly swinging barn door next to him.

Once the pain subsided, Lucas got back up on his feet and saw Jude only slouching against the barn as he had an awestruck look in his eyes and his lips just slightly moved as he whispered to himself silently. He walked up to him, grabbed the rifle from him and swung a fist into Jude's right check, which knocked him to the ground. Jude sat in the mud, dazed by both the slugging hit from Lucas and the fact that he could have imagined such a horrendous thing. Jude mumbled slowly, "It was there... I saw it... didn't I?" He then grasped the sides of his head as he trembled out, "I don't understand; where did it go? I couldn't have imagined that thing, not that eye." Lucas only stood over him as he rambled his mad whisperings. He then knelt to Jude and saw the terror in his eyes. Originally, Lucas was going to scowl at him, but pity soon came over him. He placed his arm around Jude's shoulders and helped him back to the house as the rain began to fall.