The Farmers

They had been driving the better part of an hour, but they had finally reached their destination. Jewel decelerated to a stop in the driveway attached to a beautiful blue house.

“What a nice house.” Brandon said out loud in mock admiration.

“Oh my god will you shut up!” Jewel growled back.

Sarah may have said something if she was invested enough in the trip to care that it was at a pause. Instead, the youngest sibling just tensed her arms in frustration as she failed to clear the level of “Bombs or Boinks” she had been playing.

“Now stay here, I’ll go grab the chair” Jewel told her younger brother.

Brandon threw up his hands in disbelief. “The whole point of me coming was to make sure you had some ‘masculine energy’ with you,” the 18 year old whined annoyed.

He was referring to his mother’s demand that he be there to help lift the ornate rocking chair his older sister was picking up, after purchasing it from a local swap page on SpaceBook.

Jewel rolled her eyes, turned the car off, and opened her door to get out.

On the house's porch, an old Farmer and his kind-looking Wife stood and waved.

“That must be them,” Brandon said, still irritated that he had even had to come.

“Obviously,” Sarah chimed in from the backseat, apparently aware enough to perpetuate the argumentative energy the siblings were brewing.

“Just stay here, this shouldn’t take long.” His older sister repeated herself.

He watched his sister walk towards the older couple and exchange pleasantries, then proceed to follow them towards an old barn.

He and his younger sister waited for what felt like 10 minutes before Brandon decided his legs needed stretching.

“Stay here,” He said as he exited the car, his younger sister too enthralled in her game to even acknowledge his exit.

He departed the old pickup truck they had borrowed to move the chair and looked around. The land was… cute. It was way out in the middle of, the middle of nowhere. They had traveled from their town in the middle of the boonies and this was farther than that.

The teen looked at the Old barn his sister had walked towards and thought about how mildewy the chair must be if it was being stored in the undoubtedly damp space. He paused for a second unsure if his mind was playing tricks on him. He had thought he had seen the barn door move. Maybe it was the wind? The barn door shook again. No, it most definitely was not the wind.

He started inching closer to the barn then began to sprint when he realized it was his older sister's face in the barn door’s window. As he approached the door he noticed how panicked she looked and immediately began to pry at the door.

“I can’t get it to budge!” Jewel whimpered, pushing against the door in an attempt to earn her freedom.

Brandon tried to assist, using his shoulder to ram the door, hoping the wood would give and his sister would be free. Tired from the effort he paused for just a second to breathe and finally perceived what had terrified his sister. He had only looked at it for a moment, but he would never forget what he saw. Even with no artistic ability, he felt confident that if someone opened his skull, the ridges and folds of his brain would be an exact diagram of the horror that his eyes were exposed to. It was an amalgamation of The Farmer and his Wife, assuming of course, that this appearance of the beast didn’t predate the obvious lures that were The Farmer and his kind-looking Wife. For an even briefer moment he pondered what it would be called? Was it The Farmer, his Wife? Both?

“The Farmers?” He had decided to himself in his head.

Its head looked as if it was diagonally between the man and woman that seemed so kind earlier. The Farmers’ left eye, ear, cheek, entire forehead, and upper jaw, all resembled The Farmer’s face, while the right eye, ear, and lower jaw resembled his Wife’s.

“Please don’t resist this, it’s the deal of a lifetime!” The monster spat, almost cackling. As it spoke, Brandon realized it held another lower jaw within its mouth, along with two sets of tongues, tongues that it managed to articulate perfectly with.

He grimaced as noticed two crescent-like slits on the side of the creature’s thick neck and realized they were eyelids when one fluttered enough for him to see the glassy iris underneath. He also decided that the monster’s face was the least unsettling thing about its form, a statement that truly spoke to the horror that was the creature's body. It’s torso was divided nearly perfectly down the middle between it’s co-owners except the rib cage was contorted under the skin in such a way that it rested at a slight diagonal under its split chest. The sternum appeared to be cracked and open and the skin on the chest and midsection of “The Farmers” was stretched nearly to transparency over its grotesque muscles and bones, exposing the inner workings of the monstrosity. A pair of hearts, one slightly smaller than the other, could be seen visibly beating behind The Farmer’s jagged, venus-fly-trap-of-a rib cage. On the left side of its body two arms, a man’s and a woman’s, extended from its elongated torso, the beautiful wedding rings visible on both its left ring fingers. On the other side of the creature it seemed the mass of both right arms had fused into one, extremely muscular appendage. Multiple ulna and radius bones protruded from The Farmer’s forearm. Connected to its wrist was a hand with 11 fingers, their joints seemed to be on rotating swivels, rather than the hinge-like knuckles on his own hand. The monster's waist was large, but still disproportionately smaller than it’s torso. The flesh of its wide hips descended into a pair of massive thighs, which themselves ended in a set of four legs that began moving the monster closer to his trapped sister.

“You won’t get away!” The Farmers bellowed, it's one breast heaving.

Brandon struggled against the garage door as he tried desperately to save his sister.

“Go to the truck. There’s a shotgun under the back seat. If anything that’s not me comes up, shoot it and drive off!” She yelled at him earnestly through the glass window of the door.

Brandon listened to her in fear and desperation. He nodded slowly as she spoke at first, then vigorously began shaking his head in protest as he processed the instructions his sister was giving him.

Seeing his disagreement, Jewel reiterated her order, “You need to go! This door is too strong, I’m not getting out!”

“I’m not going to leave you behind! I’ll bust in and grab you! Everything will be ok! We’re going to escape!” He wanted to assure his sister. He wanted to walk forward, through the door, to break apart against his body’s momentum as if it were styrofoam. He wanted to revert back to a time when he could’ve confidently provided some kind of assistance in this situation. He tried to spit out a promise to his sister, but he never got past, “I’m-.”

An arm, feminine and slender, tore through the wood of the old barn door. Blood and flesh, so torn that it was caked under the ring the hand wore, dripped from the grasping limb. Brandon’s insides felt like they had imploded. His heart felt so thoroughly crushed that he was certain the hand must've been holding his chest, squeezing it and causing his spine to collapse into his ribcage, but he was physically unharmed. He began going into shock, the muscles in his neck felt so tense he thought they might snap, his mouth gaped open and his lips quivered, his vision began to get spotty as he began to faint.

Jewel’s audible pained breathing forced him back to reality. “I’m-” Jewel coughed, blood from her mouth staining the glass, “- I’m fine. I’m fine. Get Sarah. I’m fine.”

He steeled himself as it became terrifyingly confirmed that this was not just a matter of his own survival, he needed to escape for his sister's sake.

Jewel let out a pained groan as she attempted to hold the arm still to buy her brother some time. After a few seconds of fruitless flailing the arm began reaching forward, straining as if it believed its fingers could grow past their tips.

Brandon cursed his brain immediately for its choice of description, as he watched the hand continue to reach, trembling in its efforts. Brandon began backing away, slowly at first, still paralyzed by the thought of leaving his sister, then quickly, stumbling backwards, as the skin on the creature's hand began to split open, gloving itself as its, now skinless, fingers began to stretch toward him unnaturally. He dodged the hand that began to thrash again against the wood of the broken door, and turned to run towards the car all in one motion.

He sprinted away from the Old Barn, past the quaint blue house he had admired upon their arrival, and towards the old truck they had driven there in.

He ran so fast he nearly winded himself running into the car as he tried to open the door. The slam alerted his little sister, Sarah. She jerked her head up from the phone she was using to occupy her time with and whined, “What took you so long‽ I sent, like, 4 texts but the service out here is terrible.-” The young girl's complaints were cut short as she realized something was wrong. “What’s going on? Where’s Jewel‽” She continued, “And is that blood‽”

“Reach under the seat, there should be a gun, load it!” He demanded.

“What’s going on‽‽” Sarah’s voiced started to crack as she began to experience her own panic attack.

“CRRRNACk!” The loud, violent sound of the barn doors finally breaking filled his ear as he flung the car door open.

Sarah, to her credit, fought back sobs as she began fumbling with the long double barreled shotgun she had retrieved from under the truck’s seats. Brandon turned the keys in the ignition, starting the car up on the first try.

“Wow that’s reliable,” He thought to himself as he reversed out of the driveway.

“Oh my god what is that‽” Sarah screamed so loud it threatened the integrity of his ear drums.

The Farmers began sprinting towards him, moving it’s alternating legs in a strange effective unison that allowed it to accelerate with a terrifying quickness.

“Give me the gun!” Brandon yelled, not ceasing his reversing until the truck's tires skidded onto the highway road.

Sarah handed him the gun quickly. He held the shotgun for the first time ever and hoped he hadn’t used up all his good fortune escaping earlier.

He aimed the gun at his target, the distance closing between them. He fired.

Glass flew out of the car and his eardrums were blown as the first shot shredded the windshield. I forgot about the fucking wall of glass that is literally on every car ever! He thought angrily to himself as he lined up another shot.

“Shoot him!” Sarah yelled from the backseat. “Shoot him!” She pleaded through tears.

His second shot hit. He was aiming for its head, but only managed to blow off a couple fingers off the thick hand The Farmers had used to shield it’s face. The shot wasn’t lethal, he didn’t know if any shot would have been, but it was enough of a hindrance that he was able to use the time to throw the car into drive and begin their escape.

As Sarah cried and asked questions regarding her older sister, what had happened in the driveway and mortality in general, Brandon drove them home in somber silence.