Halloween 2021 –Fever Dream–
David Pyle
Our hearts were full, despite a pitiful dry harvest.
The two mares were tired and in their stalls. Likely glad to be lazily eating the leftover maize from the fields. It had been a hard two weeks for them as well. The old shepherd dog and I would be grateful to break even, having just enough to survive the coming winter and the following spring planting.
The firewood was gathered, chocked full beneath the shed, ready for the steady heavy frosts and coming snow. My dog Fever lay peacefully at my feet as I rocked in my chair on the porch. The coffee jar was bare. I’d have to trade a bag of spare sheep’s wool early the next day, for that and a few necessary items in town. This evening it was good enough to rest and sip cold water from the well.
Thinking back, even the crows were sparse this year. Their blackened caws thankfully hovered over in the neighbor’s fields instead. Old Fever would sometimes ride in the wagon, nipping at the hungry fowls as they lit on the edge, trying to steal the fresh harvest of corn.
This year, he followed beside me as I hacked and threw the unshucked ears into the wagon bed.
Six rounded loads we’d hauled into town, covered with heavy tarp to shy away thieves. A full load stored safely for our own use in a tightly sealed crypt in the barn. Every mouse hole carefully chinked with hard clay and gravel. Without our own seed, the forty acres would be bare, without a loan from the greedy bank in the next county.
Tomorrow, we’d break canes and clear the corn field, then harvest as much hay as time would permit before the usual snow. It was getting harder every year as the years began to take their toll on my body.
I gazed toward the hazed blue ridge of mountains in the distance. Already the caps were beginning to turn white from the harsh weather up high. The sawtooth ridge sheltered our little valley from the first run of winter. We had a few good weeks left if our luck held out.
Fever lifted his ears, then his head, listening. I’d heard the sheep too, but ignored their quiet bleats as the tiredness of the day began to settle in. Usually a skirmish among the flock that quickly settled down.
With a heavy sigh, I shoved myself from the chair and took a walk around the side of the barn to see what was causing the stir. I’d already cleared six coyotes a few weeks earlier, leaving their carcasses hanging on various fence posts like the stories of Vlad the Impaler, to ward off their kinfolk.
Even in the dim light of sunset, the sheep were already bright white with freshly thickening wool. Their black faces were milling about strangely. Fever scooted under the heavy fence and nudged a few. They ignored him as usual, treating him like one of the fold. He was still sharp in some ways, but the two dozen clan knew they could easily outrun him in his old age.
Fever pushed through the flock to the other side and tested the perimeter of the fence to where I stood, unwilling to leave as I backed away. In the failing light, I began to count heads.
Then, I counted again, and once more. I was missing one of the elders of the flock.
Fever had been right. This week I’d had to leave them penned while we were at harvest. I felt a sudden sickness in my belly at the knowledge of our loss.
Slowly, I walked the outer wall of the fence, straining my eyes at the ground. I saw no blood, no place where a predator dug under, but I gasped when I saw the tracks.
“Wolf?” I questioned into the chill air. Almost the size of a full-grown bear. Many times the size of any tracks Fever would leave in the sandy soil around their pen.
I’d seen no wolves. This one had to be massive. Somehow, he’d cleared the fence, gathered his prey, then bounded off without leaving a trail. Even I knew that was impossible.
Tonight would be fretful.
I gathered up a slight meal and my rifle, then climbed into the loft of the barn, where I could look down on the flock of sheep through the upper door. I’d have to trust my keen eyesight in the dim moonlight that night. A lantern would spook my quarry. I wouldn’t be able to leave them unattended tomorrow knowing their lives were in peril, as well as our livelihood.
I fashioned myself a seat in the shadow of the loft’s open door. It would be a long cold night. Thankfully, there was no stiff breeze to offer false sighs and noises in the scrim moonlight. Actually, the dead silence was troubling. The sheep below were silently chewing the evening ration of hay.
Fever eventually made his way up the hay chute and made his bed across my feet, fast asleep. The chill was already causing the ground below to show signs of frost.
I could have lit a fire to ward off predators, but as I sat there testing my rifle; I knew it would only prevent my enemy for one night. I needed to be rid of it.
A snicker of one of the mares below jostled me from a beginning dream; one of monsters lurking behind nights perpetual cover of darkness. As I stretched and yawned, I noticed the absence of Fever, who’d been keeping my feet warm. I started to reach for my blanket and call his name, but a hard chill down my spine changed my mind.
I glanced below. The sheep were quietly huddled together without distress. The mare silenced her alarm and snorted down in her stall beneath me.
I turned to look back out on the starlit night, as a gasp of a breeze seized my attention. A darkness swept in the gaping door and an ice cold hand clamped over my mouth along with a sudden weight above. Black eyes hovered in front of my own and I felt my conscious mind failing me.
My strength waned as I wiggled against the frigid hand. There was no reason to prevent me from the scream welling up inside. I had no neighbor near me that would hear my plea for help.
Then I realized the hand had a different purpose as I struggled for a breath. I shook my head, but the black eyes persisted in their gaze. As I began to lose this unearthly battle, brutally cold teeth pierced my throat. I managed to open my eyes from the shock of pain, just long enough to see that I was high above my freshly harvested field, moving through the night, in the iron grip of an evil dream.
A dream from which I would never awaken.
……Fever Dream
