But of course, it had only been a dream. Not every detail would be perfect, he supposed. Not even in an apparently prophetic dream.
He started moving again and almost immediately his eyes fell on a shape far stranger than the creepy chickens. Inside one of the stalls to his right lay an animal as big as a cow, but with short, stubby legs and a long, limp tail.
He found that he remembered the creature as soon as he saw it, just as it looked now, and he felt as strongly drawn to the beast as he was repulsed by it.
Covered in short, charcoal gray hair, it lay facing away from him, its head pressed into the corner of the stall as if it were ashamed to exist. All he could make out were long, floppy ears and a short, blunt snout. A great, meaty sack, far larger than any cow udders he’d ever seen at any state fair, bulged from between its splayed and useless legs, at least a dozen teats bulging from it, some of them oozing a thick, sour-yellow substance that fell in thick ropes to the filthy floor beneath it.
The stench was strongest here. This stall had not been cleaned in a very long time. A foul stench filled the air and a swarm of flies shared the enclosure with the poor creature.
It was neither bovine nor swine, but something else entirely, and it looked at least as miserable as the half-dead-looking chickens.
He could almost believe that the fowl were merely some sort of new and exceptionally unbecoming exotic breed, but he was quite sure that these things should not exist.
Staring at it now, he realized that no one was ever going to believe that he actually saw these things. Even Karen, who trusted him as completely as any wife ever could, would never be convinced that he had actually seen such things. Telling her would only help convince her that her husband had utterly lost his mind.
Then he remembered his cell phone. The camera.
He pulled it from his pocket and saw that it remained out of service. For a moment he thought that his plan to prove his sanity had been foiled, but then he realized that he didn’t need cell service to use the phone’s camera. He snapped a single picture of the thing and then turned and snapped a picture of the nearest bird as well.
That would prove he wasn’t crazy.
Or maybe it would prove that he was crazy. If all Karen saw when she received these pictures was a dozing cow and an ordinary chicken, he’d know it was time to pack up this silly adventure and check himself into the nearest psychiatric ward.
As he backed away from the sorry-looking creature and resumed walking toward the barn’s back door, he heard the pathetic bleating noise again. Whatever creature was making that awful sound was in one of the stalls on the right-hand side of the room, near the end. He had only just begun to wonder if it was the same sort of creature that he had just seen when something to his left let out a long and irritable-sounding moan.
Jumping at the noise, he turned to see another creature staring at him through the wooden slats of the gate. It had huge, black eyes and a long, drooping tongue that hung from its gaping mouth and lay like a slab of raw meat on the filthy floor. Flies were crawling over the flaccid organ. Like the one in the other stall, it was lying on its side, its stubby legs spread around its bulging sack, seemingly incapable of standing.
Once more, his thoughts strayed to the stunted corn and those old movies about UFOs and horrific alien experiments.
Again the creature moaned at him. It was a disturbingly despondent sound.
He snapped another picture.
Feeling as if he might soon retch at the sight of these beasts, he turned his attention forward and continued on.
At least nothing here seemed especially dangerous. The birds fled as he approached, keeping their distance from him, no different from hundreds of other farm birds he’d seen. And the much larger creatures locked in the stalls didn’t look remotely vicious. They didn’t even look like they could move.
He approached the source of the sickly bleating sound. Even this didn’t sound like anything dangerous. It was not an angry sound, but rather pitiful. It sounded miserable, not bloodthirsty. Yet he still felt reluctant to see it. If it was half as disturbing as the other livestock, he was not sure he could stand the sight.
But the stall from where the noise came was not gated like the others. Instead, the gate had been replaced with a ten-foot-tall, plywood and lumber door and chained shut so that it was impossible to see in.
He was relieved to be spared the sight of whatever was inside, yet the trouble someone had taken to shut the creature away enflamed his curiosity. Why? What would he find if he climbed to the top of the gate and peered over?
From inside, another long, pitiful call rang out.
In his dream, he had turned away without looking. He did the same now. He didn’t want to see it. Whatever was inside, he was sure it would be far more disturbing than the other livestock. He didn’t think it would be something he’d want to remember.
Ready to be out of this nightmare barn, he turned his attention forward again, just in time to see a tall, bearded man emerge from the farthest stall.
Startled, Eric stopped.
The man walked straight to the door and pushed it open. Bright sunlight spilled in, but somehow the barn’s interior remained just as shadowy. As soon as he was gone, the door swung shut behind him.
Eric bolted for the door.
He ran past every stall, startling the limp-necked chickens into squealing fits as they stumbled over their own twisted feet and rubbery legs to get out of his way.
He reached the door without being attacked by mutant farm animals and shoved it open. Finally, he found himself back under the August sun.
Yet the chill in the air remained.
At first, he didn’t know where the man went. Then he spotted him crossing the porch of an old farmhouse and entering the front door.
He wasn’t sure how it was that he didn’t notice the little house before he entered the barn. He assumed he’d been too preoccupied with the startling realization that the barn was actually a part of the dream that started all this craziness.
Hopeful for some answers, he hurried across the overgrown lawn and climbed the porch steps.
The house was in fairly poor shape. It needed a fresh coat of paint years ago and several of the windows had been boarded up. But he had no interest in discussing good housekeeping.
He knocked on the door.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
“Excuse me, sir? I need some help.”
Still nothing.
“Hello?” He pressed his forehead to the screen door and peered inside. The living room was sparsely furnished and lacked any kind of decoration. It looked as if it hadn’t been used in years. He pulled the door open and leaned over the threshold. A musty smell met his nose. “Hello?”
He stepped off the porch and stood in the doorway, listening. The house was eerily silent. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw that there was a thick layer of dust over everything. No one seemed to have lived here for quite some time.
But where did that man go? He couldn’t have simply disappeared.
Or maybe he could have. Stranger things had happened already today.
“Hello? Can anybody help me?”
There was not a single sound to be heard.
“Where the hell did you go?” he breathed.
He walked through the living room and into the kitchen. There were no appliances except for a very old refrigerator. The shelves that he could see were bare. An old, rusty bread pan had been left on the counter next to the empty sink. The dust here was undisturbed.
At the far end of the kitchen was a door, but he couldn’t make it open. If the man left through here, he must have locked it behind him somehow.
He returned to the living room and peered down the hallway. He could see a bathroom and a single bedroom. This house certainly didn’t offer much in the way of space. It wasn’t much bigger than his and Karen’s first apartment.