The Devils Harvest: The End of All Flesh. (36 page)

I reached the giant wooden barn and ran inside.

It was dark. Flashes of lightning momentarily lit up the large interior. Implements hung from every conceivable surface. Pitchforks, spikes, spades and long handled devices that I couldn’t even begin to imagine what they would be used for. All making a loud rattling and metallic clinking sounds as the wind whipped around the barns interior. Harnesses swung back and forth. Straw was being spun in small cyclones around the dirty floor. A loft above held bales of straw and bags of feed. An old motorbike, with the back wheel missing leant against a stack of old roof tiles.

I could hear shouting behind me in the distance.

I reached up and unhooked a pitchfork from its hanging place. I headed towards the rear, hoping to find a back exit; and there it was – a large wooden ten foot high doorway, with a thick wooden plank wedged across, blocking the way. To either side were stalls, the doors hanging on broken hinges. Dead horses lay on the straw covered floor, legs stiff and swollen as if made from plastic, their stomachs unnaturally swollen and round like barrels.

I strained and pushed, finally lifting the plank aside, and then kicking the heavy barn doors. They were wedged shut. I repeatedly hit it with my shoulder, forcing it open slowly inch by inch. It gave way and flew open, being caught by a gust of strong wind. Bodies of dead sheep were littered everywhere, as if tossed by giant hands, with a couple of sheep dogs thrown in for good measure.

Behind I could hear grunting and heavy footfalls hitting the flagstones; the son was running across the yard.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it to the other side of the field, so I stood behind one of the open wooden doors.

The footsteps got closer.

The old man came striding through the open barn doors.

With all the flagging strength I had left I plunged the pitchfork into his wiry body. He toppled backwards, the three long metal prongs having gone all the way through his thin body; I had pinned him to the ground. His weak arms were trying to remove the pitchfork. No blood issued from the fatal wounds.

I went to turn, to run, but ran straight into the son – it was like hitting a wall. Strong arms wrapped tight around my waist.

I hit him on the head as hard as I could, but to no effect. It was like pummelling a concrete bunker. My breath was forced from my lungs. I was losing consciousness. He was crushing the life from me.

My eyes caught something flashing in the lightning. On the end on the pitchfork – I had forced into the old man – was a hook in the shape of a spiked S. that had held the fork to the wooden beam. With the little strength I had left I reached for it. His eyes bulged with effort, while using his strength to squeeze me tight, trying to make me blackout.

Fuck, he’s strong.
I thought people with Down syndrome, or otherwise known as Trisomy 21, because they have an extra twenty-first chromosome, were short in statue. Trust my luck to come across the one person who is an exception to the rule. If it was Down syndrome, it could be a number of different disabilities? I’m no disability specialist. He could have a combination of physical, mental, sensory, emotional, cognitive and developmental problems. There was one thing I know he didn’t have a problem with, and that’s his strength. Why couldn’t he have a degenerative muscle disease.

I pulled the hook from the end of the fork. The old man was still trying to rock back and forth and get to his feet, having given up trying to pull the pitchfork out.

My hand closed around the metal, I unhooked it and swung it up then down with the remainder of my flagging strength.

The sons large round eyes turned at the last moment, seeing what I was about to do. But it was too late. The metal hook struck the top of his head, burying itself almost up to my hand.

I didn’t know if he could feel pain or whether he let go out of instinct to reach for his head. It could have simply been a procedural memory, a response from any residue of the human that was left in the body.

I fell to my knees. Pain shooting through my chest. I knew I had to get away. I scampered along in the mud upon my hands and knees for a few seconds, then climbing back to my feet, and without looking back I ran like the wind towards the tree line. At this stage the only thing keeping me going was the adrenaline washing though my body.

“Did he get away?” Smoke trailed out of both nostrils.

“Yes,” the old man wheezed, now that he had three large holes in his chest, through the lungs after the old woman had pulled the pitchfork out.

“Did he think we couldn’t find him crawling around on hands and knees in the dark room? Couldn’t catch him running up the stairs? How easy they forget.” The woman stated while tossing the pitchfork to the side.

“All is going according to plan,” the son announced as some brain matter ran down his face and dripped off his wet chin.

The old woman added. “Good… Good… Soon the harvest will commence full-scale.”

“Yes. And he will soon be ready to accomplish his purpose. The
Key
will return,” smoker said, flicking the cigarette butt to the ground. “He just needs a little more time.”

The Village of the Dead

M
y lungs burned with fatigue, but I refused to rest. I was running from utter fear for my life. I ran at full pelt for what felt like hours. For all I knew it could’ve been. It felt like I had run the London marathon. I now know how Phidippides felt after the battle for Marathon had been won back in 490 BC with him running the twenty-six miles back to Athens to announce their victory. Of course, he then dropped dead from exhaustion.

I crashed through the trees then across another open field. I was completely disorientated and had no idea where the motorway was.

More trees and bushes whipped at my face, stinging and making small painful cuts. Thorns pulled at my clothing. My legs felt like lead weights, my lungs now wheezing, with pain shooting through my chest. If I didn’t stop then I would drop like a stone.

I slowed down, having no idea how far I had run.

In the distance, no more than thirty meters away, stood an old stone hut. The rain had subsided. The clouds had started to part, letting the moons weak light shine through.

The shelter was empty and half falling down. Three walls still stood, the fourth having collapsed partway into the hut. The roof was sagging towards the fallen wall, but the other three walls were still holding it up. The floor was mud, with leaves and twigs that had blown in by the strong winds. The debris was all pied up against the stonewalls. One old boot sat filled with dried leaves, and a pair of torn well-worn brown trousers. I always wondered how single items ended up in remote places. And why had the person wandered away trouser-less, and with only one shoe? Unless a tramp had been here recently having used it for shelter, and had discarded unwanted items.

The stone hut had no windows, only the open doorway I had entered through. The door had long rotted away. I sat hunched down in one corner, facing the door and tumbled down section of wall. The moons light reflected off the wet stones. Some sections reflected no light, moss having taken hold.

I wondered what the hut was for. Maybe from a time when farmers needed to seek refuge from the wind or rain. No tractors to sit in back when this had been constructed.

I leant back and tried to control my heavy breathing. I just wished this nightmare would be over. Soaked through, aching and confused, my mind closed down and I fell into a deep sleep.

I had no idea what the time was or how long I had slept. I awoke curled up in the dry mud in one corner. Leaves stuck in my hair and stubble. The wind had picked up again and piled all the rubbish up against me, but it had kept me warm during the cold night. And luckily no twisted dreams had haunted my sleep.

My joints protested against trying to move. I sat back against the lumpy stonewall and picked leaves out of my hair. My clothes had partly dried during my troubled rest. For a cheap tacky tracksuit it was holding up well.

Dull grey light filtered down through the broken tiles. It seemed like the ivy – which was wrapped tightly around most of the fallen wall and roof – was the only reason it hadn’t complete collapsed. God knows how long it had been here for.

Or did he? Did god even exist?
I was too tired and aching to think about what they had said.

I stood leaning on the twisted doorframe, with drips landing on my head. From my position I could see woods to one side, possibly the ones I had crashed through. Boggy marshes ran off in to the distance to the other side. Hills filled the rest of the scenery. The clouds were low, the tops of the hills disappearing in the white mist. It wasn’t raining, more like the cloud had come down to the ground, now thick misty droplets. It didn’t so much as hit you, rather, you got soaked walking through it.

I was pretty sure I had come through the tangled trees over in the distance, so I continued relentlessly across the boggy ground toward the gap between the two cloud shrouded hills.

As I have already said, having no watch on the time meant nothing, realizing how dependent I had become on having a watch on my wrist or a phone I could turn on. Also I couldn’t see the dull sun because of the mist, so I couldn’t use it to determine the time. Not that I was sure how too. If it was straight up, about half way across the sky, was it midday? But, did that also count during winter?

If only I had paid attention to Ray Mears when he was speaking, during the few times I had watched his television program. I was more a Les Stroud kinda guy. But I hadn’t paid any attention to his survival techniques either; I never thought I would actually need to use any of their Bushcraft information, it was just entertainment. When would I ever be marooned in a forest or tundra, or need to trap fish or tell the time without a watch? Right now, apparently.

It dawned on me that I had my iPhone in my pocket. But even with everything that had happened I still didn’t want to risk turning it on. I wasn’t thinking rationally, I was so tired, emotionally and physically.

Luckily, even after everything from last night, which I was trying to block from my mind, I still had my rucksack strapped tightly to my back. Money, at least, wasn’t a problem. But what to do now was.

The information I had received last night was ringing through my mind. It came down to aliens and needing death for them to survive. I chastised myself for even believing in the fallen angel story. But his words were so compelling, so believable. And how else was he to explain needing to use corpses as a means of transport.

My clothes were now once again soaking wet. I could feel a cold coming, my joints protesting to being used, even for something simple like walking.

I couldn’t hear any cars. There was obviously no motorway or road nearby. I knew England was quite small, compared to America, and eventually, given a little patience and legwork, I would come across a house or village of some description.

I climbed slowly over the old wooden fence and into a lush green field. The brittle branches scrapped together in the wind, sounding like antlers smacking together. Every now and then a loud crack would resound across the fields and the sound of a branch falling to its resting place.

I was also being repeatedly splashed by accumulated water from off the branches that I shook loose.

Black and white mounds protruded from the hedgerows. I wandered closer, already knowing what I would find. More dead cows. Possibly another farmyard close by.

The morning stretched on, the mist rose, and dark pewter clouds, mixed with splashes of dark green, closed back in. But the rain was yet to come, but promised. A very heavy storm was brewing.

I needed food, a headache once again starting to throb in my temples.

Head down against the wind I continued steadily on.

I looked up to see if the sky was settling down and caught sight of a plume of dirty smoke rising in the distance, bent sharply by the now howling wind.

Wind that was keeping the rain at bay.

I headed in the smokes general directing, dreading the worst. I swear I could also hear the droning of cars coming from the same direction.

I found a road at the end of the field, behind dense hedges. But no cars passing along it. The droning noise was coming from the large factory that the smoke was pouring from – an abattoir.

A car park held possibly twenty-five to thirty cars of all descriptions. But I couldn’t see anyone around the building, not that they would be outside.

I wearily headed for the towering edifice, something not feeling right. I rounded a corner to the loading area, live animals in, and dead animals – skinned and bleed, ready for use – out. Large articulated lorries waited silently in a long row, eight in all. One was backed up against the wide-open rear loading bay doors.

I still hadn’t seen a living soul. No commotion of human activity. Dread was filling my thoughts. And the area stunk. I had never been to an abattoir before, so this might be what death smelt like? The problem with these kinds of places was, they were needed, but no one wanted to see or smell them. They were normally miles away from anywhere. This was the stark truth to our carnivorous cravings.

We simply walk along a supermarket aisle, all the meat prepared and wrapped for our convenience. Small unrecognizable chucks of different animals displayed to whet our appetite. This is where that process starts, before being moved to the local or supermarket butcher to prepare it in its particular cut. I think if most people were taken on a ‘day out’ in an abattoir they would never eat meat again.

I’m an exception. When I was a teenager I worked at a sausage factory. My job was working on the mixing machine. A huge vat with razor blending arms. I use to pour in the water, rusk, different herbs and spices, and then cut open and drop in bags full of animal parts, mainly pig; feet, head and all – ears, snout, cheeks and fatty belly parts. When I turned the nozzle to extract the mix, it would be an unrecognizable mush. And strangely, sausages are still one of my favourite food.